FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE www.democracynow.org
September 1, 2008
Contact: Dennis Moynihan Mike Burke
ST. PAUL, MN—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.
Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.
Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).
Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists.
During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.
Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.
Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.
Video of Amy Goodman’s Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
Filed under News
Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.
Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman's office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).
Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation's leading independent news outlet.
Video of Amy Goodman's Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
I want to very briefly address two issues and open up a discussion of strategy on the basis of these.
The first is the LOGIC in the way the media, Hillary and McCain have interpreted Obama's San Francisco Comments.
The second is how this sort of response is one that logically is identical to almost all major areas of attacks on Obama. In fact, as long as Obama maintains a intelligent and nuanced position on any hot button we can expect attacks that have this same form.
This raising the question of how best to address such attacks given our culture and "real politics"
Part One: Bitterness and Logic Part Two Nuance and Elitism Part Three: Crafting a Strong Response
Part One after the jump
Part One: Bitterness and Logic
I think part of my problem is that as a professional philosopher who has taught logic and critical thinking classes I am really out of touch with the media! chuckle
Obama's so called "bitter" comment is discussed by the media in a way that any student in one of my classes would get an "f" if they made these arguments in an academic paper.
My comments to a student using the sort of arguments being used against Obama on MSM would be as follows:
Dear Student,
I am afraid that your essay makes an argument against a position that no one has taken. We call this creating a "straw man" and then knocking down the straw man. Your essay draws conclusions about Obama's attitude toward ALL working class people and small town Americans. In fact the quotes you provide make no statement of the sort. To get to ALL from Obama's statement you have to fail to consider the context of the comment and then replace SOME people with ALL people. As you know, in this class whether we are reading a textbook or listening to a speaker you must first show an accurate understanding of the author before any criticism. We have seen how when students do not take the first step-- showing an accurate understanding of the author/speakers comments in their own terms, before raising a critique, they most often end up taking words out of context and criticizing a position that the speaker/writer never actually articulated.
This is why I do not permit media or political blogs to be used as references in your papers. Let's get Step 1- understanding what was said right. After this I would be glad to assist you in developing a quality and strong critique of Obama on this statement or more broadly if you prefer:)
Part Two Nuance and Elitism
If we look at at he major ways Obama is attacked it often comes down to the fact that he speaks in an intelligent and nuanced manner. There is a way in which this plays into a media image of Obama's elitism.
Hillary Clinton and John Mc Cain are both more willing to make universal black and white statements and disregard nuance.
Consider the issue of Israel and whether "Jews" can trust Obama (I have lots to say on the content of this issue --but for this diary I am only looking at the structure and logic of how Obama's views become an "issue"
Hillary makes a plain statement: She supports Israel. She is for US military aid to Israel She might get nuanced enough to say that peace will not be easy..but that is really the only nuance factor in her analysis ...and it is a vague and nonthreatening one.
Obama makes the same plain statements: He supports Israel. He is for US military aid to Israel etc.
But 2. he also talks about the Palestinian People having suffered the most
AND 3. he blaims their suffering on their own leaders unwillingness to approach the problem non-violently
And 4. He does not believe that support for Israel means support for Likud's actions or everything they do or say
Regardless of whether we "agree" or "Disagree: with Obama on this issue and these 4 points let's examine the position
Obama's position is logically consistent. BUT if you take any one of these three elements, especially in our contemporary political climate if we take #2 or #4 and play it up apart from the other threads it becomes easy to suggest Obama does not REALLY support Israel. Yet to do so would be to take a very strong and clear but nuanced position and render it one dimensional and associate it with positions and policies Obama would not support.
Certainly it is reasonable for those who support the militaristic approaches of Likud to have questions about whether Obama and the US might encourage a different direction for peacemaking. Yet, even among American Zionist Jews few support the Likud positions so this nuance is surely one we should be able to explain to them eh?
Similarly, his position on race suggests both that slavery has created a real and serious structural problem of racism that persists into the present AND that he can understand black anger AND that he can understand white resentment of attempts to rectify the problem and their experience of things like affirmative action as unfair has a real basis too!
This is nuance. Take any one element out of context and you can have an attack on him again.
I could go on with examples of how strands of a nuanced intelligent position are the basis of almost al attacks on Obama I have seen...But I want to raise something else...
How often do politicians talk to us this way? As John Stewart expressed, here we have a "politician who talks to Americans as if we are adults".
Adults understand nuance. Or at least we are supposed to understand nuance.
It seems to me that Obama's willingness to talk to us as adults in a nuanced manner is exactly what is used against him. But is it true that Americans cannot handle nuance? If so this campaign belongs to the Major News Media, Hillary and ultimately McCain.
Perhaps it is time to bring this issue before Americans in stark nuanced terms. For Obama to remind US Citizens that he could dumb down his positions and play the equivalent "great white hope" who will help people and fight for them and thinks they are perfect.
Or, He can continue to speak the truth, in all its nuance and assume Americans are intelligent and honest enough to understand--even when the truth is not as simple and one sided as some suggest.
Hi Friends
If you are local consider joining Greater Manchester for a more perfect union and attending our potluck and primary watching party on april 22nd.
Manchester Group: http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/GreaterManchester-ForAMorePerfectUnion
Potluck sign up:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4rr3s
Future events will focus on substantive issues
Posted March 19, 2008 | 01:11 PM (EST)huffington_post
From:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/hillarys-nasty-pastorate_b_92361.html
There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka The Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.
Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.
The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper's in 2003:
During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.
At the heart of the Family's American branch is a collection of powerful rightwing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe, and Rick Santorum. They get to use the Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, the Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by the Family's young women's group. And, at the Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already-powerful.
Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.
What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including new age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal Rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.
Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the underappreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define the Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worship Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as the Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power -- cultivating it, building it, and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."
Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity Unity Church of Christ. Now it's up to Clinton to explain -- or, better yet, renounce -- her longstanding connection with the fascist-leaning Family.
ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on Friday that it would be "harmful" to Democrats if superdelegates were to give the party's presidential nomination to a candidate who is trailing in the delegates awarded in primaries and caucuses.
"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections," said Pelosi, "it would be harmful to the Democratic Party."
Although Pelosi offered her assessment without directly referencing Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., her comments lend considerable support to the Illinois Democrat.
Obama leads Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in pledged delegates: 1,396 to 1,241. Because of the proportional system used by the Democratic Party to allocate delegates, Obama is widely expected to remain in front of Clinton in pledged delegates at the conclusion of the primary season.
Political prognosticators give Clinton more of a chance of catching, or even surpassing, Obama in the national popular vote but Pelosi argued that superdelegates should follow the pledged-delegate, not the popular-vote, leader.
"But what if one candidate has won the popular vote and the other candidate has won the delegates?" asked Stephanopoulos.
"But it's a delegate race," Pelosi replied. "The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee."
Pelosi's comments to Stephanopoulos, which were made in Washington, D.C., air Friday evening on ABC News' "World News with Charles Gibson."
The full interview with Pelosi airs Sunday morning on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."
Friends in the next days we will see attacks on Obama's pastor for subscrivbing to Black Liberation Theology
I will make some posts on the subject (it is one of my areas of study) But want to let folks know that I would be very glad to answer any questions you have in my next few posts
Please feel free to ask anything on the subject
Rev Renee Levant , PhD
Given that International Women's Day coincided with the catastrophic events in Gaza, please show your solidarity by signing the statement below from the Campaign of Solidarity with Women Resisting U.S. Wars and Occupation. You can send your name, affiliation, and place of residence to: solidaritywomen@yahoo.com. Piya Chatterjee & Sunaina Maira
An Open Letter to All Feminists: Statement of Solidarity with Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Women Facing War and Occupation
As feminists and people of conscience, we call for solidarity with Palestinian women in Gaza suffering due to the escalating military attacks that Israel turned into an open war on civilians. This war has targeted women and children, and all those who live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank , and are also denied the right to freedom of movement, health, and education. We stand in solidarity with Iraqi women whose daughters, sisters, brothers, or sons have been abused, tortured, and raped in U.S. prisons such as Abu Ghraib. Women in Iraq continue to live under a U.S. occupation that has devastated families and homes, and are experiencing a rise in religious extremism and restrictions on their freedom that were unheard of before the U.S. invasion, “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” in 2003. At this moment in Afghanistan , women are living with the return of the Taliban and other misogynistic groups such as the Northern Alliance, a U.S. ally, and with the violence of continuing U.S. and NATO attacks on civilians, despite the U.S. war to “liberate” Afghan women in 2001. As of March 6, 2008, over 120 Palestinians, including 39 children and 6 women (more than a third of the victims), in Gaza were killed by Israeli air strikes and escalated attacks on civilians over a period of five days, according to human rights groups.
[1] Hospitals have been struggling to treat 370 injured children, as reported by medical officials. Homes have been destroyed as well as civilian facilities including the headquarters of the General Federation of Palestinian Trade Unions.
[2] On February 29, 2008, Israel ’s Deputy Defense Minister, Matan Valnai, threatened Palestinians in Gaza with a “bigger Shoah,” the Hebrew word usually used only for the Holocaust.
[3] What does it mean that the international community is standing by while this is happening? Valnai’s threat of a Holocaust against Palestinians was not just a slip of the tongue, for the war on Gaza is a continuation of genocidal activities against the indigenous population. Israel has controlled the land and sea borders and airspace of Gaza for more than a year and a half, confining 1.5 million Palestinians to a giant prison. Supported by the U.S. , Israelhas imposed a near total blockade on Gaza since June 2007 which has led to a breakdown in basic services, including water and sanitation, lack of electricity, fuel, and medical supplies. As a result of these sanctions, 30% of children under 5 years suffer from stunted growth and malnutrition. Over 80% of the population cannot afford a balanced meal.
[4] Is this humanitarian crisis going to approach a situation similar to that of the sanctions against Iraq from 1991-2003, when an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children died to lack of nutrition and medical supplies, and the woman who was then Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, proclaimed that the death of a half million Iraqi children was worth the price of U.S. national security? As feminists and anti-imperialist people of conscience, we oppose direct and indirect policies of ethnic cleansing and decimation of native populations by all nation-states. In the current climate of U.S.-initiated or U.S.-backed assaults on women in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, we are deeply troubled by one kind of hypocritical Western feminist discourse that continues to be preoccupied with particular kinds of violence against Muslim or Middle Eastern women, while choosing to remain silent on the lethal violence inflicted on women and families by military occupation, F-16s, Apache helicopters, and missiles paid for by U.S. tax payers. This is a moment when U.S. imperialism brazenly uses direct colonial occupation, masked in a civilizational discourse of bringing Western “freedom” and “democracy.” Such acts echo the language of Manifest Destiny that was used to justify U.S. colonization of the Philippines and Pacific territories in the 19th century, not to mention the genocide of Native Americans. U.S. covert, and not so covert, interventions in Central, South America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean have devastated the lives of countless indigenous peoples, and other civilians, in this region throughout the 20th century. The U.S., as well its proxy militias or client regimes, has inflicted violence on women and girls from Vietnam, Okinawa, and Pakistan to Chile, El Salvador, and Somalia and has avenged the deaths of its soldiers by its own “honor killings” that lay siege to entire towns, such as Fallujah in Iraq. It is appalling that in these catastrophic times, many U.S. liberal feminists are focused only on misogynistic practices associated with particular local cultures, as if these exist in capsules, far from the arena of imperial occupation. Indeed, imperial violence has given fuel to some of these patriarchal practices of misogyny and sexism. They should also know that such a narrow vision furthers a much older tradition of feminist mobilizing in the service of colonialism—“saving brown, or black women, from brown men,” as observed by Gayatri Spivak. While we too oppose abuses including domestic violence, “honor killings,” forced marriage, and brutal punishment, we are disturbed that some U.S. feminists—as well as Muslim or Middle Eastern women who claim to be “authorities” on Islam and are employed by right-wing think tanks—are participating in a selective discourse of universal women’s rights that ignores U.S. war crimes and abuses of human rights. While some progressive U.S. feminists claim to oppose the hijacking of women’s rights to justify U.S. invasions, they simultaneously evade any mention about the plight of women in Palestine , Iraq , or Afghanistan . Their statements continue to focus only on female genital mutilation or dowry deaths under the guise of breaking the “politically correct” silence on abuses of women in the “Muslim world” that the Right disingenuously laments.
[5] Some progressives may support such statements with good intentions, but these critiques ignore the fact that Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim feminists have been working on these issues for generations, focusing on the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and nationalism. Their work is ignored by North American feminists who claim to advocate for a “global sisterhood” but are disillusioned to discover that women in the U.S. military participated in the acts of torture at Abu Ghraib. We are concerned about these silences and selective condemnations given that the U.S. mainstream media bolsters this imperialist feminism by using an (often liberal) Orientalist approach to covering the Middle East or South Asia . For example, on March 5, 2008, as the death toll due to Israeli attacks in Gaza was mounting, the New York Times chose to publish an article just below its report on the Israeli military incursions that focused on the sentencing of a Palestinian man in Israel for an honor killing; the report was deemed worthy of international coverage because the Palestinian women had broken “the code of silence” by resorting to Israeli courts.
[6] The implications of this juxtaposition of two unrelated events are that Palestinians belong to a backward, patriarchal culture that, rightly or wrongly, is under attack by a modern, “democratic” state with a legal apparatus that supports women’s rights. Others have shown that the New York Times gave disproportionate attention to the Human Rights Watch report in 2006 on domestic violence against Palestinian women relative to its scant mention of the 76 reports of Israeli abuses of Palestinian rights by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Israeli organization, B’Tselem.
[7] Similar coverage exists of women from other countries outside the U.S. that are portrayed as victims only of their own cultural traditions, rather than also of the ravages of Western imperialism and predatory global capitalism. No attention is paid in the mainstream U.S. media to reports such as that in Haaretz documenting that Palestinian women citizens of Israelare the most exploited group in the Israeli workforce, making only 47% of the wages earned by their Jewish counterparts in Israel , and with double the rate of unemployment of Jewish women.
[8] Little is known in the U.S. about what the lives of Iraqi women are really like now that they are pressured to cover themselves in public or not work outside the house, nor of Afghani women whose homes are still being bombed in a war that was supposed to have liberated them many years ago. We stand in solidarity with feminist and liberatory movements that are opposing U.S. imperialism, U.S.-backed occupation, militarism, and economic exploitation as well as resisting religious and secular fundamentalisms. We also support the struggles of those within the U.S. opposing the War on Terror and racist practices of detention, deportation, surveillance, and torture linked to the military-industrial-prison complex that selectively targets immigrants, minorities, and youth of color. We are grateful for the courageous scholarship of academics who are at risk of not getting tenure or employment because they do research related to settler colonialism or taboo topics such as Palestinian rights and expose controversial aspects of U.S. policies here and abroad. At a moment when U.S. military interventions have made “democracy” a dirty word in much of the world, we strive for true democracy and for freedom and justice for all our sisters and brothers. Piya Chatterjee, University of California-Riverside Sunaina Maira, University of California-Davis Campaign of Solidarity with Women Resisting U.S. Wars and Occupation South Asians for the Liberation of Falastin
[1] “The Tragedy in Gaza ,” Kinder USA, www.kinderusa.org. March 5, 2008. [2] Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory : “Wide-Scale Israeli Military Operations Against the Gaza Strip.” Palestinian Centre for Human Rights,http://www.pchrgaza.org. March 6, 2008. [3] Rory McCarthy, “Israeli Minister Warns of Holocaust for Gaza if Violence Continues.” The Guardian, March 1, 2008. www.guardian.co.uk. [4] “The Tragedy in Gaza .” [5] For example, Katha Pollitt’s petition, “An Open Letter from American Feminists,” posted at: http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/01/6901_an_open_letter.html. See also: Debra Dickerson, “What NOW? Feminist Fatigue and the Global Quest for Women’s Rights,” Mother Jones. www.MotherJones_com.News.mht [6] “16-Year Sentence in Honor Killing,” The New York Times, March 5, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/world/middleeast/05honor.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Honor+Killing+March+5%2C+2008&st=nyt&oref=slogin. [7] Patrick O’Connor and Rachel Roberts, “The New York Times Marginalizes Palestinian Women and Palestinian Rights.” November 7, 2006. [8] Ruth Sinai, “Arab Women – the Most Exploited Group in Israeli Workforce.” Haaretz, January 2, 2008. www.haaretz.com.
I do not do this lightly, and I do not do this happily. There is no exaggeration in this preamble, and when I say the words on "more in sorrow than in anger" on the air tonight, I will mean them and mean them profoundly. As ever, forgive me for quoting myself.
By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton -- and the Senator's mother, and the Senator's brother -- were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger. My gratitude to them is abiding.
My point tonight is that the resignation of Geraldine Ferraro from the Finance Committee of Senator Clinton's campaign is a lost opportunity for the candidate to do simply do the proverbial, cheesy, cornball, 'right thing.' Instead, the Comment will trace the path down which Senator Clinton's advisors led her:
Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline -- on Jackie Robinson day –- about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barock Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan? (snip) Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power -- gone by sunrise after she used the word "monster" -- and have Senator Clinton say, "this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for," while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign? No. Somebody tells her that simply disgreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient. And she should then call, "regrettable," words that should make any Democrat retch.
There is much in the decisions made by the Senator and her strategists that was obvious, mistaken, and damaging. And there is the grimmer prospect. That these, as Howard Fineman suggested on Countdown last night, were not mistakes at all.
It sounds as if those advisors want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap... ignorant... vile... racism that underlies every syllable. And that Geraldine Ferraro has just gone free-lance. Senator Clinton: This is not a campaign strategy. This is a suicide pact.
Just a quick post --
If you just heard Keith's commentary ..PLEASE write MSNBC and tell how important it was to have the truth spoken
KOlbermann@msnbc.com countdown@msnbc.com letters@msnbc.com viewerservices@msnbc.com feedback@msnbc.com
Hillary or Barack?Two Views of Feminismby Nancy FraserI was distressed to read that the President of NY State N.O.W. excoriated Ted Kennedy for "betraying women" by endorsing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton (NYT, 2/1/08). But I was not entirely surprised. That view reflects what has by now become the mainstream self-understanding of American feminism as a political interest group. To the extent that feminists understand themselves in this way, as defending women's policy interests within the existing framework ofpolitics-as-usual, they have found an excellent standard-bearer in Hillary Clinton. But that is not the only way to understand feminism. Not so long ago, many of us saw ourselves as participants in a transformative social movement, which aspired to remake the political landscape. Intent more on changing the rules of the game than on playing it as it lays, we mobilized energies from below to stretch the bounds of what was politically thinkable. Expanding public space and invigorating public debate, our movement projected, not a laundry list of demands, but the inspiriting vision of a non-hierarchical society that nurtured both human connections and individual freedom. Some feminists continue to cleave to that self-understanding. For us, Barack Obama represents a better vehicle for feminist aspirations than Hillary Clinton. The democratizing energies now converging on him promise to create the terrain on which our sort of feminism can once again flourish. Drawing its momentum from activist forces, and inspiring the latter in turn, the Obama compaign offers feminists, and other progressive forces, that rarest of political opportunities: the chance to help build and shape a major realignment of American politics. That is a prospect worthy of the best and the highest in American feminism.Nancy FraserHenry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Philosophy and PoliticsNew School for Social Research
Hillary or Barack?Two Views of Feminismby Nancy Fraser
I was distressed to read that the President of NY State N.O.W. excoriated Ted Kennedy for "betraying women" by endorsing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton (NYT, 2/1/08). But I was not entirely surprised. That view reflects what has by now become the mainstream self-understanding of American feminism as a political interest group. To the extent that feminists understand themselves in this way, as defending women's policy interests within the existing framework ofpolitics-as-usual, they have found an excellent standard-bearer in Hillary Clinton. But that is not the only way to understand feminism. Not so long ago, many of us saw ourselves as participants in a transformative social movement, which aspired to remake the political landscape. Intent more on changing the rules of the game than on playing it as it lays, we mobilized energies from below to stretch the bounds of what was politically thinkable. Expanding public space and invigorating public debate, our movement projected, not a laundry list of demands, but the inspiriting vision of a non-hierarchical society that nurtured both human connections and individual freedom. Some feminists continue to cleave to that self-understanding. For us, Barack Obama represents a better vehicle for feminist aspirations than Hillary Clinton. The democratizing energies now converging on him promise to create the terrain on which our sort of feminism can once again flourish. Drawing its momentum from activist forces, and inspiring the latter in turn, the Obama compaign offers feminists, and other progressive forces, that rarest of political opportunities: the chance to help build and shape a major realignment of American politics. That is a prospect worthy of the best and the highest in American feminism.
Nancy FraserHenry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Philosophy and PoliticsNew School for Social Research
As far as I know, the is nothing untoward in Hillary's tax returns. She says there is nothing improper in those returns and nothing that would completely undermine her candidacy.
That is what she says and so I assume it is true -- at least as far as I know
Finally Major Media reports all the Clinton Shenanigans and false claims about Barack Obama
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a81/kos102/2008/Video/?action=view¤t=keithClintonisNuts.flv
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a81/kos102/2008/Video/?action=view¤t=keithClintonisNutsB.flv
Michigan asked for a new caucus and their request was acce3pted by the Democratic Party Leadership (and I suspect the Obama Campaign
HILLARY OPPOSES!!!!
Here was the earlier news and the update where Hillary Thwarts attempts at a fair run off
The New Republic reports that Michigan "plans to get out of its uncounted delegate problem by announcing a new caucus in the next few days." Said the source: "They want to play. They know how to do caucuses. That was their plan all along, before they got cute with the primary." "Michigan Democrats had originally planned on caucuses after the legally permissible Feb. 5 date, but then went along with top elected Democrats, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who pushed for an early primary." The Hotline confirms the story.Granholm is an avid Hillary supporter and felt she would do better earlier and in a primary. Michigan has always done caucuses
The New Republic reports that Michigan "plans to get out of its uncounted delegate problem by announcing a new caucus in the next few days."
Said the source: "They want to play. They know how to do caucuses. That was their plan all along, before they got cute with the primary."
"Michigan Democrats had originally planned on caucuses after the legally permissible Feb. 5 date, but then went along with top elected Democrats, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who pushed for an early primary."
The Hotline confirms the story.
Granholm is an avid Hillary supporter and felt she would do better earlier and in a primary. Michigan has always done caucuses
http://politicalwire.com/...
Update, 6:30 p.m. In an interview with U.S. News & World Report, Senator Clinton had this to say about the process going forward:
I would not accept a caucus. I think that would be a great disservice to the 2 million people who turned out and voted. I think that they want their votes counted. And you know a lot of people would be disenfranchised because of the timing and whatever the particular rules were. This is really going to be a serious challenge for the Democratic Party because the voters in Michigan and Florida are the ones being hurt, and certainly with respect to Florida the Democrats were dragged into doing what they did by a Republican governor and a Republican Legislature. They didn’t have any choice whatsoever. And I don’t think that there should be any do-over or any kind of a second run in Florida. I think Florida should be seated.]
