The feeling's mutual, assholes

Yeah, yeah, it's been awhile. And there's been, like, fifty bazillion topics I could be posting about, all of them something that would have an equal probability of making my head explode. But you know, life happens sometimes and I just haven't had the time.

But for whatever reason, I have time to post a quickie. Let's file this under "I goddamn hate these fucking bastards"

excerpted from Bush's 41-Second Flip Off to America posted at Daily Kos:

...And lo and behold, the Daily Digest reports a 41-second pro forma Senate session, from 12:00:04 PM to 12:00:45 P.M., on that date. The Senate convened, immediately adjourned and thus began a "recess in the middle of the session," not meeting again until January 18, 2006.

The day following the less-than-a-minute convening, of course, Bush made his recess appointments—now officially during a session of Congress—which allowed his eminently rejectable appointees to complete the "balance of the session in progress plus the full length of the session that follows." Meaning we’re stuck with this gang of uncomfirmable, incompetent, unqualified losers for an extra year....

In light of everything else that's been going on, it's just one small drop in the bucket of evil awfulness. They pull shit like this ALL. THE. TIME. I don't know why this just happened to piss me off particularly more today than all the other crap they do. It's just a perfect example of exactly how much utter, arrogant disdain this President, this Administration, and this Party have for our country and its principles. As the poster's title says, this was nothing but a great big "fuck you" to the American people. This is what they think of me and you. This is how much respect they have for us.

"The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly."

In the summer of 2003, I was still trying to recover from the 2000 election, still trying to courageously soldier on as the reality sunk in that Al Gore, my Alternate Universe Boyfriend, had decided to step out of politics, still trying to recover from the loss of another Possible-Alternate Universe Boyfriend, Paul Wellstone. I was finally going out again, accepting invitations from John Kerry and politely rejecting Dick Gephardt's advances and sometimes flirting with that charming tease, Wes Clark. By the end of the summer, I'd begun a rebound relationship with Howard Dean but we weren't serious and I was free to see other people. Howard's real understanding like that.

In August 2003, I happened to catch John Edwards giving his "Two Americas" speech TV -- CSPAN, I think, or maybe on public access at a local event -- and my populist-loving heart went pitter patter. I was still being courted by Dean at that point, and indeed, we were getting pretty serious by October of that year, but I just couldn't commit myself to a monogamous relationship -- that John Edwards fellow, there was just something about him. And then I saw an interview with John and his delightful wife Elizabeth and they had me at "this country rewards wealth, not work". I've been an Edwards girl ever since.

Since the 2004 election, he's chosen to focus his attention, his hard work, and his considerable talents on one of the knottiest, least popular topics in American politics today: poverty. There's no special interest money to made in advocating for the poor. The poor don't have PACs that can raise millions of dollars for your Presidential campaign and the solutions to their problems require more than just throwing lots of money at them. Worse, the poor have some of the lowest voting percentages of any voter demographic.

But there are 16 million Americans living in severe poverty. Sixteen. Million. That's not a crisis, people, that's a fucking travesty. And that's not poverty, that's "severe" poverty -- less than $5,080/year for an individual, less than $9,903/year for a family of four with two children. Think about those numbers. Think about what it means that this, the richest country in the world, with wealth that surpasses our ability to imagine it, has over 13% of its total population living in poverty and 5.69% of its total population isn't just living in poverty, but is living at half the federally-defined poverty level, on an income $423 per month. Although we can hardly call that living, can we? It's barely surviving and some days, it's not even doing that much.

In an age when corporate profits and CEO pay is skyrocketing and the nation's fraction of a fraction of the wealthiest are getting obscene tax cuts, the fact that the number of people falling into severe poverty increased 26% from 2000 to 2005 is buried somewhere on page 17 of the paper, if it gets mentioned at all. This is not the kind of headline-grabbing issue that's sure to make you a darling of the punditry and beltway media in the race for the presidency.

And yet, John Edwards has made this his signature issue. Not only that, he's embraced a related issue that doesn't make you popular with those big companies signing checks: labor. Since my own strong feelings about labor go without saying, I'll instead quote Edwards' campaign manager, David Bonior:

"I haven't seen someone as a national figure do as much on workers' rights and poverty in my lifetime. That includes Bobby Kennedy and people in politics in the ‘60s. He helped organize people in probably 85 different actions, from hotel workers to university janitors to people who work in buildings and factories. He was out there demonstrating, marching, picketing, writing letters to CEOs, demanding that [workers] have the right to organize and represent themselves. He started a center on poverty and became the director at the University of North Carolina. He traveled the country and was a leader in getting a minimum-wage bill passed in eight states."

His championing of the unionizing efforts of hotel workers' in Nevada and tireless work on their behalf has practically guaranteed that state's electoral votes are his, and he's the front runner in the crucial state of Iowa, where working class families have been particularly hard hit. And lest we forget, he made his announcement that he was running in 2008 during a week of working in the Ninth Ward.

Elizabeth has been right there with him every step of the way. She's brilliant, incisive, quick, funny, and one hell of a campaigner. In fact, it's an open secret that people would be as thrilled if she were running instead of her husband. And how can you not completely fall in love with her for this:

Do you find it hard to play the role of the submissive wife?

I didn't know I was.

and this:

What do you think of the title Second Lady of the United States, which sounds so matronly?

It's better than the acronym, which is SLOTUS. That sounds like something that lives under a rock.

So you know where this is leading. Today's news...I cried all the way to work this morning, wondering what they were going to announce at the press conference. It seemed pretty certain that her cancer was back, and the rumors were flying fast and furious that they were going to announce the campaign was over. I don't know which upset me more: that John Edwards might be stepping out of the race or that Elizabeth Edwards' cancer had come back.

Well, the miracle I was hoping for -- that her cancer hadn't returned -- didn't come. But the John and Elizabeth I know and love made an appearance and they're going to fight this thing even as they continue their fight for this country, for you and me. I suspect, as Jane does, that the decision to continue was entirely Elizabeth's. Or as Ezra said:

"There's a sort of subtle insinuation that sick people should crawl back into their caves and stay there till they either die or get better. But when you hear the Edwards's discuss the idea that her cancer is now incurable, that it's not something she will get better from and so not something where they can hit pause, wait for it to pass, and then resume their lives, you have to think that the question they're asking themselves is not how can Elizabeth best get well, but how would they like to spend the rest of their years. And knowing her even casually, I'm not surprised to learn the answer is 'fighting'."

In light of that, how can we not do the same?

So in that spirit, I'm redoubling my own efforts, beginning with two donations: one to the campaign, one to the search for a cure. Because 16 million people in this country are barely surviving. Because more than twice that number are barely getting by. Because Elizabeth Edwards isn't going to let a piddly thing like chemotherapy stop her from campaigning. Because she's talking about living many years. Because she and her husband have committed this precious time, whether they're her last or only a few of many to come, to fighting for you and for me.

meta me

Apparently, because I have many other things I should be doing, it was time to change the template header to one that I made.

I liked the general design of the header that came with this template, but none of the individual elements applied to me. So I basically copied the header they supplied but substituted elements that are more meaningful to me. Because this is a political blog, and it's my political blog, and I'm all about the symbolism and shit so that's why. And here's where I get all meta, so if you're all, "whatever, I have a life, buh-bye"...yeah, the regularly-scheduled political blogging will commence shortly sometime so skip this if it's not your bag.

Okay, and so. Here's the old header, for reference:

(you can see the big picture (ha!) here )

So the #17 didn't mean anything to me, and the text that you can't read probably didn't mean anything to me, either. The landscape is pretty but I don't know where it was taken and the image of the road says a lot of things that I don't agree with so that had to go, also.

I kept the map portion because I'm a HUGE map junkie and it's close enough to a MAX route map that I'm okay with it. I changed the number to 12, which is my personal number. Everyone has a personal number, right? Of course you do, we all do. Yes we do. You' don't? Okay, you're weird, I can't help that.

The little symbol thingie to the left of the number didn't mean anything, either, so I changed it to one of my own. The wheel and arrow symbolize wheels turning, and of course the arrow is pointed left because hello, liberal over here. I like the idea of wheels turning, of directions changing or reversing, of progress in a progressive direction. It seemed to fit.

I changed the unreadable text to the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence for pretty obvious reasons. As I said, this is a political blog, with the unwritten philosophy of Edwin Rolfe, who said, "Write as if you lived in an occupied country." I believe very much that we do live in a country occupied by traitors and bigots and evildoers, and none of those people are the people who regularly get accused of it by the President and his cronies and the rightwing nutjobs and the media. I started this blog to add my voice to the wind, hoping that someday that wind would be a hurricane to obliterate the encroachment of the dark-hearted machinations that currently grind and twist across our political and social and economic landscape.

The Declaration was written by men who lived in a similar time, who lived under the rule of another spoiled and childish and craven King named George, and they committed to paper the most revolutionary idea, I believe, in the history of humanity: that we, we all, are created equal, that we have rights, inherent in our being, and that no government, no king, no laws can abridge them. I memorized the Preamble as part of a U.S. History assignment when I was in junior high and I can recite still them; I carry a pocket-sized copy of this extraordinary document with me everywhere I go, along with the equally-important document it gave birth to, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We would do well to remember these rights and the words that first spelled them out:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

These words are a call to action, a manifesto, a defiant and determined cry out against tyranny and oppression. These men didn't shrug their shoulders and resign themselves to the inevitability of darkness. It boggles me that a country founded on such a radical, revolutionary platform now finds itself sliding down the disastrous slope of Fascism. We were a great and proud country once, and I believe that we can be again if we return to the founding principles that birthed our nation, if we remind ourselves of where our country began and how much it's worth fighting for.

So the flag imagery, then, is also obvious, knowing that I believe so strongly in the foundation of this country. I've shown it here as flying upside down, a signal of distress. During the sixties, my parents' generation were vilified for flying the flag in this manner, and it angered those who didn't understand, who claimed it was a sign of disrespect. On the contrary, it's a sign of an utmost love and respect, to signal that our country is in distress and call out for aid to all that would save it. When my country puts an end to the disastrous reign of the Republicans and more specifically, to this monumentally evil Administration, replaced by a Democrat, then I will right the flag proudly. Until then, we are a country in distress and the call must go out to all who would hear it to stand and fight.

And finally, the imagery of Mt. Hood. This is a picture I took a year or so ago, on a glorious July afternoon when the sky burned such a bright blue that it almost hurt to look at it, the kind of day when you know, on a primal, fundamental level, that there is something larger at work in this universe, perhaps a god or simply something much more elemental, but that there is something much bigger than each of us, and with that understanding, there is peace and there is serenity.

All the places of the earth hold this beauty, this innate connection with the infinite, each in their own way, and we have all felt it and known it. For some of us, it's the rugged and brutal beauty of the Wyoming mountains and prairie, for others, the sun-baked deserts and glorious saturated colors of Morocco. In this miraculous tapestry of our beautiful planet, there are rain forests teeming with noise and light and life, vast and tumultuous oceans that lap so quixotically at our fragile shores, austere and majestic mountains thrust like the thrones of giants into the thin air, fiery rivers of molten rock that roil with the catastrophic power of destruction and creation, great rolling sheets of ice and snow under a sun that doesn't set for half of a year. All of this, all of it, calls and speaks to us and if we but listen, can spark in us a deep and abiding yearning to save it, to preserve it, to be one with it. This Earth, this shining blue jewel on a velvet blackness of space quilted by stars like diamonds, is as much the heart of me and my fight as my fervent and fevered passion for this country I call home.

Tomorrow begins today

Well, my guy announced his candidacy for the '08 Presidential yesterday, as expected. I'm not going to be heavily into the horserace until about this time next year -- I do, after all, have a life -- but John Edwards has been my guy ever since the last Presidential, when no one knew who he was and everyone was still talking about Howard Dean (whom I adored, but I figured then -- and still do now -- that Edwards is our best chance and hope for taking the Presidency). I saw him do an early, early version of his Two Americas speech, still one of the best and most underreported campaign stump speeches ever, and he had me at hello.

Since the end of the 2004 campaign, he's channeled his energy into his One America Campaign. His signature issue? Poverty. One of the biggest issues in this country not just today, but for at least the last 30 years, and at the root of or intertwined with so many other big social/political issues -- the economy, health care, crime, domestic violence, education, hunger, illiteracy, gender inequality, racial inequality, teen pregnancy -- and it's been a political non-starter since the end of WWII. The last president to seriously address poverty, FDR, fundamentally changed our country and the course it charted through historical waters through his vision of America.

Do I think Edwards is the next FDR? No. I don't even think he's the next Kennedy. What I do think is that he's not just talking the talk, but he's been walking the walk since he committed himself to this issue, and that's reflected by where he chose to make his announcement: New Orleans. And not from a fancy hotel, but in the midst of the ongoing hurricane cleanup, in the poorest of the poor districts of that benighted city, and after already spending days swinging a hammer working on houses there when the cameras weren't rolling. He's been doing it since last year, actually, and while President Cuckoo Bananas gets a thumbs up from the media everytime he manages to string two words together, John Edwards has been doing the kind of thing we'd want our President to be doing.

And this is the kind of thing we want our President to be saying:

This campaign is about each of us taking responsibility for our country's future -- and ensuring America’s greatness in the 21st century.

It is a campaign not just about what we can do in the White House -- but what we can do on the way.

We all must take responsibility and take action now to:

• Provide moral leadership in the world
• Strengthen our middle class and end poverty
• Guarantee universal health care for every American
• Lead the fight against global warming
• Get America and other countries off our addiction to oil

If we want to live in a moral and just America tomorrow, we cannot wait until the next President is elected to begin to take action.

Tomorrow begins today.

I'll have more to say about John Edwards as the year rolls on and the campaign heats up. And it's entirely possible I'll change my mind on candidates*. But for right now, I see Edwards as our Next Great Hope, not just for a Presidential candidate, but for a President.



*(Especially if Al Gore tosses his hat in the ring. He won't -- I believe his repeated statements that he's on a different path -- but if for some reason he did, I'd have to go with my first love, the very first candidate I ever campaigned for, way back in 1988 when I was a dorky high-school kid. I believe in John Edwards, but Al Gore is my hero and he comes before all others.)

it's the holidays, time to redecorate

What with the holidays and all, and Blogger's official transition from Blogger Beta to New Blogger, it seemed like a good time to redesign the blog up a bit.

I made the switch over to Blogger Beta a couple of months ago, suffered through the various buggy crap like everyone else who made the switch in beta, and despite some of the headaches, I do like the simpler interfaces and the ease of changing the design and color without having to edit the code by hand. Because messing around with HTML and CSS leaves precious little time for actually blogging, and as I'm sure my devoted readership of two whole people can attest, I already do this infrequently enough as it is.

So. Hope you like the new design and layout. Note the new format for the archive, which I think is my favorite part. I didn't get to pick the pic up top and haven't yet figured out if or how to switch it out with something else, but I pretty much like the overall look. It's nice to change things once in awhile, no?

Corporate promises and other empty words

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time (all two of you), you know how strongly I feel about labor issues and that my own personal experience with my family's four-year labor strike played a big role in shaping that belief.

The fact is, organized labor is a a crucial, necessary check against the power of business. And conversely, business interests provide a necessary check against the power of organized labor. These two entities should always been in tension, though that need not be confrontational nor detrimental to either one. When they're in balance, finding common ground and making fair sacrifices on both sides, everyone benefits.

But that hasn't been the trajectory of the last 20 to 30 years. Organized labor's power has been steadily eroded (and to be fair, they haven't always done themselves favors in their long-range thinking) while business -- especially big business -- has steadily amassed greater and greater power to the point that not even governments can control them much anymore. They've overpowered not just labor, but pretty much all other checks on their power, as well. There's lots to be read on this subject in the blogosphere, especially lately -- I recommend Daily Revolution's latest series of posts, which you can sample here and here -- and there are of course books and documentaries on this topic, as well.

But back to labor.

There was a time when organized labor wasn't treated like an enemy to be conquered and eradicated. When businesses viewed them as another interest that needed to be negotiated with as they would negotiate with vendors, suppliers, clients, and governments. Going back to the time that my family was on strike, I vividly remember when Lee Iacocca, CEO of Chrysler, approached the workers with a request that they accept lowered wages and benefits while he attempted to save the company. His plea was couched in the terms that they were all in the boat together, that everyone's sacrifice would be for the greater good, that just as they benefitted when the company was doing well, they needed to sacrifice when it wasn't. If they would put their faith in him, he would get them through this difficult time and when they became the successful company he knew they could be, they would share in the windfall, returning to their regular wages and benefits. The union voted to go along with him and accept wage and benefit cuts. Pride in their company swelled, for they felt invested in something, that they were a team truly working together.

When the company began posting profits, he paid the shareholders and the lowered wages the union accepted to save the company became their regular wages. For this, Lee Iacocca became a legend of the corporate world and is credited with single-handedly saving Chrysler from bankruptcy. To this day, my family refuses to buy a Chrysler.

All this reminiscing was prompted by an email I received today from Working America, the AFL-CIO website/mailing list. It seems Lee Iacocca's betrayal of the workers has become de rigeur in the corporate world today:

Goodyear forced nearly 16,000 workers to strike on Oct. 5, by making it clear the company would not negotiate a fair and equitable contract with the USW members. These workers are sacrificing their livelihoods on behalf of all U.S. workers--including Goodyear's customers--to keep good jobs in America and preserve promised benefits.

USW members and retirees made great sacrifices in 2003 to keep Goodyear out of bankruptcy. Now the company's stock is worth nearly five times as much as it was in early 2003 and top executives have awarded themselves millions of dollars in bonuses--but Goodyear still wants more.

It is unreasonable and unjust to expect USW members to accept additional plant closures and more wage and benefit cuts while other stakeholders reap in the rewards of the company's turnaround. And it is unacceptable that Goodyear intends to walk away from its commitments to workers and retirees.

This strike is a fight for all of America's workers.

Follow the link, read the details, sign the petition. Corporate America needs to learn they have a responsibility to more than just the bottom line and their shareholders. They are responsible to their workers, their governments, their communities, their environment, and their consumers, as well. And these workers -- who're trying to make ends meet and get an honest days' wage for an honest days' work -- these people are trying to hold Corporate America responsible.

They're fighting for your rights.

Everything you need to know about Iraq*

I wish we had more time to celebrate the Democratic victory, but unfortunately, the bomb we've made of Iraq continues to tick...

tick...

tick...

tick...

*complete with pictures, so even Junior can understand.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...Rahm!

In between building full-scale suspension bridges out of popsicle sticks and single-handedly finding the cures for cancer, Parkinson's, and that nasty foot fungus that makes your toenails yellow and thick, Rahm Emmanuel won everything.

I guess the rest of us can get back to our everyday lives, now that Rahm's on the case.

Winning: it tastes like VICTORY!

I have dreamed about this day for so long, I'd gotten used to it being a dream. I'm as shocked as I am elated. I hoped against all hope that we'd win. I even hoped against all hope that we'd win big. I'm the biggest foolish optimist you will ever meet -- I'm the one who still thinks a team can pull it all out in the last three seconds of the game, the one who thinks an election can still be won long after it's been called, and yes, I'm the one who honestly believed -- and believed very, very hard -- that Kerry was going to pull it out even after the news turned bad two years ago.

But part of being a foolish optimist is that you get disappointed in a big way. Often. So you learn to hedge your bets in your internal dialogue, to try to dial down your expectations, to make deals with yourself to mitigate disaster, to shield yourself from the blow. The end result of all of that, of course, is that when you actually do win big...well, it's almost as overwhelming as when you lose big.

I'll take this any day.

We won big, you guys. Several races still not called at this point -- including, Gary Trauner's race in WY! -- but even so, consider this:

• National Sweep. Democrats take the national majority in the House, Senate, Governors, and State Legislatures. The only thing Republicans have left--Bush--still sports a sub-40% approval rating.
  
  
• We won bigger than they ever did. Democrats look set to take the House, and with a larger majority than Republicans ever had during their 1994-2006 "revolution." We also won more Senate campaigns in a single cycle, 23-24, than either party has won since at least 1980.
  
  
• Republicans shut out: No House, Senate, or Governor pickups for Republicans. That breaks every record for futility. No one can ever do worse than they did this year.

That's right, kids. Progessivism is ascendant and the voters kicked the Rethugs to the curb. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, you criminal hypocritical bastards.

And already, we're seeing the first effects with the resignation of Rumsfeld. I keep thinking of that smug, smarmy little smirk of the Chimp in Chief two years ago, when he informed us he had a mandate and he intended to use it. Translation: fuck you, half of America. So I take great delight in saying, "Right back atchya, big guy."

Lots of work ahead of us. We're going to have some big battles ahead, and it's not going to be pretty. There'll be some frustrations, some losses, some moments of despair. But I think we've finally stopped our unchecked hurtling into the dark abyss. Time to start digging our way out.

As for the Democrats (Rahm Emmanuel) tripping over themselves (Rahm Emmanuel) to claim credit (Rahm Emmanuel) for these stunning victories (Rahm Emmanuel), many of which they (Rahm Emmanuel) actively tried to subvert (Rahm Emmanuel), I have this to say:

This is a party of the people, and this victory belongs to us. Not you. We have very long memories. We took down the Republican Party at the height of their power. We can take you down, too. Do not fuck with us.

Ice skate manufacturers' stock is about to skyrocket*

As much as I love my adopted state of Oregon, I still hold a warm place in my heart for my home state of Wyoming. I'm proud to be from there, and I still follow Wyoming events with interest.

So you can imagine the glee that's filled me as I've followed the Cubin/Trauner race. We've been donating like mad for months, now, and a disproportionate amount of our donations have gone Tester, Grant, and more specifically, to Trauner. Not just because I would REJOICE to see a Democrat from Wyoming in the House, but because everything I read about Gary Trauner makes me like him more and more. I think he'd be a great representative for the people of Wyoming. But don't take my word for it. Listen to what someone who's actually walked at his side has to say:

Trauner Poised for an Upset

I mean seriously, what's not to love about a candidate who says this when confronted with the fact that he's a New York transplant?

"I can't help where I was born, but I got here as quick as I could."

Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are set to cement my fervent belief that the future of the Democratic Party lies in the West. Whether Trauner wins or loses -- and he has a very real chance to win it -- he will have demonstrated that Wyoming and the other so-called red states in the West share many ideals of the Democratic Party and that with some effort and some really terrific candidates, there's no reason they couldn't be as blue in the future as they've been red in the past.

*A Republican friend of mine once opined that it would be a cold day in hell before Wyoming elected a Democrat to Congress. I hear it's supposed to be pretty cold this coming Tuesday.