Category: Action

At 50th Birthday Party, Geov Parrish Announces New Lobbying Career

SEATTLE (FNS)–Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.

The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish’s 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle’s tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the “Seattle Times” and a frequent target of Parrish’s acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.

A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named “I Am The State!”, is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.  

Dear Women and LGBT Americans, Please raise HELL and ROAR LOUDER!

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    This will be a short diary, because it is not about what I think, but about what you think, dear Women and LGBT Americans. Really, the title and diary is also intended for Latino Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Muslim Americans, beasically anyone and everyone who is having their equal rights denied has a stake in this fight, and everyone else who considers themselves a freedom loving American should be fighting for EVERYONE’S rights, not jjust their own.

     So I am asking, nay, begging that American Women, LGBT Americans and everyone else who values EQUALITY and Equal rights to RAISE HELL over the current sorry state of civil rights in America, and I’m asking you to not stop until you have gotten what our founding fathers and so many after them  have fought and died for, EQUAL RIGHTS.

    More below the fold, and a call to action.

Action Alert: Money bomb today to fund a documentary about direct democracy, plus other activism

There’s been a lot of talk about “direct democracy” since Obama was elected – about how his campaign involved people at a level never before seen in national politics, how his White House has been using online programs to get peoples’ input, and so on.  But what if we as Americans could participate on a level even beyond this – what if we had the power of lawmaking?

I’m not saying we should get rid of Congress, I’m saying that we should add to it by embracing The National Initiative for Democracy (aka NI4D), a campaign for ballot initiatives at all levels of government.

Together with a few dozen other people, I am helping to create a documentary about the history of democracy and how the NI4D is the next natural step in that process.  Even though we’re making the movie with volunteers, we still have some small costs, and that’s where you come in.

DONATE TO FUND THE FILM HERE

Find out more below the fold.

In case you didn’t see it, former Senator Mike Gravel also had a diary about this yesterday.

Bernie Sanders may filibuster if there ISN’T a ROBUST public option for everyone

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    The ONE Senator that I can safely say is NOT bought off, the one Senator that we can be certain is NOT owned by the banks is Bernie Sanders (I-VT). It looks like good ole Bernie is putting his left foot down on the public option and threatening a filibuster of his own if there isn’t a ROBUST public option that is available to everyone in the Senate version of the health care bill.

    I think this is GREAT news, and I’ll explain why below the fold, where you can find a full transcript of this video as well.

Please help The Democracy Foundation tell America about direct democracy

This is Mike Gravel, the chairman of The Democracy Foundation.  On November 10th, we are going to be organizing a money bomb to try and raise money à la Ron Paul.  We’re not deluding ourselves that we’re raising the millions, but we need to raise enough money to pay some videographers to be able to do a documentary on the National Initiative and how it will empower the American people to be able to vote on the policy issues that affect their lives, once it’s in place.

The National Initiative is very different from the initiative process that we have in the twenty four states around the country.  Those states – you just qualify, everybody throws money at it, and the people vote.  That is not a good way to make law.  Law requires a deliberative process where you have hearings, markups, proper communications, and the like.  And in that way, the people can make laws and properly deliberate the policy issues that affect their lives.  And that’s what the National Initiative will be – it’s a meta-tool which we put in the hands of the people, so they will be able to then have an affect on how they are governed.  It will be the first time that people will have a government “by the people,” because the people will become lawmakers.

The definition of freedom is the participation in power.  Power in representative government is lawmaking.  If you don’t make the laws, all you can do is obey the law or go to jail.  And so if you really want to have freedom, what we have to do is to make ourselves lawmakers.  And the only tool available to do that is the National Initiative.  And this is a tool that will not be enacted by representative government, because it dilutes their power and they’re not about to empower the people.  

And that’s the reason why we have been struggling with an organization called The National Initiative for Democracy, sponsored by The Democracy Foundation.  And so that’s the reason why we’re making an appeal now for your help, to donate whatever you can afford so that we can pay for this documentary and then use this documentary as a device to inform people so that they’ll be aware of the potential of the National Initiative as a tool to empower them to have a more meaningful role in the governing of their lives.  

I hope that you will be generous and give whatever you can.  Thank you – thank you very, very much.

I will be taking questions and replying to comments for a few minutes later tonight.  Please post anything you’d like me to answer, although I might not be able to answer every comment.

Get Out And Vote!

Goodness knows we have little enough control over our government and political class but if you snoot this opportunity to make your voice heard I have no respect for you at all.

You see, unlike some Admins, I’m not afraid of controversy.

Stockton

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way.

Anybody who thinks that ‘it doesn’t matter who’s President’ has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World – or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property – or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons – or locked up in a New York City Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower.

That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief.  That is when you will wish you had voted.

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully.

We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts.

We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us.  No redeeming social value.  Just whores.  Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads?  Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands?

Who are these swine?  These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks.

They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character.

They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan.

I piss down the throats of these Nazis.  And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not.  Fuck them.

We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear – fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer.

Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these Abu Ghraib photographs did.  I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line.  Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport.

I take no pleasure in being Right in my dark predictions about the fate of our military intervention in the heart of the Muslim world.  It is immensely depressing to me.  Nobody likes to be betting against the Home team.

The Rumsfeld-Cheney axis has self-destructed right in front of our eyes, along with the once-proud Perle-Wolfowitz bund that is turning to wax.  They somehow managed to blow it all, like a gang of kids on a looting spree, between January and July, or even less.  It is genuinely incredible.  The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap War in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of Corrupt Brits despises us.  We are losers, and that is the one unforgiveable sin in America.

The utter collapse of this Profoundly criminal Bush conspiracy will come none too soon for people like me…  The massive plundering of the U.S. Treasury and all its resources has been almost on a scale that is criminally insane, and has literally destroyed the lives of millions of American people and American families.

Exactly.  You and me, sport – we are the ones who are going to suffer, and suffer massively.  This is going to be just like the Book of Revelation said it was going to be – the end of the world as we knew it.

Own it or prove me wrong you chickenshit bastards.

Reid will NOT put anti-trust ending language in Senate HCR bill yet. Why?

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Senate negotiators have decided not to include a provision revoking the insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption in the bill leadership sends to the floor, said a Democratic aide close to the merger talks. Instead, the measure will be offered as an amendment on the Senate floor.

HuffingtonPost.com

Bold and italics added by the diarist

    The House bill will have language ending the Insurance cartels anti-trust exemption. Why won’t the Senate bill have similar language in it before it is brought to the floor for debate?

    More below the fold

On Using Mr. Bullhorn, Or, DC Health Summit Thursday: Come Say Hi…Loudly

It was a long hot August for those who would like to see health care reform, as rabid “Town Hall” protesters proffered visions of public options that would lead to death panels and socialism and government tax collectors with special alien mind control powers that would use sex education and child indoctrination and black helicopters as the means for gay people to impose their dangerous agenda on the innocent, God-fearing citizens of someplace in Mississippi that I’m not likely to ever visit.

Part of the reason that opposition was so rabid was because health care interests were spending millions upon millions of dollars doing…well, doing whatever the opposite of giving a distemper shot to the angry mob might be, anyway.

So wouldn’t it be great if all the CEOs of all those health care interests were to gather at one time and place so you could, shall we say, gently express your own thoughts regarding the issues of reform and public options?

By an amazing coincidence, that’s exactly what’s going to happen Thursday in Washington, DC, as the Patient Centered Primary Care Cooperative (PCPCC) holds its Annual Summit.

Follow along, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.

We must GET RID of Harry Reid at ANY cost in 2010, and we need YOUR help Kos

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    I submit this for the approval and enjoyment of my fellow Dharma Bums as a challenge, not just to Kos, but to each and every Progressive in our nation. It is time to stop bitching about Harry Reid. It is time to do something about him politically.

    So what are you gonna do?

With Love,

MoT

By At All Costs I mean POLITICALLY of course.

Not just Kos, we need everyone”s help, but I address this directly to Kos, among others whose aid we will need to pull this off.

    Republican filibuster? Democrats have 60 voters. There is no Republican filibuster, just a Democratic one. The problem is Reid’s inability to keep his caucus together. His office can’t even be honest about Reid’s leadership failures. Fucking liars.

    I’ll take a Chuck Schumer-run Senate with 57 Democrats (bye bye Reid, Lieberman, and Lincoln) than a Harry Reid-run one with 75 Democrats.

by Kos

bold and italic added by the diarist

     I need your help, Kos. Are you tired of Reid? Really? Then help me do something about it.

     How I propose to take down Harry Reid and an open dialogue below the fold.

Friday Philosophy: Save the Trees

Disclaimer:  I am not a member of the Sierra Club.  I’m just a teacher at a small college and as part of the Women’s Studies Coordinating Committee attended a talk about a week and a half ago by Sally Malanga from that group.  After hearing her speak, I asked her to send me some information so that I could try to help her and her small group of committed volunteers fight City Hall.

People need help to save the ecology.  I figured this is what I could do best.  I’m hoping a few people out there are reading who can also lend a hand…in whatever way they can.

Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only  thing that ever has.

–Margaret Mead

It’s Obama Time!

Simulposted at Daily Kos

In his diary about our feckless majority leader, math4barack has a darn good roundup of the politics that the Public Option is being subjected to.

The reality is this, either Fightin’ Fleein’ Harry Reid includes the Public Option in the final Senate Bill that merges the Senate Finance Bill and the HELP Committee Bill or the final Senate Bill has no Public Option.

The House Bill WILL have a Public Option provision thanks to the Progressive Caucus standing strong and Pelosi supporting them. Without the Progressive Caucus, there would be no Public Option in the House Bill. (More on that in a bit.)

Olbermann’s call to Action: a Photo Essay

Hopefully you saw Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on the sorry state of the Health Insurance System in American.  And hopefully, you were moved to action, like I was.  There’s still time to pony up, if it slipped your mind.  Let’s give Keith some ammo when he resumes the fight next week.

DONATE HERE: National Association of Free Clinics

as linked on Countdown’s home page

Time is a task-master, that waits for no one,

We can only heed its call, as it marches, inexorably forward …

Hopefully we will find compassion, as we turn its pages.

If you missed the Special Comment, read on for some of the highlights …

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