LisB: I agree. How could one choose? It's like
Sophie's Choice!

Bless you, my dear.

You know Orlando has this right. That is why those polls seem so ridiculous. What is your worst fear?

I would tell the pollster, death. Or Venereal Disease--the really really bad stuff. Or Cheney becoming president. If I was in a certain mood, I would say 'other'. I would be in that group that doesn't count.

Ten people are in a boat in a Squall and you are asked: which seven human beings do you wish to throw overboard?

What if my grandmother is from Guatamala and my other grandmother is from Norway and my two grandfathers are Jewish? If they ask me if I am Hispanic. I say yes? What if the multiple choice includes Hebrew. Do I say yes, yes?

Obama will bring in thousands of people into more than ten cabinet posts in a government that employs millions. They are going to be working on ALL THESE PROBLEMS. Hopefully they do no throw anyone overboard.

http://www.politico.com/ This did not work,

They just sent me note that a woman is being nominated by Obama as SEC Chairperson. I thought it kind of fit in here. Corporate theft is now reaching a real and significant percentage of our budget.

First woman ever!!!!

We have to pick three?!? That totally sucks! I have, like, fourteen! What the fuck? This is too hard!

I'm not a member of MoveOn. Ok, that's out of the way.

Few people who are familiar with me would be surprised that my first choice would be Restore civil liberties. The choices are kind of lame though, because of interconnectedness. Civil liberty implies Gay rights/LGBT equality.

Improving public schools necessarily includes increasing access to higher education.

Universal health care, building a green economy, and stopping climate change, could easily be at part of economic recovery & job creation. A problem with this is that MoveOn dot org members are unlikely to understand or be willing to exploit the free-market with proper incentives, and are much more likely to use draconian governmental forces to implement universal health care, and climate change initiatives. It's the flip-side of astro-turfing poseur libertarian tanks, that spew out denials, and screeds about socialism instead of actually producing workable policies that do not also tank the economy. Businesses, excepting of course medical insurance companies, will be willing to jump on the universal heal care plans, once they realise that by eliminating the middlemen, there will be enough left over for them to pocket or to use in capitalisation. Allowing corporations to use a future dollar valuation for present-day capitalisation which removes carbon emissions would go a long way towards carbon emissions mitigation. It is also a reasonable allowance, if one takes as a given the future price of carbon mitigation, after it has become even more imperative. What is removed now will not affect the future. To total war against the free-marketeers in these initiatives is to assure there will continue to be stupid either/or arguments, which will not advance these causes, but I don't expect either side to give in. I have hope that Obama, the pragmatist will be able to work through it. It's about thee carrot on the stick, and catching flies with honey. We need to transcend bipolar conflicts. This is what causes stalemates.

The war in Iraq is going to end for America soon. Iraq will not accept occupation much longer, and neither will the American people.

Reforming campaigns & elections? ROTFLMAO. You do realise we are talking about politicians, don't you? Do you actually believe the DNC is presently motivated to initiate campaign finance limitations after the recent election, and the monies which poured into the Obama camp, as well as the Democratic coffers? How much of that money was resultant from the efforts of MoveOn? Campaign finance reform is a non-starter. If you're worried about voting machines, look to my state, Nevada. The previous Secretary of State, when faced with the problem, went to the state Gaming Control geeks to assure the validity of the voting machines. What agency in America is better suited to assure an honest count from an electronic device? Nevada had a hard-paper count from the git, printed onto a continuous roll, that every voter must affirm they have verified before their vote is completed. The printed paper then rolls up onto the roll in full view of the voter. There is an electronic count, verifiable with a separate paper audit system. It takes great effort to undervote on them. The machines query twice to assure that is the voter's intent. Overvotes are impossible. I have more confidence in our present voting machines' veracity than I did with the previous punch cards, or the stupid lever booths before that. Nevada's early voting system has worked remarkably well. Other states could learn good lessons from us.

Holding the Bush Administration accountable will end up being largely a task of history, unfortunately. The task must be to document and to remember, to not let it be spun into deceptions and lies. What has been cannot be changed, but the future awaits.

Stepped over from MM's for a minute.

The first four on the list are all different facets of the same thing. Yes, even stopping that damnable war is part of getting us moving toward putting our socioeconomic house in order. The cost in blood is horrible, and it is also a double drag on our economy. (For a bit of insight into my thought processes, I maintain we live in a society, not an economy - we need a healthy economy, we just can't mistake it for everything.)

Gay/LGBT issues are part of civil rights and liberties overall. I know breaking them out is appealing, and yet - think about this one - at some point we have to stop having "them over there" having equal rights, and get everyone in here all at once under the same roof. Utopian? Maybe. I'll take the heat - I'm a big kid.

And education overall needs a lot of work. Enough so that I'm not even going to suggest it - really, it needs its own discussion.

And you know what? If we can manage real improvement on those things, I think "accountability" for Bush, Cheney, etc. can wait a while. Sweet as it might be to lock them up, there are more pressing things in front of us at the moment.

Oh yes, and all that torrent of words despite the fact that I walked away from MoveOn some years before their too-clever-by-half "Gen. Betray Us" advert. They just don't do it for me. Then again, neither do most "organizations" - guess I'm just more of a vagabond or something.

See you back over there...

Economic recovery. Only because of the time element. Doing the right thing on January 23rd instead of a month later could be the difference between a 12 month Recession and a several years long Depression.

Put another way between 2 million US unemployed for a year or 100 million starving world wide for five.

I long for the new Congress to take their two weeks head start and pass the legislation so that Obama can sign it the morning after the Inaugeral Ball.

(I'd love to see a video of Michelle and Obama dancing)

All the other things on the list can be done in February !

Priority #1? I want more shoes. To play Miguelito's game with.