Cross-posted at my blog (where you can see larger images) and on Docudharma)
Dimensions: 58″x40″.
Description: Dress sewn of cut parchment replicas of the U.S. Constitution with blood stain over heart. (Started in 2008)
A hanger with American flag fabric and an eagle on it.
Materials: Like a lovely framed painting one might see in the National Gallery, the background fabric is burgundy brocade with fringe, velvet edges and gold braid nailed onto the wall. Gold metal hooks and grommets (in background fabric) hold the fabric and hanger up.
In case you missed these powerful words from Two of our Countries Dedicated Veterans of the Current Occupation Theaters.
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan can be Proud of these two, your brother and sister Veterans, as can the Families of All who are Serving and have Served, for You All are the Only Ones Sacrificing as this Country refuses to understand that Sacrifice!
The ‘Honorable Cause’ is the protection of your brother’s and sister’s as they protect you, in any conflict theater this nation sends those that serve it, wrong or right!
This Country must Now make it Right for All of You, it has Shirked It’s Full Responsibility for far too long, from Korea to the Present Day, that must End!!
John McCain spent part of this last Friday at the Aspen Institute speaking about energy issues, including a meeting with T. Boone Pickens. From an interview there
McCAIN: I have a long record of that support of alternate energy. … I’ve always been for all of those and I have not missed any crucial vote. But my citizens in Arizona know that when I’m running for the President of the United States I have to be out campaigning.
Simply put, Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!!!!!!!!!
John McCain has missed vote, after vote, after vote in the US Senate.
John McCain has been Absent WithOut Leave (AWOL) for critical vote after critical vote on energy issues.
In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.
No one can dismiss the unimaginable agony of enduring six years in an enemy prisoner of war camp. It is surely a brutal experience both physically and mentally. It is the sort of experience that never leaves you and, indeed, it seems never to have left John McCain. His entire post-POW frame of reference is shaped by what he went through, and also by what he missed as a consequence of his incarceration.
In spite of John McCain being a technological Luddite with no apparent computer skills, the McCain Camp had to prove conclusively that their guy is hip and fully in tune with the American mainstream and pop culture.
Does Obama welcome this comparison? It isn’t as if Obama doesn’t have the flair for the dramatic, as he demonstrated prior to the Texas Primacaucus. He’s an ‘Urban Cowboy’ himself!
vs
Dr. No and Barack Obama – coming soon to a theater near you
In this historic election year, the people have a choice of unprecedented clarity. The presidential candidates for 2008 offer a uniquely stark contrast of policy and vision. One has embraced a theme of hope that is inspiring millions and setting a new course for national renewal and unity. He has ignited a grassroots revolution of citizen activists committed to bringing change to an arrogant, unaccountable, dishonest, and incompetent government.
The other is John McCain.
In contrast to Barack Obama’s campaign of optimism and hope, McCain offers a vision that is squarely focused on obstacles. Its opaque negativity fairly precludes it from even being described as a vision at all. It might be more accurately expressed as The Opacity NOPE!
Peace? Nope. Health care? Nope. Fair trade? Nope. Tax equity? Nope. Choice? Nope. Environment? Nope. Get the idea?
“This isn’t the party I planned but I sure like the company,” Hillary said as she opened her concession speech at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.
Speaking to the “18 million…from all walks of life,” who voted for her, Hillary congratulated and endorsed Barack Obama, stating:
“The way, the way to continue our fight now, to accomplish the goals for which we stand is to take our energy, our passions, our strengths and do all we can to help elect Barack Obama, the next president of the United States.”
Thanking her supporters for their hard work and dedication, Hillary expressed the optimism that she oft spoke of on the campaign trail. “See, you can be anything you want to be.”
Continuing her fight for Universal Health Care, a signature issue for Hillary Clinton, she noted that she entered “public service to help people solve their problems and live their dreams.”
“You’ll always find me on the frontlines of democracy fighting for the future.” Hillary said.
Hillary also focused women’s rights, stating she wants to address “every last bias out there.”
“We must make sure that men and women alike, understand the struggles of their mothers and grandmothers and that women enjoy the equal opportunities: equal pay and equal respect.”
Moreover, Hillary spoke to equality in general saying, “There are no acceptable prejudices,” and that “children will take for granted that yes, a woman or an African American can become the President of the United States.”
Emphasizng unity, Hillary stated, “This has been a tough fight but the Democratic Party is a family,” and repeated throughout her speech, “We must help elect Barack Obama President.”
As Hillary said today, “We cannot let this moment slip away.”
Kipling is the only English writer of our time who has added phrases to the language. The phrases and neologisms which we take over and use without remembering their origin do not always come from writers we admire.
One of Kipling’s most famous poems offers lessons to Hillary Clinton on how she ought to conduct herself as this marathon, bruising fight for the 2008 Democratic nomination draws to a close. And the need for party unity becomes paramount to coalesce behind a once-in-a-generation candidate who is poised to succeed in the General Election in November.
The choice is obvious: either we succeed collectively or fail individually — only to see a continuation of the most destructive domestic and foreign policies in the post-WW II era.
I’ve been trying to get around to posting a follow-up on the May One at Faneuil Hall thing. I’ve got lots of great pix but my battery went semi-dead the last week. Not the camera battery, my posting battery. Maybe it’s my digestion – of life in Bush’s America circa 2008. Turning over the compost piles and planting things has been taking up my mind. So I was thinking earlier that it’s been seven full days since then and rising up from memory comes the book of the title name. Synchronicity sends me wandering down the rabbit hole.
Seven Days in May was both a book and a movie, both of them pretty good. It’s a political thriller about a plot by the Pentagon to pull off a bloodless (more or less) coup to overthrow the president. The problem with the president is he’s not sufficiently anti-Communist for the right-wing plotters. He’s actually about to sign a treaty with the Soviets to mutually nuclearly disarm.
The plot itself, called ECOMCON (for “Emergency Communications Control”), entails the seizure of the nation’s telephone, radio and television network infrastructure by a secret United States Army combat unit created and controlled by Scott’s conspiracy and based near Fort Bliss, Texas. Once this is done, General Scott and his conspirators will control the nation’s communications assets; then, from their headquarters within a vast underground nuclear shelter called “Mount Thunder” (based on the actual continuity of government facility maintained by the U.S. at Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia), they will use the power of the media and the military to prevent the implementation of the treaty.
The book came out in ’62 and the movie in ’64. The movie was shot in ’63 while Kennedy was still alive. He encouraged the filmmakers by heading home to the Cape when they needed to get shots done around the White House; the Pentagon was none too pleased. If written today the authors would have to add in cell phones, cable and the internet to complete the communications media needed to be controlled. Take a jump to the link above for some solid background and I’ll give you a tour of the rabbit warren. We’re going to visit Granddaddy Bush and Dick Cheney’s Undisclosed Location – Raven Rock. We’ll see an actual coup d’etat plot against FDR, Lee Harvey Oswald will jump up in a plot line you’ve probably never even heard of and you may even get a whiff of a hint of a sense of the presence behind the curtain. Who knows?
Today Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Barbara Ehrenreich and Danny Glover published a open letter to American progressives urging them to join them and support Barack Obama. Why? Because Obama’s campaign is a movement.
We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama’s unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined
I think this is a very important letter and I’ll take a deeper look at it in this essay.
8 weeks ago today in a blog on DailyKos and many other sites I posted a proposal for a Obamathon fundraising drive to help Barack Obama win in the first Super Tuesday (February 5th). Since then 896 people have donated $48,771 dollars via that page and Obama has gone from a underdog to a clear front runner within reach of the nomination.
But there is still work to do to get there. Obama has to run two campaigns at once. He still has to win the Democratic nomination and also he has to run against Senator McCain. He is facing a two front battle. It is still a uphill fight but it can be won.
So I’m relaunching the Obamathon as the Obamathon 2.0 (real original name I know) and setting a new goal of $100,000 by April 22, the day of the next primary.
