Dec 08 2011
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Dec 08 2011
Listen to Bill Ayers live on WWL Radio Friday, December 9th at 6pm ET!
Listen live by clicking the link icon below:
When the controversy broke about then Senator Obama having known Bill Ayers, my first thought was “cool, maybe his is one of us. Since then, it is Obama that has disappointed, not Professor Ayers.
My discussion with him will strive to contemplate, contrast and compare the social movement of the 60’s and 70’s with what is happening now. I think he can, as someone who has been fully immersed in the former shed light on the latter.
Great effort has been taken to marginalize, even demonize and true socialist with any chance of influencing the dialogue in this country. While active in the advancement of progressive education, that that alone is considered too “radical” for the “educational industry” speaks volumes about how far right we have been pushed as a Nation.
Today, this nation is under a far more militant resistance against OWS activists than the anti-war activists of the SDS and WU were… I wonder, how will it survive?
I am thrilled an honored to be able to have a conversation with Bill! I am sure we shall all learn much from him.
Bill Ayers is an American elementary education theorist and a former leader in the movement that opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He is known for his 1960s activism as well as his current work in education reform, curriculum, and instruction. In 1969 he co-founded the Weather Underground. He is a retired professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, formerly holding the titles of Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar
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Dec 08 2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Freedom’s Just another word for nothin’ left to lose. ~ Kris Kristofferson, “Me And Bobby Mcgee“
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~ Benjamin Franklin
“We’re going to destroy it before they can get their hands on it. You can take away out lives but only we can take away out freedom.“ ~ Jon Stewart
The Senate passes a bill that allows the government to detain an American citizen indefinitely without a trial.
Barack Obama will veto the 2012 Defense Appropriations bill because he objects to the Executive Branch not having totally infinite power of detention.
Dec 08 2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
As per Sen. Karl Levin, Obama requested that the language barring the indefinite detention of US citizens be removed from the National Defense Authorization Bill. This doesn’t exonerate Levin or the other 97 Senators who voted “aye” on this travesty of legislation.
We have only a few days to speak up to Congress before the President signs NDAA Section 1031, permitting citizen imprisonment without evidence or a trial. Congress plans to give it to him to sign by Dec 9. But if we act urgently to raise awareness among our friends, family, and colleagues, we can still prevent this. Here is what we can do:
1) Americans must know about this to stop it. Urgently pass this petition as widely as possible: http://www.change.org/petition… … – Contact the media by any means available to you. ZERO news stories have covered this Chairman Levin clip yet!
2) Congress can still block the law before December 9. Write and call your Representative and Senator telling them to stop NDAA Section 1031.
Contact your Representative: http://writerep.house.gov/writ…
Contact your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/…3) Write and call the White House to tell the President you won’t sit by and watch NDAA Section 1031 become law: http://www.whitehouse.gov/cont…
4) Stay smart — To slow down journalists and concerned citizens, it appears Section 1032 was deliberately crafted to distract from Section 1031. However, section 1032 is NOT the citizen imprisonment law. Disturbingly, this confusion is helping Section 1031 to slip by the American people. Do NOT fall for the misdirection, stay informed and urgently work to stop NDAA Section 1031.
We need to stop Obama and Congress from trashing the Constitution.
Up Date 12.8.2011: The web site Lawfare has an excellent two part analysis and side by side comparison of the House and Senate versions of NDAA. Written by Benjamin Wittes, it is an enlightening read on the flaws of both bills:
As the House of Representatives and the Senate head to conference on the NDAA, I thought it might be useful to analyze the similarities and differences between the counterterrorism provisions of the two versions of the bill. People sometimes talk about the NDAA as though both houses are on the same track. And there are some similar themes. But the two bills are also quite different. And these difference give rise to opportunities in conference: opportunities to emerge with far better policy than either bill presents on its own, and opportunities for mischief as well.
In this pair of posts, which is organized thematically and loosely according to the sequence of provisions in the House version of the bill, I am going to do a kind of side-by-side analysis. In each section that follows, I will start with a discussion of the House bill, which is longer and more involved, then describe how the analogous Senate provision (if one exists) differs. I will then discuss what I think the optimal realistic policy outcome looks like given the two versions. I am not going to rehash the merits or lack thereof of the specific provisions, all of which we have discussed elsewhere. My point is simply to highlight where the Congress has a clear position and where the houses are reading from different playbooks.
The Senate version of the bill is available here (pdf), with the relevant section running from pp. 426-445. The House version of the bill is available here (pdf) and runs from pp. 567-603. As this will get long, I will break it up into two posts.
Dec 08 2011
Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Mr. Obama?
Part 1
Full piece including Part 2, Transcript, and Overtime below.
Dec 08 2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
December 8 is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 23 days remaining until the end of the year.
John and I are in our Dakota kitchen in the middle of the night. Three cats – Sasha, Micha and Charo – are looking up at John, who is making tea for us two.
Sasha is all white, Micha is all black. They are both gorgeous, classy Persian cats. Charo, on the other hand, is a mutt. John used to have a special love for Charo. “You’ve got a funny face, Charo!” he would say, and pat her.
“Yoko, Yoko, you’re supposed to first put the tea bags in, and then the hot water.” John took the role of the tea maker, for being English. So I gave up doing it.
It was nice to be up in the middle of the night, when there was no sound in the house, and sip the tea John would make. One night, however, John said: “I was talking to Aunt Mimi this afternoon and she says you are supposed to put the hot water in first. Then the tea bag. I could swear she taught me to put the tea bag in first, but …”
“So all this time, we were doing it wrong?”
“Yeah …”
We both cracked up. That was in 1980. Neither of us knew that it was to be the last year of our life together.
Dec 08 2011
Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a redneck sort of place, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
Friday past, instead of posting Popular Culture I posted the first half of a tribute to my mum because that would have been her 90th birthday. Tonight I post the second half of that tribute.
Since this the 70th anniversary of the bombing of the fleet at Pearl Harbor, I have a Pearl Harbor story about her and my dad as well. I sort of jumped to 1957 last time, so we need to backtrack a little.
