Opportunity International

Russia, France Put Aside Woes. The U.S. Snarls.

Russia, France put aside Georgia war differences | International | Reuters
Source: www.reuters.com



SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Russia and France put aside disagreements over the August war in Georgia in a move to promote bi-lateral relations, especially in key energy projects. We will conduct with Russia

Excerpt:

"Analysts say the new rift with the West over Georgia have scared investors, adding to Moscow's financial woes in the face of recent global stock market turmoil."

I wonder - - which would the US government deem more of a national risk -- upsetting the world markets while the US is already reeling from Wall Street's troubles....or harping, toothless and snarling, with threats about Russia's recent actions in Georgian territory? I mean, really - is the Bush administration hallucinating? After French negotiations with Russia, not one single project has been put off or suspended between France and Russia. Meanwhile, Dick Cheney's still flapping his gums about his ever-rotting dream of a US-led new world order in Eurasia while offering millions upon millions of dollars that the US taxpayer can hardly bear to pay anymore... and while Sec'y of State Rice is "buying a one-way ticket to insignificance."

India apparently won't wait for the U.S. 123 nuclear agreement between India and the US ... with India deciding to sign a "landmark nuclear framework agreement with France during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Paris later this month." While the Bush administration runs ineffective wars, works at a snail's pace for treaties and agreements, and uses idle threats against other nations, business goes on with those nations that understand what realistic cooperation in the 21st century means.

Heckuva job, Dick and Condi. A change can't come soon enough, and brother McCain sounds more like your twin soul than his own man on this faded brand of foreign policy.

Jim Sciutto Talks About "Against Us"

Eye on Books
Source: www.eyeonbooks.com

Hating America is no longer limited to wild-eyed fringe fanatics in the Arab world, according to veteran journalist Jim Sciutto. In his role as ABC News Senior Foreign correspondent, Sciutto has traversed the Middle East, finding that al Qaeda's view of America is increasingly being adopted by middle-class, well-educated, mainstream Arabs. And frighteningly, Sciutto has concluded that the Iraq war is, indeed, a shockingly fertile breeding ground for enemies of America. His book is called "Against Us."

Listen:

Groovy

The Renewed Mind Is the Key
Source: www.theway.org

Don't ask. Just watch.
*Tip o'the hat to Chris Abraham. ;)

Ray Anderson on Sustainability

Blogging about carpet tiles isn't sexy by any means. Give one listen to Ray Anderson of Interface Inc [the word's largest modular carpet company], though, and you'll begin to see a glimpse of social changes through better business practices that will make room and make a sustainable home for the generations yet to come.

Ray Anderson on Sustainability
Source: www.youtube.com



This video is one businessman's testimony of a private and public evolution toward environmental consciousness and vision. See the book that inspired Mr. Anderson: "The Ecology of Commerce" by Paul Hawken and the poem that inspired Mr. Anderson - "Tomorrow's Child" by Glen Thomas.

"..Tomorrow's Child, my daughter-son,
I'm afraid I've just begun
To think of you and of your good,
Though always having known I should.

Begin I will to weight the cost
Of what I squander; what is lost
I should never forget that you
Will someday come to live here too..."

Obama's New Economic Philosophy

Senator Barack Obama did his best this afternoon to reassure the shaken American public that he had not only a new philosophy on the ways government should better guard the public interest, but also an initial plan to calm the troubled waters on Wall Street with a temporary plan to protect working Americans. [see transcript of Obama's remarks].

Senator Obama recognized that most Americans were "hurting long before Wall Street was hurting." One of the most compelling parts of his talk this afternoon was his stated principle regarding "mutual responsibility and reciprocity." Obama expressed, with an air of calm under the pressure of some horrific news on Wall Street this week, that his philosophy and plan would entail creating a "broad-based prosperity" in the U.S. rather than the kind of prosperity that enriched a few who are reckless as they've "walked away with the golden parachutes while taxpayers have been left holding the bag."

Stating that this crisis is "no accident of history," Obama pointed to government's past failures to act promptly to avoid the kind of unethical business practices that have caused more and more inequality in the U.S. He said that government has all too often "looked the other way until it was too late" and that government needs to provide common-sense regulation and oversight in order to best protect the public interest.

I imagined, after hearing him speak this morning, what it would be like to have the "broad-based prosperity" of which Obama offered as a realistic vision. The more you spread the opportunity, the better a reflection of the will of the people; the heart and soul of the people.

At Huffington Post, Steven G. Brant hopes that "at least some of our business and political leaders are in enough of a shock that they will look for new ideas and new answers" to this crisis.

Ten years ago, Mr. Brant wrote about the "fog" is being (and, for years, has been) created by "the tendency to see globalization from a perspective grounded in our history of living in a world of separate, independent nations."

The world's economy has become one interdependent system, yet we continue to view it through independent eyes.

What's really going on, from a systems perspective, is that a new, single, global system is struggling to be seen for what it is--a system that can prosper only if all of its parts prosper. It is a single system, one that innately knows that either all of it will make it or none of it will. That's the way healthy systems work. The business world will prosper beyond its wildest imagination once it cuts through this fog and stops viewing the future through "past-focused eyes."

Ex-G.O.P. Official Supports Obama for Values Reasons

For Ex-G.O.P. Official, Obama Is
Candidate of Catholic Values
Source: NY Times
Constitutional scholar Douglas Kmiec explains his current stance in "Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama," which will be published in two weeks by Overlook Press.

I believe that this interview, conducted by email with Professor Kmiec, will please neither pro-choice nor pro-life proponents....and I think the grey areas are an important reflection upon the American electorate's general views on the issue. He says,

"Senator Obama is articulating policies that permit faithful Catholics to follow the church’s admonition that we continue to explore ways to give greater protection to human life."

Professor Kmiec does his best to put the controversial abortion issue aside for just a moment to lay out a plethora of other current social and economic issues that bring about his belief that Obama and Biden's experience and campaign promises best reflect his own Catholic values. He cites, as examples, "the payment of a living wage, access to health care, stabilizing the market for shelter, special attention to the needs of the disadvantaged and the importance of community," saying that those issues are "all part of the church’s social justice mission."

Book Ref: "Can a Catholic Support Him?: Asking the Big Question About Barack Obama"
Barnes and Noble

Earth Sings the Ages' Unspoken Wisdom

as we walked the hills
where our mothers and fathers
were laid to rest
t'was mystic
the silent profundity of spirit
the years of unspoken wisdom
springing from the earth


*My own ancestor Isabell, born in 1780 with troubles raging all around in the new country, rests today on a hillside not far from my own home.

From Susan B Anthony to..Sarah Palin?!

Sarah Palin and Women Voters | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008
Source: www.newsweek.com

"Odd, yes, but there we are. Still, history suggests issues of policy will ultimately trump the politics of identity."

Excerpts that I found worthy of discussion:

ONE: "Decades of experience, stretching back to the suffrage movement, suggest that the brew of excitement (for Palin), horror (from the Democrats) and drama (who knows how it will end?) is fully in keeping with the tumult of the world the women of Seneca Falls, N.Y., made all those years ago."

TWO: "This was the great revelation of the 1920s: women do not all think the same. They reason, and vote, as individuals, not as a pack. [..] "Since 1980, women have skewed Democratic. And, until fairly recently, women have been loath to vote for other women—particularly stay-at-home mothers and elderly women. But the moose-shooting, defiant Palin may be changing that. Her gender is an asset —particularly in an election where sexism has been the subject of heated exchanges."


THREE: [NAOMI WOLF QUOTE] "She's pressing every single button that says 'working-class white woman'." Women candidates like Hillary Clinton had an "Ivy League gloss." Not Palin.But it's a very superficial button."

Petraeus: Troops Alone Won't Quell Violence in Afghanistan

While stressing the need for economic and political progress in both Iraq and Afghanistan, General David Petraeus told the AP:

"You don't kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency."

Microlending: Obama's Mother A Founding Force

Dunham is a woman of the people | starbulletin.com
Jamm Aquino / jaquino@starbulletin.com ..

A panel discussion on the life and work of Stanley Ann Dunham was held yesterday at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Alice Dewey reflected on time spent with Dunham, the mother of Senator Barack Obama. ...

Do you know that Barack Obama's mother was a founding force in microlending?


Like many of you, I continue to ask myself where this country is going. I've watched (and written) for eight years while the U.S. was under a Republican President and most of our country's banks and businesses treated people as pure commodities, bringing citizens to their knees with once-unimaginable fuel prices and loss of their homes, with no timely intervention - legislative or moral - from the President or the GOP-led rubber-stamping, road-blocking Congress.

This isn't a sudden revelation for me. I've watched the house of cards that we've called leadership in D.C. - with the cards having been dealt by a misguiding political party with too much power placed in their undeserving hands - fall in small degrees with every passing day until we stand where we who want to find common ground are today - a confused and divided society with little trust in either major political party to turn the U.S. - and the fate of our allies and innocent people in nations where governments are even worse - toward the sunrise of each new day.

I am not a young person by any stretch of the imagination, but as a person who has not lost the spark of passion for our nation's future and knowing our future is tied to the future of all who live with us on the Earth, I can clearly empathize with the youth of this nation in seeking a leader who will help us find common ground with one another.

Microlending is one of the most innovative ways to use the private sector to not only find success for themselves alone, but to ennoble them by enabling them to have a real, lasting, and positive impact on society and the environment.

Where has the leadership been in Washington DC when it comes to being moral leaders rather than hiding behind business-friendly legislation without asking business leaders to consider the society they serve and promoting the terribly uncreative and uninspiring shopping sprees after 9/11? There are too few citizens, including our potential-filled youth and our most promising business leaders, who know or who have even been asked to care about common-sense solutions to ending global poverty.

Knowing that Stanley Anne Dunham was one of the first activists in the ground-effort to find real-world solutions to end meaningless, cruel, and unnecessary poverty and starvation may cause us to better understand the conscience of the young man she raised who was greatly influenced by such wisdom and heart.

In this silly campaign season where the ads are going nuclear with negativity, I'm afraid that many people who may still be making up their minds could wind up making them up for all the wrong reasons.

In the Presidential race between Obama and McCain, we seem to have another evenly-divided American public. What could break that tie? And what silly media soundbite could bring one campaign crashing down? That is the concern of campaigns.

What about the concern for our future..the one that extends well beyond November 4th? Who deserves a chance to help us all find common ground in a world that seems to be burning with misunderstanding and hatred for the American people. Is it the leader of the party, whether or not he calls himself a Maverick, that demeans and mocks the kind of volunteer public service that has shaken our communities out of complacency in order to make them better? Is it a promise of victory in a war we never should've entered into - especially when we know that the General whose advice should be meaningful is saying he'd never use the word 'victory' when he's speaking about Iraq? General David Petraeus said this week, "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not war with a simple slogan." I think we all know that's true and when I hear John McCain's constant use of the word "victory," I tend to wonder if he thinks that American voters can't really take the straight talk that he so often claims he purports to offer.

ABC-reporter Jim Sciutto's new book "Against Us" speaks about hope for America to turn the tide of hate toward us that exists today. A change in U.S. foreign policy needs to be a clear one. A change that will help to rebuild relations with the Arab world and restore confidence in American values will need to be clear.

American politics are complicated and the U.S. media makes a circus out of them....but in the end, this isn't a circus or a reality television show. This is you - in your bed at night - thinking about your future...you son and your daughter...the sons and daughters going to sleep in nations we've never visited or think much about.

The media never talks much about your conscience or your heart. That isn't their responsibility. It's your own responsibility.

I pray that the majority of Americans will be fully awake, in a philosophical sense, when Election Day comes around.

I hope they'll think about the young man whose mother raised him with a solid example of how the future can be molded to benefit us all.

I wish the negative ads would disappear...but then I would be asking for a reprieve from the real world.

Read about Barack's mother. Read up about people like Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Read about the leaders of this nation and this world who are recognizing that life from here on out will be an interdependent one for all humanity and that your living room and your ocean shores are not the end of America's concern.

Think of the hundreds of thousands who crowded the square in Germany for Mr. Obama as more than just a publicity stunt.

He is not the only citizen of this world. We all are.

9/11: There Are No Words

There Are No Words

there are no words there is no song
is there a balm that can heal these wounds that will last a lifetime long
and when the stars have burned to dust
hand in hand we still will stand because we must







in one single hour in one single day
we were changed forever something taken away
and there is no fire that can melt this heavy stone
that can bring back the voices and the spirits of our own




all the brothers, sisters and lovers all the friends that are gone
all the chairs that will be empty in the lives that will go on
can we ever forgive though we never will forget
can we believe in the milk of human goodness yet




we were forged in freedom we were born in liberty
we came here to stop the twisted arrows cast by tyranny
and we won’t bow down we are strong of heart
we are a chain together that won’t be pulled apart






Written 9-11-2001 by Kitty Donohoe, Roheen Music BMI
All rights reserved


HEAR THE SONG AT CSPAN (Fast forward to 58:40)

Not Electrified by VP Who'd Seek to Restrict Key Freedoms

At Facebook: Jude Nagurney Camwell wrote at 2:07pm
Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works to elect women who oppose abortion rights said women voters would be “electrified” by VP nominee Sarah Palin. Ms. Dannenfelser said, “Sarah is someone who is in sync with the way real American women think.”

I'm about as real and American a woman as they come. I fail to be electrified by a candidate who would choose to legally restrict a woman from making her own choices about the direction of her own life. I believe, as an American woman, that emotion and religion do not trump freedom. I am an American woman. The spirit and theme of freedom is intrinsically "American."

McCain Hopes Palin Will Capture Disgruntled Hillary Voters?

I have a feeling that Presidential candidate John McCain, having chosen a woman as his VP, is hoping to capture the attention of the small percentage of Hillary voters who, even after the Democratic convention, just couldn't "get over it." Even the smallest percentage could produce a winner in an extremely tight race. The question is: How tight will the race continue to be?

When the phone rings at 3am.......

My latest Facebook status message:

"Jude is wondering if anyone's made the 3am phone call primary ad connection w/the VP announcement at 3am."
Jude Nagurney Camwell at 10:43am August 23

Could this text message at 3am to announce Biden as VP have been a final slam on the Clinton primary season ad...as if to say, "Here's your 3 am experience!" ?

Bush Learns Lesson About Reading Eyeballs

Created by Jude Nagurney Camwell

On the John Edwards Scandal

Seeing so many "concern trolls" coming out of the woodwork and sending personal messages to me about the political fallout from the John Edwards affair, you would've thought I was the one who had the affair....or that I'd known about it all along.

I was a strong supporter of Senator Edwards for our common stand on the many issues that were (and are) most important to me. The mistake some of you have made in suggesting that "you told me so" and that I was a "poor judge of character" is that you still don't understand why I supported Edwards in the first place. Perhaps you don't understand where I'm coming from because the media never gave him a fair shake. They wanted to talk about his perfect, unlined face and his big house. They're still digging in with their claws. Pathetic pieces of work, some of them are.

The cult of personality that the Presidential race has become in this nation is at a fever pitch. As in the days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the media has its collective shorts in a faux-moral uproar over a candidate having a marital affair.

Yes - I understand that, politically, Senator Edwards focused much of his Presidential platform on the moral failings of the past eight years, and so it's easy for some who see his mistake as a key moral personal failing to throw away the proverbial baby (who was a very bad baby) with the bathwater of his down-to-earth vision. It's all too easy to cast away the body of ideas he's been sharing with progressives but for the man's human weakness.

I worked directly with him and Elizabeth on some issues and I can tell you that I've never seen two more committed and politically courageous people. If Mrs.Edwards can find forgiveness, and I assume she did along time ago, then it would only be a sick preoccupation with sex that would cause me to turn away from soliciting their future support on the issues that make a real difference in our lives. I'm just not that hung up on others' personal affairs. I'll leave that to some of you cult-of-celebrity subscribers. To you, I say never fear...your gossip shows will be on once again tonight. You can get another fix in a few hours.

His affair, for me personally, has no bearing on the fact that what he was saying was true all along.

I feel tremendously sorry for the Edwards family right now.

But for those who are coming to me looking for me to step back from my positions because Senator Edwards made a tragic mistake which even the most suspicious of his detractors couldn't have known about or imagined, I think you'd best stop feeling so "sorry" for me and move along. There's nothing for you to see here except my constant positions on the issues that matter to all of us.

The primary ended when Senator Obama became the presumptive nominee. That was quite a while ago. If any of you care to keep Senator Obama apprised of our hopes that he'll get(and stay) on a Progressive path, do something productive rather than accost me....go to The Nation magazine and sign this letter.

Senator Edwards will hopefully be back to help out with the Half in Ten cause,and when he does, I'd encourage those who judged him based on the standards of the cult of personality rather than the trust that he meant what he said all along about ending poverty to join Half in Ten.


I want to share some of my very few comments at Daily Kos on the topic:

Rec'd curious personal notes from concern trolls (4+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
sockpuppet, Noisy Democrat, Triscula, carllaw

Amazing how they come out of the woodwork when something like this happens...as if any of us knew about the politically (and personally) tragic mistake made by Edwards. I take it with a grain of salt because, from a political standpoint, I moved on from the primary a long time ago and still hold to my belief in the social justice that Edwards strongly championed. He may not be able to carry the fight on strongly because of his glaringly poor judgment in his personal affairs and America's preoccupation with sex, but I sure as hell will be fighting myself. And I'd stand beside him in that fight any day..unashamed.

Very well-said, Don, I join your Half In Ten support (5+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
sockpuppet, TomP, planetclaire4, DixieDishrag, carllaw

It would be my deepest disappointment were Half in Ten to suffer.

John Edwards is a human being with human failings.

One lesson to be learned is that no one - regardless of who the candidate is - should be a true believer in a personality. No one should place a human being on a super-human pedestal. And no one should present themselves as a savior of any kind.

I saw many true believers flocking to Daily Kos during this primary season for another personality..Mr. Obama. Let's remember that he, too, is flesh and blood.

We must be cautious and remember it's the cause and not the figurehead in which we should place our undying faith.

My own true belief was in the causes that John and Elizabeth championed.

Thankfully, I have no regret in having been a constant and committed champion of those causes and will recognize and pay tribute to the viable candidates who champion them in the future.

As for Senator Edwards, I am disappointed, but at the same time I still believe that he was just as committed to ending poverty as you and I have been. I still am inextricably enjoined with him, in a social-justice sense, in that cause, regardless of his unbelievably bad judgment in his personal and political affairs. Social justice is a moral cause...and it's far more important to concentrate upon than the kind of hyperfocused and holier-than-thou moral judgment being passed on Edwards now.

Those who choose to blurt out their "fuck you-s" and "I hate you-s" are having knee-jerk reactions in their visions of what could have been and, thankfully, will never come to pass. Edwards could've been the POTUS nominee and have blown it for all of us. Understandable.

Those who excoriate the people who supported Edwards because of his causes are wrong in failing to see that they're only seeing through their own filters...many having shown that they, themselves, have been true believers in another candidate while almost robotically sinking their teeth into the political flesh of Hillary Clinton for so many months.

Many lessons to be learned here.....

My support for Half in Ten remains strong.

I hope others will join you, Don.



great comment! (3+ / 0-)

Recommended by:
sockpuppet, TomP, planetclaire4

the best comment I've read, and I think I've read a great deal, as someone who journeyed far and wide with the Edwards family..

by laurenc on Sun Aug 10, 2008 at 11:53:12 AM PDT

[ Parent | Reply to This | Recommend ]



Thank you, laurenc (0+ / 0-)

I've worked hard for John and Elizabeth myself on many issues that concerned all of us. It's a real heartbreak to see all of this happening..for them...for us...but it doesn't mean that our causes must suffer or that Senator Edwards' personal and political mistake is by any means a reflection on those who believed in those causes alongside the Edwardses. Take heart and know that I, for one, and many others here support everything you did for the Edwardses because you believed in doing the right thing....even if it turns out that decisions with politically tragic consequences were consciously made by the candidate himself. John always told us that his run was about us...and now it's up to us to bethe leaders he wanted us to be....to carry on and hope the healing will take place in the Edwards family and that they'll both be back to fight..healthy and healed.. asconcerned citizens by our side.

At Facebook: Harry Taylor for Congress 2008

"Sanctuary" by Deng Ming-Dao

"Golden light skims azure bay,
Dense air heavy with laurel.
Windless dusk smears to night,
Sonorous pool in a sheltered grove."

Though this world is turbulent, there are still days and places where we can be afforded some tranquility. When this happens, it is right to rest from the tribulations and striving of being in the world and to take advantage of what is offered.












Sometimes it will be the peaceful feeling of sunset, when the blazing sun becomes reconciled with the horizon and a sense of acceptance lingers in the air.













At other times it will be the chance encounter with a secret place - perhaps a grove of trees that promises a mysterious comfort.
















In such private places, we can often find peace. Such stillness can even be precious, as when we notice the deep voice of a stream which we were always too busy to hear before.










Indeed, sometimes we are so worn out by our daily activities that we forget to notice our need for recharging.










Renewal is a profound tonic.
With sanctuary and rest, we can prepare to go forth again.








- From Deng Ming-Dao's book "365 Tao, Daily Meditations"

photos byJude Nagurney Camwell
all rights reserved

Time Horizon...Lost Horizon

CBS War Correspondent Asks HuffPo for Fairness

CBS news correspondent Kimberly Dozier, author of the book "Breathing the Fire" which chronicles events and her experiences after having nearly been killed on Memorial Day in 2006 by an explosive device while reporting in Iraq, asked Arianna Huffington a question on Facebook yesterday. I'll let her comment and question stand on its own. I think it shows just how complicated, indeed, is the question of where the U.S. needs to go on Iraq. It goes far beyond anyone's given ideology, political posturing, and respective choice of Presidential candidate.

It's fairly obvious that the news network's front-line correspondents do not wish to be used for anyone's political purpose in this Presidential campaign season. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have used the Iraq war as a political tool and have treated the mainstream media..sometimes with success, disappointingly... as little more than their personal stenographers. It's happened for so long now...with far less success lately on the Bush administration's part .. that I think we've become perhaps too suspicious about the reporters who lay their own lives on the line every day to report what's actually happening on the ground.

Ms. Dozier asks the owner of the Huffington Post:

"Question for you -- I've been reporting that security is improved for Iraqis thanks to the surge in Iraq, but that US military commanders themselves say the situation is still 'reversible,' and that most everything else has failed to catch up, and could turn the situation south in an instant, like the government's failure to start integrating some 100,000 Sunni awakening fighters in Iraqi majority Shi'ite forces...(they've only integrated 10%, despite heavy US pressure, and the Americans are actually only aiming to integrate up to 30%...so what happens to the 70,000 other Sunni fighters?)...

If I report the success of one part, and ALL those other caveats...how does that get turned into "the mainstream media buys into the propaganda that taking out Saddam was the right thing at the right time?" I never reported that!

I've frequently been misquoted on my book tour on other subjects, so I'm a little over-sensitive about this one."

I know it's not a great analogy, but have you ever been the one person in a dysfunctional family situation who's held everything and everyone together...knowing all the while that once you backed away, all hell would break loose again because you were never, in reality, able to fix what was broken on your own?

Well, it sounds like that's the military in Iraq today.

Perhaps the reason the military - and the Surge- is the only part of the Iraq war being placed in focus by the major networks is because someone sitting behind a desk at corporate headquarters has been pressed into not telling the whole story...while our best war correspondents risk, and in the case of CBS' cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan, lose their lives.