A Threat to Fair Elections - NYTimes Editorial

The Supreme Court may be about to radically change politics by striking down the longstanding rule that says corporations cannot spend directly on federal elections. If the floodgates open, money from big business could overwhelm the electoral process, as well as the making of laws on issues like tax policy and bank regulation.

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This Modern World - Then and now with Goofus and Gallant

By Tom Tomorrow

Living in a Culture of Cruelty: Democracy as Spectacle

We need, as a society, to educate students and others to be literate in multiple ways, to reclaim the high ground of civic courage, and to be able to name, engage and transform those forms of public pedagogy that produce hate and cruelty as part of the discourse of common sense. Otherwise, democracy will lose the supportive institutions, social relations and culture that make it not only possible but even thinkable.


Henry A. Giroux - Truthout.org

Mr. President, it's time to fight - Bill Moyers

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him. No one's ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying "pretty please" to the guys trying to cut your throat.

More at Salon.com - h/t Joan Walsh

VIDEO - Al Franken shows how it's done

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) discussed his beliefs and goals about health care reform at the Minnesota State Fair Wednesday with a group of constituents, and calmed down some who were upset, giving clear, honest answers to thought-out, sincere questions.

HuffPo

Glenn Beck’s Next Target: Cass Sunstein

Beck told his followers to “FIND EVERYTHING YOU CAN ON CASS SUNSTEIN, MARK LLOYD AND CAROL BROWNER.” They are, respectively, the nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer of the FCC, and the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Browner was also administrator of the EPA for all eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

washingtonindependent.com

Taking the (Progressive) Movement Out of the Obama White House

Losing (Van Jones) as a voice in an Obama administration that is so mobbed up with corporate sycophants and political hacks is a real bummer.

David Sirota

How American Health Care Killed My Father

The most important single step we can take toward truly reforming our system is to move away from comprehensive health insurance as the single model for financing care. And a guiding principle of any reform should be to put the consumer, not the insurer or the government, at the center of the system.

David Goldhill - Atlantic Monthly

How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? - Paul Krugman

When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right.

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Who are Broderian anti-investigation journalists really protecting?

In one of the most drearily predictable media developments ever, David Broder today -- yet again -- joins in with an endless string of establishment pundits to demand that there be no investigations by the DOJ of war crimes and other felonies committed by the Bush administration. The one silver lining from all of this is that it has clarified a crucial political fact: most establishment "journalists" don't believe in the rule of law for political elites -- period. They believe high political officials should be able to break the law -- commit felonies -- and be immunized from legal consequences. To any reasonable observer, that is simply no longer in doubt.

Glenn Greenwald

Obama and the Drawbacks of Rahmism

Every mistake made by the Obama White House in the pursuit of health care reform can be traced to the political style and ideological prejudices of Mr. Emanuel, who has sought to intimidate progressives and empower conservatives, always in the name of winning elections and “getting things done.”

Joe Conason

Matt Tiabbi on Health Care Reform

America has not only the worst but the dumbest health care system in the developed world. It's become a black leprosy eating away at the American experiment — a bureaucracy so insipid and mean and illogical that even our darkest criminal minds wouldn't be equal to dreaming it up on purpose.

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A party is not a movement

The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive "movement" have yet to build a real movement, much less a successful one.

David Sirota, Salon.com

First Posting - Sat. Sept. 5, 2009

I begin this blog at the height of the madness: Summer of 2009, when the infotainment media has really dug deep into the idea that turning their cameras on the craziest of the extra-chromosome-set on the Right is the most efficient way to get eyeballs glued to TVs, making it ever easier to sell adult-diapers and pharmaceuticals and a great many things that you didn't know you couldn't live without. Is everybody happy?

I read something today at Salon.com that helped clarify my thinking about progressive politics. It was this by David Sirota, "The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive "movement" have yet to build a real movement, much less a successful one."

Like a lot of folks, I read many articles on the 'net that help me make sense of my world, and I am creating this blog more for myself than for anyone else, so as to have a central location for these articles.

The themes will include:
- progressive policy
- main-stream-media complicity in the present cluster-fudge
- our corporate-owned political system in the US
- the role of both Dems and Repubs in maintaining the status quo

Even before I cast a vote for him, I knew Obama was more centrist than progressive, but it seems that many people are only now coming to this realization. Better late than never. But just once before I die, how sweet would it be to cast a vote for a genuine progressive who had a real shot of winning the White House?