There hasn't been much of substance to report on the race for the vacant 20th Congressional district seat, vacated by now Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Mostly just the usual negative, personal attacks that have little relevance to anyone other than partisans. Planet Albany blog runs sympathetic toward Republican Jim Tedisco. Matt Funiciello endorses Libertarian Eric Sundwall and notes that the candidate will be making a public appearance on Wed. Feb. 11 in Glens Falls. I haven't read much in the blogosphere about Democrat Scott Murphy, whose disorganized campaign recalls clueless Democratic efforts of the pre-Gillibrand era. Gov. David Paterson still has not set a date for the special election.
CANDIDATE WEBSITES
Scott Murphy: www.scottmurphy09.com
Eric Sundwall: www.sundwall4congress.org
Jim Tedisco: www.jimtedisco.com
Monday, February 09, 2009
Albany's attempt to asphyxiate the Adirondack Park
In this entry, I denounced the plan proposed by NY Gov. David Paterson to refuse to pull full property taxes owed on state-owned land in the Adirondack and Catskill Parks, a plan that would asphyxiate the Parks' municipalities, counties and school districts.
Bear in mind, we're not talking here about cutting state AID, but about refusing to pay the full amount of property taxes the state rightfully owes on land it owns... a luxury no other property owner has. Bear in mind also that these Parks are subject to restrictions on economic development imposed on them by the state legislature, executive agencies and the state constitution. And now Albany wants to refuse to pay the local taxes it owes, taxes that pay for the mandates on localities and schools that Albany imposes! And of course, this will cost even more taxpayer dollars when the localities inevitably and rightfully file a lawsuit against this proposal.
John over at Adirondack Almanack blog also heaps scorn on the unconscionable proposal. Almanack noted that in 2007, the state paid $69 million in property taxes to localities in the Adirondack Park alone. He points out, like I did, that if the state can refuse to pay the taxes it owes because its finances are tight, then why can't every other taxpayer do the same?
John concludes quite succinctly: I understand we are facing difficult economic times and I'm not one to raise the flag for program after program in tough times, but this is going way too far. A fair system of taxation ranks at the top of the list of American values.
Bear in mind, we're not talking here about cutting state AID, but about refusing to pay the full amount of property taxes the state rightfully owes on land it owns... a luxury no other property owner has. Bear in mind also that these Parks are subject to restrictions on economic development imposed on them by the state legislature, executive agencies and the state constitution. And now Albany wants to refuse to pay the local taxes it owes, taxes that pay for the mandates on localities and schools that Albany imposes! And of course, this will cost even more taxpayer dollars when the localities inevitably and rightfully file a lawsuit against this proposal.
John over at Adirondack Almanack blog also heaps scorn on the unconscionable proposal. Almanack noted that in 2007, the state paid $69 million in property taxes to localities in the Adirondack Park alone. He points out, like I did, that if the state can refuse to pay the taxes it owes because its finances are tight, then why can't every other taxpayer do the same?
John concludes quite succinctly: I understand we are facing difficult economic times and I'm not one to raise the flag for program after program in tough times, but this is going way too far. A fair system of taxation ranks at the top of the list of American values.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The fight against toxic nationalism in Kosovo
This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine, Iraq, North Korea and Iran. A list of all pieces in this series can be found here.
The Christian Science Monitor has a good piece on reconciliation in Kosovo, location of a genocide in the late 90s.
Soft power works. So do democratic elections. And it is possible to de-escalate longstanding violence and hate... [Serbia's] new government, while still insisting that Kosovo's independence is illegal, has detoxified this issue and is now acting pragmatically rather than ideologically. It has renounced the use of force. It has moved the dispute from the hot political to the cool legal arena by appealing it to the International Court of Justice.
The Christian Science Monitor has a good piece on reconciliation in Kosovo, location of a genocide in the late 90s.
Soft power works. So do democratic elections. And it is possible to de-escalate longstanding violence and hate... [Serbia's] new government, while still insisting that Kosovo's independence is illegal, has detoxified this issue and is now acting pragmatically rather than ideologically. It has renounced the use of force. It has moved the dispute from the hot political to the cool legal arena by appealing it to the International Court of Justice.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Sundwall seeking Congressional seat
I've been informed, not by the local press of course, that Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall will be running against venture capitalist Scott Murphy and used car salesman (sometimes referred to as Assembly minority leader) Jim Tedisco for the 20th Congressional district seat vacated by now-US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. With Murphy lacking name recognition and Fucillo... oops I mean Tedisco, not even living in the district, the time seems ripe for a strong showing for a smaller party candidate.
(Sundwall's website can be accessed by clicking here... Apparently his campaign's on Facebook too)
(Sundwall's website can be accessed by clicking here... Apparently his campaign's on Facebook too)
Thursday, January 29, 2009
'Scouts' dishonor'
I like the concept of Boy Scouting. In an increasingly nasty, self-absorbed society, just about any organization that promotes respect and other-centered values is a good idea, which is why their national anti-gay policy is so mystifying and out of character.
In any case, that's why it's disheartening to read this investigation that details how many Scout locals are involved in environmental rape.
For decades, local Boy Scouts of America administrations across the country have clear-cut or otherwise conducted high-impact logging on tens of thousands of acres of forestland, often for the love of a different kind of green: Cash.
A Hearst Newspapers investigation has found dozens of cases over the last 20 years of local Boy Scout councils logging or selling prime woodlands to big timber interests, developers or others, turning quick money and often doing so instead of seeking ways to preserve such lands.
A very disappointing read.
Update: Planet Albany blog offers a different take on the issue
In any case, that's why it's disheartening to read this investigation that details how many Scout locals are involved in environmental rape.
For decades, local Boy Scouts of America administrations across the country have clear-cut or otherwise conducted high-impact logging on tens of thousands of acres of forestland, often for the love of a different kind of green: Cash.
A Hearst Newspapers investigation has found dozens of cases over the last 20 years of local Boy Scout councils logging or selling prime woodlands to big timber interests, developers or others, turning quick money and often doing so instead of seeking ways to preserve such lands.
A very disappointing read.
Update: Planet Albany blog offers a different take on the issue
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Bits and pieces
Occasional series of essays linking to stories interesting in their own right but for which I don’t have time to devote individual essays…
-DANCE OF THE DELUSIONAL DENIALISTS. Denialism seems to be the cause of the week. First, Pope Benedict XVI took flack for revoking the ex-communications of four ultra-conservative bishops who broke with Rome over Vatican II, the council which brought the Catholic Church into the modern era. The move by the Pope was designed to promote unity within the Church but he took heat from Jewish groups because one of the bishops is a Holocaust denier. The Pope's timing was seen as particularly crass, coming only a few days before Holocaust Remembrance Day. Only a few days before his rehabilitation, the bishop told Swedish television, "I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler." He went on to estimate that no more than a few hundred thousand Jews were killed by the Nazis and suggested that it wasn't due to any conscious policy of industrial mass murder. Another denialist also made news with some bizarre claims. Sonia Karadzic, daughter of indicted Serbian war criminal Radovan, insists her father is innocent. This is not newsworthy in itself but she went on to claim that the Srebrenica massacre, the worst war crime in Europe since World War II, was ordered by then-US president Bill Clinton. She told the BBC, "It goes back to 1993, two years before the tragedy. It was determined then that Srebrenica would be the location of a crime, and that there would have to be a minimum of 5,000 victims. That was determined by President Clinton." This is the same Pres. Clinton who spent years RESISTING calls for US intervention in the Balkans.
-RENDERING JUSTICE. Former Nixon White House lawyer John Dean wonders if we are civilized enough to hold our leaders accountable for war crimes? Doubtful. 'Justice' is for low-level war criminals like the Abu Ghraib brigade or for high-level war criminals in geopolitically minor countries like Karadzic and Liberia's Charles Taylor. High-ranking war criminals in powerful countries get a free pass so long as they put their hand on their heart and swear they 'meant well... honest!' As long as we do that, we have to 'forget about the past' in the name of 'national unity' and 'respect for the office.' Accountability (for high-ranking officials only; Joe Six Pack is still punished if he breaks the law) must be sacrificed in the name of 'moving forward.' I think I've used every cheap catchphrase that's used to try to sweep such crimes under the rug. Though Dean warns Other countries are likely to take action against officials who condoned torture, even if the United States fails to do so. So-called executive privilege, the nakedest of authoritarian power grabs, is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people, though that merits an essay by itself.
-NOT A CULT OF PERSONALITY, JUST LEADERSHIP. This weekend, Bolivians voted comfortably to approve sweeping changes to their constitution to decentralize power and grant equal rights to the country's large indigenous population. "This will be an egalitarian Bolivia, a Bolivia that leaves behind a dark, colonial, racist past," explained the country's vice-president. The changes were largely opposed in the country's economic heartland, where the people are predominantly of European descent. This is not surprising. People who have historically used state power to achieve and maintain positions of privilege will never give away those positions of privilege without a fight, often literally. Witness Ian Smith and his lunatic followers in Rhodesia or his successor Robert Mugabe and his (every shrinking) band of fanatics in Zimbabwe. They come to see their position of privilege as one of birth right. They see calls for equality as 'grievance politics' or 'special rights.' Bolivia is a very class-divided country, even by South American standards. President Evo Morales, the nation's first indigenous head of state, deserves tremendous praise for trying end Bolivia's social apartheid and raise the standard of living for the long-oppressed majority. Unlike one of his fellow left-wing South American leaders, Pres. Morales seems more concerned about improving the lives of his people than his own global superstardom.
-FREEDOM OF CHOICE, EMPLOYEE STYLE. Apparently The Employee Freedom of Choice Act gets the thumbs up for Human Rights Watch. While some states, such as New York, guarantee collective bargaining rights in their constitutions, there is no such protection nationally. HRW views this bill as a key protection of employees' right to freedom of association.
-STRANGER DANGER? Good news: according to new research, children online are far less at risk from pervy adults than is widely feared by parents. Bad news: they are far more at risk from their peers and cyberbullying.
-WHAT THE F...UDGE IS WRONG WITH SOCIETY? A 15 year old in California uses social pressure to discourage swearing and as a result receives death threats for it. Sadly, I'm not making this up.
-SOMETIMES NEW YORK STATE GOVT REMINDS ME OF A BANANA REPUBLIC. Political theater is so predictable that it's almost comical. Or it would be if we weren't spending millions of dollars to pay these clowns. Earlier this month, Democrats took control of the New York State Senate for the first time in 40 years. They spent much of those 40 years promising democratization of the institution should they take power. Republicans spent much of those 40 years treating Democratic members lower than dirt, rather than representatives of New Yorkers (Assembly Democrats do the same thing). For example. majority Republicans barred minority Democrats from putting their names on bills to be voted on by the whole chamber. But as soon as the change happened... well you know what followed. Senate Democrats introduced very modest rules changes. Republicans whined that they weren't democratic enough. Of course, they had 40 years of their own to implement minority-friendly rules and refused. Democrats promised a committee to study further changes. Republicans whined that the further changes should be made now; three months more was far too long to wait... after 40 years of obstructionism. In 2007, (then-minority) Democrats introduced a reform bill that was voted down by the GOP-run chamber. A few weeks ago, (now-minority) Republicans introduced a nearly identical bill and which was defeated in the Democrat-run chamber. Most Democrats who voted for the 2007 bill voted against this bill. Most Republicans who voted against the 2007 bill voted for this bill. No wonder the New York legislature is regularly described as the most dysfunctional in the nation.
-SPEAKING OF HYPOCRISY... My local Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand was recently appointed to the US Senate to fill the seat vacated by now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. There will be a special election to fill Gillibrand's House seat. Republican county committee chairs decreed state Assembly minority leader Jim Tedisco, the biggest media whore in Albany, as the GOP candidate for the race. Tedisco, who bears a startling resemblance to a used car salesman, doesn't actually live in the Congressional district he wants to represent. Apparently he has a summer home in the district to where he claims he's going to move should he get elected. In 2006, then-challenger Gillibrand was attacked by Republicans because although she lived in the district, she had not lived here long enough for their standards. Standards which have dramatically changed a few short years later.
-SPEAKING OF DYSFUNCTIONAL... If you or I arbitrarily decided to stop paying taxes because money was getting a little short, we'd be in big trouble. But apparently it's okay when the state does it. As described by Adirondack Almanack blog, one of the cost-cutting proposals by NY Gov. David Paterson is to cap the state’s property tax payments to local towns, counties and school districts that host state Forest Preserve lands. About half of the land in the huge Adirondack Park is owned by the state; the other half is privately owned. Paterson's proposal would be devastating. It would decimate local government and school coffers, thus hugely increasing the tax burden on the region's private property owners (because while the state tax payments may disappear, you know that state mandates on municipalities and schools will not). Especially since the poor private sector economy inside the Blue Line and according lack of sales tax revenues makes the region's localities heavily dependent on property taxes as a revenue source. The Catskill Park in southeastern New York would also be affected.
-TONE DEAF MUSIC INDUSTRY. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has gained infamy by suing college students who illegally shared songs. After a wave of bad publicity, the RIAA finally smartened up and changed its strategy to press the file sharers' internet providers to cut off service. The record industry continues to shrivel because for too long it resisted new technologies rather than figuring out ways to make it work. Anyway, in what presumably is one of the last lawsuits, a Harvard law professor requested that the proceedings be streamed live on the Internet. The still tone-deaf RIAA objected. The judge slapped them down. She pointed out that the RIAA claims the whole point of their lawsuits was not to go after each illegal downloader but to serve as a broader deterrent and that their objection to publicizing the trial is at odds with this claim.
-DANCE OF THE DELUSIONAL DENIALISTS. Denialism seems to be the cause of the week. First, Pope Benedict XVI took flack for revoking the ex-communications of four ultra-conservative bishops who broke with Rome over Vatican II, the council which brought the Catholic Church into the modern era. The move by the Pope was designed to promote unity within the Church but he took heat from Jewish groups because one of the bishops is a Holocaust denier. The Pope's timing was seen as particularly crass, coming only a few days before Holocaust Remembrance Day. Only a few days before his rehabilitation, the bishop told Swedish television, "I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler." He went on to estimate that no more than a few hundred thousand Jews were killed by the Nazis and suggested that it wasn't due to any conscious policy of industrial mass murder. Another denialist also made news with some bizarre claims. Sonia Karadzic, daughter of indicted Serbian war criminal Radovan, insists her father is innocent. This is not newsworthy in itself but she went on to claim that the Srebrenica massacre, the worst war crime in Europe since World War II, was ordered by then-US president Bill Clinton. She told the BBC, "It goes back to 1993, two years before the tragedy. It was determined then that Srebrenica would be the location of a crime, and that there would have to be a minimum of 5,000 victims. That was determined by President Clinton." This is the same Pres. Clinton who spent years RESISTING calls for US intervention in the Balkans.
-RENDERING JUSTICE. Former Nixon White House lawyer John Dean wonders if we are civilized enough to hold our leaders accountable for war crimes? Doubtful. 'Justice' is for low-level war criminals like the Abu Ghraib brigade or for high-level war criminals in geopolitically minor countries like Karadzic and Liberia's Charles Taylor. High-ranking war criminals in powerful countries get a free pass so long as they put their hand on their heart and swear they 'meant well... honest!' As long as we do that, we have to 'forget about the past' in the name of 'national unity' and 'respect for the office.' Accountability (for high-ranking officials only; Joe Six Pack is still punished if he breaks the law) must be sacrificed in the name of 'moving forward.' I think I've used every cheap catchphrase that's used to try to sweep such crimes under the rug. Though Dean warns Other countries are likely to take action against officials who condoned torture, even if the United States fails to do so. So-called executive privilege, the nakedest of authoritarian power grabs, is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people, though that merits an essay by itself.
-NOT A CULT OF PERSONALITY, JUST LEADERSHIP. This weekend, Bolivians voted comfortably to approve sweeping changes to their constitution to decentralize power and grant equal rights to the country's large indigenous population. "This will be an egalitarian Bolivia, a Bolivia that leaves behind a dark, colonial, racist past," explained the country's vice-president. The changes were largely opposed in the country's economic heartland, where the people are predominantly of European descent. This is not surprising. People who have historically used state power to achieve and maintain positions of privilege will never give away those positions of privilege without a fight, often literally. Witness Ian Smith and his lunatic followers in Rhodesia or his successor Robert Mugabe and his (every shrinking) band of fanatics in Zimbabwe. They come to see their position of privilege as one of birth right. They see calls for equality as 'grievance politics' or 'special rights.' Bolivia is a very class-divided country, even by South American standards. President Evo Morales, the nation's first indigenous head of state, deserves tremendous praise for trying end Bolivia's social apartheid and raise the standard of living for the long-oppressed majority. Unlike one of his fellow left-wing South American leaders, Pres. Morales seems more concerned about improving the lives of his people than his own global superstardom.
-FREEDOM OF CHOICE, EMPLOYEE STYLE. Apparently The Employee Freedom of Choice Act gets the thumbs up for Human Rights Watch. While some states, such as New York, guarantee collective bargaining rights in their constitutions, there is no such protection nationally. HRW views this bill as a key protection of employees' right to freedom of association.
-STRANGER DANGER? Good news: according to new research, children online are far less at risk from pervy adults than is widely feared by parents. Bad news: they are far more at risk from their peers and cyberbullying.
-WHAT THE F...UDGE IS WRONG WITH SOCIETY? A 15 year old in California uses social pressure to discourage swearing and as a result receives death threats for it. Sadly, I'm not making this up.
-SOMETIMES NEW YORK STATE GOVT REMINDS ME OF A BANANA REPUBLIC. Political theater is so predictable that it's almost comical. Or it would be if we weren't spending millions of dollars to pay these clowns. Earlier this month, Democrats took control of the New York State Senate for the first time in 40 years. They spent much of those 40 years promising democratization of the institution should they take power. Republicans spent much of those 40 years treating Democratic members lower than dirt, rather than representatives of New Yorkers (Assembly Democrats do the same thing). For example. majority Republicans barred minority Democrats from putting their names on bills to be voted on by the whole chamber. But as soon as the change happened... well you know what followed. Senate Democrats introduced very modest rules changes. Republicans whined that they weren't democratic enough. Of course, they had 40 years of their own to implement minority-friendly rules and refused. Democrats promised a committee to study further changes. Republicans whined that the further changes should be made now; three months more was far too long to wait... after 40 years of obstructionism. In 2007, (then-minority) Democrats introduced a reform bill that was voted down by the GOP-run chamber. A few weeks ago, (now-minority) Republicans introduced a nearly identical bill and which was defeated in the Democrat-run chamber. Most Democrats who voted for the 2007 bill voted against this bill. Most Republicans who voted against the 2007 bill voted for this bill. No wonder the New York legislature is regularly described as the most dysfunctional in the nation.
-SPEAKING OF HYPOCRISY... My local Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand was recently appointed to the US Senate to fill the seat vacated by now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. There will be a special election to fill Gillibrand's House seat. Republican county committee chairs decreed state Assembly minority leader Jim Tedisco, the biggest media whore in Albany, as the GOP candidate for the race. Tedisco, who bears a startling resemblance to a used car salesman, doesn't actually live in the Congressional district he wants to represent. Apparently he has a summer home in the district to where he claims he's going to move should he get elected. In 2006, then-challenger Gillibrand was attacked by Republicans because although she lived in the district, she had not lived here long enough for their standards. Standards which have dramatically changed a few short years later.
-SPEAKING OF DYSFUNCTIONAL... If you or I arbitrarily decided to stop paying taxes because money was getting a little short, we'd be in big trouble. But apparently it's okay when the state does it. As described by Adirondack Almanack blog, one of the cost-cutting proposals by NY Gov. David Paterson is to cap the state’s property tax payments to local towns, counties and school districts that host state Forest Preserve lands. About half of the land in the huge Adirondack Park is owned by the state; the other half is privately owned. Paterson's proposal would be devastating. It would decimate local government and school coffers, thus hugely increasing the tax burden on the region's private property owners (because while the state tax payments may disappear, you know that state mandates on municipalities and schools will not). Especially since the poor private sector economy inside the Blue Line and according lack of sales tax revenues makes the region's localities heavily dependent on property taxes as a revenue source. The Catskill Park in southeastern New York would also be affected.
-TONE DEAF MUSIC INDUSTRY. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has gained infamy by suing college students who illegally shared songs. After a wave of bad publicity, the RIAA finally smartened up and changed its strategy to press the file sharers' internet providers to cut off service. The record industry continues to shrivel because for too long it resisted new technologies rather than figuring out ways to make it work. Anyway, in what presumably is one of the last lawsuits, a Harvard law professor requested that the proceedings be streamed live on the Internet. The still tone-deaf RIAA objected. The judge slapped them down. She pointed out that the RIAA claims the whole point of their lawsuits was not to go after each illegal downloader but to serve as a broader deterrent and that their objection to publicizing the trial is at odds with this claim.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Give peace a... break?
Last week, I wrote of my cautious optimism for the new Obama administration. I was criticized for this by people who pointed out that he was just another ruling class politician. I responded that they were not wrong but that my hope rested less on the person of Obama himself and more on the possibility of building bridges with the millions of progressives who, for whatever reasons, voted for him. For example, millions of Obama voters support single-payer health care, even though the president himself does not. Instead of denouncing the president in week one of his term, why not engage these self-described progressives to put pressure on Obama to implement elements of the progressive agenda?
I also felt that being cynical (or whatever euphemism one wants to use), especially before he even took office, serves no purpose. In fact, it risks backfiring. If you convince someone that both Obama in particular and the system in general are irredeemably corrupt, then that person will instead go home and watch American Idol because they will view any action as pointless. They will see the situation as irredeemable. Hopeless people do not get into activism.
One of my fears all along is that an Obama presidency would neuter liberals and progressives. That they would give him a free pass for things for which that they would excoriate Bush. This is why I proposed that non-Obama voting progressives should engage those who did vote for the Democrat, rather than mocking them. Challenge them to make sure Obama lives up to whatever was their perception of what he stood for.
Unfortunately, my fear of neutering appears to have been well-founded. Already, a anti-war group in Potsdam , NY (the village in which I went to college) has decided to suspend its peace vigils after six years of having one every Saturday morning.
Somehow I missed the memo that either peace (or even the end of war) had come to Afghanistan and Iraq . In fact, last thing I read was that President Obama had promised to ESCALATE the war in Afghanistan , hoping to mimic the success the Soviet occupiers had in the same country.
Now, I understand from personal experience that Potsdam in the winter is frigid. When it's below zero outside with a bitter wind, the only place you want to be is inside under a blanket. But I have no doubt the last six winters in Potsdam have been bitter too and they continued to protest these moral monstrosities. The weather hasn't changed. The policies haven't changed.
I understand giving Obama a chance to do the right thing. I understand not calling for him to face a war crimes' trial. I understand not denouncing him. But how is the right thing going to happen, absent public pressure?
It really boils down to these questions. Were the Potsdam activists protesting Bush or protesting the wars? Was their number one objective to end the Bush presidency or to end the wars of aggression, the devastation and the killing funded by their and our tax dollars? The Bush presidency is history. The carnage he initiated continues.
The Potsdam group may be well-intentioned but do they actually believe Obama is going to magically buck the military-industrial complex if peace activists sit on their butt and hope for the best? You know very well that those who have a vested interest in endless war aren't going to sit on their butts and hope. They are going to be lobbying the heck out of the White House and the Democratic Party, including with their 'contributions.' If there's no counter pressure to the Boeings and the Blackwaters, how's anything going to improve?
Simply put: will progressives hope for the future or will we try to shape it?
The Potsdam group made the wrong choice.
Politicians will do whatever they're allowed to get away with, especially by their own supporters. It should be no more acceptable to give Obama a blank check than it was to give Bush one.
If Obama is really is the Messiah so many of his supporters seem to think, then now is the time to push the progressive agenda now, to strike while the iron's hot. Now's the time for his supporters to make sure he keeps whatever they think his promises were. Far from resting on laurels and patting oneself on the back, the Obama presidency should herald a Surge in progressive activism if we are to reverse the damage of the Bush-Clinton years.
Electing a black president does little good if he acts the same as the white presidents before him.
I also felt that being cynical (or whatever euphemism one wants to use), especially before he even took office, serves no purpose. In fact, it risks backfiring. If you convince someone that both Obama in particular and the system in general are irredeemably corrupt, then that person will instead go home and watch American Idol because they will view any action as pointless. They will see the situation as irredeemable. Hopeless people do not get into activism.
One of my fears all along is that an Obama presidency would neuter liberals and progressives. That they would give him a free pass for things for which that they would excoriate Bush. This is why I proposed that non-Obama voting progressives should engage those who did vote for the Democrat, rather than mocking them. Challenge them to make sure Obama lives up to whatever was their perception of what he stood for.
Unfortunately, my fear of neutering appears to have been well-founded. Already, a anti-war group in Potsdam , NY (the village in which I went to college) has decided to suspend its peace vigils after six years of having one every Saturday morning.
Somehow I missed the memo that either peace (or even the end of war) had come to Afghanistan and Iraq . In fact, last thing I read was that President Obama had promised to ESCALATE the war in Afghanistan , hoping to mimic the success the Soviet occupiers had in the same country.
Now, I understand from personal experience that Potsdam in the winter is frigid. When it's below zero outside with a bitter wind, the only place you want to be is inside under a blanket. But I have no doubt the last six winters in Potsdam have been bitter too and they continued to protest these moral monstrosities. The weather hasn't changed. The policies haven't changed.
I understand giving Obama a chance to do the right thing. I understand not calling for him to face a war crimes' trial. I understand not denouncing him. But how is the right thing going to happen, absent public pressure?
It really boils down to these questions. Were the Potsdam activists protesting Bush or protesting the wars? Was their number one objective to end the Bush presidency or to end the wars of aggression, the devastation and the killing funded by their and our tax dollars? The Bush presidency is history. The carnage he initiated continues.
The Potsdam group may be well-intentioned but do they actually believe Obama is going to magically buck the military-industrial complex if peace activists sit on their butt and hope for the best? You know very well that those who have a vested interest in endless war aren't going to sit on their butts and hope. They are going to be lobbying the heck out of the White House and the Democratic Party, including with their 'contributions.' If there's no counter pressure to the Boeings and the Blackwaters, how's anything going to improve?
Simply put: will progressives hope for the future or will we try to shape it?
The Potsdam group made the wrong choice.
Politicians will do whatever they're allowed to get away with, especially by their own supporters. It should be no more acceptable to give Obama a blank check than it was to give Bush one.
If Obama is really is the Messiah so many of his supporters seem to think, then now is the time to push the progressive agenda now, to strike while the iron's hot. Now's the time for his supporters to make sure he keeps whatever they think his promises were. Far from resting on laurels and patting oneself on the back, the Obama presidency should herald a Surge in progressive activism if we are to reverse the damage of the Bush-Clinton years.
Electing a black president does little good if he acts the same as the white presidents before him.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Take note Pulitzer committee!
Locals often criticize the daily The Post-Star for everything from shallow journalism, to bias (liberal, conservative and corporate) to editorial choices (what appears in the paper and where) to an apparent lack of copy editors.
But they can also provide some fascinating insight into issues that you never would've expected.
For example, did you know that when shopping decreases, employment drops too?!
Seriously!
Groundbreaking journalism at its finest.
But they can also provide some fascinating insight into issues that you never would've expected.
For example, did you know that when shopping decreases, employment drops too?!
Seriously!
Groundbreaking journalism at its finest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)