Valley Forge Protest Against War Profiteer

This Friday, at noon, at the convergence of Mall & Goddard Boulevards in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, locals will gather to protest against the work of Lockheed Martin. The Brandywine Peace Community calls Lockheed Martin the largest war profiteer in the United States.

So far, the protest sounds good. It’s at this point, however, that the Brandywine Peace Community does some really clumsy mixing of religion and antiwar activism. They declare their demonstration “War’s 5th Anniversary Trail of Mourning & Truth” and say that it will be modeled on the Catholic stations of the cross Easter walk, which in many parts of the world still involved ritual self-mutilation.

The posting at United for Peace and Justice explains, “The Good Friday Demonstration, modeled on the traditional Stations of the Cross, will include readings paralelling the U.S. policy of war and occupation, war economy and unmet human needs, with the last steps and crucified death of Jesus Christ and will also include nonviolent civil disobedience…”

Huh?!?

What on earth does the crucifixion of Jesus have to do with Lockheed Martin? Are they supposed to be responsible for the execution of Jesus?

A word of advice to the Brandywine Peace Community: There are a lot of good non-Christian peace activists around, but you lose their support when you insist on using antiwar demonstrations to push your religion at people. People ought to be able to protest for peace without having someone harangue them about Jesus.

The Iraq War is not about Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or the Book of Revelations, okay? Please, let’s stay on topic.

McCain Faced With Protests In New Hampshire

John McCain went to Exeter, New Hampshire, to meet with a group of supporters to try to get his struggling campaign on its feet. What he didn’t plan on was to meet a group of protesters outside that was almost as large as the assembly of his supporters.

The protesters chanted, “Bush, McCain, more of the same.”

“John McCain is wrong on issues like trade, the economy, on health care and the minimum wage, on workers’ rights,” said one protester, a union member explaining why he joined the demonstration.

Some news outlets reported 75 protesters. Others reported hundreds eventually showing up.

Along with John McCain was turncoat Joseph Lieberman, also known as the Zell Miller of the North.

Rebekah Kennedy for Senate, As A Green

Rebekah Kennedy, a civil rights lawyer from Fort Smith, Arkansas, is running as a challenger against incumbent U.S. Senator Mark Pryor. Although Senator Pryor is a Democrat, he almost always votes with Republicans on important legislation, and has earned the resentment of rank-and-file Arkansas Democrats.

The following transcript is from part of a conversation between Rebekah Kennedy and Irregular Times.

What brought you to this Green Party candidacy?

Well, that’s almost two questions, because half of that question is what brought me to the Green Party, and the other half of that question is why it’s so important now to run against Mark Pryor in particular, and to give the people of Arkansas a choice for this seat.

As far as what attracts me to the Green Party, I was born and raised Democrat in a state where most people are born and raised Democrat. There’s a popular mythology that Arkansas is a red state, but as is the case with so many things, that’s been simplified to the point of being untrue.

The dynamics of politics in Arkansas are a little bit different than they are in some other places. There may be some places in the United States where being a Democrat is still a way to make a difference for progressive values in America, but by and large Arkansas is not one of those states, particularly on a state level. The Democratic Party in Arkansas has been in control of the state government, particularly with majority control of the state legislature, for over 100 years, and has failed to bring about any progressive change for 100 years.

For those reasons, I decided to look for a political party that could be a vehicle, not merely of ambition, but of values and positive progressive public policy. That’s what led me to the Green Party.

If the Democratic Party doesn’t stand for progressive values in Arkansas, what does it stand for?

The status quo, certain narrow business interests, fear of Republicans, to some extent.

What happens to liberal Democrats in Arkansas is that they find themselves constantly voting for people who don’t share their values or their vision of public policy, for fear of politicians who would do even worse things if elected. That’s not a road toward progress.

How then, can those people have any hope for representation in Arkansas. What’s the path you see for that?

I think that the first step is that we have to have a political party that will represent us and give us a voice in the process. That’s why I’ve spent the last seven years working to build the Green Party – because I think it’s the best shot we have at building a political party that will really do what we need a political party to do. That is to say, rather than having a system for making sure that someone’s friends in Little Rock gets the state jobs they’re interested in, which is the primary function of the Democratic Party in Arkansas, we need a political party that will work to elect progressives, and advocate for progressive legislation and actively try to stop antiprogressive legislation.

The Green Party is going to be the vehicle for doing that in Arkansas, because I see that a lot of people have put a lot of time and energy into trying to fix the Democratic Party from the inside, and I won’t say that doesn’t have some value, perhaps in a more progressive state, but the degree of sweeping out you would have to do to make the Democratic Party of Arkansas a vehicle for progressive change is such that you might as well try to make the Republican Party of Arkansas a vehicle for progressive change.

In fact, there have been times when, lacking any other vehicle, the Republican Party has been the vehicle people in Arkansas have used to try to bring about progressive change. That’s why we have a large category of Rockefeller Republicans in Arkansas, which is a term that may sound odd to people in some places, but they’re sort of liberal in the sense of being forward looking and in favor of education and science. In some cases that kind of Republican has been the only alternative to the back-slapping, good old boy Democratic politics.

Philadelphia Waters Filled With Pharmaceuticals

Philadelphia might well be renamed Pharmadelphia. That’s the reaction that comes after the news that, after the testing of the water supplies for at least 62 metropolitan areas, it’s Philadelphia’s water that comes out on top, or on the bottom, depending on how you look at it. Of all the sources of water tested, Philadelphia’s water had the most kinds of pharmaceutical contamination in it.

The researchers found traces of 63 different medications in Philadelphia’s waters. The most pharmaceutically-contaminated city water after that was New York City’s, with 16 medications found.

Philadelphia’s waters include antibiotic amoxicillin. It’s no wonder, then, that Philadelphians are suffering from more antibiotic-resistant infections.

The Irony of the Texas Media Empowerment Project

I really like the idea of the Texas Media Empowerment Project. It purports to be “fighting for a fair media system”, “advocating for social justice”, “collaborating with communities”, and so on.

Here’s the thing: Although the Texas Media Empowerment Project has a well-designed web site with lots of pretty graphic elements, and there are photographs of a “benefit” social gathering with really groovy music in 2005 and of a “media producer training” in 2006, there isn’t anything on the web site to actually do to empower any media, in Texas or anywhere else.

The “Services” and “Action” sections, where there would presumably be some kind of activist resources to enable people to build empowered media, are empty. “Coming soon…”, they read. Coming soon since 2005?

Here’s the lesson I learned as a member of the Constructive Interference Collective in Memphis, Tennessee back in the 1990s: Talking about media empowerment doesn’t empower anybody. Having really groovy music is nice, but it doesn’t empower anyone either. Creating media, and using it for a social purpose, is empowering.

Seeing people complain that the media system in the USA is unfair, when those same people are not using the media opportunities that are always available to them, makes me skeptical of what those people have to say. It’s not that I don’t believe that there are injustices being done by the FCC, or that there are problems with the dominance of corporate media. Rather, I’m suspicious of people who passively complain about media problems without actually doing anything about it. Their complaints have little more substance than the whining of people who wish that there was something to watch on TV.

Media empowerment is actually accomplished in 5 very simple steps.

1. Turn off the media that seems corrupted and unjust to you. No, don’t look at it and complain about it. Just turn it off.
2. Make your own media.
3. Make your own media.
4. Make your own media.
5. Make your own media.

If the Texas Media Empowerment Project really wants to empower media for others, then it needs to start with itself. Use the web site, guys. Turn it on. Give it the power.

Alas the South Dakota Radicals

Once upon a time at our progressive directory of South Dakota, we linked to a group of active and interesting people who called themselves South Dakota Radicals. Radicals in South Dakota – imagine that!

Well, you’ll have to imagine that, because those South Dakota Radicals have up and quit. Now, the sdradicals.org web site gives me the following not-very-radical message:

Panasonic SDR-H18 $729.94
Compare prices on Panasonic SDR-H18 30GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder.
www.gosale.com/panasonic-sdr-h18

I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. It’s really disheartening to see the number of good progressive web sites that have gone under in the last couple of years.

If you’re going to get a web site, hang on to it, even if you can’t keep it current as much as you’d like to. You may want to use it again, or other people may find it useful.

Don’t let the cybersquatters take over your idealism, as happened to the South Dakota Radicals, now marketing spam.

Mark Pryor Targeted by Progressives For Removal From Senate in 2008

In the wake of his vote for the FISA Amendments Act, Senator Mark Pryor has been targeted by progressives for removal from the United States Senate in 2008.

The FISA Amendments Act allows George W. Bush to conduct electronic spying operations against the American people with no restraint. Here’s what the law does:

makes it legal for the federal government to spy on you electronically – Reading your email, listening to your telephone calls, watching what web pages you visit, including tracking you on Gather, following your financial transactions

without any explanation of why they’re doing the spying

without anyone outside of the Executive Branch knowing that the spying is being done

without oversight by Congress

gives telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for helping the government do this even before the Protect America Act was passed

The truth is that Mark Pryor’s problems go way, way back. The Progressive Patriots legislative scorecard for Mark Pryor gives him a score of just 6 out of 100.

Senator Pryor was placed into the United States Senate by his daddy, who was also Senator Pryor in his time. They treated it like a family inheritance instead of a democratically-elected position. So, Mark Pryor does not feel beholden to Democratic voters in Arkansas so much as he feels beholden to his father’s buddies and political allies. Those political insider friends of Mark Pryor have made sure that there is no Democratic Party primary challenger for Pryor in the 2008 Senate election. As always, Mark Pryor gets the skids greased for him all the way.

Rank and file Arkansas Democrats have had it with Mark Pryor’s two-faced politics. In 2008 in Arkansas, ordinary Democrats are against Mark Pryor, and many are defecting to the Green Party campaign of Rebekah Kennedy.

Senator Rockefeller Votes With John McCain Against Obama!

Today in the United States Senate, there was a series of votes on the FISA Amendments Act. The law has a boring name that seems very technical, but the effect of the law is easy to understand, and not at all boring.

This law will allow the White House to spy on American citizens’ electronic communications without any restraint.

Does that have your attention? Good. This is important… unless you think that having your emails, telephone calls and Internet use spied on by the FBI is just fine and dandy.

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller is a Democrat in name, but he votes along with the Republicans on important issues much more than he votes with the Democrats. On the important issue of protecting Americans from the abuse of big government spies, Rockefeller stands with George W. Bush – on the side of Big Brother against you.

On almost every single vote today, Senator Rockefeller voted to help George W. Bush spy against your email, listen to your cell phone calls, and watch you on the world wide web – and to conduct this spying without any justification or oversight. This new Republican law that Rockefeller supports prohibits Congress from exercising oversight to prevent abuses, and allows the FBI and Director of National Intelligence to go spy against Americans without having to even make a claim that the targeted Americans are suspected of a crime. If this law passes, the President will be able to order his government to spy on you just because they don’t like you – and no one will be able to stop them.

Barack Obama was there today in the Senate. Obama stood strong and firm against the abusive FISA Amendments Act spying regime. John McCain voted in favor of Big Brother government spying against Americans.

Where did Senator John Rockefeller come down? Senator Rockefeller betrayed all freedom-loving Americans. He voted against Obama. Rockefeller voted with John McCain and George W. Bush.

Senator Rockefeller, over and over again today, voted to unleash the electronic spies of the government against you. Rockefeller betrayed us.

Senator Rockefeller is being challenged by two Democrats for the Senate nomination this year. West Virginians, please give them your support. Senator Rockefeller deserves the support of the West Virginia Democrats no longer.

Virginia Progressive Blogosphere Full of Dropouts

I’m updating the Virginia progressive directory today, and finding myself dismayed at the dramatic winnowing of the progressive Virginia blogosphere. Out of the list of 25 progressive Virginia blogs I assembled a couple of years ago, I find that only eight are still active on a regular basis.

I’ll be spending the rest of the morning seeking out new progressive blogs focusing on Virginia politics, but I don’t expect to find 17 to make up the difference in the directory. That’s sad, given that state and local bloggers can provide a level of detail on news stories that national news organizations, and even local newspapers, rarely give. Such blogs are also excellent centers of online political organization.

Having someone from one of the gigantic, corporate-sponsored blogs, like DailyKos or the Huffington Post, write about Virginia politics is no replacement for truly independent voices. If you know of a worthwhile progressive Virginia blog that ought to be included in the Virginia progressive directory, please leave a comment here to let me know about it.

Maine Progressive Caucus On The Verge Of Disappearing

Alert to Maine progressives: The Maine Progressive Caucus is on the verge of disappearing from the Internet. The old web site of the Maine Progressive Caucus, at mainecaucus.net, is no longer to be found at all, and the newer web site, at maineprogressive.org, is about to go under too.

The web site expired on January 20, and is now hosting ads for jobs in Maine. Soon, if the Maine Progressive Caucus doesn’t get a move on, the site will be selling credit cards, pharmaceuticals, and shady business deals.

If you know someone with the Maine Progressive Caucus, please get in touch with them to let them know what’s going on. If you’re from the Maine Progressive Caucus yourself, and you need a helping hand with the site, leave a message here in the comment section. Tell me how to get in touch with you, and I’ll see what I can do to help out.