Life is a State of Mind

I have already contributed a small amount to “Byrne for Congress” to help her win the Democratic Nomination and the 11th congressional district of Virginia. The 11th will almost certainly go to the Democratic winner of the primary on June 10th. Incumbent Republican Tom Davis is retiring, so there is no incumbent advantage. The district has been trending more and more Democratic for a long time.

Leslie Byrne won the district solidly in 2005 against Bill Bolling (R) for the office of Lt Governor (he narrowly won state-wide, but she crushed him by 10 points in the 11th district). She has been the congresswoman of the 11th before they redistricted it from her. She is an excellent candidate and leader and would represent the 11th far, far better than Gerry Connolly.

Connolly has not really been against the Iraq War until it became politically expedient for him recently. Connolly has a few too many ties to the military-industrial complex and big business to honestly represent common working people of the 11th district. Connolly was not willing to come out and endorse Obama nor Webb until it became clear that those were winning propositions for his own campaign. Connolly only last November won the election to be the Fairfax County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, and he should give a little time to Fairfax County before using that office to launch his own political interests.

Byrne has been against the Iraq War from the beginning, she helped get Webb to run for senate. She is not currently in any office at all, and this one should be hers. No one has worked harder for the people of the 11th district for over a decade, not even incumbent Tom Davis (for whom the office is and was popularity trophy).

The great orator does it again, this time in response to George W. Bush’s and John McCain’s hypocritical lies. Check it out for yourself and ask if this is not the leader we have been looking for…

Clearly Obama gets right to the heart of the issues and he calls Bush out for airing our nation’s laundry out in front of a foreign government during their time of celebration. Obama then goes on to point out how Bush’s failed policies that McCain supported Bush on made Iran stronger and more dangerous, for both America and for Israel.
The more people who see this the better off we’ll all be, because the both travesties will finally be over. The travesty of Republican control of our government, and even more importantly, the travesty of neo-con control of the Republican party.

A cousin of mine, who has since recanted her silly impression, once commented to me that she felt that George W. Bush was a great leader. Of course I scoffed, which perhaps was impolite, but what is the correct response to such an outrageous statement?

Great leaders praise in public, criticize in private; that is what I learned in the military.
Great leaders inspire their followers to do good things for the right reasons without being told to.

It is embarrassing that this ignorant fool and traitor is airing his own stupidity out in front of a foreign government, during their anniversary celebration. Impeach him how, arrest him on charges and begin a public trial. If found guilty, put the ignorant fool in jail or hang him, he is in favor of the death penalty after all.

Even better, deny him entry to this country. He looks like a terrorist to me…

Olbermann says it far better than I do, and I agree with every single word

McCain is going on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show - and Stewart is soliciting questions to ask the senator…

http://blog.indecision2008.com/2008/05/05/john-mccain-on-the-daily-show-this-wednesday/

I suggested a fun question comparing the Hundred Years War to Iraq just because I want to see Senator McCain’s head explode when the words “hundred” “years” and “Iraq” are used together in one sentence…

Mine is an evil laugh!

Wes Clark’s letter about Iran is on DailyKos with commentary from bloggers. Definitely worth a read. This is the sort of leadership the United States needs right now.

In other news, Mark Day is video podcasting his entertaining yet poignant monologues. Feed his RSS/URL string into your podcatcher (I use iTunes and Democracy Player) and watch these for a laugh and to be challenged to think a little.

So I just finished “Lies my Teacher Told Me” by James W. Loewen and recommend this book to everyone educated in the United States and to everyone interested in American history.

Mr. Loewen sometimes beats a point to death, but in general it is excellent, exhaustively researched and packed with citations and bibliographic details. The author explores a whole lot of myths and deliberate deceptions found in high school history textbooks and examines why the myths have evolved the way they have. It is an interesting exercise and it is sure to broaden your perspective a little. I learned many new things and learned to dig a little and find out more; which should be the point of most schooling.

The time is right, the choice is right, it’s an easy decision to make: Wes Clark for President.

Clark is totally focused on helping the right people win their Senate and Congress seats this year, and he is not promoting himself, except through his actions for others. He understands the priorities and throws himself into the task at hand the way veterans have been trained to do.

Clark’s military experience will help him win the election against chicken-hawks and veterans alike.

Clark’s simple and direct manner of getting right to the heart of the matter will keep the short-attention-span media focused through the race and his term in office.

His experience with difficult situations and managing through a crisis will help us dis-entangle ourselves from Iraq and prepare for the real threats we fas as a nation because of the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Perl/Rove/Rumsfeld debacle. By the way, for those who claim Democrats don’t have a plan, Clark’s plan has been published for a long time: http://securingamerica.com/issues/iraqplan.

A large percentage of the Pentagon leadership will have no problem supporting Clark as commander in chief; and that is big. Actively fighting a reluctant military leadership is tiring even with the best administrations, having them cooperate will be hugely helpful to even the worst administration.

All those poor lads (and lasses) sent to Iraq for the wrong reasons need someone they can trust to do the right thing in office.

I really like Edwards, Richardson, and Bayh; but Clark has the experience we need now. H. Clinton is too far to the right for my tastes, heck, so is Mark Warner - though I respect both of them immensely. Gore or Kerry running again would surprise me, and frankly I like the jobs they are doing now as non-presidents. For that matter, both Clintons are doing fine without being POTUS - let them continue in those roles for now. We need everyone working hard in many, many capacities to reclaim our democracy.

Clark’s military background has given him the maturity to hold power in service to the people rather than for power’s sake. That last point is huge with the voters right now.

Wow. Keith Olbermann says how we feel so well that I think this is the best 10 minutes of video I have seen in 6+ years! An absolute must-see.

Update: Jeffrey Feldman has a transcript and analysis online now, so if you don’t have broadband, at least read the stranscript.

A few days ago I posted a message about “The Power of Nightmares” documentary, and friends on Daily Kos have pointed out a better source for the video if you want to try burning your own DVD of it or just watch the mpeg files rather than the stream off google video.

The files and DVD ISO image are online at http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares and Daily Kos member “monkey knife fight” has posted essentially the same information in his diary way back on June 10th, and I missed it then.

Thanks goes to Alice Marshall for pointing out that Adam Curtis’s fascinating BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares” is now available on google video.

This documentary was first broadcast on BBC Two in the Fall of 2004. Later, it was adapted to a single 2.5 hour film for the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Now anyone can watch it on google video, and it is very much worth the effort.

This documentary will challenge you to think carefully about the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the parallel rise to power of the neo-conservatives in America. It brings to light the infiltration of the traditional Republican party by the neo-conservatives and their overthrow of Kissinger and other pragmatists like him.

It is three sessions at an hour each, so it takes a while to download. I opened the links in different windows, and let them download overnight and watched later.

I recommend watching with a notepad handy, this will really make you think and want to do more research for yourself.

Three one hour episodes are available: Part 1 - Baby It’s Cold Outside Part 2 - The Phantom Victory Part 3 - The Shadows in the Cave