<title> 2010 May</title> (6)

When Spiders Unite, They Can Tie Down A Lion

winograd-voters

When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion is an old Ethiopian proverb that is a metaphor for what we, the people, can do when we stand united and work for what is in our best interest. Friends, we are calling you out – if you have ever held a dream for peace. Please give every spare minute you have, helping us guarantee a Winograd victory. This is our chance to change history. If we unify. If we work HARD. If we all do this as if it really, really matters. Which it does.

Voices From the Camps in Haiti: “We Don’t Know What Will Happen”

haiti camps

Georgianne Nienaber: In an unbelievable lack of planning and haphazard distribution of “aid,” a Potemkin Village of white tents courtesy of USAID’s implementing partners, World Vision and OXFAM, now adjoins Camp Canaan. Look beneath the surface of this flagship Haitian government project and one realizes that the residents of “Camp Corail” are really no better off than the residents of Camp Canaan, except for the fact that their tents do not leak–so far.

BP Stands for Bad Petroleum

bp oil spill

Robert Reich: Ad campaigns about corporate social responsibility are cheap. So are public scoldings by politicians about a corporation’s irresponsibility. Watch not what they say but what they do. The only way BP will pay more than $75 million — and the costs of the spill will easily top that — is if they’re required by law to do so.

California’s Cutbacks Imperil “the Obama Generation”

obama youth

Randy Shaw: From an environmental agenda imperiled by nationwide public transit cuts, to a “Jobs” agenda jeopardized by state-induced layoffs, to the lack of full implementation of the President’s prized national service expansion, state budget cuts imperil progressives’ electoral gains of 2008. And no group risks having their expectations more shattered than the students and recent college grads – often described as “the Obama Generation” —whose energy and turnout helped define the 2008 election cycle.

How to Win A Political Campaign with Just $30

no on prop 16

1 Million Strong Against Prop 16 with 1 Millionth the Budget of PG&E” is launching a quirky street-interview video campaign May 18, betting their thirty-dollar budget that social media can beat the thirty-million-dollar mainstream media campaign by the corporate giant Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)

Canada’s Prime Minister Finally Exposes His Christian Right, Anti-Abortion Agenda

Stephen Harper

Charley James: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper always swore he had no interest in changing Canada’s pro-choice laws and abortion availability. But in recent days, he revealed his true, anti-choice, hard right, nature.

ACLU Challenges Arizona Immigration Law

arizona boycott

Andrea Christina Nill: The suit, which represents labor, domestic violence, day labor, human services and social justice organizations, along with ten individuals who would allegedly be subject to harassment or arrest, claims that not only is SB-1070 “un-American,” it’s also unconstitutional.

Feting a Fetid War

lyndon johnson ngo diem hamid karzai barack obama

Ivan Eland: The U.S. government’s inability to distinguish between al-Qaeda, with global ambitions, and the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, with their local goals, has merely made more enemies, including those who would begin attacking the United States. How are Americans being made safer by this war?

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon: Politicians Who Love Their Job More Than Their Country Led Arizona Astray

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon

Andrea Christina Nill: Gordon described a “perfect storm” consisting of three factors. First, the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine radicalized the political discourse. Second, beefed up border security along the California and Texas borders with Mexico redirected smugglers and cartel operatives toward Arizona. And lastly, the economic recession. Gordon explains that “politicians who love their job a lot more than they love their state or their country” exploited the three factors and led Arizona into the predicament it’s in now.

These Foliticians Are America’s Problem

oil spill

David Love: To be sure, the BP accident is an environmental threat that speaks to the deadly serious pitfalls of off-shore drilling. But it is also a crisis of bad political intentions, from the right-wing lobbyists such as FreedomWorks that worked with BP to push for more oil drilling, to the corporate lackeys at the 2008 GOP convention who shouted “drill baby dril.” Let’s not forget former Vice President Dick Cheney, who championed deregulation of the oil industry with his energy task force, and whose companyHalliburton figures prominently in the oil rig disaster.

A Modest Proposal: “Give Arizona Back to Mexico”

arizona law

John Delloro: Giving back Arizona may potentially jumpstart our economy and stimulate our national imagination towards creating a greater common vision. If returning Arizona to Mexico doesn’t work, we can always revisit and adapt Jonathan Swift’s “Modest Proposal” and sell and consume undocumented immigrants as food in the ultimate and most seamless form of assimilation into the body politic of the US.

LA Progressive: May 9 to 15, 2010

Articles by Rev. Irene Monroe, Randy Shaw, Georgianne Nienaber, John Delloro, Ed Rampell, Noman Solomon, Paul Hogarth, Paul Loeb, Ivan Eland, Jim Fuller, Carl Matthes, Andrea Christina Nill, Tom Hall, Charley James and Lulu Demaine, Berry Craig, Tom Degan, Robert Reich, Carl Bloice, Tracy Emblem, Tina Dupuy, Jeffrey Blankfort, Anthony Samad, Michael Sigman, and Johnny Townsend

Go Loco? or Go Local…

leftwing politics

Brad Parker: Sideways is the new direction for this bundle of believers, these frustrated yet sunny souls. Status quo has wrapped its stony fingers around the electoral apparatus of each ardent constituency. We are in a stall, a dead calm sea. And the natives are restless, very restless. But before we muster up the courage for a new direction, let us take a deeper look at the state of the State.

Google Isn’t (Necessarily) Making Us Stupid

google

Michael Sigman: Contemplative practices like meditation and yoga — the yin to Internet promiscuity’s yang — are also on the rise. But my own meditation practice — which facilitates clarity and focus — has benefited incalculably from Buddhist and other spiritual websites, blogs, lectures, readings, videos and guided meditations. And my meditation group’s email tree has become an interactive source for ideas, links and information about local events members might otherwise never discover.

College Graduation Time: Family Pride & Commitment

Howard University graduation

Anthony Samad: While graduations have become passé’ and informal for some, the older generations dress up for the occasion like they’re going to church on Easter Sunday and praise, and shake, and shout, “Thank ya, Lordie” just as much. I always wondered why my Uncle Buddy always wore a tie to everybody’s graduation. He said it was to “honor them” for achieving something very special.

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