Blogs

Joe Baegent is one of the hard-nosed curmudgeony b*stards - errr - great wise men - of our time. And he knocks it out of the park again in his latest rant - errr - polemic? diatribe? - essay, that's it, essay.

They say a cat can look at a king - and maybe it takes a rural outsider like Joe Baegent to tell the truth in this era of endless lies spewed forth by a media owned by a superich elite with an agenda.

http://www.joebageant.com/

Gunther might be a conservative, but there are a hell of a lot of people on the left who would agree with his opinion that, "Them what cooked up this financial mess should damned well eat it." When Gunther and Republicans members of the petty right pose the financial catastrophe in terms of the people vs. the elite group who caused it (the shitbags), they are using the context of class struggle, whether they choose to use that term or not. So does the Tea Party when it talks about Main Street vs. Wall Street (would that the Tea Partiers were as smart as Gunther.)

The petty right and the bumbling left find themselves unexpectedly meeting one another these days, as they navigate the craters of our bombed out economic landscape. Were it not for the ideological war in progress (it's not a cultural war, no matter what the university pundits say, it's a capitalist state sponsored ideological war), they would probably form a powerful combined populist movement that would scare Washington right out of its silk shorts. Naturally, political strategists on both sides do everything possible to keep the rank and file from discovering the growing overlap of liberal and conservative thinking (or in some cases, nonthinking). Read more »

Which is a darn good idea. Somebody has to put a fire under these democrats and republicans, two parties that both serve the same plutocratic corporate masters. Since the dems will continue to receive the support and money they are getting from the corporations NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO, they seem just as happy to hand power back to the republicans - they have no incentive to do anything real, and certainly have no incentive to try to address the biggest problems facing our country and our economic security.

Both sides want all these endless wars to continue, neither side cares about the economy and teh well being of the people.

I liked this part from the letter they sent out:

If the events of the last week have demonstrated nothing else it is
that we have NO members of Congress we can count on to cast the
deciding vote on a progressive issue. Members of the Congressional
"Progressive" Caucus swore up and down they would NEVER agree to a
health care bill without a strong public option. It was a matter of
principle they said. And all they've done since is collapse like a
house of greased cards.

And the biggest problem is that this sell out to the insurance
companies health care bill is SO unpopular, and forcing it through
the way they are, the Democrats are bound to lose large numbers of
seats in November. Nobody is predicting that they won't lose a
significant number of seats. They might even lose their majorities.
Unless we have some alternate INDEPENDENT candidates with substantial
support in place all those lost seats will go back to the do nothing
Republicans.

I became of fan of their page - might as welll. Read more »

Peter Pinnola, an attorney who specializes in obtaining physical and emotional disability status from Social Security, will answer your questions. On April first, when the Voices' column appears in print, I will post here Peter's email address so he can answer your questions.

From where I sit, Helen Keller achievements are remarkable, especially given the fact that (believe it or not) there is a significant number of readers who have never heard of Helen Keller or who think of her as an iconographic brave disabled figure (she could not see or hear) in a tear-jerker play and movie.

April's column, in the published version of Voices will be available at Webster's and other fine places on the first of this month, discusses Keller and her contribution to the disability rights movement.

Helen Keller, who died in 1968 at the age of 87, was the first person to receive a bachelor of arts degree in the United States. She received her BA from Radcliff College, part of Harvard University in 1904.  This blog will constitute an ongoing discussion of what made Keller such a distinguished leader. The New York Public Library called Keller's autobiography one of the 100 greatest books of the 20th Century.

Kind of a sweet thing to see in the corporate news - yes it's manufactured fake news, but it least it seriously asks the beckites to consider WWJD.

Apparemtly beck and the beckites are attacking churches that don't preach their prosperity creed.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/12/beck.boycott/index.html?hpt=C2

Did Jesus preach about social and economic justice?

The Bible cares about social and economic justice, Duren says.

"The Old Testament is replete with examples of God threatening to judge a nation because of a lack of justice or carrying out that threat of judgment against a nation,'' Duren says.

He believes Beck was wrong to tell Christians that they shouldn't belong to churches that seek justice.

The Rev. Jim Wallis is the president of Sojourners, a network of Christians.