Washblog

Do we consider ourselves now too politically sophisticated or somehow "no longer politically or idealistically naive" so as to believe that stuff?

Friday night Bill Moyers interviewed Mickey Edwards, a "Goldwater" conservative who invoked in me memories of my very limited but what - as a young American veteran - I considered conservative political thinking in the 70's and 80's.

What's the difference between a Goldwater conservative and a contemporary Republican conservative?

That's like asking the difference between Chuck Hagel ... who served
Dick Cheney ... who did not
and George Bush ... who ran away.

I'm impressed with contemporary soldiers who did not run away ... who got involved after serving ... and have earned the right to speak the way they do.

Read this rhetoric from a contemporary veteran. A member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Adam Charles Kokesh writes very much like a Goldwater conservative ... and like Thomas Paine.

Rich gave us permission to post this article which will appear in the July 9th edition of Real Change, Seattle's Community Street paper.  

Why don't all those pulpit preachers speak out about this rather than herniate themselves about gay marriage?

Rich speaks to the very religious fabric of this nation. This is at a time when God-talk by right wing politicians and their religious base is now commonplace.

So when Obama talks Christian common cense and compassion, when Dobson & Co. react by raging flight from reality, and the other candidate needs gay marriage as the more useful issue, lets ask Reverend Rich Lang.

Update: NChrissieB, identifying herself as a former criminal defense appellate attorney who focused on constitutional issues writes this at DailyKos: A Pragmatist's View on FISA. I found it instructive.

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MoveOn's  campaign to hold Obama accountable. Obama campaign phone: (866) 675-2008

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Glenn Greenwald's piece on Salon this Saturday provides I think a good overview of how we might interpret Obama's support for the FISA "compromise".  

This is a seriously bad decision Obama has made, no matter how we look at it. We can imagine that, perhaps, there is something we don't know about that Obama knows about that makes this appropriate. I've been reading such wishful thoughts on DailyKos, etc.  I agree with Greenwald that such "trust" of leaders is bad for democracy.  

Give an Hour is a non-profit organization asking mental health professionals nationwide to literally give an hour of their time each week to provide free mental health services to military personnel and their families.

View video, 'Helping Warriors Find Peace of Mind' which gives a bit of explanation about the concept of the organization, Give an Hour. Video features U.S. Army Col. James Bradley, Chief of Pyschiatry, at Walter Reed Medical Center making the statement that 'really what we are dealing with is normal reactions to abnormal circumstances'.

At local level in WA state, see The Soldiers Project Northwest, which is a group of mental health care providers in Washington is offering free help to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families who either can't or don't want to go through traditional channels for care. (read more at Tacoma News Tribune article, 'A New Source of Mental Health Care'
  (more below the fold)

John Dean writes in Conservatives Without Conscience how the co-founder of the National Review, James Burnham, in a 1959 attempt to blend real-world politics with intellectual conservatism, distilled a 13-statement list of point-by-point comparatives to liberal positions that differentiate between the two.

Of his list, Burnham declared,  

"Whether the cause of this linkage - which is not absolute, of course - is metaphysical, social or psychological, we do not need to decide in order to observe that it exists." (Dean, page 9)

Metaphysical, social or psychological?
How about 50 years later we use the words supernatural, socio-pathic, psycho-pathic or just plain Left Behind?

How could Congress have been so wrong as to buy into giving this President the authorization to invade Iraq.  What many of us, who are not wizened Congress persons could see through, many of elected officials whom we trusted with our votes to represent us in Congress   --- how could so many exercise such a devastating failure to lead.....

 news today from McClatchey Washington Bureau---

 Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren't true

We often take our good fortune for granted.  Especially the luck we are born into, can easily be forgotten even as we take advantage of our heritage, our citizenship, and our freedoms.  I have always felt extraordinarily fortunate to be an American.  Today America is lucky!

Barack Obama freely acknowledges the role that fortune has played in his rise to political prominence.  Of his campaign for the U.S. Senate in The Audacity of Hope Obama wrote:

My campaign had gone so well that it looked like a fluke. ... Not one of [my Democratic opponents] ran a negative TV ad. ... My Republican opponent was felled by a divorce scandal. ...  Later, some reporters would declare me the luckiest politician in the entire fifty states.  Privately, some of my staff bristled at this assessment, feeling that it discounted our hard work and the appeal of our message.  Still, there was no point in denying my almost spooky good fortune.

But luck neither confers entitlement, nor should it imply that success is undeserved.  Certainly Obama would not be our presumptive nominee without a great deal of hard work, planning, organization, and a message that rings true for millions.

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AP tally: Obama clinches Democratic nomination

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I preferred Kucinich; I preferred Edwards.  But during this campaign I believe Obama has shown himself to be the leader we keenly need to get past the politics of fear and division, to heal and begin again to sustain this democracy.  It strikes me as the most rare and felicitous stroke of luck that a "real leader" has stepped forward just when we most need leadership.  Can Obama really help awaken that can-do American magic, help us pull together through the interlocking crises of climate change, economic vulnerability, eroded civil rights, and weakened physical security? Maybe.  And that's enough to make me cry with happiness and pride.  

We made the right choice.  Democrats, Republicans, independents - everyone. We did good.

Atop one of the bookshelves in another room in my home sits the triangularly-folded American Flag given me at the gravesite of my father back in 1993.

Dad's death came upon us quite suddenly. We had long anticipated his passing as the years wore on - our unspoken suspicion that it would be liver failure that would get him.

We were right.

RAPID RESPONSE WA JUSTICE 1-2 messages/mo "We can change this"

The Pew Center says in a report released today that the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending.  Here's the link:  Record High Ratio of Americans in Prison. And here are some stories from Washington State:

1. 3-Strikes Guest Post: I am not a Disposable Human Being, Ron Peters, Washblog, 3/27/08
2. What's Wrong with Washington's Gang Bill?, Noemie Maxwell, 2/26/08
3. $3.3 billion company profits from the pain of incarcerated Washingtonians and their families, by Nicole Brummitt, 2/25/08
4. Everywhere you look you see us: Families of men and women in prison, by Nicole Brummitt, 2/3/08
5. We cannot build prisons fast enough: WA Dept of Corrections on prison transfers, Noemie Maxwell, 1/30/08
6. Imprisoned for life in WA for an attempted wallet grab, by Al-Kareem Shadeed, 1/15/08
7. An effort to get politicians focused on needed sentencing reforms, Douglas A. Berman, Sentencing Law and Policy, 1/13/08
8. Guest Post on Initiative 593: Cruel and Unconstitutional Laws in Washington State, Joseph Scott Wharton, 1/1/08
9. Guest post from WA State Reformatory: These crimes do not merit life imprisonment, Stevan Dozier, 12/30/07
10. INTRODUCE THIS! Submitting Resolutions at WA's Presidential Caucuses (3-Strikes Reform), Noemie Maxwell, 12/30/07
11. Life in prison without parole for low-violence crimes: can Washington find redemption?, Noemie Maxwell, 12/11/07
12. SJR 8212 and the Prison Slave Plantation: Dismantling the Profit Motive for Incarceration, by Lea Zengage, 10/20/07
13. The time is now to end the war on drugs, Noemie Maxwell, 5/28/07

Dwight Pelz, Chair of Washington State Democratic Party, has sent out a mass-email inviting people to lobby the six Washington State Democratic Central Committee (WSDCC) superdelegates on the issue of their vote in the Democratic presidential primary.  Here's the link: Lobby the WSDCC delegates.

Washington state has 17 superdelegates.  Six of them, Ed Cote, David McDonald, Eileen Mcoll, Pat Notter, Dwight Pelz, and Sharon Mast, are WSDCC members.  Of these six, only Pat Notter has announced which candidate she will vote for, Senator Obama.  A list of Washington's committed and uncommitted superdelegates can be found here: 2008 Democratic Convention Watch.

Below the fold I've listed all of Washington's superdelegates and have copied the email I sent through the form linked to by Dwight Pelz.  I share some of the concerns about Obama's policies that Eridani voices here.  My support of Obama's candidacy is not an endorsement of all his policies, but of his leadership for a unified American ownership of democracy.  It also appears that a Clinton nomination will be more likely to bring us a McCain presidency.  And the the leadership of Senator Clinton's campaign, starting with her chief strategist, Mark Penn who has actively defended and facilitated some of the most murderous corporate and governmental regimes in today's world -- as well as the divisive and unfair tactics and rhetoric that have characterized her campaign -- are alarms we should heed. It concerns me, as well, that Senator Clinton appears to be emeshed in a questionable religious-political partnership: Hillary's Prayer.

WA Senator Karen Keiser and US Representative Adam Smith speak in support of Democratic presidential candidates at the 47th District Democrats last week. Keiser spoke for Clinton and Smith for Obama. click on photos for larger versions

Lindsey Grad, 1st Vice Chair of 47th District Democrats (L) speaks on behalf of Clinton. On the right, two Obama campaign staffers, a mother and daughter (Democrat and Republican, respectively).

I took notes and photos at the 47th District Democrats meeting last Wednesday when Washington's US Representative Adam Smith spoke on behalf of Barack Obama and Senator Keiser spoke for Hillary Clinton. Senator Keiser delivered what I found to be the most compelling arguments I've heard on behalf of Senator Clinton. The support of Senator Keiser, one of Washington's most dedicated, insightful, and effective legislators  is, in itself, a compelling argument.

Given my support for Senator Obama, it's not surprising that Representative Smith's comments resonated more with me.  In connection with his opinion that Obama is more likely to win among Republicans and independents I offer both the anecdotal observation that our local Obama field representatives are a Democrat-Republican Mother/daughter team (see photo above) -- and a link to this week's Time Magazine poll showing Obama's edge over McCain, while Clinton is slightly behind him.  

I remember last September's meeting with U.S. Rep Baird (D) concerning his turn-around support of the Surge. I think about SecDef Gates who yesterday put a positive spin on two female suicide bombers in an Iraq marketplace by suggesting that if they really were mentally retarded then Al Qaeda is getting desperate and entering the Dull-but-Deadly Cheney's "last throes." With an administration entering its last throes, I think we can look beyond candidates and ambitious military politicians like Petraeus. We can perceive more fully our military reality as described by those who've been there and done that. ... like  "former Sergeant" Kelly Dougherty

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Policing and Incarceration in America: What's Broken and Where are the Solutions?
Former Seattle Chief of Police Norm Stamper and award-wining independent journalist Silja J. A. Talvi will be reading from their books (Breaking Rank and Women Behind Bars) on Thurs. 2/14/08, 5:30pm,Rainier Valley Cultural Center. (5117 Rainier Ave. S Seattle 98118). Suggested donation of $5 benefits the work of Real Change

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