All Hail Ralph Nader
This diary is about one thing and one thing only--how great Ralph Nader is and how everyone should have supported him in 2000. I have a few other ideas, some complaints, a few criticisms. But those...
View ArticleHey, Let's Just Automate Government Decisions
Don't go off half-cocked if you are troubled that our august SCOTUS doubled down on their appointment of George W. Bush as president by inviting unlimited purchases of legislation spending on political...
View ArticleElizabeth Warren, the core issue, and a policy litmus test
Maldistribution of wealth is the issue at the root of all of our problems, including, believe it or not, the passionate rift here on dailyKos. If we fail to stop and reverse the flow of capital, and...
View ArticleElizabeth Warren, the core issue, and a policy litmus test
Maldistribution of wealth is the issue at the root of all of our problems, including, believe it or not, the passionate rift here on dailyKos. If we fail to stop and reverse the flow of capital, and...
View ArticleWhy I Get Upset: Non-Violence and DailyKos
If I'm arguing for empathy for the South, some people assume I'm upset because I am identifying with former slave owners and I want to defend them. If I'm arguing for empathy for teabaggers, some...
View ArticleFree Trip to Sri Lanka--Unlimited Availability
My daughter is in Sri Lanka for a couple of months. Just as when she was India during high school, she is sending fascinating emails home. I have posted a few of them in open threads, but this one...
View ArticleIssues and Personality Disorders.
Once again, I've expressed disappointment in the Obama administration and been told I have an emotional problem. I was accused of being petulant. It reminded me of when I was 17 and a professor of...
View ArticleWhat a Named Soldier Saw at Guantanamo
We know his name because he stepped forward with his knowledge into the bright daylight. He wasn't grinding an axe, he was just doing his duty. Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman was inspired to...
View ArticleBreaking: Obama Goes Radical, Appoints Berwick
Finally, a real pony for me and my friends. President Obama may have set back bipartisanship by several minutes in using a recess appointment to put in place his choice for Administrator of the...
View ArticleOne Guantanamo War Crime: Final Chapter
This letter is from my ex-wife Doris Tennant and her partner Ellen Lubell, pro bono attorneys for one victim of the United States War on Terror whom I've mentioned before here and here and here and...
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Should Policy Be Set by Anguished, Irrational Victims?
The New Colossus Are those New Yorkers quivering at the base of Our Lady? Are they afraid of the light of her torch?
View ArticleHope for Aziz, But Not From the Obama DOJ
This is a quick update on former Guantanamo detainee Abdul Aziz Naji, who was represented by ex-wife Doris Tennant and her partner Ellen Lubell. I have written about his situation here and here and...
View ArticleOnly in Horniness Will We Prevail
If I have it right, The Gourds are predicting that you wanna shine like a tv. You wanna look terrific. But there's a thing about that. Without a prescription for the positive alternative, the...
View ArticleSome Things Are Worth Fighting For--Inside Job and DKos Twiddling
I just got back from watching Inside Job, thanks in large part to encouragement, even insistence, from members of this community. I was laughing some at the cognitive dissonance the skilled...
View ArticleCreative Listening and Responsible Speaking
This, I am red-faced in saying it, a response diary. I believe listening is crucial, and I do my best to practice it. I am also acutely aware of the many prejudices and unskillful emotions which get...
View ArticleThe UN, Human Trafficking and One Whistleblower
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is the highlight of my year. I go to four to six films a day for the ten days of the festival. Every year I want to diary the best films, but I am so...
View ArticleRelocating Islanders Whose Homes Will Disappear
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is the highlight of my year. I go to four to six films a day for the ten days of the festival. Every year I want to diary the best films, but I am so...
View ArticleUncovering The Past, From The Big Bang to Pinochet
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is the highlight of my year. I go to four to six films a day for the ten days of the festival. Every year I want to diary the best films, but I am so...
View ArticleSanta Barbara Film Festival: Quebec films and Raymond
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is the highlight of my year. I go to four to six films a day for the ten days of the festival. Every year I want to diary the best films, but I am so...
View ArticleDoing Your Job Plus Life Experience = "Hero"
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is the highlight of my year. I go to four to six films a day for the ten days of the festival. Every year I want to diary the best films, but I am so...
View ArticleBarbara Conrad Beats Racism; Skateboarding in Afghanistan
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is the highlight of my year. I go to four to six films a day for the ten days of the festival. Every year I want to diary the best films, but I am so...
View ArticleDemanding and Offering Dignity
The idea for this group began with resistance to institutionalized torture. As the debate over torture has played out, it has seemed to me that too many of us have lost touch with the fundamental...
View ArticleResponsible Discussion: Group Guidelines
Here is the promised diary about my hopes for conduct in this group. This is more than mere housekeeping; I do believe the smallest act is just as profound as the biggest ideal from which it springs....
View ArticleIHR: Proving Torture Ineffectual
This is the first working diary for the group Inherent Human Rights. We are suggesting our first concrete project—collection and organization of data proving that torture is an ineffectual tool for...
View ArticleI'm sorry my government tortured you, David
What else could Jason Leopold say to David Hicks? When balanced against at least four years of brutal torture and over five years of confinement, it doesn't seem like much. If we hope to keep our...
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Sanctimonious Sundays: Purist Hall of Fame
Welcome to Sanctimonious Sunday, a new series that will be published by members of the following groups: The Amateur Left, Team DFH and Frustrati, as a collaboration of sorts. Feel free to get your...
View ArticleState Dept Spokesman Resigns; Obama Defends Treatment of Manning
I only have internet access a few minutes a day this week, so I don't have time for a proper diary. I post this primarily to get the story on record here, because my inept searches find no indication...
View ArticleU.S. ME Policy is Explicitly Against Regional Self-Interest
It is impossible for a feeling person to watch common citizens brutally crushed by a tyrant without wishing a benign force would intervene to stop the bloodshed. Is the U.S. military such a benign...
View ArticleDoor Number Three, Please Mr. Cole
Juan Cole, and many other people, are telling me I now face a Very Important Moral Question. They insist that I must take a stand, that I must choose between opposing United States imperialist...
View ArticleCommand Failure in Afghanistan
[Warning! THE PHOTOS ACCOMPANYING THE LINKED ROLLING STONES ARTICLE CONTAIN EXPLICIT IMAGES OF AN EXTREMELY VIOLENT NATURE] Despite the best suppressive efforts of the army, some of the hundreds of...
View ArticleMadoff Appointed to Commission on Pensions
Well, not yet, but the victims of Madoff would feel much the same as the mother of likely murdered U.S. soldier Pat Tillman feels about the appointment of disgraced General Stanley McChrystal to head...
View ArticleWe Cannot Merely Pray
We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end war; For we know that You have made the world in a way So that all of us must find our own path to peace, Within ourselves and with our neighbors. We cannot...
View ArticleLooking Back at Gitmo Innocents and the Bush Doctrine
Our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives. President George W. Bush at...
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Sanctimonious Sunday: Would You Buy a Used Car from This Organization?
Welcome to Sanctimonious Sunday, a series published by members of the following groups: The Amateur Left, Team DFH and Frustrati, as a collaboration of sorts. Feel free to get your sanctimonious on....
View ArticleForeign Policy of a Wounded Bear
The U.S. will react like a wounded bear and it will attack Afghanistan. These were the first words of President Pervez Musharraf at the meeting of top Pakistani military and government officials...
View ArticlePundit Accuracy Tested: Krugman and Dowd DOMINATE! Update: Professional Left...
In this paper, we report on the first-ever test of the accuracy of predictions in the media. We sampled the predictions of 26 individuals who wrote columns in major newspapers and/or appeared on the...
View ArticleIf You Don't Agree, There's Something Wrong With You
There has recently been some heated discussion on dailykos whether there is more than one acceptable way to feel about the price of tea in China. This diary is an attempt to clarify this question...
View ArticleAnti-Capitalist Meetup--Crisis of Capitalism: Neo-Fascism, Solidarity, and...
I’m a guest diarist this week, so I want to make clear in advance that I lack the extensive knowledge base and theoretical grasp of economic social theory which always makes these diaries challenge...
View ArticleLyme Disease: Symptom of a Dysfunctional Public Sphere
MsGrin has her “ways to make you write,” and she has worked her magic of persistence on me. But I’m afraid she is not going to be as happy with this diary as I would like. She has been campaigning...
View ArticleAnti-Capitalist Meet-up: My Best Friends Are All on Television
Despite the thoroughly daunting, not to say crushing, analysis I am about to subject people to, I am invigorated by the prospect of discussing the most eye-opening analysis of current malaise that I...
View ArticleEarlier, More Accurate, New Test for Lyme Neuroborrealis?
Early study, hopeful results. The definite diagnosis of acute Lyme neuroborreliosis (LNB) requires detection of an increased Borrelia burgdorferi-specific antibody index (AI). Testing for chemokine...
View ArticleAnti-Capitalist Meetup: Postemotional Society, Part II
Civilization, as it is often practiced today, is really manufactured, inauthentic civilization. -Stjepan Meštrović Welcome to Part II of this series reflecting on the ideas of Stjepan Meštrović as...
View ArticleLibya, Hypnotized Populace, and the Vanishing of History
Loss of conscience due to satisfactory liberties granted by an unfree society makes for a happy consciousness which facilitates acceptance of the misdeeds of this society. It is the token of...
View ArticleA Proposal: Recommends Should Be Treated As Votes
There should be a sacred element to the individual decision whether to click the recommend button. If community moderation is to be sacred, so to speak, it necessarily must rest on respect for the...
View ArticlePositively Fourth Street
Once in one of my diaries, a very obnoxious poster came into the threads with a challenging tough act. Pluto chased him/her away with this song. Thanks Pluto. You don't have to be an adolescent to...
View ArticleIndebted Capital Managers in Europe Indemnify Selves vs. Greek People
Short and Sweet. Some topics have become dishearteningly tedious, as has the ravenous, often crazed, behavior of capital going broke. The 4+ decades of privatizing capital and public resources while...
View ArticleParticipatory Democracy: A Sine Qua Non of Progressive Leadership
Another day, another self-congratulatory list of President Obama's progressive achievements. Many specifics regularly included on these lists are hotly debated, with many of us finding some of them to...
View ArticlePoetry Makes Nothing Happen: "September 1, 1939"
Poetry makes nothing happen. W. H. Auden Sign, if you wish, the on-line petition initiated by Sara Haghdoosti:The new moderate president of Iran will be in New York during the next session of the...
View ArticleGiroux: The Spectacle of Illiteracy and the Crisis of Democracy
Nobody wants to be a statistic, but on reading the following, many kossacks might feel like mere guinea pigs in an experiment proving the accuracy of this analysis by Henry A. Giroux, originally...
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