Our Amendments to the Platform

Please contact Richard Kerver to help get these passed at the Convention June 6th

Getting it

Dave Wheelock over at The Small Towns Papers gets it, in the same way we Progressives do here in Worcester. "A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger.” And the Oligarchy will always be adept in first stoking the anger and then making sure its misdirected. Its the anger about the financial crisis, that everyone feels in one way or another.

And the misdirection, by Fox news, Newt Gingrich and the far right is towards our Democratic President. So called TEA bagging is just the beginning, as over time that unholy alliance deflects blame over the crisis to the the Obama administration, never mind how they came into office as the inheritors of that really big problem, and are doing their very best to solve it, for real.

So Dave, gets it, the real causes of the crisis, as described by Paul Krugumn, Joeseph Stiglitz, Simon Johnson, William Black and other "progressive" economists. Progressive because they remain reality based, smart, and able to articulate the viewpoint of the rest of us not in the billion dollar club ... banking that works for the average American, the way it should be.

So read Dave's article, TEA baggers, and try for smart instead of angry. Want to really understand what's going on? Try http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/finance/

Climate Crunch

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090429/pdf/4581091a.pdf
"The difference between 350 and 450 is not just one of degree. It’s one of direction. A CO2 concentration of 450 p.p.m. awaits the world at some point in the future that might conceivably, though with difficulty, be averted. But 350 p.p.m. can be seen only in the rear view mirror. Hansen believes that CO2 levels already exceed those that would provide longterm safety, and the world needs not just to stop but to reverse course. "

Mark Shuttleworth on Creating Community

Mark Shuttleworth is one of those highly effective people doing enormously important things helping something different to emerge and evolve in the affairs of human beings. Some will recognize Mark as the founder of the Open Source Linux distro Ubuntu. Ubuntu means community and there's a lot there. Here's Mark in a recent interview (at about 24 mins in):

"If you build something for people with people, you get the possbility of something fundamently different than what you get if you just build something yourself. That's not to say that communities are easy. We have to continuely defend the idea that left to their own devices, people will take issue with one another more than the world out there... We have to stay focused on what we're trying to do - reinventing the world. If we don't remind ourselves of that all the time, its very easy to allow ourselves to look inwards, and allow differences of opinion, differences of design and direction to turn into drama. The tabloid idustry does so well because people love a fight, people love scandal, people love bitterness and gossip. We must not allow that element of human nature to poison the fact that we we're creating an open, level, calm playing field for people who want to drive this agenda forward."

If you can assemble 300 or more residents ...

"So, are you more upset than when you started reading this column? Feel frustrated and powerless? With your friends, ask your Senators and Congressperson during their frequent recesses for a three-hour public accountability session. If you can assemble 300 or more residents, after you rev up your community, you're likely to have your elected representatives come to an auditorium where you live and work. If they think 500 people will show up, it is even more likely. Especially if you are organized and tell them this is just the beginning. Just the beginning!" Ralph Nader at Common Dreams

Rethink Afghanistan - The Cost of War

Rethink Afghanistan (Part 1)


Rethink Afghanistan (Part 2)


Rethink Afghanistan (Part 3)


Getting the Defense Budget Under Control


Join Congresswoman Lee for a public panel discussion entitled:

A Progressive Assessment of the
Obama Administration’s First 100-days
11:30am – 1:30pm • Saturday, May 2, 2009
C. Walsh Theater | Suffolk University
55 Temple Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114
(Behind the Massachusetts Statehouse on Beacon Hill)

Please join Congresswoman Lee and other progressive leaders for a candid assessment of the Obama Administrations First 100-days. She was an activist, social worker, U. S. Representative and is now Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Hers was the lone voice in Congress to oppose the Bush Administration’s call for unchecked war-making authority in September 2001.

For more information see http://www.suffolk.edu/35466.html

Bill Moyer and William Black on banking fraud ... and Where's Congress?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, Geithner has, was one of our nation's top regulators, during the entire subprime scandal, that I just described. He took absolutely no effective action. He gave no warning. He did nothing in response to the FBI warning that there was an epidemic of fraud. All this pig in the poke stuff happened under him. So, in his phrase about legacy assets. Well he's a failed legacy regulator....
BILL MOYERS: Well, where's Congress? Where's the press? Where--
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, where's the Pecora investigation?
BILL MOYERS: The what?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: The Pecora investigation. The Great Depression, we said, "Hey, we have to learn the facts. What caused this disaster, so that we can take steps, like pass the Glass-Steagall law, that will prevent future disasters?" Where's our investigation? ....
BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely, because they are scared to death.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: We need some chairmen or chairwomen--in Congress, to hold the necessary hearings. And we can blast this out. But if you leave the failed CEOs in place, it isn't just that they're terrible business people, though they are. It isn't just that they lack integrity, though they do. Because they were engaged in these frauds. But they're not going to disclose the truth about the assets.
BILL MOYERS: And we have to know that, in order to know what?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: To know everything. To know who committed the frauds.