Crossposted from Docudharma

In the perhaps quixotic quest to Free The Press of some of the worst features of  corporate hegemony over the very information we live and breathe, The Maddow Movement was born. With no illusions of anything but a starting point in fighting the influence of those who would narrow our perceptions through the presentation of Military Analyst Propaganda...or allow themselves to be cowed and complicit stenographers (alternately: "deferential, complicit enablers" ) of and for the lies that led us to Iraq and the death of perhaps a million people...or did NOT choose to investigate torture...or treason....a campaign was launched to throw out the old guard and hail and herald the new.

1246 good souls have signed The Maddow Movement Petition. Untold numbers of E-mails have been sent. Today...you too can help!

Now! ...(please?)

Crossposted from Docudharma

.

President Bush, did you authorize illegal domestic spying?

Yes

President Bush, did you authorize the leak of Valerie Plame's identity?

Yes

President Bush, did you authorize torture?

Yes

Courtesy of Time For Accountability

Crossposted from Docudharma

As per Keith's explicit instructions and broad wink indicating that The Maddow Movement had already succeeded before we even started it. (are we powerful or what???)

The Maddow Movement is pretty much over/redundant. I plan on making one last little push in the next few days for signatures (GO SIGN!) on the petition, and then sending it to the PTB at NBC, just to make sure they know how much we support them in giving Rachel her own show. Thanks for all your help, that was fun! And now we can move on to the next steps of the Free The Press campaign.

Crossposted from Docudharma

War and Famine and suffering stalk the planet. Climate disaster looms. What brought us to this sorry turn? A mode of thinking about our own survival, how to utilize the resources of the planet, and how to treat our fellow humans. A mode of thinking that due to extraordinary circumstances has been given free reign for the last eight years to "prove itself." And prove itself it has...it has proven itself to be an utter, across the board, complete and abject failure, by any metric you wish to measure it by save one. The rich have gotten obscenely richer and more powerful. The greed of their corporate entities has been fed...which only increases their appetite.

Republicanism has failed.

Even the Republicans are at least (partially) admitting it

Conservatism, in a world that is so rapidly shifting and changing and increasingly revealing it's mind bending complexity and inter-connectedness, has proven to be not just a bankrupt and ineffectual philosophy, but one that is actively damaging to the planet and her people.

Crossposted from Docudharma

If you haven't sent an e-mail or signed the petition for the Maddow Movement yet....well....I'll let this guy say it!

Whereas; The Press, the Fourth Estate, is the gatekeeper of Truth in our country. If the Press does not report it, it effectively never happened as far as the all important reaction of the citizenry is concerned. Where the Press shines it's light, freedom follows.

Whereas; The Press during the Bush Administration has not only blinded its own light in regards to scandalous crimes, it has on far too many occasions, such as the lead up to the Iraq Occupation and on Domestic Spying, and in the latest instance of the Military Analysts scandal, actually aided and abetted in the criminal acts and despicable propaganda activities of the Bush Administration.

We have determined that in order to take our country back from those who have usurped our democracy, in order to bring to light their crimes, in order to expose their methods, and most importantly..in order to make sure that these crimes and outrages can never occur again, the first necessary step on the long road back to America is to reform and retake the Fourth Estate, to Free The Press.

Crossposted from Docudharma

::

One of the most impressive things about YOU, fellow Kossaks, is the breadth of knowledge YOU have accumulated. Smarts spanning from aardvarks to Zymurgy.  If you ask a question on Dkos, ANY question, it WILL be answered`at the very least with a link or a clue!

The Daily Kos is truly a cornucopia of information. So much so that it can be like Sipping from a firehose ! I don't want to try to tell you how to use it!!! So here is Not buhdydharma's New User's Guide to dKos! The best guide to Dkos ever written IMHO! And for a list of GOOD series on Dkos have a look at part of the FAQ Yes dkos is Wunnerful and with these few extra gems of wisdom in hand, you may peruse its pulchritude at your pleasure!

Any Questions?

Crossposted from Docudharma

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was quoted just yesterday as saying of Iran, "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage and then sit down and talk with them."

In his speech, Bush said, "...some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along....
As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

(Of course he was trying to accuse Obama and the Dems, but you know our George! Go support this diary at Dkos! Action Diary: Call on your Senator to Censure Bush)

One of the most impressive things about YOU, fellow Kossaks, is the breadth of knowledge YOU have accumulated. Smarts spanning from aardvarks to Zymurgy.  If you ask a question on Dkos, ANY question, it WILL be answered`at the very least with a link or a clue!

The Daily Kos is truly a cornucopia of information. So much so that it can be like Sipping from a firehose ! I don't want to try to tell you how to use it!!! So here is Not buhdydharma's New User's Guide to dKos! The best guide to Dkos ever written IMHO! And for a list of GOOD series on Dkos have a look at part of the FAQ Yes dkos is Wunnerful and with these few extra gems of wisdom in hand, you may peruse its pulchritude at your pleasure!

Any Questions?

To The Victor Goes......the Responsibility

Germany and Japan were not responsible for rebuilding Germany and Japan and making them responsible allies.....

The Victors were.

Thus is it always.

After a war....no matter how nasty a war, no matter how many have been 'killed and wounded,' no matter how terrible the tactics of the Vanquished....it falls to the Victor to create a lasting peace. To construct a new world after the old one has been destroyed. To create a world where the Vanquished can save face, put aside the enmity, and instead of being forced to keep fighting by a ungracious and irresponsible Victor, be included as a partner in the rebuilding.

Only in this way, the way of the gracious, responsible Victor can past conflict be put aside and future resentment, out right hostility, and even subtle unconscious sabotage be avoided.

Indeed, when their is yet another enemy to fight, it is imperative to turn former foes into allies. If the reconstruction isn't approached and executed well, it ultimately hurts the Victors more than the Vanquished. The Vanquished, after all, have nothing to lose. The Victors.....everything.

One of the most impressive things about YOU, fellow Kossaks, is the breadth of knowledge YOU have accumulated. Smarts spanning from aardvarks to Zymurgy.  If you ask a question on Dkos, ANY question, it WILL be answered`at the very least with a link or a clue!

The Daily Kos is truly a cornucopia of information. So much so that it can be like Sipping from a firehose ! I don't want to try to tell you how to use it!!! So here is Not buhdydharma's New User's Guide to dKos! The best guide to Dkos ever written IMHO! And for a list of GOOD series on Dkos have a look at part of the FAQ Yes dkos is Wunnerful and with these few extra gems of wisdom in hand, you may peruse its pulchritude at your pleasure!

Any Questions?

The strength of Progressive/Liberal/Democratic activists (hereafter referred to as The Left) has always been their passion.

The weakness of Progressive/Liberal/Democratic activists..... has always been their passion.

That weakness is haunting us again, right now. Passionate people are easy to manipulate. Passion overwhelms thought and causes emotional, rather than analytical decision making. That passion and emotion has united The Left into a powerful force in the past around many issues such a Civil Rights, Womens Rights and the Peace Movement. That passion has also been used to easily sow division in The Left, by introducing  agents provocateurs to redirect that passion from its Right Wing targets....and to foment division in The Left. Thus fracturing it.

One of the most impressive things about YOU, fellow Kossaks, is the breadth of knowledge YOU have accumulated. Smarts spanning from aardvarks to Zymurgy.  If you ask a question on Dkos, ANY question, it WILL be answered`at the very least with a link or a clue!

The Daily Kos is truly a cornucopia of information. So much so that it can be like Sipping from a firehose ! I don't want to try to tell you how to use it!!! So here is Not buhdydharma's New User's Guide to dKos! The best guide to Dkos ever written IMHO! And for a list of GOOD series on Dkos have a look at part of the FAQ Yes dkos is Wunnerful and with these few extra gems of wisdom in hand, you may peruse its pulchritude at your pleasure!

Any Questions?

Crossposted from Docudharma

In the deliciously gosippy story of Rachel Maddow spanking the Very Serious Person(al) tushy of Joe Scarbough for talking over her...Moran Morning Joe states the following (paraphrased): "People don't know him, (Obama) they know John McCain....snip....It's about defining the candidate, defining your opponent."

Do they Joe? Do they REALLY know him? Let's play "Define The Candidate"

Priorities.

"Our" government is spending $434 million per day, $3 billion per week and $13.2 billion per month on Iraq. And still no one can tell us why, not even it's architects

As Americas infrastructure crumbles, as the Iraqi government builds a surplus. As New Orleans languishes, still destroyed, still hanging on by a thread, still essentially abandoned by both government and the Republican lauded "private sector." (Please read commonscribes diary
on the insurance industry and NOLA!)

Crossposted from Docudharma

.

"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson

A Free Press is one of the foundations of a free country. But as with all freedom, it comes with responsibility. The press, the media, in America has not just abrogated that responsibility, they have thrown it on the ground and urinated on it. With very few exceptions, they have become more of a public relations arm of the government than the absolutely vital component of democracy it is their duty to be. The Fourth Estate, they were once called, in effect the fourth branch of government itself, the keepers of truth, the arbiters of honesty, the last resort against corruption. A great objective equalizer, the conscience of the nation.

Journalism was once a sacred and noble trust. Newsrooms were once sacrosanct chapels of Truth. Now they are an industry. Now they are little more than pimps for fast food...and fascism.

One of the most impressive things about YOU, fellow Kossaks, is the breadth of knowledge YOU have accumulated. Smarts spanning from aardvarks to Zymurgy.  If you ask a question on Dkos, ANY question, it WILL be answered`at the very least with a link or a clue!

The Daily Kos is truly a cornucopia of information. So much so that it can be like Sipping from a firehose ! I don't want to try to tell you how to use it!!! So here is Not buhdydharma's New User's Guide to dKos! The best guide to Dkos ever written IMHO! And for a list of GOOD series on Dkos have a look at part of the FAQ Yes dkos is Wunnerful and with these few extra gems of wisdom in hand, you may peruse its pulchritude at your pleasure!

Any Questions?

It has become obvious that left to her own devices Nancy Pelosi WILL let them get away with it....no matter what they do or how horrendous "it" is. She is the only one with the real authority to stop them. And she, apparently, will not. The answer then, seems to be: Yes, they will. And a new administration is not the answer either.

The implications here are truly chilling. If the Democrats won't pursue prosecution....We are faced with a government with NO internal or external checks. A government not subject to the law. A government which can wage aggressive war and torture with complete impunity. That is NOT hyperbole, it is where we stand at this very moment in time.

Crossposted from Docudharma