Washington v the Earth; Al Gore & the Swing Voter

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday October 12, 2007 · 9:26 AM PDT

2007/10/12 · 09:26

Michael Hirsch of "Newsweek" on The Young Turks continued the meme that in a fractionalized nation, we need a centrist; someone who can appeal to both sides. Cowpies! We need a stark bold choice so that the choice is simple.

Are we to choose life or death for humankind? Are we to continue with empire or turn or swing, if you will, back to democracy? Are we to choose a dominator model or a partnership model? Are we going to grow up and elect grown ups or are we going to stay caught in a "socialized consciousness" which concerns our own tribe and keep electing leaders with "moral autism", a phrase used by Catholic theologian, Daniel Maquire.

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday July 23, 2007 · 5:19 AM PDT

2007/07/23 · 05:19

When I first heard this phrase, I was puzzled. For me, it could easily be the other way around. But then I’ve always enjoyed opposites and contradictions; you know, turning something on its back and looking at its belly. Whether we use this phrase as a campaign guide or a life guide, I’ll stick with John Kenneth Galbraith in his distrust of conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdoms are "ideas esteemed for their acceptability." And accepting conventional wisdom takes the place of thinking for yourself or thinking things through. Let's not be lazy. Let's think this through.

Values unite? Aren’t values kind of personal? Aren’t they kind of individual and subjective? One man’s value is another man’s vice? And aren’t there different values for different families? One family’s Sabbath is another family’s Saturday?" Don’t different cultures have different values? One culture’s unclean pig is another culture’s barbecued ribs with a Cajun dry rub?

Issues on the other hand seem more objective and complex and hard to figure out. CAUTION: This could end up being a "Why I like John Edwards" essay even though it didn't start out that way.

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday July 11, 2007 · 5:11 AM PDT

2007/07/11 · 05:11

PT 2 in my series of "Edwards Fights Injustice"."It Keep Me Up At Night" Today we add food safety to the list of what makes us a community and keeps us safe and secure or as the old adage goes, "healthy, wealthy, and wise". And John Edwards yesterday takes on some of the biggest behemoths, big Agribusiness and big food importers. Super!

Yesterday, Senator John Edwards and Congresswoman Stephanie Hersheth Sandlin (D-S.D.) talked to reporters about food safety and their support for more and better inspection of imported food and of Senator Edwards support of the 2002 Bill which mandated Country of Origin Labeling(COOL) for beef,pork,lamb, fish, perishable agriculture commodities and peanuts. (The fish and seafood part has already been implemented.)

"It’s time to stop the delays and stop giving in to big agribusiness and food importers,"said Edwards. "We need to give Americans the information they need to choose the best, and safest, food for their families."

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday June 26, 2007 · 8:01 AM PDT

2007/06/26 · 08:01

I can connect the dots, can you? I always liked playing "connect the dots" as a child. That's why I like John Edwards. He takes away the confusion. Just connect the dots. John Edwards has a way of pulling back the curtain and showing the citizens how the system works and what we can do to take the power back of "we the people". He makes it clear while others are trying to make it complicated. They want John and Jean Q. Public to be so confused that they leave it to their Daddies and a few Mommies to fix it. We shouldn’t worry our pretty little or pointed heads about such things. But John Edwards plainly and simply is handing us the repair manual called "The Constitution" and the second "Bill of Rights" http://www.worldpolicy.org/...
that FDR wanted to enact and saying, "I can’t do this alone." "The strength of America is in this room," says his new ad. So let’s get ‘er done. http://www.johnedwards.com/...

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 21, 2007 · 5:47 AM PDT

2007/06/21 · 05:47

The Poor are Getting Poorer; In the Meantime, In Between Time, Aint We Got Fun....
I caught an interview with Matt Bai on "The Young Turks" on June 7. (You need a premium membership to listen to it). At the end of the interview Bai tells Cenk Uygur and Ben Mankowicz that he asked John Edwards if Edwards worried about making poverty the centerpiece of his campaign? What if Edwards lost the nomination? Would poverty then never be at the center of anyone’s campaign again for the next forty years? Edwards said, "It keeps me up at night."

"It keeps me up a night." Another phrase you hear over and over again from Edwards is "it just isn’t right". In an interview you can watch on youtube which was linked to the publishing of the article on poverty in last week’s Sunday Times, Bai again asks why Edwards is so concerned with poverty. He answers again, "It just feels wrong to me... Where does that desire come from, Bai asks? Edwards said that he "came from a humble background and "got lucky." Bai presses and asks whether it was because of the tragedy of losing his 16 year old son. Edwards pauses and says that in his whole career "I’m by instinct for the little guy."

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday June 12, 2007 · 7:30 AM PDT

2007/06/12 · 07:30

So here's where another ADHD confluence of ideas happened as I was reading Dean Baker's essay "Loser Liberalism versus Power Populism" and then listening to a podcast of Thom Hartmann Show from May 7th with guests David Korten (When Corporations rule the World, The Great Turning), Francis Moore Lappe (Democracy's Edge, Getting the Grip) and Tom Hayden (Ending the War in Iraq). Hayden and the others were attending the Praxis Peace Conference (From Empire to Global Community) in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He has been working on an idea and a frame about Machiavellians and Social Movements. He uses an "M" frame.

Social movements, he says, start on the Margins like the anti-Iraq War movement. Only a few people spoke out after 9/11 and some like Bill Maher were fired. But the communities of Meaning start forming. As they grow they become a movement and then they finally become the Majority that we are seeing now. When they achieve their goals, they then mostly disperse. Within social movements there are the radicals, for which there is never enough reform, and there is the rest of the movement that wants to achieve a reasonable goal. With Iraq, it would be to pull out the troops rather than end all wars for all time.

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday May 28, 2007 · 6:40 AM PDT

2007/05/28 · 06:40

Why are we here in the netroots and grassroots still fighting to get our troops out of Iraq? Why are we exhausted and hurt from the fight in Congress over the funding of this occupation? Why do we soldier on in the Democratic party?

Wait a minute! As much as we use the word "fight", most of us aren’t soldiers or Marines or sailors or airmen or airwomen and most of us aren’t fighting ‘em over here. Most of us aren’t fighting period.

No matter how exasperated or tired we get writing those letters to Congress and to the newspapers, it is nothing compared to the fighting, the stress, the terror that is going on daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. We aren’t putting our lives on the line although some days a bit of paranoia sets in when there is a clicking on my phone and I wonder if I’ll end up in Gitmo for calling Bush a petty punk despot with blood on his hands and shit for brains.

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday May 24, 2007 · 12:56 PM PDT

2007/05/24 · 12:56

(WARNING: I am an Edwards supporter but also am an Old Timey Democrat with some new fangled ideas.)

It’s time to call it a day. Time to pack it up and time to call in the divorce lawyers. It’s always been a troubled marriage and it looks like there are now irreconcilable differences due to way too much sleeping around. There used to be a bit more balance in the marriage and a much bigger allowance given to the people. Now we the people seem to be locked away in the attic like some dotty aunt or uncle. Nope, it’s time to break free.

I'm really sick of this term "moderate". Moderate is just a word for conservatives who are socially liberal and think the Republican Party is too whacky. They should take back that party and leave the party of FDR to those with the "Fighting Faith" that Galbraith talked about. Then we can just be friends and agree to disagree without all the baggage of trying to sleep in the same bed.

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday May 11, 2007 · 7:39 AM PDT

2007/05/11 · 07:39

Mythbusting Part One: Memoirs of a Muckraking Montana Maven
Today’s New York Times has the story of the gated community for the uber wealthy "The Yellowstone Club" in Big Sky, Montana. Further to the east, Montana can also "boast" eight of the ten poorest counties in the United States where the myth of an America "rich enough to give us all a farm" is coming to an end. The great divide isn’t the Continental one that cuts through Montana. It’s the increasingly huge divide between the uber rich and the rest of us.
While in the little town of Livingston, Montana, the charitable organization "Loaves and Fishes" serves 85 meals a day to the "working poor", other residents are flying in on private jets to fly fish where they shot "The River Runs Through It."
Take a quick peak at "A Ski Community Where There’s No Such Thing as Too Much" and then we will travel east through the colony that soon all America will be like.
http://select.nytimes.com/...

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday May 09, 2007 · 9:06 AM PDT

2007/05/09 · 09:06

I started out this morning writing a diary about how the American people were once again robbed of meaningful discussion on economic policy and transformational politics when John Edwards appeared on "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. But wouldn’t you know I was also trying to listen to The Young Turks on Air America.

Suddenly through the fog of early morning coffee and blogging I heard Ari Berman’s name and so I stopped typing and started listening. Ari was on talking about his new piece for "The Nation" called "Spinning Hillary Centrist." You can read the article at http://www.thenation.com/
and while you are there check out Thomas Palley's "The Flaws in Rubonomics".
Suddenly the two topics merged into one.

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday April 26, 2007 · 8:58 AM PDT

2007/04/26 · 08:58

For 6 long years we have had bullies in charge from Washington to our State Capitals to our Boardrooms to our workplaces to our neighborhood City Councils to our living rooms blaring at us from the TV and from our car radios. Instead of the wise men our founders envisioned, we got little Napoleons, bureaucratic bullies, crooks, and serial abusers. We've had debates about the kind of language that is appropriate on the airwaves and in our public discourse. We've had debates about Janet Jackson's breast and Imus' mouth. We've had debates about violence and where does it come from.

But, my friends, the answer is not censorship, it's leadership. My friends, "The fish stinks from the head" as my Daddy used to say. We have become a nation of weasels as Scott Adams would add. With weasels and crooks at the top in every authority position you get weasel and crooked behavior. If weasels are in power and making all the money, then weasel ways are what our youngsters learn to imitate and Tony Soprano is their role model. So if you tired of politicians and want a few statesmen or women, sit up and pay attention tonight in the debates.

Poll

75 votes Show Results

What kind of forum to you like best for looking at candidates?

75 votes Vote Now!

What kind of forum to you like best for looking at candidates?

Washington media asking questions of our candidates?

1 vote

A mixture of regional media asking questions of our candidates?

2 votes

Town Hall Style meetings where regular folks ask questions?

44 votes

Jon Stewart interviewing each candidate on Network TV?

19 votes

Lewis Black interviewing each candidate on Cable?

6 votes

Other

3 votes

Ready to Rumble or Rhumba? Edwards,Obama, & Hillary Choose Their Partners

MontanaMaven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday April 20, 2007 · 6:11 AM PDT

2007/04/20 · 06:11

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Harold Meyerson has a thought provoker about the Republican and Democratic primary candidates. It’s called "Democrats in Conflict, the GOP in Space" Meyerson on the 2008 Race

He starts out about a big Republican conundrum playing out on the campaign trail. He exams Mitt Romney who, besides having his varmint hunting credentials shred, has been reduced to pretending that he did not come up with a near universal heathcare plan in Massachusetts. He is now forced at fundraisers to put aside his pragmatic hands-across-the-aisle approach that worked well for him as Governor. Poor Mitt is trying hard to squeeze himself into extreme tight fitting ideologue pants that the increasingly far right wing Republican Party wants him to wear.

Newer
Older

RSS

Washington v the Earth; Al Gore & the Swing Voter

Update: Issues Divide. Values Unite. True? Or Time for a Grown-Up Campaign?

The Edwards' Campaign Gets COOL - And Moms (& Pops) Get a Hand

Can You Connect the Dots with Edwards? Why He's Fighting Back

It Keeps Me Up At Night; Edwards Tackles Injustice

Loser Liberalism, Power Populism, Machiavellians and Movements

The Young Soldier, The Whiskey and the Cigar: Attention Must Be Paid

Irreconcilable Differences--The Dems Need a Divorce

Welcome to the Colony of Montana ⎯Billionaires & Busted Dreams

Merging Wall Street with Main Street; Edwards v Clinton's Vision and Strategy

"The Fish Stinks From the Head" - The Debates

Ready to Rumble or Rhumba? Edwards,Obama, & Hillary Choose Their Partners