Barak's cool. Aura of mystery. Not bad on the eyes. We've been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt. So? Does that mean that we the People play the dupes for four years while he plays king? The People (not the Spectators) in a recently touted recovering democracy need to cast off eight Busholini years of learned helplessness and begin to growl big. Grrrrrr.

 

Off to clean closets, fellow blogmates, how about you?

 

Happy Sunday,

Tish

He called the sun a great musical instrument.

Using around-the-clock daylight in the Antarctic summer to make relatively impossible high altitude solar studies, he gathered data confirming that our very sun oscillates every five minutes, rather like a bell.  Once a Syracuse journalism student, he changed his major to science after taking a "physics for poets" class.  He passed away last month at age 91, leaving behind a research facility at the South Pole. 

Following are a few favorite lines of mine, fellow blogmates, in celebration of a life that fostered inquiry: astronomy in Antarctica.  

Wishing heaven's endless embrace upon the dear soul of astrophysicist Dr. Martin Pomerantz.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Cloths of Heaven

William Butler Yeats

 

Greetings, fellow blogmates,

      I received an email from impeachment guru David Swanson today, and have info to pass on.  On November 19, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance is planning a protest at the U.S. Justice Department. Its members are willing to risk going to jail to urge the indictment of Bush and Cheney for war crimes.  David is appealing to all of us to contact the Justice Department to urge Attorney General Mukasey to meet with the NCRC.

 

Actionist reminder: November 10: phone the DOJ at 202-514-2000 and 202-353-1555.

 

Best impeachment wishes,

Tish

 

Greetings, Fellow Blogmates,
     We just returned stateside from a month in San Miguel de Allende to be greeted with the news that DK may be, at last, receiving  some encouragement from Pelosi this time. Having written on the impeachment trail in this blog from September, 2006, to September, 2007, I feel simultaneously encouraged yet wary of this latest MSM report. What have you learned? How goes  your summer?
     Best impeachment wishes, as ever, looking forward,
     Tish

Sunday greets, fellow blogmates,
     Just an open thread to gather in any stray peeps. Stop by and share your experiences when you get your reset.
     (signed)
     Still Here
     
"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first."

[On retiring young in San Miguel de Allende]

Let's live before we die, fellow blogmates. And make love in second languages.

Béseme.

Abráceme.

Kisses. Embraces.  Long-favored gifts interchanged among the poor. No wrapping papers needed: they wrap around each other. Passion rewards a boy with a dance, a salsa.  They turn, his soul turned sweet in her arms.  Ponga las manos en la cintura.

He's going to live before he dies. He puts his hands up and down her waist, finds the place he wants, one where he's always belonged.  They're beginning to move through space again now, another dance inventing.  

Ponga las manos en la cintura.

I guess I must be devolving into a romance writer, fellow blogmates.  I suppose I'll have to try to make the best use whatever I've got left -- as some of you may know, I lost my wits and can't seem to find them.  Actually, I'm down to one wit and I'm offering it to you now because it is all I have to give. (In the immortal words of Yeats, tread lightly, for you tread on my dreams). 

You know you're smitten  . . .when it feels like the end of the world when The Person doesn't telephone you.  Your inner Wise Guy reminds you that you just spoke to them a few hours ago. You blush privately, feeling sheepish, but still loving how warm all the embarrassment feels inside your body. 

You know you're smitten when, pretending to be a grown up, you try to approach your monthly stack of bills and paperwork at your desk at home. You cling to your coffee mug with both hands for support, and for a goodly while, and, finally, you manage to clear your throat and sit up a little straighter.  Breathing deeply, you drop the first paper ceremoniously into a file, suddenly retrieving it. You realize that you have forgotten whether you are supposed to pay that bill, file it, or dispute it.  Your inner Wise Guy reminds you that you paid it twice, because you were smitten last month also. You swoon at your own idiocy, unable to recover from the latest lapse into reverie.

You know you're smitten when you wake up every single morning thinking about The Person.  Feeling adolescent at midlife, you vow to begin your day more maturely. Next morning, when They fail to appear before you in a vision at dawn, you feel betrayed, unworthy, un-ready to face the day without them.  Your inner Wise Guy reminds you that it was your idea to start your day without The Person in mind -- that you purposely and forcibly drove them off the front and center of your mental stage. You well up with tears at the truth of that revelation, begging The Person interiorly to forgive you, to come back, to never leave you again.

You know you're smitten when you forgive your worst nemesis at work.  At the meeting, when you usually challenge his boxers off, you say, "You know, that's a great point, Don -- I'll sign off on it.  BTW, I would love to attend your daughter's ballet recital."  Your colleagues explode with laughter, thinking you must be joking -- at the very least in "Christmas/holiday" mode.  

You know you're smitten when you converse aloud to The Person in your car, pretending that They are in the passenger's seat of your vehicle (placing your handbag in the back, to make room for them next to you).  It gets so bad that this morning you find yourself getting into the passenger seat yourself.  It becomes apparent after a few minutes of the car not moving a single millimeter that you had dreamily assumed that they would be driving today.

You know you're smitten when you write a blog post on the State of Your Heart-- a self mocking cry for help or commiseration. Your fellow blog mates hopefully sense that you're very sorry that you can't seem to write much politically these days -- your head seems to have turned to marshmallow.

Bowing your head, you hope that they will please kindly forgive you when they become aware -- when they come to realize -- at last, when they fully know . . . that you are smitten.   

It  can be a spiritual time of year for some of us, fellow blogmates -- for me the birth of Jesus. It can also be a time of union and reunion, getting home (flying standby), going home (hitchhiking the PA turnpike)-- being at home (cooking up a storm, wining and dining the inlaws, the inmates and the in-towners and, yes, our itinerant grandmothers and eternal kids).

 Then also, it can be a sensual and sexy season for loving our intimates -- for me, a special person -- and for you, whoever it may be, remember, friends, love unexpressed dies, so love them.

Let them know, don't hold back. Phone them, flower them, hug and kiss them til the cows come home, apologize, propose, set the date, make it right, hold them tight.  You don't want to be lonely ... tonight. 

Love, Tish xo

Bansky

Big Lies that You Must Believe

Michael Collins
Washington, D.C.

Because if you don't, the whole scam may fall apart.

In the first two parts of this ongoing series on The Money Party, we discussed the fact that there is only one political party in the United States, The Money Party. It has two wings, Republican and Democratic. That party represents excessive concentrations of wealth in the hands of corporations, other organizations, and individuals. They put up the money and get what they pay for every time.

They make sure that the election system is rigged to rely on money like a junkie relies on heroin. The system takes care of them. They don't have to obey the same rules that we do. Why? Because they're above the law.

The Money Party owns the mainstream media entirely. NBC is really General Electric, ABC is Disney, CBS was Viacom but now it's just the name for a mega-corporation, and Fox is News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch financial empire. That's why it's called the corporate media. They're publicity shops, "corporate communications divisions," owned and controlled by Money Party members.

Their job is to emulate George Orwell's "1984" by generating meaningless concepts that bind us to false choices.

It's a series of interconnected lies. Let's look at some of the key lies that we must believe to keep them in power.

Big lie 1: "We're the world's leading democracy." Not since Bush-Cheney took over. We're dropping fast. Maybe it has something to do with the Patriot Act and all that illegal wire tapping of U.S. citizens? Maybe it has something to do with a Congress that does nothing to stop an out of control president. Ratings on democracy show us behind 14 other countries.

Big lie 2: "Just let the markets handle it. The free enterprise system will work it out." This is supposed to appeal to our love of capitalism. Well, we don't have capitalism in the United States.

We have socialism for the rich and survival of the fittest for the rest of us.

When you hear about the wisdom of "the markets," you know that The Money Party is attacking some new law or regulation that might give us an equal footing and create real competition. The party can't stand free enterprise because it won't play any game that it might lose. Count on it. NAFTA - just let the markets handle it. Health care – it's the market at your service. Pollution – you guessed correctly, it's a "market thing. "We wouldn't understand." Dumping mercury in the Great Lakes, it all makes sense to the party.

Big lie 3: "There are two sides to every issue." Does that have anything to do with two parties? Where in the world did this come from? Who knows? But the corporate media rides this one into the ground.

Take climate change for example. Two sides, really? Well just about every respectable scientist in the world, at least those who get published in real science journals, says climate change is real, it's man made, and it's dangerous. The explanations are varied (many sided) but there's only one side of the larger issue if you want your children to survive. Climate change is a very real, scary deal. We're all threatened. But a correction might hurt their short term profits. As a result, the dangerous lies persist brought to you by The Money Party "communications divisions."

Big lie 4: "The federal government just screws everything up." Oh, like going to the moon, developing the internet, and providing health insurance (Medicare) for many times less overhead than private health insurance companies. The Money Party hates the government with a passion when it serves the general public. But when the federal government fixes competition so that only big money wins, when it ignores problems that might require some sacrifice, and when it prolongs a war for profits, the federal government is their best friend.

It's not a conspiracy. It's just what they do, what they've always done…further their own interests at our expense. There used to be some restraint to maintain appearances but the Money Party is now on steroids.

When you see some corporate news reader cock his or her head to deliver a "gem of wisdom," count on it to be a big fat lie, one that's essential to justify the theft of our well being for the interests of a very few, their bosses. They don't care because they don't have to. We're the ultimate donors to The Money Party through our hard work, time, and taxes.

The Money Party thinks that they own the country, they know that they own most of the politicians, and they're 100% sure that they know what we need to believe. These are just a few of the big lies that we hear all the time from the usual suspects. It's time to wake up, call their bluff, and take the country back.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

George Orwell

ENDS

Previously:
The Money Party – The Essence of Our Political Troubles
The Money Party (2) – Why We Get Such Lousy Leaders and How to Get Rid of Them

Permission to reproduce in whole or part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

Here's a tiny slice of my life for you, fellow blogmates, with thankful wishes for all of your kindness during my first year as a blogger. Wishing you were here with me in California ...

Especially charming in the stillness of early evening are the sounds of sweet strings traveling from the stereo and drifting out my screen door, filling the trees and the airs around me with song. And in the air song mixes with jasmine. I have become an especially mindless breed of aquatic creature now, after swimming two miles to make up for the mile I missed yesterday. And my pleasure is simply to sink --and to sink deeply-- into the hottest hot water I can bear without burning up or dying young. 

Incapable of speech or motion, except the sinking, the slow lowering down now of the entire body and being into the water: 103 sensuously perfect and glorious degrees of bubbling hot spa waters envelop me ...I am completely submerged, except my face and one hand.  Yes, one hand. The hand that supports a stem glass of an ice cold blended -- on and over rocks -- tropical admixture of my own design ... secret: cherry grenadine, fruit juices, freshly squeezed, and one tequila ice cube, a flotilla of frozen grapes and more secrets ...Taking a small sip and then another, I  feel a lightness and a sweetness flood over me. It's a primordial sweetness, older than words. 

I just received word, fellow blogmates, that the amount of land  that has burned here, thus far, is two times the area of the State of New York.

A report on my personal situation appears here at Glenn's blog. Thank you for your emails and support,

Tish in California

Updates in comments.

Why bother to redress government by emailing our Congressional senators and representatives on Constitution Day, September 17th?  What’s the big deal, fellow blogmates?

For one thing, the media isn’t getting the human costs of the Iraq occupation right – and I mean costs to Americans, to say nothing of Iraqis.

Continuing with my daily briefings for Redress Day, I want you to please understand that it is vital for us to email our representatives that the United States military occupation forces in Iraq have suffered a total of 60,947 casualties to date. That’s right. The media misdirects public attention away from the actual costs in American life and limb by habitually reporting “only” the total killed – 3774 as of September 11.  They rarely mention the 27,848 wounded in combat.  That brings the total killed or wounded by hostile causes to 31,622.

But there is more. The costs are actually far greater, if you include what the Pentagon categorizes as “non-hostile causes.”

Let’s do the math for Congress on Redress Day:      

31,622 killed or wounded by “hostile” causes

29,325 dead and injured from “non-hostile” causes

60,947

I will be emailing my representatives on Redress Day because I want them to get the math straight, once and for all.  Isn’t that the very least that Congresspersons who sent these brave Americans into harm’s way can do? I want Congress to get it straight and I want them to take responsibility for their actions.  Theirs is the power to declare and to fund war, and ours is the responsibility to redress them when they fail to carry out our will as The People.

A personal parting thought for today, from my heart: I have set before you 60,947 reasons to participate in Redress Day, friends. Each is a precious life, each now ended or partially destroyed, most with families devastated --or minimally, at risk. I am just one American, like you.  I don’t want this done in my name, do you? In my case, I am the daughter of a World War II Army lieutenant.  I come from generations of veterans on both sides of my family who served with distinction.  As one citizen, I will demand that Congress get the numbers right. I will demand that Congress do the math correctly, and I will demand that Congress do the right things.  I want them to stop this pain, to stop this death, and to stop this destruction.  I want them to hold the executive branch to the highest account.  It is within the power of Congress to do so. It is within our power to give them those orders, as sovereign citizens under the U.S. Constitution.

Best wishes for successful redress,

Tish

....Dean discussed the important role faith and morality play in defining the issues most important to the Democratic Party, as well as the work people of faith do every day to address the problems facing our country and planet, including reconstruction...after Hurricane Katrina and the global crisis of HIV/AIDS....Dean spoke of the work Democrats in Congress are doing on behalf of African American families to make our country stronger and the importance of electing a Democratic president next year to change course in Iraq....

cont. @ DNC press release from Sept. 6, 2007.

Continuing my daily informational briefings about our upcoming September 17th Redress Day,  fellow blogmates,  one of our early brainstorms came by way of Morgan Pardee.  Morgan suggested that, in addition to emailing individual Congressional representatives demanding executive accountability, we also contact editors of newspapers serving the constituents of key Republican senators who are "blocking this Democratic Congress from exercising the will of the majority of Americans who do not support this administration, otherwise known as We the People."

Morgan has generously researched and provided our Redress Day campaign with the following  list of personal e-mail addresses of executive editors of newspapers serving the largest cities in Red States.  She obtained them from each newspaper's website.  She has submitted them to us, with the following stipulations:

Because using personal e-mail addresses is a guerilla tactic, I submit them with a few rules of common courtesy:

1. No profanity, threats or vitriolic diatribes. Politley, state your message in as few words as possible. We are trying to persuade, not assault. Keep your message positive; vent your spleen elsewhere.

2. Copy and paste the list into a word processing program on your computer and compose individual e-mail messages with this suggested subject line: "Sen. (name here) Needs to Support the Troops" or "Sen. (name) Needs to Protect Our Justice Department."

3. Do not embed website addresses -- even TPMCafe's -- in the body text; spam blocker software will catch these and bounce your e-mail back out faster than you can say, "oops!"

4. Do not forward these addresses to other web sites. If you want to share these addresses, refer them back to this web site -- help give TPMCafe the exposure.   

-- Morgan

 A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
            -- Mohandas Gandhi

Following is Morgan's list of the newspaper editors to email on -- and about -- our September 17th Redress Day, which falls on a Federal holiday known as both Constitution Day and  Citizenship Day:

Republican Members of the Armed Services Committee
McCain: newstips@evtrib.com;
Warner: karen.trout@roanoke.com;
Inhofe: aherzberger@opubco.com;
Sessions: tscarritt@bhamnews.com;
Collins: mainevoices@pressherald.com;
Ensign: brian@lasvegassun.com;
Chambliss: jdwallace@ajc.com;
Graham: mlett@thestate.com;
Dole: ewilliams@charlotteobserver.com;
Cornyn: viewpoints@chron.com;
Thune: rabeck@argusleader.com;
Martinez: agyllenhaal@MiamiHerald.com

Republican Members Who Voted AGAINST the Troops Miminum Rest Period Between Deployments
Grassley: cwashbur@dmreg.com;
Hatch: fitz@sltrib.com;
Hutchison: letters@star-telegram.com;
Kyl: jripley@evtrib.com;
Lott: ragnew@clarionledger.com;
Lugar: scott.thien@indystar.com;
McConnell: bivory@courier-journal.com;
Roberts: schisenhall@wichitaeagle.com;
Shelby: tscarritt@bhamnews.com;
Specter: bmarimow@phillynews.com

Also:
Lieberman (CT): schrepf@courant.com

Viviane has graciously added the following email addresses to our Redress Day bank of newspaper editors:

Salt Lake Tribune

1.        Tim Fitzpatrick, managing editor (fitz AT sltrib.com)

2.        Lisa Carricabura, assistant managing editor (lisac@)

 3.        Tom Baden, executive editor (tbaden@)

4.        Dan Harrie, government editor (dharrie@)

Deseret News

1.        Joseph A. Cannon (cannon AT desnews.com)

 2.        Rick Hall, managing editor (rhall@)

 3.        Jim Wall, publisher (jmwall@)

Blogging actionists,  please feel free to contribute your own contacts  to our email address bank in the form of comments here -- or, simply email me at the Cafe with your lists and strategies. As always, I look  forward to your participation and updates. 

Best wishes for Redress Success,

Tish

Fellow savants, esteemed colleagues, beloved blogmates:

Our Redress Day, September 17th, is Constitution Day, also known as Citizen Day. Federal law now requires educational institutions that receive federal funds to hold an "educational program" on the Constitution. To assist you, we are providing an easy way to get compliance done. Simply give the handy quiz below to everyone on your campus — students, professors, administrators, staff, even members of the hockey team — and happily avoid the suspension of millions of dollars of federal research money. Plus, all of you office jockeys are welcome to set up "universities without walls" and "satellite campuses" for just this occasion!  

While you are complying with federal rules and regs, be sure to invite all of your quiz takers to participate in our Redress Day campaign, and give bonus points for attaching a hard copy of their emails to the quiz and sharing their letters in classes and at other erudite gatherings.  Here's how it works: On September 17th  encourage quiz takers to exercise their constitutional rights, as citizens, to redress the U.S. government by emailing letters, in their own words, to individual Congress members, demanding executive accountability.  Provide the following  link so that your participants can easily look up their Congress members' email addresses:

  Congressional E-Mail Directory 

The Quiz

1. In the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Congress suspended the writ of habeas corpus for alien enemy combatants detained at Guantánamo Bay. The Constitution, however, stipulates that Congress can suspend the writ only "in cases of rebellion or invasion." We can therefore conclude:

a.       We have been invaded.

b.      We are in the midst of a rebellion (against the government, not against the Constitution itself).

c.       The Military Commissions Act is unconstitutional.

d.      The Constitution does not protect evil suspects.

e.       The founding fathers intended to make an exception for Gitmo.

~~~

2. The Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights establishes:

a.       The NRA.

b.      An unconditional right of all Americans to wear tank tops.

c.       A conditional right to bear arms in the interest of collective security.

d.      A personal right of each individual to own, carry, and use weaponry of unlimited lethality in all public places (besides airports and the White House).

~~~

3. The Bush administration's capacious understanding of its powers is based on a controversial idea known as the theory of the unitary executive. According to this theory, the executive enjoys the power to:

a.       Order all 3.2 million members of the executive branch to treat Congressional subpoenas as an unconstitutional violation of executive privilege and so to ignore them.

b.      Order the Justice Department to quash contempt proceedings brought against any of the 3.2 million members of the executive branch who cite executive privilege as reason to ignore Congressional subpoenas.

c.       Ignore indictments of members of the Justice Department who quash contempt proceedings against those members of the executive branch who ignore Congressional subpoenas.

d.      Wear a crown, carry a mace, and dress in ermine.

e.       All of the above.

~~~

4. The Constitution establishes the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Vice President Dick Cheney has recently argued that the vice president is not a member of the executive branch. It follows from this that:

a.       The president is likewise not a member of the executive branch.

b.      The vice president belongs to a fourth, hitherto unknown branch of government, the existence of which can be neither confirmed nor denied lest it compromise national security.

c.       The theory of checks and balances refers to banking practices.

d.      Vice President Cheney was inadvertently referring to the Iraqi Constitution.

e. Vice President Cheney has not been taking his annual Constitution Day quizzes.

~~~

Answer key available upon submission of a comment to our Redress Day Idea Bank.

*winks* 

More soon, Tish

With thanks to our colleagues over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, especially quiz item contributors Lawrence Douglas, professor of law, jurisprudence, and social thought at Amherst College and Alexander George,  professor of philosophy, also at Amherst.