My daily blog of progressive politics, faith, photography, and my life in Upstate New York.
"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you angry." - Aldous Huxley
Here's MSNBC's David Schuster asking ex-GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo some tough questions. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos totally upsets Tancredo's apple cart while presenting his point of view.
I think, in his elitist mind, Tom Tancredo fancies himself a King facing down a peasant like Markos Moulitsas. I don't feel one bit sorry for Mr. Tancredo here. When faced with an uncomfortable truth about the past that may, in his mind, hurt his future political power and standing, Tancredo runs away as if he is above the truth. In the 18th Century, that kind of elitism is what we fought against when we fought for and became a nation of our common hopes. Over the past two decades, there has been so much incivility that has been LED and PROMOTED by the likes of the right wing, including current House minority leader John Boehner, ex-Congressman and 2008 Presidential candidate Tancredo, and company - and they are complete hypocrites and elitists to think that the truth can't rightly be presented right back to them after so many years of following SCOTUS Clarence Thomas' advice that civility often must be"left behind in the pursuit of civic virtue."
This is a fight for the soul of America and we must not fear our necessary honesty if it means a threat to the destruction of the virtues we personally cherish.
Currently down 81 seats in the House and 20 seats in the Senate, Republicans represent a minority of Americans in Congress. However, they continue to contend that they stand with mainstream America in opposing the Democrats' "tax and spend" agenda, including health care reform. [Real Clear Politics]
Under our U.S. system, political legitimacy is now and has always MEANT to come from democratic elections.
Teabaggers are being led by high-powered elected leaders in the halls of Congress aiming to destroy the very system that got them where THEY are. What hypocrites! They ask citizens to ignore the will of the People, hoping to wipe clean the memory of the political capital legitimately due to the People who elected and who support the President and a Congress that is willing to work toward common goals.
You may dismiss John Boehner as crazy (or stupid) - but don't be fooled. Here is a House Minority Leader INCITING a revolution that is destructive to the legitimacy of the system that facilitates our good faith laws.
Teabaggers don't want their leaders to act in good faith toward the common goals of citizens. They express a will to KILL common goals. It means more to them for a progressive-friendly President to fail than to actually find ways to save our economy and increase the safety net for millions of American citizens who live paycheck to paycheck praying no one in their family gets seriously ill because they know the costs to cover health care for such an illness will economically finish them off.
Boehner and his ilk see gain in the next electoral cycle as paramount to working for the People. MSM, infected with a curse of "moderate bias" - are not tackling the story to help us see things as they are. The GOP is willfully going rogue. It's hurting our country terribly at a time when we face years of fighting economic disaster due to the ideology of the Far Right who sought to drown (and nearly have succeeded in drowning) our government - yours and mine - in the bathtub of their own politics and self-interest. Hypocrisy often comes from a desire to hide from others actual motives or feelings. Boehner and his right wing Company in Congress are not hiding their completely party-biased motives very well while willfully rebelling in complete denial about the People's right to expect their political will to be carried out by those they elect. I can just imagine what the people in Boehner's home district who voted for Obama last Fall must be thinking of the orange-faced hypocrite right now.
WHAT IS BOEHNER IS LEADING? HE EITHER DOESN'T KNOW OR REFUSES TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE HATRED HE IS ENCOURAGING!
When Arianna Huffington says, in her most recent column where she discusses President Obama one year after his election and 2008 Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's new book, "Most of the attention the book has gotten so far has focused on the so-called sexy parts," I am reminded of just how valuable she (and HuffPo) are in a media environment where we are NOT, as we SHOULD be if the Fourth Estate was fulfilling a solemn implied promise to citizens, called upon to be critical thinkers, but instead prodded and assaulted with sexy tidbits from otherwise useful books. Imagine what the greater public is failing to learn for all of Mr. Plouffe's efforts. Commitment to selling ads and editing what passes for news in accordance with sales is obviously the Fourth Estate's main implied promise as things stand. I hope a new model for the news platform at which I expect we'll arrive after the digital revolution has revealed new economic opportunity will bring best practices in journalism back. Leave endless gossip for The National Enquirer!
This is so sick it's hard to believe it's not a schtick. Health care costs must come down or this already-struggling U.S. economy will be dragged down in a disastrous way. Don't these blabbering one-track minded ideologues care about what happens, in reality, to the American families who will suffer the brunt of sure hardship if Congress members continue to refuse to work in a serious manner with one another and if they continue support doing nothing to curb ever-rising costs? They're looking more like clowns every day. Cue up "The Entry of the Gladiators."
NYT political reporter Adam Nagourney is reporting that "Most polls suggest Democrats will lose the upstate New York House race." I hope the voters of NY Dist 23 will elect Bill Owens today. He's much closer, in his platform of ideas, to what they'd embraced when they supported Dede Scozzafava. To me, it seems to go against all small-d democratic principles to have strangers from almost anywhere EXCEPT your voting district to come in and sway the local party to throw out the candidate preferred by people in their own community and replace her with an extremist man who, the last I checked, was supported by 5% local contributions and 95% outside-district money. In the end, it's not up to me or anyone outside the district. The voters of Dist 23 will be the ones to say whether or not they believe it was all right with them to have their process shattered by outsiders. If they do defeat Owens, I fear for the future of healthy democracy in ANY of our districts.
For God so loVed the world,
....That He gAve
.........His onLy
........BegottEn
.............SoN
................That whosoever
....Believeth In Him
.......Should Not perish,
.....But have Everlasting life."
- John 3:16
A Message From Jude
Welcome to Iddybud Journal
Bill Clinton: A Call To Action
President Clinton describes how we all can make a difference in the lives of others, leading us through the broad spectrum of CGI's efforts to enable and affect change. From the global leaders and CEOs of the Annual Meeting to the college students and future leaders of CGI U, CGI seeks to empower every citizen with the ability to take substantive action against the world's most pressing problems.
Go to http://MyCommitment.org
Father, Mother, God
Thank you for your presence
during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.
Thank you for your presence
during the bright and sunny days,
for then we can share that which we have
with those who have less.
And thank you for your presence
during the Holy Days, for then we are able
to celebrate you and our families
and our friends.
For those who have no voice,
we ask you to speak. For those who feel unworthy,
we ask you to pour your love out
in waterfalls of tenderness. For those who live in pain,
we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.
For those who are lonely, we ask
you to keep them company.
For those who are depressed,
we ask you to shower upon them
the light of hope.
Dear Creator, You, the borderless
sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the
world that which we need most--Peace.
go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
as far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.
avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. if you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. but let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
be yourself. especially, do not feign affection. neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. you are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Iddybud is a descendant of American patriots, membership to DAR pending, a descendant of a family member who lost another dubious American Presidential election in 1876, so you might understand why she took Selection 2000 to heart.