I would have hoped that the Longest Walk that began in February and ended six months later, would have brought the issues of the truth about the suicides on reservations, the lack of justice on reservations, climate change, alcohol and drug addiction in the American Indian population, health concerns of American Indians, and the worries of the American Indian People in general into the public domain. It doesn’t seem like it did, and the same message is being given at the DNC in the midst of all that’s happening.

Call To ACTION!

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

Seriously though:
Have you requested your vacation time yet?
Voter registration deadlines are fast approaching.   I order to get people to the polls on election day they need to be registered first.
See a list of voter registration deadlines for key states below the fold.

I am in no way affliated with eye-fi, but thought this would be a good idea for DNC attendees:

Setup a public account for a photo streams and use a wireless SD card in the digtal memory slot.

Before writing this article, I took a look at fifty years of conventions prior to this one.  The advent of television has given the American people a chance to know almost every imaginable facet of the person who would be their Commander in Chief.  The nature of the nominating convention has changed drastically in fifty years time.  The hard paternalism of the past, which disregarded the will of the people, believing that party insiders knew best, has been set aside.  

Indeed, if that were still the case, Barack Obama would likely have never become the presumptive nominee of his party.  Hillary Clinton would have become the de facto head of the ticket we all assumed would be the case as recently as a year ago.  For all the talk of how the political process disregards popular sentiment, in the not-so-recent past one can see plain evidence to the contrary.  

The GetFISARight.net group is at it again, offering a new way for regular citizens -- for instance, people who don't need staff help to count their homes -- to have a direct impact on the politics of civil liberties: individual sponsorships of cable TV ads, targeted at the Republican Convention. Thanks to saysme.tv, you can run an ad on all major cable news channels in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area between September 1 and 4 for $103 during daytime hours (9am-4pm), and as little as $324 during evening hours. More information about how you can help get the ad on TV is at http://getfisaright.net/....

The Obama movement is a spontaneous upsurge of the most advanced workers in the country. It is an emerging class alliance of the progressive social forces of the new economy.(2)  Whereas Clinton and McCain supporters desperately cling to the old economy of the 20th century (each in their own way), the diverse constituencies uniting around the Obama campaign are natural economic, political and cultural allies in the 21st century. The millions of students, Afro-Americans, Latinos (3) , grassroots and netroots activists, unions in expanding industries, technicians, artists, engineers, and other professionals that support Obama’s candidacy all share an unyielding commitment to democracy, creativity, productivity, diversity, collaboration and progress.(4) They also share uncanny abilities at self-organization, mobilization and networking (each in their own way). They represent the potential for a revolutionary democratic coalition that could challenge the unfettered rule of capitalism in the US if we, as progressive and revolutionary organizers, recognize the opportunity before us and do all that we must to empower this movement to come into its own, strike independently and realize its aspirations of freedom for all.

I just found out that some awesome organizers had the foresight to think:

"Hey--there are thousands of protesters coming to St. Paul who probably aren't too keen on talking to police departments. If any of them get sexually assaulted while they're in the Twin Cities, they could feel really, really stuck!"

So they've organized a Republican National Convention -specific sexual assault peer advocate phone line and wellness center in case anyone wants to seek support, healing, and accountability in an alternative way (to the formal criminal justice system).

I don't yet know what the access phone number will be, but when I find out, I will post it on the Daily Kos.

For now, for everyone who's coming to my fair state to protest the RNC - know (and tell your friends!) that if anyone tries to sexually assault you and you aren't comfortable telling the police, there will be fellow protesters organizing alternative ways of support, healing, and accountability for just your situation.

Crossposted to Obligatory Discord

Alec Baldwin made one in 2000.  House Democrats walked out on the certification of election results in 2001.  Joe Lieberman abandoned the party in 2006.  PUMAs with "you better be nice to me and send me fruit smoothies every day for the rest of my life or I'll support the Iraq war for four more years" in 2008.

All of them have threatened a walkout/exit/take-my-ball-and-go-home threat, and some of them have followed through, while others haven't.

You know what else they have in common?  They haven't accomplished much.  And they either come off as bitter and cynical (for following through) or weak and incompetent (for capitulating).

This is not productive for a democratic society, and if the liberal philosophy is "we're all in this together," then we better find some way to air out our differences that don't include hissy fit ultimatums that amount to absolutely nothing.

It's funny.  They say we aren't tough enough to lead.

I think they are right, but not in the sense you might think.

When they say it, the implication is that we'll be soft on Al Qaeda.  That if we caught Osama bin Laden, we'd give him the best lawyers in the country, try him in Federal Court and let him go when it was discovered that the gov't didn't properly cross its I's and dot its T's.

That assertion is, of course, fucking ridiculous.

But...

When it comes to punching bad guys in the mouth during the course of an election, I cannot tell you how right the Republicans are about us.  

And let me tell you who "us" us.  

If you hit the rec button on the currently rec'd diary regarding Ron Fournier, and if you did nothing more than call the AP or write a fucking letter...  well, you are part of the "weakness problem".

It is fucking ridiculous to beg right-wing operatives for understanding.  The proper reaction to this is not to whine, it's to take the motherfucker down and make an example out of him.

more on the flip

Crossposted from Docudharma

The folks over at Brave New Films (who put out just fantastic stuff!) sent me a mail today asking if I was planning anything to thank all the folks who signed the Maddow Movement petition. Unbeknownst to me they had posted the petition on their site back when we were pushing it Being a complete boor and social misfit,.......I wasn't! But thanks to their gentle kick in the posterior....I am! Though I would love to take credit for Rachel getting her own show and Keith did go out of his way (ha!) to thank me personally (ha! The Sequel!) in his announcement diary over at Daily Kos.....

5. Yes, you had something to do with it.

(What, KO, no crosspost??!!??)

From Rainforest Action Network executive director Michael Brune. Crossposted from RAN's Blog, The Understory.

In the end, climate change made us quit.

On most days, we're like any other card-carrying, food-conscious environmentalists. My wife and I shop at our local natural grocery store, dutifully selecting locally grown, organic produce. We planted fruit trees a few years ago, our summer vegetable garden is thriving, and we generally do what we can to make Michael Pollan proud.

But every now and then, late at night, we get a little wild. Often to the accompaniment of John Stewart, we'll pull the blinds down, tip-toe past our sleeping daughter, reach into the darkest recesses of our cabinets, and pull out something sinful. My personal weakness is for cookies and chocolates. My wife is more the pretzels and chips type.

That was before we learned that palm oil - a common ingredient in many of our favorite munchies, not to mention soaps, cosmetics and biofuel - is one of the biggest causes of rainforest destruction and a prime accelerator of climate change.

    I am not a committed liberal, however I see a lot of liberal causes that are good and worthy of support. Unfortunately, I see a lot of those good causes being presented in a very bad way. How the message is presented is just as important as the message itself. It bothers me to see a good, just cause overshadowed by the sometimes outlandish and clownish manner that it is presented in.
    My intent is not to make accusations, or to point fingers, but to give advise from the perspective of an outsider looking in with unbiased eyes. No offense is intended, or should be inferred.

Long time listener, first time caller...  

Below are my thoughts on Kos' new book, Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era.  I'm a bookseller and a progressive, but this review wears another of my hats, too: grad student interested in social networks, digitality, activism, collaboration and interactive narratives.  

In the odd case that I get some comments, I'll try to hang out near a computer as long as I can find productive work to do.  Which reminds me: if you like to buy books, do so from your independent community bookseller, rather than Amazon, who doesn't pay sales tax to your public schools and infrastructure or (likely) employ your neighbor.  ***If you really like the review, help me stay employed...

on your mark

Dayton, OH: Friday, August 29th (doors 9AM)
Washington, PA: Saturday, August 30th (doors 3PM)

get set

GO

rsvp starting FRIDAY, FRIDAY, FRIDAY

today is the first day to pick up your tickets... follow the above link for the various office locations to pick them up at.

Friends, with apologies to the Poorman Institute, these here rats aren't going to fuck themselves.

Barack Obama needs your help to drive home the point about just how rich and out-of-touch John McCain is. I'm interrupting my vacation to tell you one thing you can do to make sure those rats get good and fucked.

I am Oh so tempted to keep reading diaries and coverage about this - it's fun.  However, if we want to help make this thing take off we need to do our part.  

Letters to the editors to the local papers will help this spread.  In case you don't have them handy, the Democratic Party site has a tool you can use to send out LTE's.  

My letter goes as follows:

It now makes sense why John McCain thinks the economy is fundamentally strong and supports Bush's disastrous tax policies that give enormous tax cuts to the wealthy at the expense of everyone else: he simply can't relate to regular people.  McCain has so many houses he can't keep track of them and thinks that people earning up to $5 million fit into the middle class.  So it's no wonder he doesn't understand how unfair it is to the non-rich who are struggling right now.  

UPDATE: I know how easy it is to just read the frontpagers and diaries on the story and not help to move it forward.  Cheers to those of you who've written LTE's! Feel free to share your letters here.

John McNicotine is now for the tobacco lobby after years of working against it.  He not only opposes the cigarette taxes he used to support but also opposes FDA regulation of the tobacco industry after years of supporting it.  McNicotine is an ex-smoker and should understand just how addictive nicotine is, and he even acknowledged the exceptionally high death rate for tobacco users when he joked that cigarette exports to Iran were part of his plot to kill Iranian citizens.  For McNicotine to cave in to the tobacco cartel is the ultimate flip-flop:
http://www.boston.com/...

Why has McNicotine caved in to the interests of the tobacco drug cartel?  It couldn't possibly have anything to do with hiring tobacco lobbyist Charlie Black as his senior adviser.  Move along folks.  There's nothing to see here:
http://firedoglake.com/...

Now let's use the traditional Rethug "moral values" and "sanctity of life" frames against McNicotine!  There's more in the flip.

As we continue to celebrate the Olympics with profound pride and patriotism , I wanted to share some disheartening rankings that reflect our country's stark decline relative to the rest of the world. I list these fully knowing this community's cognizance of such issues, but sometimes numbers yield a haunting, and thus effective, reminder.  For anyone truly proud to be American, these numbers should anger, motivate, and prompt action.  

32nd - World rank of U.S. infant mortality rate.

First - CEO to Worker pay ratio (531:1) (Second place is Brazil at 57:1)

9th - Adult Literacy Scale (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)

12th -  student reading ability (Source: OECD)

37th - U.S. rank on the Healthcare Quality Index (World Health Organization)