*Yawn* The farce of so-called women's issues is why Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin was lampooned as something only a breeding male could love. Many women did not support Clinton because they saw her through the values of their own lives. Many other women could not treat Palin with any recognition of the skill it took to become governor because they saw her through the values of their own lives. Many women who identify themselves as Black or African-American and married similary identified men could not support Clinton or Palin because they saw the values of their own …
All 30 comments by...
SillyLeftist
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For years, I have asked people online what they mean by progressive. I have not asked people this question offline as much, simply because the progressive movement seems to thrive mainly online or in a small group of self-interested political insiders. The flower power of the 1960's may only have been experienced in a few select communities, but the essence of breaking free from the restraints of a suburban male-goes-to-work / woman-stays-at-home society was widespread. The progressive movement, so far as I can tell, seems to emphasize that computers are our friends and we should live life tied to them. Now, …
Posted to Does a Nationwide 'Progressive Movement' Actually Exist?
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At least this put down of candidates other than Barack Obama is labeled as a viewpoint instead of masquerading as a news story. It should carry a disclaimer, however, because this opinion piece could have been taken directly from an Obama campaign play book.
Posted to The Candidate of the Permanent Will
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I disagree with wolf that race is not an issue in America today. I do not disagree that guilt over slavery is non-existent, or at least very rare. Slavery happened. The enslaved were Africans. The history of the African slave trade has helped motivate nations to fight current practices of human trafficking and slavery. Racism exists in America on an individual basis, just as do many other biases. Someone could easily vote for a Black person to be president but still not want to have a neighbor on the same block who is Black. The word Black can be substituted for …
Posted to How Black is Obama?
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This essay is an example of how something can appear balanced but is definitely slanted towards Obama. First, the candidate is Hillary Clinton, not the Clintons. Yes, having a former president as a spouse means the media will cover him with a lot more interest than the media covers wives of other candidates who have not yet earned the publicity level accorded a presidential family. Nevertheless, that is the media's decision to cover him and the Clinton campaign is using that desire to its advantage, albeit with some challenges. Secondly, a senator representing his or her state's voters will vote for …
Posted to The Democrats' Class War
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Oklahoma City understands that a city without sidewalks leads to obesity. Few other cities have grasped that concept, yet. Other cities limit bus routes for people without cars, forcing them to stay inside instead of going to parks or otherwise being active. Our lack of vacation days for the employed and promotion of the overworked small business owner, plus the need to be accessible 24 hours a day also can lead us to consume all that junk food just to keep us going. Yes, there is individual responsibility, but let's don't forget just how much governmental policies, and our collective willingness …
Posted to Fat Kids, Fat Profits
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I agree with the posts about 401(k) and economic benefit. I have argued for years that we should allow small venture capital or direct business loans with the billions of dollars going into mutual funds each year as long-term retirement savings. Bundle contributions and invest or loan $100,000 a year for 5 years, as an example, to a start-up business. That would let an entrepreneur pay herself or himself a living wage, hire a contractor or two, maybe an employee, do some marketing, and otherwise have time and resources to really make a go at a business. As it is, many …
Posted to The Stimulus Swindle
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Big government is often defined as the number of employees on the payroll. Thus, conservative administrations have shrunk government while expanding the budget and the reach of government regulation on individuals. Less conservative administrations have not grown government but have expanded the reach through regulation on corporations. What we need is selective government, and that does mean whoever is in office will guide the selection. The decades of Republican and Democratic administrations pushing home ownership and penalizing renters created an unsustainable housing market. Now here comes the government trying to correct the correction. We also have higher government construction costs, and …
Posted to Mr./Ms. Change Goes to Washington
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Let's give it a try. ... I do not advocate change just for change but if there seems to be at least an equal balance of pluses and minuses as with a current system, and the cost to implement is not extremely high, change is acceptable. A direct national count falls into that category for me. ... As for minority interests being protected, that means those who hold beliefs and life-requirements different than the majority; it does not refer to skin color, language, ethnicity, or gender. ... I have lived in varoius parts of the country, rural and metropolitan; I've lived …
Posted to Dropping Out of Electoral College
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Liberals, progressives, conservatives, whoever... I am looking for a movement that realizes there are people struggling in the U.S. who are not uneducated, poor, and pregnant while a teenager. There are people who do not own cars, let alone SUVs or Hummers. They do not own blackberries and some do not even own cell phones. Their computers are on dial-up and they see no reason to spend an extra $100-$200 a year for a higher-speed modem just because other people want lots of glitz on web pages. There are still people who want a choice between decent and affordable rental housing …
Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis
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Oh, so many comments to make and so many ideas to diget from the assorted posts. I will choose to comment on the concept of "rational" consumers. What is rational about a person buying an oversized house and an oversized car? What is rational about people who continue to fill up those oversized cars and pay to heat and to cool oversized houses even as they cut back on dining at local establishments and buying from local retailers? What is rational about a person spending $100 at a dollar store just to have lots and lots of "stuff?" What is rational …
Posted to Who's Afraid of Democracy?
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This plea was posted on May 17. Here it is, the evening of May 28 and not one person has seen fit to post a comment or a reaction to the postal service's rate hike. Answer me this, please: What the heck does it matter? For years, I have heard how the Internet will and has changed how the news is delivered. Obviously the rate hike has stirred none of the passion that calling Hillary Clinton a feminist or consumers smarter than voters has created. Does this mean the Internet readers of In These Times have no concern for the cost …
Posted to Postal Rates = Free Press
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Hillary Rodham Clinton is a product of her era. That meant for her to have power, she had to share it through her husband. (I suspect the same ideology is in play in the history of Michelle Obama.) As the rare woman playing in the upper levels of national politics, Rodham Clinton is being held up as an example of what individuals perceive a woman at that level should be. Very little of the negative issues that I have heard or read about Rodham Clinton have anything to do with her as a politician. Most of the negatives, and too many …
Posted to Why Women Hate Hillary
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katiebeth, Thank you for your well-written comments. You put into words the essence that I had been trying to grasp. Your comments also made me think of Hillary Rodham Clinton in comparison to Condoleezza Rice. Rice wears the skirts, has the perfectly-fixed hair, plays the piano and speaks foreign languages like a refined woman trained at boarding schools. (I don't know if she did attend boarding schools.) Ironically, Rice is not married but represents a "better" woman for some people than does Hillary who took the route of wife and mother Plus, even though Rice is in a high-level position, she …
Posted to Why Women Hate Hillary
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Money will never be out of politics. With the current election financing system, at least the public has the right to know who is giving to whom. I recently read a book written in 1946 about American politics. In it the author noted that state legislatures composed of lawyers means that the lawyer can set whatever fees he wants for his clients, much as can consultants. The author argued that respectable pay for legislators would mean that the fee-as-contribution system would be less essential. In state and local elections, campaign contributions cannot fund living expenses. In so-called clean elections, that means …
Posted to Power to the Public Financing
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Take a look at Barack Obama because he has a father from Africa; or, if you are from Kansas, because his mother was from Topeka; or, if you are in Hawaii, because he lived with his grandparents there. Take a look at Hillary Clinton if you are a woman; or, if you went to Yale; or, if you live in Arkansas; or, if you were born in Chicago. Then, take a look at their issues and listen to them talk. Obama is relatively new to the national scene so has had less time to be observed than Clinton. I was able …
Posted to Obamas Base: Broader Than Black
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Sam Brownback has been mentioned as a candidate of interest on the Republican side because he has stood by his opinions over the years. Of course, unlike Kucinich, Brownback is a newbie to the presidential contest and there are not media darlings on the Republican side to drown out other candidates. Dennis Kucinich's campaign web site has a long list of issues listed on it. The list is more extensive than any other candidate's, but it also seems to have been pulled in large part from the 2004 campaign web site. That made it easy to compile and insert into the …
Posted to Kucinich Comes Back for 08
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It's much simpler and less either-or than the author makes it out to be. Brillant plan or demented rulers can exist together, and have existed together throughout human history. As for the rest of the essay, so-called progressives need to learn from Dick Cheney. The example I have taken to using is the vice presidential debate of 2004. Gwen Iffel asked a question about African American women and HIV/AIDS. Cheney looked directly at the moderator and said he never had thought about it; John Edwards ignored the moderator and the question, choosing instead to ramble on about some earlier ineffective comment …
Posted to Dreaming Up New Politics
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I have commented on these topics in other locations, but they are worth repeating. Net neutrality is already an oxymoronic demand. People who have dial-up connections can waste considerable time waiting for newspapers or other sites with heavy graphics to download. In addition, having to click on each article title to see what is written is a big hassle and one that leaves me ignoring much of news content online. (I timed my effort to read the local daily online today. After half an hour, I was not even 1/4 way through the paper. Each article or letter to the editor …
Posted to Fighting the Media's Plantation Mentality
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Some campaign finance reform proposals recommend prohibiting money being raised outside of the district represented by an elected official. Would national call programs, such as MoveOn's also be prohibited? I'll throw out a couple possibilities for the effectiveness of the MoveOn calls. One, people might be happy to learn that anybody is paying attention to the campaign. Two, people are used to national call centers. Were the callers identifying themselves as MoveOn volunteers? Were the calls focusing on some well-publicized slip? My concern with instant call strategy changes would be that the calls did not play up issues of government but …
Posted to MoveOn Members Call for Change
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In the past few days several media outlets have opined on the role of the new media in the year ahead. One of the examples given of the power of the U-too, or however it is spelled, was that the Mentos and Coca Cola combination could be repeated in many combinations. My reaction was one of horror as I thought of the the water pulled from wells of increasingly rare clean water to make soda pop to use in amusing Internet videos as villages in India and elsewhere where bottling plants were placed find themselves without clean water any more. I …
Posted to Seeing Red about Thinking Pink
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I marked "other" in the survey because outside of Connecticut Lamont's victory will not matter. Any voter who is not already decided based on party (whether Republican, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, or another party) will not care who won in Connecticut in terms of who receives that voter's mark. As for Connecticut, I do not have enough information about voter sentiment in that state to know how the dynamics of a three-way contest will play out.
Posted to How do you think Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman will most affect the November elections?
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I moved to Iowa last year in part to observe the early process here. In addition, I hope to influence the issues and solutions discussed. (I am developing a limited-run newsletter about women, politics, and change with emphasis on the 2008 election.) Already I have become very disillusioned by how much influence ordinary Iowans have in the selection process. For example, I attended a reception for Sen. Evan Bayh recently but left before he spoke because the small gathering seemed to be more of a media event than an effort to meet interested citizens. I invite people to take a survey …
Posted to Are Primaries Going West?
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When the Republicans won leadership control of the two chambers, they did so with a defined purpose given to the American people. The Republcians said that the Democratic management was corrupt and that the Republicans would fix it. In the current corruption of the Republican leadership, the Democrats merely are saying that the Republicans are bad. Are we now supposed to give Democrats leadership control because they might or might not morally support military actions in Iraq? Maybe we are supposed to give the office keys to Democrats because they might or might not clean up the Congressional corruption and love …
Posted to Do you think the Democrats will win back control of Congress this fall?
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I agree with the posts above about alternative methods of transportation and the policies that will make them work. Where I live now, the Democrats established in City Hall do not think people walk so we do not have sidewalks. Yet, we have pedestrian-triggered walk lights in the middle of green islands that exist between the on- and off-ramp of an interstate highway that can be accessed only by walking several blocks where there are no sidewalks and very narrow shoulders on roadways. The local daily newspaper brags about the wonderful retail stores and restaurants but I look at all the …
Posted to Running on Empty
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I was wondering what happened at the convention. I only had heard a few rah-rah-the-Internet-wonder-still-needs-human-contact type of reports. I heard an interview with Jim Lehrer on a public radio station recently. Lehrer said the Internet has meant people will respond more readily, but there is not an increase in discussion; most people only offer their support or opposition to an issue. I also have noticed that many of the most popular blogs and altnerative media (1) focus attention on the traditional press's headline stories, and (2) offer space to a wide range of other groups or people. In other words, the …
Posted to What Was Missing At YearlyKos
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Political action is, indeed, needed. I have argued for years that labor unions are limited by National Labor Relations Board legislation. The laws permitting labor unions are based on the idea of large workplaces, with standard manufacturing lines, and life-long careers spent at one location. From my own personal experiences, I have found it more necessary to have a union that will work as a human resource department beholden to the workers, not to management. Most of the very bad work experiences I have had over twenty years of working relate to situations where HR staff agree there are major problems …
Posted to Troublemakers Are Great--But Are They Enough?
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I no longer recycle. I grew tired of fighting to get landlords and cities to promote newspaper, can, glass, and plastic recycling for tenants. I no longer attend community meetings or political activities because it has become difficult to walk or to bicycle except in recreational bases, and because public transit systems are mostly a farce. I spent years fighting an inane policy that ran counter to everything in which I have held value of ideology for almost half a century. The total disrespect I received for what is not an insignificant issue and, indeed, has very significant consequences for the …
Posted to What Ails Us?
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If it is depression, that explains the high prescription rates for anti-depressants in the United States. I prefer to think of it as a strategic retreat. If the policies of our government and the expectations of our country's citizenry is such that recycling is not important, that affordable and livable rental housing is not important, that transit beyond the automobile is not important, that businesses beyond Wal-Mart and Microsoft are not important then it becomes too hard to maintain supply lines to recycling centers, good jobs, and healthy food. The result is to reduce enounters that expend personal resources until circumstances …
Posted to What Ails Us?
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The issue of closing public records is very complex and far reaching. In terms of vital records, the concern must include an individual's ease in accessing his or her own information. Limiting access to birth and death certificates is tied, in no small part, to the Real ID Act and to Voter Identification requirements of the Help America Vote Act. Both of those provisions were not discussed by the people, or even the representatives of the people. The legislation was added after conference committee. As for security, the more centralized information is, the easier it is to steal and harder to …
Posted to Information Is Power
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