Bhoener and McConnell, give up, you’re fighting a lost cause

The following is an open letter written in response to the speeches given by the Republican minority party leaders in Congress, Rep. John Boehner  and Sen. Mitch McConnell, on Friday, Feb. 27, at CPAC 2009 held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.  Both speeches were broadcast on CSPAN and the video archive can be seen here.

Dear U.S. Representative and Republican Minority Leader John Boehner
& Senator and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

I write to inform you that you are fighting a lost cause. In your “rousing” speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference today, Feb. 27, you showed you still hold the flame for that zealous right-wing idealism. Good for you, but I’ve got news for you: The Republican party will never reclaim power in this country. At least not if the 35-and-under set has anything to do with it.

Republicans ran this country for eight years and during that time

Softening my tone for the new year

In an effort to soften the tone of my blog, I have posted this fine work of art, created by moi at coulorboxonline.com.

Created at ColourBoxOnline.com

Tune in next week for the sodoku, crossword puzzle, pull out ads, and dashes of right-wing-nut columnist posing as legitimate commentary….

Things to look forward to in 2009

The new year has arrived and change is in the air. To kick things off, let’s take a moment to imagine what we can look forward to:

• A broad shift toward center-left socio-political values
  After George W. Bush took office in 2000, we saw a societal shift toward right and far right values. We can expect a similar shift back to a more comfortable center-left after Barack Obama takes office on January 20. The hopes of many core Obama campaign activists for a full shift to left and

The Republicans will lose on November 4

This is my prediction for Tuesday’s election — the Republican Party will lose control of the White House and lose more seats in Congress. Why? Because they abused their power at the expense of the common good and Americans are furious about the outcomes:

1) Failure to protect the United States from the terroristic acts of Sept. 11, 2001.

2) Failure to capture and bring to justice the primary suspect behind those terroristic acts, Osama Bin Laden.

3) Passage of the U.S. Patriot Act I and U.S. Patriot Act II, stripping several of our civil rights including the right to privacy and right to a fair trial.

4) Invading two sovereign nations, Afghanistan and Iraq, allegedly in response to 9-11, at the costs of hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives, and much good will from our allies.

Just say no to giving away $700 billion to Corporate America

After hearing the news that U.S. Congress has reached a tentative agreement on a $700 billion bailout of the subprime industry and they will probably vote on it Monday morning, I felt compelled to send this email to Representative Keith Ellison (D-MNCD5), Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)  and (in futility since he always votes with his party’s president and will probably lose in November because of it) Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN). Feel free to use this text as a starting point to express your concerns about the U.S. spending $700 billion it doesn’t have to bailout corporate “greed heads:”

Please vote no on the $700 Billion bailout plan to buy mortgage securities from private companies. This is not an appropriate way to utilize public dollars for the public good as the money will primarily benefit the wealthy CEOs and middle managers who caused this financial crisis in the first place.

All of the Twin Cities residents I’ve heard talking about the “bail out” plan have had nothing good to say about it — and many, like my self, suspect it is being orchestrated by the subprime securities industry to prevent them from experiencing the downside of the foolish risks they’ve taken.

Vote no on the bail out and tell Corporate America that it needs to face the consequences of its actions.

I’ll be posting Amy, Keith and Norm’s responses as they come in.

A way to make tonight’s big debate even bigger

Tonight’s presidential debate could be way more interesting if McCain isn’t there. The absence of the Republican nominee would clear the way for a more diverse representation of U.S. political philosophy — that is, a debate amongst the Democratic nominee and the nominees of at least three minor parties.

Presidential debates in the U.S. are usually carefully orchestrated by the leadership of the Democrat and Republican parties to exclude all other political parties in the country. Their reasoning? They say it’s justified because they are the most popular (or “largest,” “most powerful,” “most bankrolled by lobbyists and corporations”) parties

The economy is collapsing–oh my!

What are we to think when the U.S. Government, the strong arm behind countless privatization schemes around the world, decides to “bail out” one of its largest private lenders, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, then proceeds to make gigantic public loans to even more corporations? In the realm of the laissez-faire capitalism promoted regularly by the neo-con right and the centrist left, it means we’ve gone “Commie.”

I don’t know about anyone else, but personally, I’m sick and tired of the CEOs of America

Quote: Avoiding false and dangerous notions

When former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of himself and the United Nations in 2001, he gave a remarkable speech.  In that speech delivered on December 10 — just a few short months after the World Trade Center was destroyed by extremists — he said:

Each of us has the right to take pride in our particular faith or heritage. But the notion that what is ours is necessarily in conflict with what is theirs is both false and dangerous. It has resulted in endless enmity and conflict, leading men to commit the greatest of crimes in the name of a higher power.

Even though this part of his address was discussing the need for greater acceptance and understanding across religious boundaries, it certainly could be applied to other realms of belief and lines of division such as those found in politics, nationalism, academia, race, philosophy… you name it.

Avoiding the “false and dangerous” notions Annan described six and a half years ago sure would go a long way toward opening paths humanity could  take in overcoming its most pressing present and future challenges.

Read Kofi Annan’s entire Nobel Lecture at NobelPrize.org