Thursday, April 03, 2003

Tonight's discussion

One of the activities of the S.N.O.W. Coalition ([Puget] Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War) involves contextualizing Dubya’s War as part of his administration’s thuggish takeover and takedown of American society.  In that regard, the S.N.O.W. Coalition’s group in the Seattle neighborhood of Magnolia is sponsoring a discussion forum tonight.

The topic of this meeting is:

Democracy AND Security
Do we have to choose?

A town meeting on the Patriot Act

We’ll have three speakers at the meeting—the Special Agent in Charge of Seattle’s FBI office, a member of Seattle’s City Council, and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Washington office.  The discussion will be moderated by a host/producer from KUOW-FM, one of the Puget Sound’s NPR stations.  Magnolia Lutheran Church was kind enough to offer to hold this discussion at its facilities.

I think tonight’s meeting/discussion could well be really fascinating.  I’m told that the FBI man, a neighbor and friend of my sister and her husband, is a real straight-shooter, so it will be very interesting to hear his “on the ground” thoughts about his uber-boss Ashcroft and the programs that the AG and his henchmen are attempting to impose.  He’ll have his work cut out for him, as the participating City Council member is probably the most progressive member of that legislative body.  That makes the panel essentially two-on-one, reflective of the overall spectrum of Seattle political orientations.

I’ll be a minor part of the program, possibly as timekeeper for the speakers, as a facilitator for small-group discussions, or (if the attendance is too high for breaking up in that manner) as a collector of questions on index cards.  I hope I’ll have few enough responsibilities to be able to jot down notes, so that I can report back in a future blog entry.

Full information about the event can be viewed here.

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

Wellstone.org

Had he survived the tragic plane crash just before the election, Paul Wellstone would today be the senior senator from Minnesota, railing against the actions of the president, the Pentagon, the attorney general, and the rest of the whole sick crew running our country into the ground.

Through a posting today on the extremely valuable and highly informative Atrios site, I learned of the continuing political movement in Paul Wellstone’s name, organized by his two remaining children, David and Mark.

I just made a donation to Wellstone Action!, and I recommend strongly that anyone who reads this do so as well.  Wellstone was an extraordinarily successful grassroots politician, and he demonstrated convincingly that a committed progressive could organize a winning campaign.  It’s a lesson that all of us, and all of the Democrats running for office in the crucial 2004 election cycle, need to take to heart.

Political action starts at home.  It builds from the bottom up.  We must start immediately, in the hope that it’s not already too late.

Thursday, March 27, 2003

Outa here

About to hit the road for the celebration in Pittsburgh.  There will be no postings from hereabouts until I return.

Sunday, March 23, 2003

Can they do that?

The TV was on in another room.  I heard “The Star-Spangled Banner” being played, so I popped my head into that room.  On the screen was a car commercial!?! While the Anthem was playing, some sort of voiceover shilled the dealership’s latest special offers.

Is it legal to use the National Anthem for commercial purposes?  Is it legal to do that sort of voiceover?

Reading and working (plus that bastard Ralph)

Haven’t been able to write anything here over the weekend, what with all the information crashing down all around.  Tough to make out what it all means or where it’s really going.  I’ve been thinking about a take-a-step-back sort of theme, but it hasn’t coalesced into words yet.

And it may never see the light of day at all.  Right now, I’m trying to put together a brief talk that I’m giving in Pittsburgh next weekend as part of a Festschrift honoring the chair of my grad school department as he steps aside after 30-plus years at the helm.  He was my dissertation advisor, so it’s a really special event for me. 

Which doesn’t mean that the PowerPoint slides are flowing easily.  Procrastinator that I am, I’m taking it right down to the wire.  Hey, there’s always the laptop during my plane trip…

In the meantime, just a short rant about that sadsack Ralph Nader.  As reported in Sunday’s Seattle Times, Ralph still refuses to take an iota of the blame for Dubya and the Bushmen, while simultaneously bemoaning the actions and operations of the current administration:

Instead, he said Friday, the war in Iraq developed from: “A messianic militaristic determination turned by a closed mind, facilitated by a cowering Congress and opposition Democrat Party and undeterred by a ‘probing’ press.”

President Bush is acting “in effect as a selected dictator,” Nader said. The president has not listened to any of the many retired admirals, generals and foreign-policy experts who have warned against the war, Nader said. And the stated reasons for going to war “have either been disproved or greatly distorted."

Ralph’s stupidest ploy this time around is to try to shift the blame onto someone else:

But it’s not his fault. In fact, Nader said, people just as easily could blame David McReynolds, the Socialist Party candidate in 2000, for giving the key state of Florida to Bush. McReynolds polled 622 votes, and Democratic Vice President Al Gore lost by 537 votes. Nader received 97,488 votes in the state.

Yeah, right.  “Doesn’t pass the laugh test” doesn’t come close to describing the self-aggrandizing, self-righteous, priggish smarminess of such a statement.  Hey Ralph, at least Michael Moore admits that he screwed up big-time by supporting you.