Congratulations, Jordin Sparks!

I had faith that you could do it.

Bono: We Can Be the Generation that Ends Extreme Poverty

The last minute or two of Bono's NAACP humanitarian award speech is so powerful. Please watch this. He begins, "To those in the church who still stand in judgement of the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit with you for just a moment...."



Excerpts:


"I grew up in Ireland, and when I grew up, Ireland was divided along religious lines, sectarian lines. Young people like me were parched for the vision that poured out of pulpits of Black America. And the vision of a Black reverend from Atlanta, a man who refused to hate because he knew love would do a better job. These ideas travel, you know, and they reached me clear as any tune and lodged in my brain like a song, I couldn’t shake that...."




"I know that America hasn’t solved all of its problems and I know AIDS is still killing people right here in America, and I know the hardest hit are African-Americans, many of them young women. Today at a church in Oakland, I went to see such extraordinary people with this lioness here, Barbara Lee, took me around and with her pastor J. Alfred Smith – and may I say that it was the poetry and the righteous anger of the Black church that was such an inspiration to me, a very white, almost pink, Irish man growing up in Dublin."




"..to those in the church who still sit in judgment on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment. Because whatever thoughts we have about God, who He is, or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house."








"God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered.












"God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives."











"God is under the rubble in the cries we hear during wartime. God, my friends, is with the poor. And God is with us if we are with them."











"This is not a burden, this is an adventure."









"Don’t let anyone tell you it cannot be done. We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty."

THE ONE CAMPAIGN



*Thanks to Weekend Fisher for transcript.





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

International Carnival Of Pozitivities - Edition 11


Be sure to see Steve Schalchlin's edition of the International Carnival of Pozitivities. [LINK] It's issue number 11 and its filled with the stories of those living with or loving someone with HIV/AIDS. I was moved by this revelation from 2sides2ron's guest writer Robin Hope, who describes the joy and the struggles of adopting an HIV positive baby:

"The ignorance that still floats around is amazing . My daughter comes home from school and relays to me how some kids in her health class still believe that you will get AIDS just from being in the same room. Ashley wants to stand up and scream, but instead she screams silently, afraid of the repercussions if she were to disclose her diagnosis."

Boston Legal: Are We Really OK With It All?

Is this fictional? Basically, yes, it is. Did the writers make, through James Spader's character, any good points in this fictional story? Basically, yes, I believe that they did.

Jimmy Carter Blasts Blair for Subservience

Former US President Jimmy Carter has criticised outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his "blind" support of the war in Iraq. BBC link "...Carter told the BBC Mr Blair's backing for US President George W Bush had been 'apparently subservient'. He said the UK's "almost undeviating" support for 'the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq had been a major tragedy for the world'."

Giuliani and Fox News Still Fooling People

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

- George Orwell


Watch what Rudy Giuliani does in this YouTube segment from the recent Fox News debate. He takes Ron Paul's statement about the blowback that can be expected from U.S. interventionist policy in IRAQ, a country of whose government had no link to 911, and employs faux outrage, turning it all around to his own survival on the day 19 hijackers, mostly of Saudi Arabian nationality, flew airliners into the towers in New York City. Moderator and Fox News reporter Wendell Goler, whether willingly or not, falls right into the trap and extends further inquiry based on Guiliani's false talking points. This is how misinformation/disinformation is spread. Note that Giuliani's faux outrage was over whether or not the U.S. "invited the 9/11 attack", even though Ron Paul never said such a thing at all. It was FOX News correspondent, Wendell Goler, who engineered that phrasing when he interrupted Ron Paul as he gave his position.



In truth, I believe Ron Paul is right on this. [It doesn't take an Einstein to see why we no longer have a military presence in Saudi Arabia.] I have been blogging about it for many years now, so this is not a new argument for me to be defending.

Read, for example, my posting about an interview with Karen Kwiatkowski, who put in 20 years in the U.S. military; was a former deputy undersecretary of defense for the NESA; has become a vocal critic of the war in Iraq and of U.S. Middle East policy; who holds a master's degree in government from Harvard and another one in science management from the University of Alaska.

An excerpt from Dr. Kwiatkowski's interview will reveal the likely reasons why we are in Iraq today. As most people in America know by this time, they were not the reasons offered by their own government, in whom they had - most unfortunately in this case - placed their trust:

It was not about terrorism, WMD, or saving the people of Iraq from a cruel dictator. Some of our allies are cruel dictators, support and fund terrorism, and sell lots of WMD (Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others). It was not solely about oil as a material item, but it was about placement (permanently) of troops and U.S. bases in the oil-producing region such that we are in a position to control those nations' management (or mismanagement in our eyes) of the oil. It is also about ensuring that OPEC remains on a petro dollar standard. As a heavily-in-debt and debtor nation, it is important to keep demand for dollars globally high among the world central banks. If petroleum is traded on dollars, then central banks will ensure they have plenty of dollars in reserve and not euros or other less useful currency. Iraq had switched to the euro from the dollar for their oil (Iraq in November 2000, before 9/11). OPEC meetings had occasionally discussed this as well. Also, as a way to decrease our military footprint in Saudi Arabia, we needed alternative bases nearby, and Iraq not only provided an ability to leave Saudi Arabia, which we are doing now; it allows us to leverage Iran and Syria militarily with ease. Lastly, this presence in Baghdad of an Israel-friendly force, and the construction of the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was reputedly begun last summer, and possibly other pipelines to the Haifa oil refinery, can serve as an economic and military security benefit for Israel, our longtime ally in the Middle East.

Clearly, the reasons given to Congress and the American people publicly were not the real reasons—but real reasons do exist if you view the globe as your property, inhabited by people that have no right to govern themselves. The neoconservatives talk about democracy, but most have a deeply rooted contempt for it.

See Karen Kwiatkowski's latest column, in which she proudly avers, "Ron Paul Rocks!" She believes that "Rudy Guiliani has the biggest reptilian brain of all the candidates."


The fact that there are still Republicans putting an official rubber stamp on Bush's veto-prone ways stems from a negligence so powerfully wrong and self-interested that, to my way of thinking about social justice, it borders on the criminal. There is also a decided lack of moral conviction and action from too many Democrats who how hold real power to defund this war as endowed to the Democrats by the people in the last election. I don't think these Democrats believe in themselves or trust their own constituents - some whose sons and daughters are dying and/or risking all that is precious in this life for a war that nearly every American wants to see come to an end.

I heard a lot of applause in the South Carolina Republican audience for Giuiliani's trickery. Honest Abe Lincoln would be surprised to see just how many suckers can still be fooled after all this time. It's important to remember that Fox News and Rudy Giuliani can only craft false scenarios and expect to fool people for as long as Democrats keep doubting their own power to act upon what they know is true.

[Did you notice, by the way, how quickly Fox News changed the subject when Republican candidates begged to get themselves deeper into the Ron Paul debate?]

Does any Republican acknowledge that General David Petraeus is saying it's nearly impossible to predict how well the surge will succeed before the full number of troops arrive? How many Republucan candidates are admitting that General Petraeus would not even begin to say that he thought he'd have a definitive answer about prospects for stability by this September, when he is to report back to Congress?


_________________________________






Strong words of former CIA specialist Michael Sheuer from the May 18 Madison Capital Times editorial [LINK]:

Michael Scheuer, the former Central Intelligence Agency specialist on bin Laden and al-Qaida, has objected to simplistic suggestions by President Bush and others that terrorists are motivated by an ill-defined irrational hatred of the United States.

"The politicians really are at great fault for not squaring with the American people," Scheuer said in a CNN interview. "We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live. And there's a huge burden of guilt to be laid at Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, both parties for simply lying to the American people."

Ron Paul was squaring with the people.

Rudy Giuliani was simply lying to them.

Watch Ron Paul educating CNN's Wolf Blitzer this week.

War in Iraq Creates Ocean of Tears

Please hold these people in your heart: An Iraqi mother searches a morgue for the familiar curve of the hand of her child beneath a pale sheet;











an American father watches his son beheaded on videotape;










an Iraqi child wakes up in a shabby hospital in excruciating pain without his arm;









an American girl writes letters to her dead soldier father;













a young vet wraps a garden hose around his neck and leaps away from the nightmares that beset him.











And an ocean of tears spreads across both countries. ... A wail rises from the throat of all who love these people and shakes our hearts as it reaches for the crucified open arms of Jesus.

We are here tonight as the church. Each one of us is a witness to this war and to our own complicity in it—when were we silent and should have spoken, whose eyes would we not meet to face the truth?

Now we are prostrate at this altar—begging: Lord help us. War is our failure to love you, and peace is your command. Peace is not the easy way out; its creation is the most confounding, the hardest thing we can do. Help us.

Mrs. Celeste Zappala spoke these words at a National Cathedral service.
Sojourners


__________________________________



I'm So Sorry

A renowned professor and prominent critic of the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq has now lost his son to the war. Lt. Andrew Bacevich, Jr. was killed by a suicide bomber on Sunday. A local Boston station reports that the younger Bacevich's captain said in an e-mail to the family that he was killed by a suicide bomber in a white sedan his unit had stopped on a main highway south of Samarra.

See my previous mention of the father of this courageous soldier and his comments to Tom Englehardt and Harpers Magazine. Mr. Bacevich has written the book The New American Militarism.

My prayers go out to the Bacevich family at this deeply sad time.

McCain not McAbel

Cain's offering was of an inferior quality to Abel's.
What's McCain offering on Iraq?
There are McAbels with the way out of this disastrous war - so why is McCain trying so hard to slay them?



Senator John McCain guffaws in a weird, subdued fashion whenever he's caught being a hypocrite.

He guffawed a lot today on Meet the Press.

When he was accused of embracing Bush's policy on Iraq, he guffawed and said that he'd been one of Bush's severest critics. I remember how severe his criticism of Bush was in the early autumn of 2004 when he commended to our country the re-election of President Bush, and "the steady, experienced, public-spirited man who serves as our vice president, Dick Cheney." At that time, McCain was thanking Bush's efforts in "receiving valuable assistance from many good friends around the globe" - just as most of the [few] nations that had actually joined the shaky coalition to begin with were pulling away from the Bush disaster in Iraq.

When Mr. Russert cornered McCain on those 12 Republicans who went to President Bush this week and told them they (and other Republicans) were to be sure losers in their respective districts come next election if Bush didn't change his course and end this war, McCain's response led us to believe that he would recommend ending the war today if all Republicans called for withdrawal from Iraq. Yet, look at the way he votes in the Senate. Listen to what he says about supporting the surge in Iraq. The man is a walking, guffawing contradiction. He's saying that he would start talking about Iraq's end-game only if all Republicans were down with it; then he's also telling us that he won't be a leader who'd lead them toward ending the war himself. It was nothing more than code for Republicans to remain stubborn and partisan.

He spoke as if suicide bombers in Iraq blow themselves up for publicity, and that the need for publicity is precisely why you're seeing an increase in suicide attacks in Iraq today. Really now, when's the last time that you thought about the PR benefits of blowing yourself and others up? Where would one pick up his publicity award after doing something like that? In heaven with the promised bevy of virgins? It reminded me of Cheney's "last throes" comment when Cheney thought, a full two years ago, that he was actually pulling the wool over our eyes, insinuating that the level of violent activity we'd been seeing would "clearly decline." Are any of you seeing clearly like Dick Cheney through your
crap-covered glasses yet? John McCain thinks you're still wearing them.

The part that really "got" me was when McCain said he was going to stick with Plan A on Iraq. When Tim Russert asked him for a Plan B, there was a noticeable blank and a quick return of the desperation-volley into the court of the Democrats - a game that the rubber-stampers have played since much-due criticism of the Iraq war began. It was then that McCain's lack of creative leadership and wisdom was showcased for me as never before. I remembered President George W. Bush's own words on a recent interview with PBS' Charlie Rose:

Plan B is to make Plan A work.

There you have McCain's answer. He is bereft of ideas that will produce "victory" in Iraq. He swears stubbornly that he was right about ending any U.S. military involvement in [defends "cutting and running" from] Beirut and Mogadishu, places where the "global war on terror" windmills McCain is tilting at in Iraq today showed signs of churning decades ago.

McCain used the phrase "We've only just begun..." and I filled in the blank for him in honor for his absence of better ideas in Iraq...

"We've only just begun...to fail."

Maybe Karl Rove can create a new and groovy hip-hop version of the old Carpenters tune "We've Only Just Begun" and join McCain in rapping to it at the next White House dinner. [Let's hope David Gregory doesn't join them this time].

Then we can all guffaw.

Happy Mothers' Day

Happy Mothers' Day


The young mother set her foot on the path of life. "Is this the long way?" she asked. And the guide said: "Yes, and the way is hard. And you will be old before you reach the end of it. But the end will be better than the beginning."






But the young mother was happy, and she would not believe that anything could be better than these years. So she played with her children, and gathered flowers for them along the way, and bathed them in the clear streams; and the sun shone on them and the young Mother cried, "Nothing will ever be lovelier than this."










Then the night came, and the storm, and the path was dark, and the children shook with fear and cold, and the mother drew them close and covered them with her mantle, and the children said, "Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come."




And the morning came, and there was a hill ahead, and the children climbed and grew weary, and the mother was weary. But at all times she said to the children," A little patience and we are there." So the children climbed, and when they reached the top they said, "Mother, we would not have done it without you."






And the mother, when she lay down at night, looked up at the stars and said, "This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage.

Today, I 've given them strength."






And the next day came strange clouds which darkened the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil, and the children groped and stumbled, and the mother said: "Look up. Lift your eyes to the light. "And the children looked and saw above the clouds an everlasting glory, and it guided them beyond the darkness. And that night the Mother said, "This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God."



And the days went on, and the weeks and the months and the years, and the mother grew old and she was little and bent. But her children were tall and strong, and walked with courage. And when the way was rough, they lifted her, for she was as light as a feather; and at last they came to a hill, and beyond they could see a shining road and golden gates flung wide. And mother said, "I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them."



And the children said, "You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates." And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates closed after her. And they said: "We cannot see her but she is with us still. A Mother like ours is more than a memory. She is a living presence......."






Your Mother is always with you.... She's the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street; she's the smell of bleach in your freshly laundered socks; she's the cool hand on your brow when you're not well. Your Mother lives inside your laughter. And she's crystallized in every tear drop. She's the place you came from, your first home; and she's the map you follow with every step you take. She's your first love and your first heartbreak, and nothing on earth can separate you. Not time, not space... not even death!




Writer - Anonymous

Support the Troops. End the War.

I took part in a conference call with 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards and Alex Cornell du Houx, an active reservist Marine, today. Senator Edwards had just finished giving a commencement speech at New England College in New Hampshire when he joined Americans across America waiting for him to join them on this conference call.

You can hear what I heard here.


As citizens, we honor and support our troops for their service and sacrifice.

As Americans, we are blessed by that sacrifice and support, which keeps us safe and keeps us strong.

As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can - by ending this war and bringing them home.

This Memorial Day weekend, we will all take responsibility for the country we love and the men and women who protect it. We will volunteer, we will pray, and we will speak out. Each of us has a responsibility to act, a duty to our troops and to each other. Support the troops. End the war.

If you're in Central New York, see my page.

It's time to reclaim our patriotism. Patriotism is more than a tool for Bush to use to prolong his disaster in Iraq.

Dow & Aramco To Build Major PetroChem Plant in Saudi Arabia

Big Oil and Gas:

Dow/Aramco Venture
Stratfor.com:

U.S. Dow Chemical Co. and the Saudi oil company Aramco are set to ink a major agreement to construct a large petrochemical plant with a $20 billion investment value, Reuters reported May 9, citing industry sources. Aramco said it will make a major business announcement with a business partner May 12, but did not provide any further details. Officials from both companies refused to comment.

In an interview with Dow Chemical's Australian CEO Andrew Liveris, he announces the building of a mega-complex in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia.

Two companies, the world’s largest oil and gas company, Saudi Aramco, and the world’s largest chemical company, Dow Chemical, will put in place in Ras Tanura what we currently have in place in Freeport, Texas: the world’s largest industrial petrochemical complex. We are working on at least three others, of which the most visible one is with Gazprom in Russia. And you can see our strat­egy: we are going into low-cost feedstock locations.Reading a snippet from his interview, you will see why these billion-dollar megaplants are being built in foreign nations and no longer in America.

Liveris admits that, in the United States, Dow has shut down over 60 assets in the U.S. and has dropped their employee headcount from the year 2002 to the year 2007 by over 7,000 jobs. Liveris bemoans the fact that, due to the protection of the environment by EPA and President Clinton, that his company was unable to take advantage of [rape?] America's prime natural resources, saying that most of the new areas that were promising in terms of natural gas were in so-called environmentally sen­sitive areas such as the northwest shelf of Alaska, the Colorado Rockies, and, in particular, the Outer Continental Shelf. It seems as if Liveris is saying, unless you submit to business raping the land and unless you agree to having a filthy environment and laws that run against your democratic interest, business will tell your country and its workers to bugger off.

Isn't it nice to know that our own government won't lift a moral finger to regulate this type of activity? Read on and tell me anything patriotic you see about our government allowing this to get worse as hard-working Americans lose opportunity.

Q: Your decision to move these operations into other countries is not the result of lower labor costs?

A: Absolutely not. We would not be doing this if the energy economy in the United States were balanced to include not only the increased natural gas we have talked about but also diversity of supply. Why is electricity not generated by nuclear and clean coal in this country? Why is that not at the table to take the pressure off our oil and gas resources? Also, we need efficiency of use—not just in the industrial sec­tor but clearly in the transportation sector.


Q: You said in a speech that America’s “self-imposed structural costs put U.S. manufac­turers at a disadvantage... even with compet­itors in mature economies” like Europe and Japan. Besides energy, what are some of those costs?

A: America has not changed its corporate tax policy; other countries have in the last decade. There is the cost of healthcare and the cost of federal regula­tions. Then, there is the civil justice system, which is neither civil nor just nor a system. Companies like mine are constantly litigating in judicial hellholes and having to settle. This is a cost that other coun­tries do not have to put up with.

In an UPDATE, I noticed that Dow Chemical investors have dumped board member J. Pedro Reinhard. Read the rumor, which is that Dow is being eyeballed for sale by Middle Eastern investors.

Grist for rumors

For Dow Chemical, a 43,000-employee company that started off making bleach in the late 19th century and posted $49.1 billion in revenue last year, the palace intrigue of recent weeks follows months of media reports that the company would soon be bought out or broken apart by unnamed investors.

The latest report, which sent shares up 5%, suggested that private-equity firms and Middle Eastern buyers were gearing up for a deal. The report triggered denials from the company and prompted Liveris to ask a major bank's chief executive (whom Kreinberg's suit identifies as James Dimon, the head of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. whether he knew about any such discussions. See full story. The unnamed banker, according to Dow Chemical, later called Liveris and said that Kreinberg, an executive vice president, and Reinhard had been involved in discussions with third-parties about a major transaction involving Dow. The banker also said the pair had held discussions with representatives of the bank's London affiliate, which had been working for "certain Middle Eastern investors" on potential major transactions with Dow Chemical, according to Dow's suit against the two.

Clinton Foundation & UNITAID: Reduced Prices on Vital AIDS Drugs

Press Release: Clinton Foundation and UNITAID Announce Price Reductions on 16 AIDS Medicines for 66 Developing Countries

Cost of Second-Line Treatments Falls by 25 percent in Low Income, 50 percent in Middle Income Countries; “Next Generation” One-Pill, Once-Daily AIDS Treatment Now Available for less than $1 per Day
May 8, 2007
New York, NY
LINK TO STORY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anil Soni has a message I'd like to share with you today regarding the above good news. I just sent the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative a donation and I hope you will, too.

Shaibu Musa's parents died of AIDS when he was just eight years old. Shaibu recently learned he too is HIV-positive, following a door-to-door testing campaign conducted by Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) volunteers in Tanzania. The virus has stunted his growth, keeping this 16 year old young man in the body of a boy. His body's defenses weakened, Shaibu was quiet and lethargic when we met him, but now he is being given a second chance at life thanks to antiretroviral therapy. There are five million people just like Shaibu around the world today who need these medicines and deserve that same chance to live a long, happy and healthy life.

Fortunately, President Clinton today announced new agreements that dramatically decrease the cost of medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS in poor and middle income countries - the best treatment in the world, just one pill taken once a day, now costs less than $1 per day. The new prices have been made possible by a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and UNITAID, a new fund for HIV/AIDS medicines.

I am proud to announce these new and important price reductions that will help CHAI and others in our global efforts save thousands of lives. But this is just a start, and we need your help.

You can make affordable treatment a reality for people around the world. Every contribution helps us to increase access to treatment, build health systems, and enable our government partners to effect the change that is so desperately needed for people like Shaibu.

Will you donate $25, $50 or more now to help the Clinton Foundation continue its important work?

My colleagues in Tanzania were able to work with local and national partners to ensure treatment is available for Shaibu and other Tanzanians living with HIV/AIDS, particularly in rural areas. In a world without borders, we all have an unprecedented ability to solve problems, save lives, and make a difference in our communities. Please contribute today, and help us take more steps forward in this fight against HIV/AIDS.


Anil Soni
Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative

There are five million people around the world today who need anti-retroviral medicines and a chance to live a long, happy and healthy life.

You can help give others like Shaibu a second chance at life. Donate to the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative using the link below today.

WaPo Offers Negative View of Edwards' Voucher Plan

A Washington Post story about John Edwards' plan to end poverty within 30 years contains a decidedly negative view of the part of his platform that involves a controversial "cultural integration" plan to give low-income families housing vouchers to move into better neighborhoods. I feel that it's too easy to dismiss such a plan when I believe that it is key to ending poverty as we know it. We must not only expand housing vouchers, but our leaders must continously create the will to stick with the program until it can take roots - something the federal government clearly has not done in the past.

Alec MacGillis writes:

If there is a personal imprint on Edwards's plan, it is his argument for reducing racial and economic segregation -- that, as he put it in one speech, "if we truly believe that we are all equal, then we should live together, too." To achieve this, Edwards proposes doing away with public housing projects and replacing them with 1 million rental vouchers, to disperse the poor into better neighborhoods and suburbs, closer to good schools and jobs.

The idea sounds bold, but it faces a deflating reality: A major federal experiment conducted for more than a decade has found that dispersing poor families with vouchers does not improve earnings or school performance, leaving some economists puzzled that Edwards would make such dispersal a centerpiece of his anti-poverty program. Edwards said he was unaware of the experiment.

"The Edwards proposal is a good idea, but I don't think it's likely to accomplish the primary aim he intends," said Jeffrey Kling, a Brookings Institution economist who has studied the experiment.

Missing from Edwards's approach, some thinkers on the subject say, is the same crucial component lacking in past proposals: a way of framing the problem that can inspire political will to help a segment of society that tends not to vote.

While I'm not sure myself which Brookings study the author of this WaPo article is referring [and I pay pretty close attention], I have previously noted that Bruce Katz, who is a Director and Senior Fellow at the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, has been in favor of the housing voucher program. He has said that, while it's not perfect, it is worthwhile. He goes as far as to say that the housing voucher program needs to be expanded. What it - and HUD - need is an administrative overhaul, a point with which John Edwards has said he agrees.

The 2007 housing voucher platform forwarded by the Bush administration got a failing grade at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities because it would, in effect, would underfund roughly 70 percent of the state and local housing agencies that administer the program. The failure is due to flaws in the voucher funding formula that the Bush Administration has used in recent years.

We know that John Edwards would not stand for such flawed formulas and underfunded results.

With new economic and political realities, we need a 21st century version of community development, and that, in my opinion, should include cultural integration. This view crosses ideological and party lines. I have seen conservative columnist David Brooks write in favor of this type of community cultural integration.

Better opportunities for communities and all people who live in them have been discussed by John Edwards at conferences at the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at UNC Chapel Hill. At these conferences, there's been a rethinking about community development models and how they can play out successfully for the benefit of the most people. Many community development specialists feel that the federal government should concentrate on outcomes more than processes. They believe that communities need to better deliver housing services to people with the development of new and improved strategies.

When it comes to caring about ending poverty and raising all boats, we can be the leaders we have waited for by better understanding the way community development has worked in the past. There has been, in the past, a working cooperation and collaboration between
- the private sector
- the public sector, and
- not-for-profit organizations
Since the dawn of "the new world order" and globalization, a need has been presented for new and creative strategy-making with the intent to alleviate poverty.

The state of community economic development is currently at a crossroads.

There are fault lines in the old strategies for successful economic development. Old myths and stereotypical beliefs about those Americans living in poverty are being revealed as less and less true by the day. Because of political changes, community developers are seeing economic, physical and social conditions in the community that have led them to realize that there is near-absolute failure where there once was success. There has been little creativity and acknowlegement of these changes with a Republican majority and a President who has made it their hyperfocused business to "drown the bathtub" of social funding à la Grover Norquist and Jack Abramoff.

The new community development revitalization strategies required, in order to improve the oportunities for the poor, must encompass knowledge about the different kinds of poverty that exist in each respective community. Poverty is not necessarily just the poverty of income or assets. There are dimensions to our communities that also reflect a poverty of opportunity, a poverty of potential (as we see in human and physical capital deficiencies in poorer communities), and especially the poverty of powerlessness. Communities must be made to see the power they can possess in order to change their own circumstances.

In order for the vision of a leader like John Edwards to effect a real change in opportunity for the poorer workers in our society, he has an uphill political battle to generate the will to make a social and political change and to obtain the tools for sustained success.

Edwards has made the argument that when it comes to the desire to see all Americans have an opportunity for success, the will of the people is already there. In a speech he gave at the University of Buffalo at Amherst last fall, he made these points:

Points about Ending Poverty:

* Ending poverty is a great moral cause.

* Millions of people wake up each morning worrying about feeding and clothing their children. They wake up each day worrying about having a decent place to live. They worry about affording healthcare.

* We're better than this.

* America cares about this issue.

* What we choose to do about 37 million people who live in poverty says something about who we are.

* The world will see America's true and decent character when they see us acting to eliminate poverty here and around the world. It sets a great example.

* After Hurricane Katrina, the government was a mess in its response. America was not a mess. Americans volunteered and made huge contributions to help the victims.

* A huge hunger exists in America to feel good about our country, to engage in a cause that is bigger than ourselves.

* The United States has not launched a serious, comprehensive effort to reduce poverty since the "War on Poverty" in the mid-1960s. [although there have been actions taken under the Clinton Administration, such as welfare reform, an increase in the minimum wage and the expansion of earned income tax credits.]

* The will of the American people is not what is missing. National leadership has been the missing element; it has been a the hurdle we can't seem to get over when comes to finding comprehensive ways to end poverty and the will to see that it gets done.

Margy Waller, a policy adviser in the Clinton administration, is relying on old stereotypes that have, in my opinion, been largely responsible for the continued failure of any meaningful poverty alleviation program to succeed. In yesterday's WaPo article, Waller said that

...because so many Americans believe poverty results from bad personal decisions [my emphasis], it is better to address it in broader terms of improving social cohesion, reducing inequality and strengthening the economy, instead of focusing on "poverty."

Granted, voters are not all policy wonks, but that doesn't mean that political leaders shouldn't take the honest initiative to tell the public that ending poverty will take real sacrifice. Americans have been spoon-fed so many political white lies that they are sick, tired, and more than ready for someone who will take the lead and create the will to stick with something they believe will work not only for the poor, but for themselves and their communities.

MacGillis writes in his article that poverty experts say the Edwards proposals are vulnerable to some of the same criticisms leveled against past Democratic programs. Margery Waller is quoted, once again, by MacGillis to have said the following:

We don't need new policy. We have plenty of policy," said Waller, now part of a Washington think tank called Inclusion. "It's just that no one's helping us move it."

From what I've read - and I read extensively - I'd argue that not only do we need action on new policy, but as I commented above, we need 21st century strategies. It would be completely unfair to criticize Edwards' plan to end poverty in 30 years by throwing rotten tomatoes at poverty programs of the 60s. We're living in a new world - a world that is nearly 50 years removed from that period of American history! Edwards plans do not reflect realities of the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s. These times are dead and gone. The realities of today - here and now - are the realities of no other time in America.

With so much ineffective - or just plain bad federal policy in the past, being poor has become a full-time job in and of itself. Rod Watson and Jonathan Epstein of the Buffalo News have written an extensive and impressive continued series called The High Cost of Being Poor which has led to much legislative discussion and potential action on behalf of the working poor. To give you an example of how costs mysteriously add up when you're poor, Watson and Epstein have quoted information from a Brookings study, using national data and information collected from 12 metropolitan areas, concluding that low-income families generally pay more than upper-income families for the same consumer item or service, largely because they rely on alternative providers like check-cashers, pawnshops and rent-to-own stores.

Any think-tanker or politician who chooses to hide from America the real faces of those who live and work in poverty are simply looking for ways to keep the curtain pulled over the realities that American people will need to understand before the will can be created to make a meaningful change. When the curtain of poverty was blown off the huddled masses in New Orleans, it was the winds of Katrina that forced America to finally see them and to think about them. What did Americans do? They responded with generosity and genuine caring. Katrina was a natural disaster...but if we framed poverty as an avoidable disaster in America, I believe Americans would respond with the same level of generosity and care - especially if they understood how their own lives and communities would benefit and how they could volunteer to make those positive changes.

What happened to respect for leaders of great vision? Why does it matter where the visionary leader lives or who cuts his or her hair? How is it that we have been taken for granted, by the media and our political leaders, as such shallow and false people? It isn't who we are. We're better.

I want a political leader who will remove the curtain from all Americans who live in poverty in every hidden place and I want the think tankers and consultants to stop trying to keep them hidden. I know that nothing of any meaningful or sustained consequence will come until we have more honesty in journalism and in governmental leadership.

Because the federal government has, in recent years, significantly retrenched from its prior position of dominance in funding and directing community development activities (basically abdicating its responsibility to communities across America), the brunt of responsibility has been laid upon local governments who spend a large chunk of their tax base just making their respective Medicare matches. This has left the caring and action to not-for-profit organizations, who, while having the best of intentions, have kept their communities in a state of continued persistent poverty because they lack the ability to craft and articulate a meaningful vision of economic change for their communities and they lack the capacity to formulate strategies associated with that necessary change. They also lack the capital necessary to make it happen.

The will to alleviate poverty and the success of economic community development will not only rely on Preidential candidates and academics. It will take all of us, the all-too-few citizens who do pay close attention, to understand what must be done and to learn how to talk to our neighbors in our own communities about alleviating poverty. Conferences held in our own communities may be helpful. So will letters to your newspapers' editors. Teaching ourselves to talk about alleviating poverty can make the difference between politically alienating those who misunderstand poverty and succeeding to brighten the corners of our own cities, towns, and villages with the light of knowledge and inspiration. Most Americans in the middle class are already feeling less secure and we should be appealing to their hope and their shared sense of fairness in order to build a grassroots foundation from the new social architecture aimed toward ending poverty through effective twenty-first century community development which includes cultural integration and housing vouchers. With the committed collaboration of the private and public sectors, along with not-for-profits who have worked hard and haven't gotten far because government has abdicated their responsibility to hold up their end of the bargain, perhaps we can finally help people to help themselves.

In the case of Alec MacGillis at the Washington Post, I wish it was not so easy to brush aside a great idea such as John Edwards' proposed housing vouchers (combined with fair and appropriate funding formulas). I regret to see these kinds of unbalanced "brush-offs" in the professional media because I, a simple citizen, realize that it's part of the reason why politicians have gotten a free pass on giving Poverty lip service. False-framers are being elected and doing nothing.....and blaming the hard-working poor for their own poverty. MacGillis says it himself:

For years, the national poverty debate has run on a seemingly endless loop.

John Edwards aims to end that vicious cycle.

I'm with him.

Alec MacGillis writes that it's an unavoidable fact that "no program has helped lift up the poor in recent years as much as a strong economy." The bullish Wall Street economy we see today is one very wealthy Wall Street away from the lives of the working poor. We know quite well that the working poor are not the beneficiaries of the recent feeding frenzy and tax cuts. Princeton economist Paul Krugman has recently written favorably about the solidity of Edwards' ideas in the real economic world.

Since the 1990s were an era of peace, prosperity and favorable demographics (the baby boomers were still in the work force, not collecting Social Security and Medicare), it should have been a good time to put the federal budget in the black. And under Mr. Rubin, the huge deficits of the Reagan-Bush years were transformed into an impressive surplus.

But the realities of American politics ensured that it was all for naught. The second President Bush quickly squandered the surplus on tax cuts that heavily favored the wealthy, then plunged the budget deep into deficit by cutting taxes on dividends and capital gains even as he took the country into a disastrous war. And you can even argue that Mr. Rubin’s surplus was a bad thing, because it greased the rails for Mr. Bush’s irresponsibility.

- Paul Krugman

The mainstream media, sponsored in large part by corporations, may not appreciate the kind of economic realism that a return of the People's trust in government and a return to social justice requires. Those who boast about Wall Street's recent successes don't really know with certainty what will happen tomorrow and those Americans who are not experiencing or sharing in the Wall Street feeding frenzy while working hard and getting nowhere are losing trust in a government who'd oversee such class inequities. What John Edwards is trying to do is to replace the illusions about an economy that rewards and maximizes the profits of only the richest and makes us look at the possibility of what might actually be achievable for all of us, rich or poor - - understanding the limitations that there are.

John Edwards aims to end the illusion in favor of political realities, ensuring fairness of opportunity in the future for all Americans...bridging the dangerous chasm between rich and poor.

I'm with him.




Note: See Jamison Foser's Media Matters Summary

Photo by Iddybud

Night Comes Calling Cavalier
Photo by Jude Nagurney Camwell

Edwards Video for DFA - Global Warming

Last month, DFA members asked the candidates to lead America forward with a plan to stop global warming, encourage conservation and invest in renewable resources. Senator John Edwards is (as he has been before) the first candidate to respond:

While I'm Away.....Debates!

I'll be away for a few days.

I hope you'll take some time to read through my many posts and leave me your comments.

Don't forget to watch the South Carolina Democratic Party's debate on MSNBC Thursday night, April 26 at 7pm, moderated by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and coming to you from South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C. The debate will feature Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel.

If you have a question for the debaters, go HERE to ask.

UPDATE:
Cross Country: Who Won the Democrats' First Debate? - WaPo

John Edwards: The Question I Wasn't Asked

April 28 - John Edwards discusses questions he wasn't asked in the debates

MSNBC's national affairs writer Tom Curry asks,What kind of battle will this be for Democrats in 2008? Will it be a referendum on the future of the party, or will it be a magnifying of minor differences?


Also, read about the exciting online debates to be engineered by the Huffington Post and Web magazine Slate. PBS host Charlie Rose has signed on to moderate the debates, and invitations have gone out to the announced candidates in both parties. The Democratic debate will occur after Labor Day, with the GOP edition at a later date.

In New Hampshire, the debate dates have finally been set. Democrats will take the stage at Saint Anselm College on June 3, Republicans on June 5. The debates will be televised statewide on WMUR and nationally on CNN. In a surprising turn of events, Senators Clinton and Obama have opted out of this debate. Needless to say, New Hampshire citizens aren't appreciative.

While I'm away, I'd also like you to see a post at The Executioner's Thong about the different ways the "faithful" approach their faith, the dangers of being on the extreme fringes of what some call faith, as well as the danger of mixing religion and politics in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Peace,
Jude

Edwards:We Know Better/Does Rudy?

John Edwards has a thing or two to say about Rudy Giuliani's ludicrous and fear-mongering claim about the Republicans' being the only trusted keeper and vanguard of national security:

"Rudy Giuliani's suggestion that there is some superior 'Republican' way to fight terrorism is both divisive and plain wrong. He knows better. That's not the kind of leadership he offered in the days immediately after 9/11, and it's not the kind of leadership any American should be offering now.

"As far as the facts are concerned, the current Republican administration led us into a war in Iraq that has made us less safe and undermined the fight against al Qaeda. If that's the 'Republican' way to fight terror, Giuliani should know that the American people are looking for a better plan. That's just one more reason why this election is so important; we need to elect a Democratic president who will end the disastrous diversion of the war in Iraq."

Who is the greater danger?

Democrats view the November elections that allowed them to take control of the House and the Senate as a referendum on Bush's conduct of the war. Bush, however, says he stands firm on his latest strategy for winning the war and dismisses as counterproductive the Democratic call for withdrawal.

"That means our commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from legislators 6,000 miles away on Capitol Hill," Bush told reporters Tuesday. "The result would be a marked advantage for our enemies and a greater danger for our troops."

Yahoo News

There could be no danger greater than the boob who is a million miles from reality and who is currently in an isolated place where his only enemy is himself.

Mental Illness: U.S.Needs to Wake Up

A few posts about the Virginia Tech tragedy have grabbed my attention and stayed with me since I first read them.

One is from a professor at Virginia Tech who posted at Daily Kos shortly after the shootings. He was justifiably upset about the way conserative writer Dinesh D'Souza had smacked down the people in our society (and at Virginia Tech) who do not profess a belief in God. The professor's response is a must-read. It was eloquently written and not at all offensive to his fellow citizens who are believers. All he asks is understanding.

D'Souza had written that according to atheists,

..the main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference … What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil simply do not exist … Cho’s shooting of all those people can be understood in this way: molecules acting upon molecules.

In his response to such unfair judgment, the professor, who is an atheist, said,

I believe this young man was both sick and vicious, that his actions were both heinous and the result of a phenomenon that we must try to understand precisely so that we can prevent it in future. I have no sympathy for him. Given what he has done, I am not particularly sorry he has spared the world his continued existence; there was no possibility of redemption for him. You think we atheists have difficulty with the concept of evil. Quite the contrary. We can accept a description of this man as evil. We just don’t think that is an explanation. That is why we are exasperated at your mindless demonology.

I responded as follows:

Allow me to add something about D'Souza's "evil" (14+ / 0-)

There is a mental health issue that I believe should arise front and center here and replace the religion-loaded word "evil." Too often, a troubled person's deep psychological scars may seem to have healed over, but the root of a that person's torturous inner life remains living and boiling underneath. Without regular and easily-accessible professional intervention, we can expect anything to happen - from an individual's withdrawl from society to the lashing out with violence that some people - like Dinesh D'Souza - would all too easily classify as "evil" and put away on a shelf.

We can't put this on a shelf.

This will happen again.
No matter how much we pray.

We all have a responsibility to the community in which we live, study, and work. Sometimes we just don't feel that we have time to care, but we must understand that there are people living in our communities who are not faring psychologically well. There are signs that might easily tell you someone's troubled - yet with others it may be only the person's family and closest friends (if they have any) who may know.

In the richest nation on this earth, there is no excuse for having a mental health treatment system that is not easily accessible and affordable to all citizens, and one of which all citizens are encouraged and educated to seek help rather than to be stigmatized for it.

I work in a program in which the curriculum teaches nonviolent conflict resolution skills and emotional literacy to our children in grades 2-8. If this type of program cound be implemented in all schools, I'm not saying that a tragedy such as this one could have been prevented, but it can only help our society to give all of its children the tools they need to be self-aware and to make sound and healthy decisions towards others. I've never met an "evil" child, but I surely have seen some who need psychological help desperately.

____________________________


The other diary was written by poster named poligirl at the John Edwards 2008 blog. She was brave, in my opinion, to share some very private and personal information in order to drive home the point that America needs to wake up and realize that doing more as a society to understand mental illness will help prevent many tragedies that take place today.

We need to do more as a society to understand mental illness. We need to do more as a society to give treatment for mental illness parity with regular health care. We need to pour more research into this treatment; one of the biggest complaints is that some of the medications have such unbearable side effects that many times, people quit taking them and go back to whatever substance had become their crutch. We need to not treat mental illness as something shameful; that shame alone prevents so many people from seeking help as well as stops possibly concerned friends and family members, co-workers, fellow students and teachers from broaching the subject with the person or their family. We need to learn the signs so we can be a source of support for those we know who might be going through it; they need to know that it's ok, they're not alone, there is help. We need to stop using words such as "psycho" and "deranged" about people suffering with mental illness - they only serve to feed the stigma. Mental illness is not crazy; it's just another illness like all the rest. We need to wake up America, and realize that there is something we can do to help prevent many tragedies that take place today.

_________________________


There is one more op-ed that I read in my local paper (Syracuse Post Standard) titled 'Evil' or mental illness? by Joyce Gramza that makes a similar point about the words we (and the media) use to distance ourselves from the reality of mental illness:

I'm yelling whenever the talking heads call the gunman angry, hostile, cold-blooded, evil. Or a strange, weird loner who "snapped."

These words are so easy to confuse with mental illness, but be advised, they are most likely useless for describing the world, emotions or experience of the delusional gunman.

I agree with my spouse that these words are distancers, and that when the media uses them, it contributes to society's fear and collective distancing of ourselves from the insanity that can strike any of us, so we prefer to ignore it in our midst until and unless it can't be ignored.

I hope you will take some time out of your busy day and read these op-eds and diaries. The writers, in my opinion, have something very important to tell us.

CENTCOM Boss: Stop calling it a "long war"

It looks like this isn't going to be an endless global war in terror after all. Fresh off of Reuters News:

President George W. Bush used the phrase ["long war"] in his State of the Union address last year.

"Our own generation is in a long war against a determined enemy," he said.

But [General John] Abizaid's successor, Adm. William Fallon, has decided the term sends the wrong message to the Middle East, the area covered by his headquarters, by suggesting intense combat with many U.S. troops will continue there for a long time to come.

"The idea that we are going to be involved in a 'Long War', at the current level of operations, is not likely and unhelpful," Lt. Col Matt McLaughlin, a Central Command spokesman, said in an e-mail message on Tuesday.

"We remain committed to our friends and allies in the region and to countering al Qaeda-inspired extremism where it manifests itself, but one of our goals is to lessen our presence over time," he said.

"We didn't feel that the term 'Long War' captured this nuance," McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin said Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida, had "moved away" from the phrase in the last two weeks. He said Fallon, who took command last month, ordered the change after a recommendation by staff.

The shift is in keeping with public comments by Fallon, who has said that he is not a patient man, that time is short in Iraq and he wants to see results.

It sounds as if Adm. Fallon is saying "Git 'r done."

"World parliament" at the UN / International Compact for Iraq

"Humanity faces the task of ensuring the survival and well-being of future generations as well as the preservation of the natural foundations of life on earth. We are convinced that in order to cope with major challenges such as social disparity, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the threat of terrorism or the endangerment of global ecosystems, all human beings must engage in collaborative efforts.

To ensure international co-operation, secure the acceptance and to enhance the legitimacy of the United Nations ... people must be more effectively and directly included into the activities of the United Nations and its international organisations."

This statement above is part of an appeal recommending "a gradual implementation of democratic participation and representation on the global level" at the United Nations. Signed by 541 politicians, academics and business leaders from Europe and around the world, it is an appeal for the creation of a UN parliamentary assembly to overcome the "democratic deficit" in global affairs and give citizens a bigger voice. Some of the signers: Dame Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop; Arthur C Clarke, author of 2001: Space Odyssey; four Nobel Prize winners; and 377 MPs from 70 countries.

Here is more from the statement, which clearly democratizes the UN process in the "globalization" age, creating a footing for the inevitable participatory international politics of tomorrow. Direct elections of leaders are proposed for future consideration:

Such an assembly would not simply be a new institution; as the voice of citizens, the assembly would be the manifestation and vehicle of a changed consciousness and understanding of international politics. The assembly could become a political catalyst for further development of the international system and of international law. It could also substantially contribute to the UN's capacity to realize its high objectives and to shape globalization positively.


A Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations could initially be composed of national parliamentarians. Step by step, it should be provided with genuine rights of information, participation and control vis à vis the UN and the organizations of the UN system. In a later stage, the assembly could be directly elected.


We appeal to the United Nations and the governments of its member states to establish a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations. We call for all organizations, decision-makers and citizens engaged with the international common interest to support this appeal.

I can just see former UN ambassador John Bolton pulling out his moustache hairs after reading this.


_ _ _ _ _ _



In somewhat related news, Political Theory Daily is reporting that "The United Nations-sponsored International Compact for Iraq, which seeks to consolidate peace in the war-torn country and pursue political, economic and social development over the next five years, will be launched in Egypt early next month."

When the U.S. pulls its troops out of Iraq - when the occupation ends - the international community will be ready. George W. Bush needs to stop the politicizing this war and do the people's will - accept the funding offered by Congress on their reasonable terms and move this occupation toward its conclusion - despite surge architect Frederick Kagan's pipe dreams about achieving a victory that we know can never be qualified. Bemoaning the American public's negative view of the Iraq war, Kagan thinks that "premature judgments influenced by a week's headlines, whether positive or negative, are unwise." Kagan must have never heard the song "It's Too Late" by the venerable songwriter Carole King. Someday, perhaps, when U.S. military can actually learn how to successfully fight a fourth-generation war instead of boasting about small battles won while the war is dismally lost, a President might be able to ask the public to support a war of which he [or she] is confident will be over before too many citizens are sick, ashamed, and disgusted by it. With Iraq, it's too late, baby.


SEE: As life fades away, Baghdad becomes a memory