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avivajazz  jazzaviva

Shake your fists, then get real | @Karoli on the "death" of healthcare reform, and my r... - 0 views

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    Lots of good points, @Karoli; much to meditate on. Would love clarification on the following comment, though: "Can anyone familiar with history point to any time where a bill has made it this far, been pulled back by proponents, and lived as a stronger version of itself?" How is it a "stronger version of itself?" I don't follow Congressional maneuvers with the same background knowledge or attention to detail that you do; I'm probably missing some key information that would clarify your meaning. Really like your myth-busting data. It's refreshing to see a recap of details that can easily escape us. In some cases, your data gives me a point of departure for further research, so I can come to my own conclusions. Without your article, sorting out the key questions to investigate would be much harder for me. Also, I agree that waiting for a better bill, with so many "people hanging by a thread," is a luxury that only the well-heeled can afford. For many legislators, insulated from financial woes, much of this healthcare debate is about anything and everything except healthcare reform. All that said, I'm obviously an idealist who yearns for global, systemic change. I would want to change the fundamental nature of dance competition's culture, if my daughter were involved. It would be hard for me to keep my eye on the pragmatic truths: deep, systemic change of any cultural institution (socioeconomic, sociocultural, or sociopolitical) is a project for centuries, for eons. It's evolutionary. For today, how does your daughter keep following her passion in a system that's unfair? For today, how do we facilitate efforts to get as many health insurance benefits for the most people in a system that's unjust? I'm not sure I entirely buy your solution―but overall, it's a hell of a lot more practical than the one I was about to employ: sinking into helplessness, hopelessness, and depression... In fact, it's a hell of a lot more idealistic than sinking into despair, too! I fe
ken meece

AlterNet: Is the Constitution Suited to Today's Church/State Issues? - 0 views

  • The government increasingly sees citizens as pastoral-care clients, as persons in need of spiritual care, and I want to describe the law that makes this possible.
  • how religion is being regulated in hospitals and, more generally, how chaplaincies are multiplying in this country: municipal chaplaincies, crisis chaplaincies, hospital chaplaincies, even school and workplace chaplaincies.
  • people are understanding themselves in terms of a new revival of a holistic image of the human being as, in some sense, basically spiritual.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • It's a next step in the radical disestablishment of religion in this country.
  • The exclusivity of materialist/medicalized understandings of the entire range of human capabilities and experience, as well as ecclesiastical capacity to insist on orthodoxy and particularity, are both fast eroding
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
  • We have so much religious diversity, and we don't have the history of an established church that can provide a location and an umbrella under which to reinvent ourselves as a multireligious society, as progressive reformers in Britain are trying to do. On the one hand, I want to remind religious folks of that. On the other, I want to say to the secularists that, look, you have lost the game. You didn't provide a language and an understanding of the human person that's adequate. So, to a certain extent, these religious reformers are right. Personal transformation, particularly in Americans' eyes, is understood as something that is spiritual or religious. It's about more than fixing people in an engineering sense. I think that secularists are going to have to make bridges toward these spiritual communities and languages. People get better when they're treated as whole human beings, and religion is one way in which that wholeness is imagined, culturally.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Daily Kos: Open Letter: Call me a BOZO, I'm for Health Reform: UPDATE 4X w/POLL - 0 views

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    *I've been very critical of HCR (1+ / 0-)Obama, and the whole process and what appears that the end result will be.  What would be enough for the democrats opposed to the bill to support it? Personally speaking, I recognize that it's never going to be perfect.  But the sticking point is forcing people to buy a product from a private company without any effective cost control measures.  That's it, anything else I can work with. So for me, I would need either the mandate taken out, strict cost regulation added, or a non-profit pulic option added. What about the rest of you? by Skellen on Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 11:59:13 AM PST[ Reply to This | Recommend ] REPLY by .@avivao: Mandate to buy private insurance? (0 / 0)Exactly. A mandate to buy from private insurers (who're already raising rates in advance of the bill's passage--a way of gaming medical loss ratios, etc.) must be counterbalanced by a substantive public plan (Medicare for All or Medicare for More would be the most expeditious way to go, I suspect). Also, the mandate will surely cause suffering "down the road" unless regulation of insurers is actually enforceable. Still, we must pass this #HCR bill, I think. I'm extremely worried about (1) passing it with a unilateral mandate; (2) not passing it because of a unilateral mandate. How did we get trapped like this? What went wrong? Sure; a lot has gone right. I don't deny it. I'm glad. But we're backed into a corner now on passing this health bill. If we don't pass it, the news is very, very bad. If we do pass it, the news is probably very,very bad (for a different constellation of reasons). I say: #PassTheDamnBill. But I'm very disturbed by the potential consequences of doing so. There are many benefits to this bill; I pray that the liabilities don't outweigh them. We'll see. by avivagabriel on Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 11:56:59 AM PST[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Anne Hulthen

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - 1 - 0 views

  • He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish;
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      This is kind of like Jimmy Carter, How sometimes the best person doesn't make the best president, because they lack the ability to persuade the caucus or play the politician.
  • All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. 
  • "This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other."(
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  • there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.(15) There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do,
  •  It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that
  • Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may.
  •   All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it.
  • There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves.
  • "I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico; — see if I would go";
  • ow many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow (17) — one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern,
  • and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute
ken meece

Think Again: God - By Karen Armstrong | Foreign Policy - 1 views

  • An inadequate understanding of God that reduces “him” to an idol in our own image who gives our likes and dislikes sacred sanction is the worst form of spiritual tyranny. Such arrogance has led to atrocities like the Crusades. The rise of secularism in government was meant to check this tendency, but secularism itself has created new demons now inflicting themselves on the world.
  • In the West, secularism has been a success, essential to the modern economy and political system, but it was achieved gradually over the course of nearly 300 years, allowing new ideas of governance time to filter down to all levels of society. But in other parts of the world, secularization has occurred far too rapidly and has been resented by large sectors of the population,
  • Shiism had for centuries separated religion from politics as a matter of sacred principle, and Khomeini’s insistence that a cleric should become head of state was an extraordinary innovation.
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  • In the same spirit, Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, began his movement by translating the social message of the Koran into a modern idiom, founding clinics, hospitals, trade unions, schools, and factories that gave workers insurance, holidays, and good working conditions. In other words, he aimed to bring the masses to modernity in an Islamic setting. The Brotherhood’s resulting popularity was threatening to Egypt’s secular government, which could not provide these services.
  • John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama have invoked faith as a shared experience that binds the country together -- an approach that recognizes the communal power of spirituality without making any pretense to divine right.
  • it is not God or religion but violence itself -- inherent in human nature -- that breeds violence. As a species, we survived by killing and eating other animals; we also murder our own kind. So pervasive is this violence that it leaks into most scriptures, though these aggressive passages have always been balanced and held in check by other texts that promote a compassionate ethic based on the Golden Rule
  • "religious" wars, no matter how modern the tools, always begin as political ones.
  • In recent Gallup polling conducted in 35 Muslim countries, only 7 percent of those questioned thought that the September 11 attacks were justified. Their reasons were entirely political.
  • Fundamentalism is not conservative. Rather, it is highly innovative -- even heretical -- because it always develops in response to a perceived crisis. In their anxiety, some fundamentalists distort the tradition they are trying to defend.
  • All fundamentalism -- whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim -- is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation.
  • The Bible and the Koran may have prohibited usury, but over the centuries Jews, Christians, and Muslims all found ways of getting around this restriction and produced thriving economies. It is one of the great ironies of religious history that Christianity, whose founder taught that it was impossible to serve both God and mammon, should have produced the cultural environment that, as Max Weber suggested in his 1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, was integral to modern capitalism.
  • the religious critique of excessive greed is far from irrelevant. Although not opposed to business, the major faith traditions have tried to counterbalance some of the abuses of capitalism. Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, by means of yoga and other disciplines, try to moderate the aggressive acquisitiveness of the human psyche. The three monotheistic faiths have inveighed against the injustice of unevenly distributed wealth
  • Religion is not simply a matter of subscribing to a set of obligatory beliefs; it is hard work, requiring a ceaseless effort to get beyond the selfishness that prevents us from achieving a more humane humanity.
  • in their rebellion against the modern ethos, fundamentalists tend to overemphasize traditional gender roles. Unfortunately, frontal assaults on this patriarchal trend have often proven counterproductive.
  • But their reading of scripture is unprecedentedly literal. Before the modern period, few understood the first chapter of Genesis as an exact account of the origins of life; until the 17th century, theologians insisted that if a biblical text contradicted science, it must be interpreted allegorically.
  • Ironically, it was the empirical emphasis of modern science that encouraged many to regard God and religious language as fact rather than symbol, thus forcing religion into an overly rational, dogmatic, and alien literalism.
  • What has alienated many Muslims from the democratic ideal is not their religion but Western governments’ support of autocratic rulers, such as the Iranian shahs, Saddam Hussein, and Hosni Mubarak, who have denied people basic human and democratic rights.
  • a 2006 Gallup poll revealed that 46 percent of Americans believe that God should be the source of legislation.
  • A fatwa is not universally binding like a papal edict; rather, it simply expresses the opinion of the mufti who issues it. Muslims can choose which fatwas they adopt and thus participate in a flexible free market of religious thought, just as Americans can choose which church they attend.
  • Religion should be studied with the same academic impartiality and accuracy as the economy, politics, and social customs of a region, so that we learn how religion interacts with political tension, what is counterproductive, and how to avoid giving unnecessary offense.
  • In the Middle East, overly aggressive secularization has sometimes backfired, making the religious establishment more conservative, or even radical.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Daily Kos: Poverty in America and Class Warfare - 0 views

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    It's intellectually dishonest to have a discussion over the fairness of the tax code and welfare programs without FIRST addressing the inherent inequality of our labor markets, capital markets, access to education, access to the judicial system, access to infrastructure, and intellectual property laws. Fundamentally, if a business leader makes his profits from paying his employees minimum wage at $7.50/hour in an area where a decent livable wage is $15/hour, but where workers have little negotiating leverage and few other options, then it is RIGHT to expect government to tax the business/owner at a high percentage and the workers at a low percentage, and to use tax funds to provide the under-compensated workers with housing and food assistance, as well as other forms of aid. In that scenario, the scenario in which most of our country operates (accounting also for middle-class wage-earners that are under-paid), it is disturbingly unfair to demand that "equality" be applied only at the tax code (even moreso that it only be leveled at the income tax, specifically), as if wealth is earned solely in proportion to some fantastical Randian ideal of personal worth and NOT heavily influenced by real-world power dynamics.
Anne Hulthen

How JFK Fathered The Modern Presidential Campaign : NPR - 0 views

  • "In 1960, when he ran for the presidency, first of all, if he won, he was going to be the youngest man ever elected to the White House," Dallek says. "Secondly, he was going to be the first Catholic, so there was something fresh and new, and this is what he spun out in the campaign. He called his potential administration the 'new frontier,' and he said the torch was being passed to a new generation."
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      Novelty. The media loves an underdog and Kennedy used this to his advantage. His Youth and "Catholicism" also played in to the imaginations of Americans. Did they want to see themselves as different and unique, American culture as accepting and permissive? Did this reflect American values or is it merely the novelty?
  • energetic
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      Energy!! This is a big part of the 1960s culture. We were just beginning to enter the age of idealization of American culture. Specifically ambition, intelligence, culture, worldliness and glamour that defined the American dreams of the 1960s. This was a lot different than the 50s which favored conformity and the status quo rather than striving to achieve greatness. Kennedy represented the youthful energy that flowed through the air during the 60s.
  • But when you toss in the rise of television and the way Kennedy harnessed the new medium's power
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      One of the first uses of mass media. However's Kennedy's use of this medium reflects the Kennedy's campaigns strategy of Youth and being in touch with the Youth generation. Almost like Obama. This also reflects the 60s which was really the age of Youth and Newness.
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  • when Kennedy came across as presidential
  • who was witty, charming, handsome
  • Filmmaker Robert Drew was given up-close access to Kennedy in Wisconsin to produce a documentary
  • JFK also tapped into popular culture to appeal to voters. His ads moved beyond the stodginess of past campaigns. There was no bigger star than Frank Sinatra, who reworked one of his big hits into a JFK jingle:
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      Pop culture. This was another big thing in the late 50s, early 60s, the development of pocket change and rapid consumption of culture as a commodity. Perhaps JFK's biggest achievement in his presidential campaign was treating his presidency as a commodity, something he needed to commercialize and sell to the American people. Hence Frank Sinatra, a marketable aspect.
  • "They understood that when you run a campaign like this," Dallek says, "you not only have to present yourself as attractive, appealing, effective, promising, but you also have to show that your opponent has terrible weaknesses, things that you wouldn't want to see in the White House."
  • The Kennedy campaign also featured a strong outreach to Hispanic voters, presenting an ad with the candidate's wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, speaking in Spanish.
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      He really courted all demographics of the American population.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Obama Warns Debt Ceiling Should Not Be 'Used As A Gun' To Extract Tax Breaks - Politica... - 0 views

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    Speaking at the Twitter Town Hall at the White House today, the president said Congress "shouldn't be toying" with the debt ceiling and cautioned against risking the financial health of the country in order to protect the interests of the super wealthy.   "Never in our history has the United States defaulted on its debt. The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners, for oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars because the price of gasoline has gone up so high.  I mean, I'm happy to have those debates.  I think the American people are on my side on this," Obama said. The president was adamant that when it comes to fixing the economy and solving the deficit problem "we should go with what works," and that's a tax increase on the wealthy. "If the wealthiest among us -- and I include myself in this category -- are willing to give up a little bit more, then we can solve this problem.  It does not take a lot… when people say, you know, "job-killing tax increases, that's what Obama's proposing," we're not going to," he said. "You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.  And the facts are that a modest increase for wealthy individuals is not shown to have an adverse impact on job growth." "We can test the two theories.  You had what happened during the '90s.  Right?  Taxes for wealthy individuals were somewhat higher, businesses boomed, the economy boomed, great job growth;  and then the 2000s, when taxes were cut on wealthy individuals, jobs didn't grow as fast, businesses didn't grow as fast. I mean, it's not like we haven't tried what these other folks are pitching.  It didn't work.  And we should go with what works," he said.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Senator Levin: "Your Clients Lost. Goldman Profits" | Kris Broughton | Big Think - 0 views

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    I was tooling around the internet for awhile yesterday, looking for a transcript of the Congressional hearings that featured Goldman Sachs executives and traders as the star witnesses, before I realized that nowhere in print was there any real sense of what had gone on. Congressional hearings may have been effective at some point in the past, but these days, the witnesses are usually far too polished and used to dissembling for hours at a time to be of any real value, and the senators and congressmen who are asking the questions are usually too polite to do more than ask questions of little or no value. Senator Carl Levin tried to deviate from that formula on Tuesday. He was harsh, unyielding and relentless. "Your clients lost. Goldman profits" rang out several times during his opening address. But Senator Levin didn't have enough of an understanding of the business to really pin back the ears of any of the witnesses, including Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs chairman. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why his staffers didn't line up a few disgruntled traders and insiders to give the senator a three or four day crash course on the business. His gambling analogies were something that might appeal to my grandmother, who puts gambling of any kind up there with the cardinal sins, but missed the mark when it came to characterizing Wall Street's shenanigans.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Bailout for the People || Basic Income Guarantees || Cancerous Monetary System in USA - 0 views

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    Isn't it fiinally time to enact a "basic income guarantee"? The lack of individual and family income security in the midst of a highly-developed economy is a travesty under any circumstances. But the contradiction of "poverty in the midst of plenty" that has plagued the world since the start of the Industrial Revolution is becoming much more grave in the U.S. and abroad. The problem, of course, is one of distribution of earnings, and excess production capacity relative to available income... Winston Churchill gave eloquent testimony to this conundrum of the modern age when delivering the Romanes Lecture at Oxford University on June 19, 1930. This was a few months after the crash of the U.S. stock market marked the start of the Great Depression. Churchill said: "Who would have thought that it would be easier to produce by toil and skill all the most necessary or desirable commodities than it is to find consumers for them? Who would have thought that cheap and abundant supplies of all the basic commodities would find the science and civilization of the world unable to utilize them? Have all our triumphs of research and organization bequeathed us only a new punishment: the Curse of Plenty? Are we really to believe that no better adjustment can be made between supply and demand? Yet the fact remains that every attempt has failed. Many various attempts have been made, from the extremes of Communism in Russia to the extremes of Capitalism in the United States. They include every form of fiscal policy and currency policy. But all have failed, and we have advanced little further in this quest than in barbaric times. Surely it is this mysterious crack and fissure at the basis of all our arrangements and apparatus upon which the keenest minds throughout the world should be concentrated.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Corporate Credo of 1948: Shareholder Profits Didn't Always Trump Every Other Possible C... - 0 views

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    The corporation's responsibiities, per Johnson & Johnson CEO, 1948, in order of priority: 1. First responsibility is to those who use our product; we must offer high quality at low prices, and deliver our product with prompt, accurate service. 2.  Second responsibility is to all employees of the corporation, providing fair pay, job security, healthy working conditions, respect for each individual, and justice in management and governance of both employees and operations.    3. Third responsibility is to hire corporate executives possessing integrity, talent, common sense, personal wisdom, education, and experience. 4. Four responisibility is to the communities in which our corporate facilities are embedded. Corporations must be good citizens, contributing to the health and viability of the commonweal, supporting civic improvement, improved health, education, and government, reinvest in the corporation's larger community and infrastructure  by paying fair taxes, and being good stewards of the unsustainable resources used in conducting business activities. 6. Last responsibility is to shareholders/stockholders via creation of sound, sustainable profit and fair returns to investors. 5. 
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Obama marks crisis by urging Wall Street to act before Congress | TheHill.com - 0 views

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    "You don't have to wait to use plain language in your dealings with consumers. You don't have to wait to put the 2009 bonuses of your senior executives up for a shareholder vote," Obama said. "You don't have to wait for a law to overhaul your pay system so that folks are rewarded for long-term performance instead of short-term gains."
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Dodd, Leahy, Feingold, and Merkley Announce Bill to Repeal Retroactive Immunity for Tel... - 0 views

  • Dodd, Leahy, Feingold, and Merkley Announce Bill to Repeal Retroactive Immunity | Press Release | Sept. 28, 2009
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    Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said, "Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of their right to seek accountability for the Bush administration's decision to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Today, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd to introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act. We can strengthen national security while protecting Americans' privacy and civil liberties. Restoring Americans' access to the courts is the first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws."
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform | Howard Dean | Dec 17, 2009 - 0 views

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    "Health-care bill wouldn't bring real reform TOOLBOX Resize Print E-mail Yahoo! Buzz ad_icon COMMENT 248 Comments | View All » POST A COMMENT You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register Why Do I Have to Log In Again? Log In Again? CLOSE We've made some updates to washingtonpost.com's Groups, MyPost and comment pages. We need you to verify your MyPost ID by logging in before you can post to the new pages. We apologize for the inconvenience. Discussion Policy Your browser's settings may be preventing you from commenting on and viewing comments about this item. See instructions for fixing the problem. Discussion Policy CLOSE Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post. Who's Blogging » Links to this article By Howard Dean Thursday, December 17"
avivajazz  jazzaviva

We are Exiles Who Follow an Alien, Undocumented, Migrant Messiah - Debra Dean Murphy - ... - 0 views

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    After NAFTA caused cheap American corn to flood Mexican markets, putting even prosperous Mexican corn farmers out of business, many fled to the U.S., desperate for work to support their families. Many others were actively recruited by corporations like Smithfield to work dangerous jobs in American factories. Government raids, like the one depicted in the movie, are carried out in collusion with the senior management of companies like Smithfield to "send a message" (to Americans, to the undocumented) while never really interfering with the company's production line or, more importantly, its bottom line.
Anne Hulthen

The New York Times Upfront | The news magazine for high school - 2 views

  • He invited photographers into the White House to take candid photos of him and his family, helping to create the Kennedys' Hollywood-like mystique
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      My question is answered. These candid photos of the perfect American family surely garnered him support. Did the attractiveness of his family help him? Most likely the people were just as intrigued by the image of upper class eastern life that the Kennedys presented, with it's fashion, athleticism, education, all resources which were starting to become increasingly valuable with the mass market.
  • Kennedy's ads presented him as ready to lead during a time of great tension in the world, highlighted his commitment to create jobs and equal opportunities for all Americans, and questioned whether Nixon was exaggerating his experience.
  • "Television is all about image, not substance,"
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  • "He looked sick, but also a little unsure," Albert W. Upton, who had been Nixon's drama coach at Whittier College, told The New York Times. And Nixon's former law partner, Thomas Bewley, said, "Dick just didn't look good. His...clothes were wrong. He didn't have the old spirit."
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      Style over substance in the Mass Media. The Kennedys were always avid presenters, able to make others view them in the best light possible. They carefully crafted their image to conform to the American ideal.
  • the tanned, photogenic Democratic candidate for President
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      A lot of these articles mention Kennedy's physical attractiveness. Did that add to his appeal? Perhaps it gave him additional celebrity and helped to make him a public figure, beloved by the people. Did the Media's coverage of him help in this respect? Did the images presented of him always show him at his best? Perhaps he new how to use his handsomeness and the press to his advantage as he knew he would appear to advantage in photos and on television.
Anne Hulthen

John F. Kennedy and the Press - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum - 0 views

  • The public loved John F. Kennedy's press conferences, although some of his advisors worried about the risk of mistakes by the president and others thought the press showed insufficient respect for the dignity of his office
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      He's making himself not only seem more relatable but more attainable as though we, ourselves, could become friends with the president. As if we were of his same class and he was speaking to us. Given the aspirational nature of late 50s/ early 60s society, it makes sense that this would be a greatly affective strategy. He was also making himself not only a public figure, but a celebrity. Seen on the screen nearly as often as Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart.
  • 65 million people
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      Here is the example of celebrity and glamour. By presenting himself to the public on his own terms, he therebye marketed himself to them and chose how he would portray himself instead of the media. 18 million watched him on average which is an incredible number. He had some draw that pulled them in, a quintessential thing that made everyone relate to him. Hope? Idealism? Can you commercialize these? Can intangible ideas be marketed?
  • even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not
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  • President Kennedy helped to significantly enlarge the role of television as a news medium,
  • but he continued to be a voracious consumer of print journalism
  • Oh, yes. No, no, I think it is invaluable, even though it may cause you—it is never pleasant to be reading things that are not agreeable news, but I would say that it is an invaluable arm of the presidency, as a check really on what is going on in the administration, and more things come to my attention that cause me concern or give me information.
    • Anne Hulthen
       
      Appears educated and Sophisticated. Perhaps this was another aspect of the Kennedy appeal. Sophistication and Education were really two ideals of modern American life during the 1960s. The whole Kennedy family had this air of sophistication which captured the whole of America. They had this image of royalty. In the 60s, we see the image of the sophisticated family, who all read and discussed politics. America was changing it's image from vulgar to glamorous, Seeking to aquire a culture that the rest of the world always seemed to think we lacked. Kennedy played into our own ego's by presenting himself as a man of the world, ready to promote American intelligence and competence at home and abroad. His wife, Jackie, who spoke French and Spanish, added to this air of worldly appeal.
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Outcry From the Left Precedes Debt Deal - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    This seems to be The President's modus operandi - 1) Lay out clear markers that are supported by a majority of Avericans - i.e. balanced approach with cuts and revenues; 2) Watch the republicans take a hard line to satisfy the tea party; 3) Give the republicans 99% of what they want; 4) Blame the left for not compromising. It looks like the framework for the deal is beginning to take shape, and it's not at all surprising. Tilted heavily toward cuts that will affect the middle and working classes disproportionately, and almost tailor-made to spare the rich any sacrifice whatsoever. While this is not surprising given the terms of the debate, it still boggles the mind to witness our republic complete its transformation into the very definition of a plutocracy. We have a political system designed specifically to protect the interest of the monied elite (I suppose one could argue that this had been the case for a long time, but it only really became nakedly, brazenly obvious during the 2008 financial crisis). Stories like these don't end well. Including for the elite. The history books are replete with warnings. Our country is going into a dark time.
ken meece

AlterNet: The Nightmare of Christianity: How Religious Indoctrination Led to Murder - 0 views

  • Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is among the 2.5 million Americans who have attended Gothard's Basic Seminar. According to Huckabee, who once earmarked state funds to distribute Gothard's literature in Arkansas prisons, Gothard was responsible for "some of the best programs for instilling character into people."
  • Oral Roberts University. ORU at the time was beginning to unravel under the weight of scandalous revelations that its new president, Richard Roberts--the scion of its beloved founder--had allegedly looted university coffers to pay for his daughter's junkets to the Bahamas and bankroll his wife's shopping sprees. (Oral Roberts's other son, Ronnie, was a cocaine-addicted closet homosexual who committed suicide in 1982)
  • "Discipleship Training School" of Youth with a Mission (YWAM), a Christian Reconstructionist-inspired missionary group that trained bright-eyed youngsters to spread the gospel of Colorado Springs to under-evangelized Third World nations.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • another student of YWAM bluntly put it, the school's training methods resembled "cult mind-controlling techniques."
  • Crowley's mock-religious order, Ordo Templi Orientis, following in the footsteps of famous Crowley followers such as Scientology cult founder L. Ron Hubbard and Jack Parsons, the eccentric rocket fuel inventor who prayed to the Greek god Pan after each successful launch.
  • Crowley, like him, was raised by fundamentalist Christian parents he loathed.
  • Crowley's philosophy of sex "magick," narcotic hallucination and self-degradation (he allegedly ordered his followers to have oral sex with goats and drink the blood of cats) was forged in reaction to his parents' Puritanism and, in fact, was first practiced in English boarding schools, where homosexual experimentation was practically de rigueur.
  • neo-evangelical macho Christ
avivajazz  jazzaviva

Open Left:: Changing The Dynamic of Congress--"The Choice Is Ours" - 0 views

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    Without a hardline group of progressives willing to join with Republicans and defeat Democratic legislation unless that legislation meets certain progressive criteria, every legislative fight will follow this process of backroom deals with corporate interests resulting in an inexorable right-wing slide. ...The Progressive Block needs to publicly draw clearn lines in the sand before draft legislation is introducted. This allows both netroots and grassroots activists to organize around that line in the sand. Otherwise, given the backroom nature of these dealings, there is no way for the progressive activist base to play any meaningful role in the legislative process, and all negotiation power is ceded to corporate lobbyists.
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