Chamber of Commerce Admits Funding Anti-Worker Ads with Bailout Money

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Billboards standing 50-feet high in Washington, D.C. support the Employee Free Choice Act. However, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is using bailout funds to finance its newly-launched program of television ads opposing the act.

The Chamber of Commerce is using taxpayer money to fund ads against workers in political swing states.

By Adam Green

[This article was originally posted on Open Left on April 14, 2009.]

Yesterday, I posed the question: “Is the Chamber of Commerce Using Bailout Money to Attack Workers?”

The Chamber took to their blog and ambiguously wrote, “No. No we are not.”

It’s well documented by Sam Stein at The Huffington Post that bailout recipients have been asked to funnel money to groups that are running anti-worker ads like the ones announced yesterday by the Chamber.

So I wrote, “Let me pose a more specific question: Is the Chamber actively rejecting money from bailout recipients?”

The Chamber responded:

Another one quickly answered, the U.S. Chamber continues to accept as members companies which receive both public and private funds. In addition we do not believe that the receipt of taxpayer money abrogates an individual or groups’ rights under the First Amendment.

My original answer to the original question still stands, beyond question.

Actually, it’s not beyond question — and Jonathan Martin at Politico agrees:

Adam Green over at OpenLeft pushes the Chamber of Commerce to say that they’re still accepting dues from bailed-out companies.

The goal is to make the case that the Chamber is using taxpayer dollars to help fund their anti-EFCA campaign (of which they have launched new ads targeting moderate Democratic senators).

The Chamber’s Brad Peck says they’re not using bail-out money for the campaign.

I’ve asked how exactly they know that to be the case.

A bunch of folks have joined the Facebook group asking the same question, and have used the contact info posted in that group to email Chamber execs directly.

And last night, Anna Burger added SEIU’s voice to this issue:

The Chamber of Commerce’s solution for fixing our economic crisis is to use funds from taxpayer bailed-out companies to fight smart economic policies that will restore balance to our economy and help rebuild the American Middle Class.

…American taxpayers have had enough. The Chamber of Commerce must stop accepting taxpayer funds to lobby against taxpayer interests.

It’s a pretty cut-and-dry case.

Taxpayer money went to companies so they could rebuild their fundamentals. By the Chamber’s now-admission, bailout recipients are giving some of that money to the Chamber (aka, not using it to rebuild their fundamentals). Then, the Chamber uses that taxpayer money to fund ads against workers in political swing states.

We’ll now see if the Chamber is as oblivious to the PR disaster that is about to hit them as the Wall Street execs who used bailout money to redecorate their offices and pay bonuses were.

Maybe smarter heads at the Chamber will prevail, and they’ll take this issue off the table by publicly rejecting money from bailout recipients. We’ll see…

(Join the Facebook group to take action on this issue.)

[Adam Green is cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), dedicated to helping progressive candidates run progressive campaigns and win. He is also interim CEO of Change Congress, a reform group formed by Prof. Lawrence Lessig and Joe Trippi to reform congressional elections and special-interest influence on Congress.]

© 2009 Open Left All rights reserved.

Source / Open Left / AlterNet

Thanks to Jeffrey Segal / The Rag Blog

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Note from Big Brother : Room 101, Meet Zubaydah’s Box

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

‘…you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar.’

The Obvious Comparison

By Hilzoy / April 16, 2009

OLC memo of August 1, 2002, signed by Jay Bybee:

“You would like to place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us that he appears to have a fear of insects. (…) As we understand it, you plan to inform Zubaydah that you are going to place a stinging insect into the box, but you will actually place a harmless insect in the box, such as a caterpillar. If you do so, to ensure you are outside the predicate death requirement, you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain. If, however, you were to place the insect in the box without informing him that you are doing so, you should not affirmatively lead him to believe that any insect is present which has a sting that could produce severe pain or suffering or even cause his death.”

‘The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.’

George Orwell, 1984:

“‘You asked me once,’ said O’Brien, ‘what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.’

“The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O’Brien was standing. Winston could not see what the thing was.

‘The worst thing in the world,’ said O’Brien, ‘varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.’

He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.

‘In your case,’ said O’Brien, ‘the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.'”

Source / Political Animal / Washington Monthly

Thanks to Thomas Cleaver / The Rag Blog

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Keith Olbermann Special Comment : ‘Mr. President, You are Wrong.’

Posted on April 17, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Keith Olbermann, Special Comment, Countdown, April 16, 2009

U.S. future depends on torture accountability

We cannot let mistakes of the past haunt our future.

By Keith Olbermann / April 16, 2009

[The following was delivered as a “Special Comment” by commentator Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown, April 16, 2009.]

As promised, a Special Comment now on the president’s revelation of the remainder of this nightmare of Bush Administration torture memos. This President has gone where few before him, dared. The dirty laundry — illegal, un-American, self-defeating, self-destroying — is out for all to see.

Mr. Obama deserves our praise and our thanks for that. And yet he has gone but half-way. And, in this case, in far too many respects, half the distance is worse than standing still. Today, Mr. President, in acknowledging these science-fiction-like documents, you said that:

“This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke.”

“We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history.

“But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.

Mr. President, you are wrong. What you describe would be not “spent energy” but catharsis.

Not “blame laid,” but responsibility ascribed. You continued:

“Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.”

Indeed we must, Mr. President. And the forces of which you speak are the ones lingering — with pervasive stench — from the previous administration. Far more than a criminal stench, Sir. An immoral one. One we cannot let be re-created.

One, President Obama, it is your responsibility to make sure cannot be re-created. Forgive me for quoting from a Comment I offered the night before the inauguration. But this goes to the core of the President’s commendable, but wholly naive, intention. This country has never “moved forward with confidence”.without first cleansing itself of its mistaken past.

In point of fact, every effort to merely draw a line in the sand and declare the past dead has served only to keep the past alive and often to strengthen it. We “moved forward” with slavery in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And four score and nine years later, we had buried 600,000 of our sons and brothers, in a Civil War.

After that war’s ending, we “moved forward” without the social restructuring — and protection of the rights of minorities — in the south. And a century later, we had not only not resolved anything, but black leaders were still being assassinated in our southern cities.

We “moved forward” with Germany in the reconstruction of Europe after the First World War.

Nobody even arrested the German Kaiser, let alone conducted war crimes trials then. And 19 years later, there was an indescribably more evil Germany and a more heart-rending Second World War.

We “moved forward” with the trusts of the early 1900s. And today, we are at the mercy of corporations too big to fail. We “moved forward” with the Palmer Raids and got McCarthyism.

And we “moved forward” with McCarthyism and got Watergate. We “moved forward” with Watergate and junior members of the Ford administration realized how little was ultimately at risk.

They grew up to be Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. But, Mr. President, when you say we must “come together on behalf of our common future” you are entirely correct. We must focus on getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past.

That means prosecuting all those involved in the Bush administration’s torture of prisoners, even if the results are nominal punishments, or merely new laws. Your only other option is to let this set and fester indefinitely. Because, Sir, some day there will be another Republican president, or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics and this country’s moral force. And he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush. Or what you did not do.

And he will see precedent. Or as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time. Prosecute, Mr. President. Even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good for generations unborn. Merely by acting, you will deny a further wrong — that this construction will enter the history books: Torture was legal. It worked. It saved the country.

The end. This must not be. “It is our intention,” you said today, “to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.” Mr. President, you are making history’s easiest, most often made, most dangerous mistake — you are accepting the defense that somebody was “just following orders.” At the end of his first year in office, Mr. Lincoln tried to contextualize the Civil War for those who still wanted to compromise with evils of secession and slavery. “The struggle of today,” Lincoln wrote, “is not altogether for today. It is for a vast future also.”

Mr. president, you have now been handed the beginning of that future. Use it to protect our children and our distant descendants from anything like this ever happening again — by showing them that those who did this, were neither unfairly scapegoated nor absolved. It is good to say “we won’t do it again.” It is not, however…enough.

Source / msnbc.com

The Rag Blog

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Austin : Some ‘Poopers’ at the ‘Tea Party’

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

A different message at Austin Tea Party: The Rag Blog’s Susan Van Haitsma and Fran Hanlon (right), both with CodePink. Photo by Andy McKenna / The Rag Blog.

Speaking of taxes:
I can’t afford more war. Can you?

By Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / April 16, 2009

AUSTIN — Well, it certainly was an interesting day yesterday. The Sarah Palin/Rick Perry crowd hit the streets with messages that clearly represented public frustration with huge US debt and wasteful spending that has caused job losses, business closures, home foreclosures and lots of serious anxiety. But, people! I’m glad you’re using your First Amendment rights, but for heaven’s sake — where were you when the Bush Administration was throwing your resources into the black hole of unnecessary war and occupation? What gobbles up most of your tax dollars? Military spending — the biggest elephant in the room not discussed at your tea party!

So, you want to keep your money and guns and let us keep the change. Hanging so tightly onto your guns has consequences, folks. Guns will not feed you, and they won’t pay the rent. Tanks, mortar rounds, predator drones and cluster bombs will bleed you dry, increasing the motivation for retaliatory attacks and eroding overall security, not improving it. As Quaker founder, George Fox, reportedly replied to William Penn when Penn asked if he would have to give up his weapon, “Wear your sword as long as thou canst.”

You know, I’m also thinking that some of Rick Perry’s sentiments echo pretty closely those of the hardline Islamic fundamentalists he likely regards as enemies. Perry is quoted in today’s Austin American-Statesma saying, “I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens and its interference with the affairs of our state.” (Is he talking wire-tapping?)

In another article in the same issue, an Afghan cleric named Mohammed Hussein Jafaari is quoted saying, “We Afghans don’t want a bunch of NATO commanders and foreign ministers telling us what to do.”

Why would Governor Perry suggest that Texas should function as its own independent nation and at the same time champion the corporate and military occupations of sovereign nations abroad? Good grief.

Some of us tea party-poopers had a demo at the downtown post office yesterday evening, where we annually make our case that the largest budget item of the federal tax pie is the real culprit in our tea-tering economy. And freeing those resources to fund what humans need to live is freedom that means something.

The Rag Blog

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BOOKS / Jonah Raskin on Chesa Boudin’s ‘Gringo’

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Chesa rarely if ever takes anything or anyone for granted, least of all his own privilege. He looks behind the scenes, asks difficult questions and gets underneath social pretense, hypocrisy and phoniness.

By Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog / April 16, 2009

See Jonah Raskin’s interview with Chesa Boudin, Below.

[Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America, Chesa Boudin; Simon & Schuster; $25.]

One-word book titles can pack a lot of wallop. Dick Gregory’s autobiography, Nigger, did, and so did Dalton Conley’s Honky, his memoir about growing up as a white boy in a largely black world in New York. Chesa Boudin’s Gringo conveys a lot of force in its one word title, too. The book itself often pulses along with the power of the Amazon, a river that the author explored on one of his many adventurers across Latin America. Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but the book calls for it. Part memoir, part reportage, Gringo offers a close look at life in Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

In part, Chesa has followed in the footsteps of Che Guevara who traveled across the continent when he was a medical student, and wrote about his journey in The Motorcycle Diaries, a riveting story that was made into a movie. Since Chesa is a North American –- a “gringo” –- he inevitably sees South America through different, though no less valuable, eyes than Che’s. Like Che, he has the gift of empathy. He’s also a reliable journalist.

Chesa rarely if ever takes anything or anyone for granted, least of all his own privilege. He looks behind the scenes, asks difficult questions and gets underneath social pretense, hypocrisy and phoniness. Of the dangers of dogma, ideology and partisanship he is also well aware, but that awareness does not prevent him from reaching out to people he meets along the way, and getting to know them intimately well. He looks at himself and sees himself clearly as an individual, and also as a representative of the culture of which he is a part, and from which he is also in flight. Sometimes he seems too honest, too transparent and vulnerable. But he doesn’t cover up or dissemble.

The story of his birth in 1980, and his childhood, would make a book in and of itself. He tells the outline of the tale in Chapter Two, “Border Crossings.” His biological parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, took part in October 1981 in a bungled attempt to rob a Brinks Armored Vehicle carrying $1.6 million. Three people were killed. His parents were arrested and sentenced to 25 and 75 years in prison. Two of their friends, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, took him into their family and became his parents. All that personal history he sometimes found difficult to convey to people he met in South America. Others seemed to grasp it immediately and to embrace him all the more readily because of it.

As a North American who lived in Mexico in 1975, along with Abbie Hoffman, who was in flight from the law, I was always conscious of being a “gringo,” and so was Abbie. Perhaps because we both had dark hair, dark eyes and olive complexions no one ever called us “gringos.” But that did not stop us from seeing ourselves that way and, though we tried to escape our identities as “gringos,” it was never easy. Chesa was called a “gringo,” sometimes affectionately, sometimes not. He knows the power of words like “gringo,” “nigger,” “honky” and “Yankee.” Sensitive to language, and to nuances of expression, he pays particular attention to the different ways Spanish is spoken in all the many places he visited, studied and worked. Sometimes he is a tourist; at other times he is a traveler, and on still other occasions, he is a later-day Beat voyager.

Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg would recognize him instantly with his beard and backpack at the back of the bus. They would beckon him to join the Beat brotherhood of adventurers who wanted to get away from the American colossus, and to live side-by-side, in Mexico and in Morocco, with the “fellaheen,” as Kerouac always called them, by which he meant the lost, the lonely, and the dispossessed men, women and children of humanity who are everywhere in our midst. “Gringo” and “fellaheen”: they are world’s apart, and yet they are ever so close. Chesa Boudin brings them close together in his new and wonderful book about life on the road in this, our 21st century.

Chesa Boudin, author of Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America.

Dancing Into the World:
An Interview with Chesa Boudin

By Jonah Raskin / The Rag Blog / April 16, 2009

JR: With the name “Chesa,” I assume that it derives somehow from Che Guevara.

CB: Actually, Chesa comes from the Swahili verb Ku-Chesa that means to dance or to play. I was born feet first and my dad said it looked like I came dancing into the world.

JR: You have two dads and two moms, don’t you? How has that been to have two sets of parents?

CB: To their great credit it has mostly been double the love, double the support. Obviously there are aspects that are difficult but those are mostly related to the nature of maintaining relationships from the distance incarceration creates, not the reality of having two sets of parents.

JR: Your grandfather Leonard Boudin was a lawyer –- for the Cuban government, for a time. You’re in your second semester at Yale Law School. What’s next?

CB: I am not exactly sure, but maybe something to do with international human rights law. I’m also interested in labor and immigration.

JR: In your book Gringo in which you describe your travels from Guatemala to Ecuador, you say you have traveled to more than 80 countries.

CB: It’s up to more than 90 countries now, ever since I traveled from Istanbul to Shanghai by land from March to July 2008. I went from one side of Asia to another and I saw a lot of commonalities between countries that I had thought of as being totally cut off from each other. That was eye opening.

JR: You speak English and Spanish and what other languages?

CB: Portuguese, and I pick up other languages, too, when I travel.

JR: When I was growing up they called people like you “internationalists” or “world citizens.”

CB: Yes, I know those terms. Labels are complicated, and identity is so multidimensional. I suppose I see myself as a kind of travel expert.

I prefer land travel, and I like adventures on the road.

JR: What do you take with you when you travel?

CB: In 1999 when I went on my first solo trip out of the USA I had a cheap camera, a Walkman and sunglasses. I traveled with the idea that if I lost anything on the way I wouldn’t be upset. Recently I went with a friend who had a laptop, and that came in handy.

JR: Do you have a Blog?

CB: I don’t. I write book reviews for Truth Dig and articles for The Nation.

JR: In Venezuela you worked for Hugo Chavez’s government. Are you now, or have you ever been a Chavista?

CB: I have criticisms of the Chavez government that the Chavistas don’t welcome. There is a lot of corruption in Venezuela and a lot of crime in the streets. The government has not made genuine progress in those two areas, and recently Chavez devoted a lot of time and energy to reforming the Constitution so he could stay in office longer, legally. I thought they should have spent more time developing new leadership.

JR: If Che Guevara were alive today how do you think he’d feel?

CB: He’d be excited about the possibilities for change all over Latin America. There has been a shift away from following the dictates of Washington D.C. and toward more independent leadership.

JR: Ought we to give Che himself credit for some of these positive changes?

CB: He’s an inspiration all over Latin America. In Bolivia people still talk about him. He did make strategic errors in Bolivia that led to his death.

JR: Would he be a guerrilla today?

CB: Well he’d be pretty old and it would be hard to survive in the jungle, though he was a tough fellow.

JR: Would he be an elder statesman and involved in a Latin American government?

CB: Democracy is being reinvented in Bolivia, Venezuela and elsewhere. Ecuador isn’t as far along in its own process but it’s coming along. All over the continent there is more grass roots participation in political movements than there has been for a very long time. Che gets some of the credit for that.

JR: Can you see a time when there might be guerrilla movements again?

CB: Right now there is no need for guerilla movements. If the masses of people are able to be included in the political process there will be less likelihood of guerrilla violence in the future.

JR: Is President Obama making a break with old patterns of North American interference?

CB: He is taking steps in the right direction. He just relaxed travel restrictions to Cuba, and that’s a good thing. That would have been unthinkable under Bush. But of course, the hard-line leftists in Latin America think he represents the imperialist state.

JR: Is the American Empire in crisis now?

CB: The financial meltdown is a sign of the crisis. And the shift in power in Latin America is another sign. Those things are evidence, I would say, that U.S imperialism is stressed. But at the same time I would have to say that it is an amazingly resilient system. The American Empire is not likely to collapse in your lifetime and perhaps not in mine either.

JR: What should we be doing here?

CB: Exerting leverage to create a political space so that the U.S. does the right thing in Latin America.

JR: Is there something I haven’t asked you that you’d like to say?

CB: I want to say that my book, Gringo, is political, and that it’s also personal: an adventure story. It’s about travel. I urge everyone out there to see the world for themselves and not watch it on TV. Go out and see and relate and experience the world. That’s what I try to do anyway.

JR: Sounds to me like you have been living up to the name Chesa; you’ve been dancing all around the world.

CB: I guess I have.

[Jonah Raskin is a prominent author, poet, educator and political activist. His most recent book is The Radical Jack London: Writings on War and Revolution. He contributes regularly to The Rag Blog.]

Find Gringo: A Coming of Age in Latin America by Chesa Boudin on Amazon.com.

The Rag Blog

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Feds Warn Cops : Watch Out for Right Wing Hate

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Klan cross burning. Could the fire next time be sooner than we think?

Homeland Security has issued an alarming report — alarming, at least, to those who haven’t been paying attention — that warns of further substantial growth in already resurgent right wing radicalism.

In light of the widespread reports of blatant racism, hate and calls to violence during Wednesday’s consistently mean-spirited “tea parties,” around the country, this warning should be taken very seriously.

Incidentally, this report has stirred up wide-eyed protest from Conservative quarters.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / April 16, 2009

Federal agency warns of radicals on right
Nine page report sent to police

By Audrey Hudson and Eli Lake / April 14, 2009

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says.

The White House has distanced itself from the analysis. When asked for comment on its contents, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said, “The President is focused not on politics but rather taking the steps necessary to protect all Americans from the threat of violence and terrorism regardless of its origins. He also believes those who serve represent the best of this country, and he will continue to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and benefits they have earned.”

The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff’s departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

It says the federal government “will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months” to gather information on “rightwing extremist activity in the United States.”

The joint federal-state activities will have “a particular emphasis” on the causes of “rightwing extremist radicalization.”

Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban said the report is one in an ongoing series of assessments by the department to “facilitate a greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the U.S.”

Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC

Source / The Washington Times

Go here to see the report in .pdf form.

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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Dr. Gerry Lower : Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Human Evolution

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin / Graphic from Wikipedia Commons

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Human Evolution

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a well-educated French Jesuit priest who first attempted to blend evolution with religion in his book ‘The Phenomenon of Man.’

By Dr. Gerry Lower / The Rag Blog / April 16, 2009

In his recent article on the “Upcoming Police State,” Chris Hedges mentions that “America is ‘devolving’ into a third-world nation.” This use of evolutionary terminology brought to my mind the name of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a well-educated French Jesuit priest who first attempted to blend evolution with religion in his book “The Phenomenon of Man” (2). It is a book highly relevant to nascent Christianity and Democracy and relevant not at all to Roman religion.

One man influenced by Teilhard de Chardin was Van Renssalear Potter at the University of Wisconsin. Van is the Father of Global Bioethics and while his “Bioethics” are based primarily on the work of Aldo Leopold, the Father of Wildlife Ecology — “A Sand County Almanac” (6), it is also based on Teilhard’s The Phenomenon of Man. Teilhard had a tremendous influence on my mentor and thus upon me.

Van was the first person that I ever met who would successfully attempt to plot the evolution of human knowledge out on paper, beginning with the EuroAmerican Enlightenment. Pretty much all that I have accomplished in life is to have extended Van’s 2D view back to the beginnings of Reason in Greece and Nazareth. Now, the evolution of knowledge can be seen as a 3D logarithmic spiral.

Teilhard does not go wrong except when he claims that “Science alone cannot discover Christ. But Christ satisfies the yearnings that are born in our hearts in the school of science. . . Science will, in all probability, be increasingly impregnated by mysticism.”

This is simply not true of Jefferson’s Jesus, because it is so unnecessary. The values of the Christ were formulated with the same dialectic approaches utilized by the Greeks in formulating the values of natural science. Nascent Christianity is born of human Reason not Rome’s religion. There is nothing supernatural about Jefferson’s Jesus.

Teilhard did, however, contribute many new and justifiable words to the English language (6), words which can now be provided greater definition.

Consider “Humanism” : Human-centered thought

This is the term used to define those who honor human rights, e.g., Jesus, and those who honor the principles of a human rights-based Democracy, e.g. Jefferson. Such people are present in every nation on earth.

Consider “Noogenesis” : Evolution of knowledge

Here Teilhard is speaking to Conceptual Evolution in Natural Science, which can now be rigorously defined, from Socrates to Newton to Einstein, which has driven Cultural evolution first in the western world and then the entire world.

With Newton’s Deductive Revolution, the emergence of Jefferson’s Democracy (at the expense of organized supernatural religion) and the Industrial Revolution.

With Einstein’s Reductive Revolution and the Informational Revolution, globalization has been pursued to carry western knowledge all over the world in the creation of a global economy. It is time for another American Revolution on the global stage.

Consider “Cosmogenesis” : Evolution of the Universe

Here Teilhard is saying that all of life is evolutionary, from the molecular to the cellular to the organismal levels of organization, from the geological to the biological to the cultural levels of organization. At the human level of organization, all of human life is evolutionary from the emergence of man to the birth of human.

Consider “Hominization” : The process of becoming more human and realizing human potentials

This, of course, is what conceptual and cultural evolution are all about in life and in the world, comprehension of where we came from, where we are at, and where we are all going.

Consider “Ultra-Hominization” : The process of man moving so far forward that Humankind will need a new design and definition

My term for the same phenomenon is the evolutionary emergence of Deity and Heaven on Earth. This can only be accomplished via human rights and democracy.

Consider “Noosphere” : The Sphere of Human Knowledge

This would be the sphere of knowledge embraced by post-Einstein natural philosophy which, in turn, embraces Conceptual Evolution in Natural Science and Cultural Evolution in the world.

Consider “Omega Point” : A point in evolution where a “final condition of man” is reached, combining past and present

Here, of course, we are speaking about the “end of times” for the Abrahamic religions, i.e., their removal from the global and local political arenas. We are also talking about the “second coming,” i.e., the emergence of a direct human rights-based democracy on the global stage.

Consider “Christogenesis” : The omega point is connected with a Divine entity; the idea that there are elements of Christianity in evolution or that Christianity is connected with evolutionary directions

This is clearly a truism. Jesus is the Father of Human Rights, where Jefferson’s Democracy begins, and Jesus and Jefferson are about to go global as we come to recognize that all ancient cultures promote nothing but despotism, to hell with fairness and equality.

I gather much of Teilhard’s insight and inspiration came to him while spending time in a foxhole during World War I some 70 years ago (7,8). That may be the only upside to war. It makes some of us think of peace.

It has been many years since Teilhard’s name has crossed my mind. I have to thank Chris Hedges for his use of evolutionary terminology which triggered my memory.

RELATED READINGS

  1. Who Should Resist, and Who Will Become Serfs? by Chris Hedges, Truthdig, April 7, 2009
  2. The Phenomenon of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1955
  3. A Small Dose of Bioethics (video download), Van Rensselaer Potter, January 2, 2005
  4. Bioethics: Bridge to the Future, Van Rensselaer Potter (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971).
  5. Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy, Van Rensselaer Potter (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1988).
  6. The Phenomenon of Man (A Review),Words contributed to the English language by de Chardin
  7. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  8. American Teilhard Association (.pdf download)

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Hey Paul Krugman !!

Posted on April 16, 2009 by RagBlog

#77! About the famous economist, Nobel prize winner and all around cool guy. Featuring my friend Madelyn, who is in an awesome band called The Muffin Brigade.

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Democrats Are Letting Net Neutrality Die

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Graphic from techrepublican.

[Network neutrality is a principle proposed for residential broadband networks and potentially for all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.]

New Bosses Same As the Old Bosses

By Jason Lee Miller / April 15, 2009

Here was what was supposed to happen: With telco-friendly Republican Congress members swept out of the way, Democrats would usher in legislation enshrining Network Neutrality principles and give the FCC the power to enforce them.

Here’s what happened (is happening) instead: The most powerful Net Neutrality supporters (Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton) are kicked upstairs while cable-and-Hollywood-friendly Democrats are killing Network Neutrality legislation in committees.

Meanwhile, both telecom and cable companies are emboldened by the legislation’s quiet death, the deafening sound of non-action covered up nicely by the economic crisis, and both industries are soothed by interim FCC commissioner Michael Copps’ toothless proposal for a fifth unenforceable principle regarding network discrimination.

The Democrat rope-a-dope strategy of the last few years is coming back around to kill Net Neutrality. The initial plan was simply to let Republicans have enough rope to hang themselves. Congressional Democrats ignored calls for investigations and impeachment of members of the Bush Administration because doing so allowed them to drop all blame square on their opponents’ shoulders for everything without putting themselves under undue scrutiny. A few years of doing absolutely nothing was tantamount to lying low while Republicans destroyed themselves so Democrats could take over. . . and continue to do nothing.

It’s a genius plan until people start watching and learning about the new bosses and start understanding how much they look like the old bosses. The Internet Freedom and Preservation Act of 2006, 2007, 2008? All killed by assassins with supposedly opposing goals.

The Senate version is suspicously stuck in a committee of formerly staunch proponents. The House version is under the committee supervision of net neutrality opponent Joe Barton (R-TX) and Henry Waxman (D-CA), who represents West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

We’re not surprised by Barton, a Texas Republican funded by Comcast and AT&T — that’s historical par for the course. But Waxman’s a Democrat, and Democrats are supposedly pro-net neutrality. Meanwhile, we should also be surprised by Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) lame and failed attempt to sneak in “reasonable network management” provisions into the economic stimulus package as Waxman looked the other way.

So what’s going on with our supposed neutral net champions? The answer lies in the other industries opposed to net neutrality, namely the Entertainment industry, the principals of which happen to live in Waxman’s and Feinstein’s districts and donate heavily to their campaigns. Waxman gets lots of money from the cable industry, including TimeWarner and Disney. Feinstein’s donors include Time Warner and Disney as well, but also Qualcomm and GE (which owns NBC).

In the earlier days of the Net Neutrality debate, the argument centered on very technical issues lost on the general public and focused heavily on telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T, and some on Comcast. (Though Ted Stevens famously issued a net neutrality push poll asking constituents if they wanted more TV or less TV.)

As it progresses it becomes less about network issues (as if it ever really was about network issues) and more about Web video. Right now, very large, very wealthy, very powerful entities are battling for control of what will become the new TV (and radio and newspaper). It’s not about bandwidth or network operation. It’s about controlling Web media, especially video.

Recently we learned from the CEO of a cable company who says American cable providers won’t allow speeds they’re capable of delivering because they’re afraid people will cancel their cable TV subscriptions. TimeWarner, a maker of films and television content as well as a cable Internet and TV provider, is toeing the line with download caps limiting how much video consumers can download.

AT&T on the other side, quietly updated its terms of wireless service to prevent video transfers. AT&T, of course, is also getting into the video content delivery game with its U-Verse. Despite these most recent instances loudly protested, legislators have cited lack of complaints of abuse as the reason why they’ve backed off. Even former neutral net proponent John Conyers (D-MI) suddenly thinks it’s a non-issue. It’d be nice if we could look at his top donors and not see AT&T, TimeWarner, Sprint, and Cable, but sure enough, there they are, as predictable as the sunset.

You might have also noticed, like we have, that while anything the RIAA and the MPAA want goes right through Congress like crap through a goose, network neutrality legislation (wanted by the people who currently have no money) languishes and dies in committee.

With a setup like this, good luck getting net neutrality legislation passed this year or the next. Maybe in 2010 the country will suddenly favor independents and third parties so the do-nothing bums still remaining will be thrown out. But that may be overly optimistic—the people will likely still be broke by then, and its money that wins elections, and apparently what runs Congress.

Source / WebProNews

Thanks to Media Reform Daily / The Rag Blog

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Sacramento : Tea Bagger Hate-Fest

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

“Tea bagger” protests took place all over the United Sates Wednesday. Pictured is Vince Schuck at a rally in Montpelier, Vt. Photo by Toby Talbot / AP.

Too many liberals are trying to deal with this with dismissive humor, but it’s deadly serious. Too many of the “tea party” spokesmen are calling for the right to become “armed and dangerous,” with their sights aimed at Obama and the progressive left. These people are not fools, and serious people had best develop serious tactics to mobilize against them. Fox and Hannity would be a worthy focus for mass anti-fascist protest.

Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog / April 15, 2009

In the land of Fox News and right-wing talk radio truth and falsehood blend together in an ideological muck that denounces Obama and the Democrats as ‘socialists,’ ‘fascists,’ ‘communists,’ and ‘terrorists’ all at the same time.

By Joseph A. Palermo / April 15, 2009

SACRAMENTO — The hatred was palpable today on the State Capitol’s steps. Hatred for taxes, hatred for government, hatred for state workers, hatred for teachers, hatred for Democrats, and hatred for all of the straw men that leap from the imaginations of talk radio jocks. But the most hated figure of all at today’s “Tea Bag” anti-tax rally in Sacramento was President Barack Obama. One of the first placards I saw as I entered the Capitol grounds read: “Wake Up! Fresh Prince of Belair is Destroying Us — Stop Drinking the Red Koolaid.” A state police officer told me that he thought the crowd was “a couple thousand.”

It was a sea of American flags of all shapes and sizes and many “Don’t Tread On Me” yellow flags as well. The crowd was predictably very white, very Republican, and on the older side. I didn’t see one African American (except for one of the musical performers on the stage who denounced Obama), and I didn’t see any Latinos. George W. Bush could have been the focus of some of this rage because theoretically their hatred could just as well be aimed at him. But since he is a “good” Christian, white Republican Bush remained unscathed. I didn’t see one sign that would indicate that it was anything other than a Republican hate rally.

Several placards called Obama the “Teleprompter in Chief” probably because Glenn Beck denounced the president for using one. The crowd chanted in unison: “No More Bail Outs! No More Stimulus! No More Taxes!” I was given an ice-cold coke from a vender who was handing them out for free and I strolled around for a good hour taking in the scene. There was one Jumbotron television or otherwise I couldn’t see the stage because of the number of people packed into the Capitol grounds. It was a sizeable rally. Bigger than many of the anti-Iraq War protests I attended there. Obama’s name or face was featured with sickles and hammers so much that his likeness became synonymous with something deeply un-American.

An elderly woman on a scooter — I didn’t ask her if Medicare paid for it — had a sign affixed to her chair: “If I wanted Socialism, I’d Move to Europe.” Many of the participants in today’s Tea Bagging protest seemed to be as old as John McCain but there were a smattering of families with little kids and some tweens who were waving American flags.

Speakers from the local right-wing talk radio establishment led the crowd in chants: “Vote Them Out! Vote Them Out!” There were plenty of signs depicting Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as criminals, or the Three Stooges, or terrorists. One local talk radio speaker denounced Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano daring her to come and arrest this crowd. The straw man being that President Obama and the Democrats have somewhere denounced their tax revolt as being “un-American.”

In the land of Fox News and right-wing talk radio truth and falsehood blend together in an ideological muck that denounces Obama and the Democrats as “socialists,” “fascists,” “communists,” and “terrorists” all at the same time. Speakers at the rally attacked labor unions and “card check” (a reference to the Employee Free Choice Act), which was ironic because most of the people in the crowd were clearly working class.

The Right has a monopoly on Sacramento’s AM radio dial (1380 and 1530 where Rush Limbaugh started his career). So it was easy for them to pump up the volume and get people out. There’s no progressive or even liberal information flowing on the public’s AM airwaves in this region of California but somehow the Right always gets to play the “oppressed” victim. Ironically, after denouncing the “Liberal Media” and anyone else who suggested the Tea Bagging phenomenon was a product of cheerleading from Fox News and right-wing talk radio, a local AM jock confirmed to the crowd just that: “A lot of this is because of talk radio and Fox helped us defend ourselves!” This statement brought a huge cheer from the crowd.

The right-wing talker also complimented channels 1380 and 1530 for bringing in people “from Rancho Cordova, Placerville, and El Dorado Hills.” And he said the liberals want to impose the “fairness doctrine” that would undermine the good work of right-wing radio and urged people to go to “Talkback.com” to find out how they can save talk radio from the Democrats.

With the U.S. military base at Mather Field close by the veteran contingent loomed large. They were older vets though, mostly Vietnam, I only saw a few I thought were the age of the average Iraq or Afghanistan vet. There was a contingent of Republican state legislators and their staffers milling about who stood out because they were the only ones wearing suits and ties. Most of the people there were crusty-looking, grizzled biker types with American flag T-shirts and jeans, men with gray beards and baseball caps, women with big sunglasses and cheap jewelry. None of those people looked to me like they earn anywhere near $250,000 a year (like the AM jocks or Republican legislators do).

And therein lies the beauty of the whole Tea Bag “movement.” Affluent people like Michelle Malkin and Grover Norquist and the army of radio “personalities” convince working people, most of who have a relative or are themselves on Medicare or Social Security, to denounce taxes on affluent people. Many of the people at the rally were from the eastern foothill communities that are pretty impoverished and would benefit from Obama’s health care, economic, and education policies. The foreclosure rate alone east of Sacramento would lead one to think that far more people in this region could use some government help.

We will see if the Tea Bag phenomenon can be sustained or if it is just a one-time Republican gimmick. But remember, in 1994, Newt Gingrich took the House of Representatives with a similarly cornball gimmicky set of “principles” that channeled the same kind of blind right-wing hatred and anger. The lesson from today I think is that Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration should work together to make the public AM radio airwaves more competitive so more diverse voices are heard.

As long as the Republicans and the Right hold on to their monopoly on AM radio they’ll be able to stage these kind of hate-fests easily and more often. I’d take the Tea Baggers seriously and move to use the FCC to open up the public airwaves and also use the Anti-Trust Division of the Justice Department to break up Rupert Murdoch’s media empire along with the other media corporations that have become as dysfunctional to our democracy as the “too big to fail” financial corporations.

George W. Bush’s entire eight years was nothing but a neo-liberal experiment in skewing government and every other public good toward serving the interests of profiteers and the rich. That was apparently fine with these rightwingers as long as the government money was flowing upwards into the hands of the rich and corporations.

But as soon as a Democratic administration is elected to power everything’s different now. The sky was the limit during the Bush spending binge on war and giveaways to Wall Street and lavish contracts for shoddy or nonexistent “government” services and corporate welfare and so on and on. But now with Democrats trying to put a little spare change in the pockets of the other 95 percent of the population who gained nothing from the Bush years all of a sudden the sky is falling!

The Tea Baggers I encountered were very polite and well-mannered, even passive. They need cajoling to act out. They need their anger stoked. They need straw men to knock down and people to hate — people like state workers and teachers and Democrats. I couldn’t help but think that the whole damn thing is just one big constructed product of the propaganda from right-wing talk radio and their ideological soulmates at Fox News.

Source / The Huffington Post

Also see DC Tea Party Protest Shut Down By Secret Service / [With Video] by Jason Linkins / The Huffington Post / April 15, 2009

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Rejecting the Oppression of Women in Afghanistan

Posted on April 16, 2009 by RagBlog

Malalai Joya believes the US and other foreign powers are making a mockery of democracy and the liberation of Afghan women by empowering the warlords and fundamentalists.

A voice of hope for Afghanistan’s women
By Frud Bezhan / April 14, 2009

FOR the women of Afghanistan, it is yet another brutal message — that death awaits those who choose a public life.

Sitara Achakzai — a women’s rights campaigner — was gunned down in the streets of Kandahar on Sunday.

She is among several high-profile women assassinated the Taliban have in recent years. But it is merely the most public example of the extreme violence women face in this embattled country, where rape and murder are widespread.

Malalai Joya understands better than most the oppression of Afghan women — and the danger of speaking out. The women’s rights activist and member of Afghanistan’s national parliament has lived in hiding for five years and never spends more than 24 hours at the same house. Her only contact with the world is by infrequent phone calls and, if there is electricity, the internet. She sleeps, eats and breathes in the shadow of six heavily armed bodyguards and wears a burqa to conceal her identity.

Malalai Joya’s plight — and that of the other high-profile women — is symbolic of a country in turmoil. More than seven years after international forces removed the Taliban from power, Afghanistan is slipping further into violence and lawlessness.

For the 1100 Australian soldiers stationed in Oruzgan, in the south, the threat posed by growing insecurity and a resurgent Taliban is very real. Just last week, two Australian soldiers were wounded when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb. Last month, the ninth and 10th Australian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

While deeply saddened by the increasing human toll, Shukria Khalil, a prominent member of the large Afghan community in Melbourne, praises the sacrifice and courage of Australian troops serving in Afghanistan.

“By coming to Afghanistan and defending people like Malalai Joya, Australian soldiers are giving ordinary Afghans the strength to endure their pain and the faith to believe and dream of a future without war, death and hunger,” she says.

Joya’s own battle is against the warlords who, she says, are running the country. These men, who Joya refers to as the “Taliban’s brothers in arms”, are former commanders of the various Islamist groups, together known as the mujahideen, who fought and defeated the Soviet Union and communist Afghan government in the 1980s. Soon after coming to power, these groups turned on each other, waging a brutal civil war in which tens of thousands of people were killed, thousands of women and girls were raped, and millions of people were made refugees. The bloodshed only stopped when the Taliban took power.

“Today, because there is no strong central government, Afghanistan is carved up between these same warlords, who have now filled the shoes of the Taliban,” Joya says. “Afghanistan is once again in the hands of rapists, murderers and extremists.”

Asked why the warlords are so desperate to silence her, Joya responds: “I am the fundamentalists’ most unrelenting and outspoken critic. They see women as second-class citizens and are threatened by the idea of a woman openly questioning their authority. The fundamentalists also realise that when I reveal their crimes and demand justice, it is not my voice alone but the voice of all Afghans they hear.”

Joya, now 30, first spoke out more than five years ago. As a delegate at a constitutional convention in Afghanistan she publicly accused the country’s leaders, many of whom were there, of war crimes, human rights violations, involvement in the opium trade and supporting the Taliban. She said they should be prosecuted in national and international courts. Her remarks were met by stunned silence and then uproar from the 300 delegates, most of them former mujahideen commanders and ex-Taliban officials. Joya was branded an infidel and “whore”, while one delegate stood on the floor of the forum and demanded that Joya be taken away and raped.

Joya’s stance against the warlords seemed to be endorsed when she was subsequently elected, at 27, as the youngest member of parliament in Afghanistan’s landmark elections of 2005. There she continued her outspoken ways. She is nearing the end of a two-year suspension from parliament, imposed after she used a television interview in May 2007, to accuse fellow MPs of being criminals opposed to women’s rights, obstructing free speech and intimidating prominent Afghan women.

In response, MPs voted overwhelmingly for her suspension, though their decision has no basis in law.

“Ever since I have started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women’s rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they’ve stood against me,” she says during a phone conversation. “They can kill men but they cannot silence my voice because it is the voice of all the people of Afghanistan calling for change, peace and justice.”

Joya began her campaign for social and political change after returning to Afghanistan 10 years ago. Her family had fled the Soviet invasion 16 years earlier, settling in one of the many refugee camps along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Plunged into a life of poverty and uncertainty, Joya, as a teenager, began humanitarian work for various organisations in Pakistan to help provide for her family — two parents and nine children. During her regular visits to refugee camps she met many ordinary Afghans, saw their suffering and learned of the crimes of the various mujahideen groups vying for power.

“The experience had a profound impact on me,” says Joya, who is still haunted by stories of women being raped, of children being kidnapped in the middle of the night, and of men being beaten, tortured and killed. When Joya went back to Afghanistan in 1998, the country was under Taliban rule. With the help of a non-government group, Organisation of Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities, she opened an orphanage and a health clinic for women. Risking death, Joya defied the law against educating girls by opening an underground school in Herat, in western Afghanistan. “Today, more than seven years after the ousting of the Taliban, most women are still too scared to take off their burqas,” Joya says.

She claims that although liberating women was one of the main moral arguments for invading Afghanistan in 2001, the situation for women has continued to deteriorate. “Ninety per cent of women in Afghanistan suffer from domestic violence, 80 per cent of marriages are forced, and the average life expectancy for women is 44 years,” she says.

Joya recounts the harrowing stories of two women she has met. Fatima, the daughter of a poor shopkeeper, was sold to a man, 50, who raped and beat her and then traded her for a dog. Her father did not have the money to buy back his daughter, 23. Shabnum, seven, was kidnapped and raped by three men, who cut her genitals.

“The plight of victims such as these girls is my driving force,” Joya says. “I will never give up my fight for justice, and I’ll continue to try to represent the millions of voiceless Afghan people — especially women and children — who are still being brutalised by warlords and the Taliban. While ordinary women and girls face rape, forced marriages and inhuman acts of abuse daily, women who stand up for their rights and take a public role in society risk being killed or silenced.

Shukria Khalil says Sitara’s murder is an assault not on one individual, “it is an attack on every woman’s fight for justice, freedom and equality in Afghanistan”.

Azra Jafari, who was elected Afghanistan’s first female mayor this year, says women’s rights have worsened since the progress made during the transitional government between 2002 and 2004, when education for girls was promoted and women became ministers and received 25 per cent of the seats in parliament. “We had three or four women ministers during the interim government: now we have one,” she says.

In another blow to women’s rights, Afghan President Hamid Karzai last month signed a law for the Shiite minority that reportedly rules women cannot refuse sex within marriage, and cannot leave home, seek work or visit a doctor without their husband’s permission. Opponents of the law claim Karzai is desperate to retain the support of fundamentalists in presidential elections to be held this year.

Following international condemnation, Karzai ordered a review of the law and said amendments would be made if it contravened the constitution.

Despite the pressure brought to bear by the world community and while acknowledging the contribution of international forces in Afghanistan, Joya believes the US and other foreign powers are making a mockery of democracy and the liberation of Afghan women by empowering the warlords and fundamentalists.

“The US talks about thousands of girls flocking back to school, but the fundamentalists in power are encouraging the destruction of schools, the killing of teachers and the kidnapping of students,” Joya says. “The US also talks about the improving situation for women, but they are committing suicide more than ever. They would rather die than live.”

Although she believes her days are numbered, Joya is not fearful for the future. “I am not frightened because we will all die one day,” she says. “What matters is that we fight despite the risk and we sacrifice despite the cost. Only then can we succeed.”

[Frud Bezhan is a freelance journalist.]

Source / The Age (Australia)

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Perry to Limbaugh : ‘Ya’ll Come On Down, Y’Hear?’

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Mr. Hospitality his own self: the Hon. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas. Photo by Harry Cabluck / AP.

Gov. Rick Perry: ‘I think Austin would be an awesome place for Rush Limbaugh. You know, keep Austin weird.’

By Eric Zimmermann / April 13, 2009

If Gov. Rick Perry (R-Tex) is looking to shore up the conservative base for his upcoming re-election, his latest move is a masterstroke: the governor says he will personally invite Rush Limbaugh to move to Texas.

The conservative radio host recently announced that high taxes are driving him out of New York.

Perry said he’d welcome Limbaugh with open arms.

“He’s not unlike other people who want to go to a place that’s got low taxes and fair regulations and a balanced legal system and a skilled work force,” Perry told the Dallas Morning News. “Excellence in Broadcasting hires a lot of people. So if he wants to go somewhere where he works hard and keeps more of what he makes, Texas is the place to do that.”

Perry added that he’s in the process of contacting Limbaugh directly.

And the governor has an unusual suggestion for what city the hardcore conservative should settle on, suggesting the liberal bastion of Austin.

“I think Austin would be an awesome place for Rush Limbaugh,” Perry said. “You know, keep Austin weird. Isn’t that the city’s unofficial motto?”

Source / Briefing Room / The Hill

‘I’m concerned that his polarizing influence and his do-almost-anything-to-win behavior will hurt a city that has already lost most of its soul.’

From David Kobierski on Burnt Orange Report:

I’m on the fence about this.

Being a radio talk show host myself, I respect Rush for his talent and the incredible market he has won over his 20+ year career. Having him in Austin, TX might make for some interesting discussions and debates. I welcome that. And overall, I don’t take him too serious. I consider Rush to be mostly info-tainment and a lot more bark than bite lately. But since I don’t agree with him on most of his policies or the way he goes about attacking others that he doesn’t agree with, I’m concerned that his polarizing influence and his do-almost-anything-to-win behavior will hurt a city that has already lost most of its soul.

My favorite Rush quote (great comic relief) “Consensus is the absence of leadership.”

In October of last year, I also remember Rush saying that Obama is endorsed by terrorists. Classic Rush!

What do y’all think?

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