• Home
• Popular Articles
• Authors
• Archives
• About We! a Progressive Voice
• Contact Us

MORE sorrow and dying

by Harlan Bennett, PhD

I’ve been away from here for a while, for which I apologize. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say (when did a red-head EVER not have something to say?), it’s that someone sent me this LOVELY gift about a month ago: A specialized virus, written JUST for me, that ate my registry, part of my BIOS, and was extremely friendly in re-re-repeating its incursions regardless of whatever was done to stop it. I’ve now got so much security on this computer, plus half-daily sweeps of OTHER security measures that I’m astonished that I can get ANYWHERE at all - but it’s worth it for the peace of mind that I have at this point.

Be that as it may - and I hope that I’ve truly seen the last of that nasty virus - I’ve been following the news with a great deal of interest, particularly since the Israelis FINALLY got fed up with being attacked from Gaza and decided to do something proactive about the situation. I’ve been saying ever since the Israeli Government started the Palestinian appeasement process that there was going to be serious bloodshed over that decision, even if it was one that was forced on them by world opinion. While I applaud the Israeli Government’s decision to at least try and find a political solution to the twin problems of Gaza and the West Bank, to say nothing of the basically captive and pretty much helpless Palestinians that reside in those two places, there is a lot of history behind what’s going on now that everybody seems to be ignoring. Following is part of a column that I wrote back in June of 2006. Read more

On Being “At” The Inauguration

by Robert A. Letcher, PhD

As I begin this essay, on the morning of my last full day of mourning over the choice my fellow Americans made for President in the two elections preceding the one whose winner will be inaugurated tomorrow, I find myself haltingly returning to practices that marked my life before those two elections gave us the President whose last full day this essay marks.  I say “haltingly” because after eight years I feel a bit unsure whether my old practices will feel as good as I remember them, not to mention how difficult it is to think that tomorrow will actually come and the Emperor With Neither Clothes Nor Brains will actually go. Read more

Thoughts of a Liberal

by Claudette Konola

I was an activist in the late 60’s—primarily protesting the Vietnam war. My husband at the time was drafted and immediately sent to Vietnam. Being a military wife and a protestor had all kinds of ramifications, including a father-in-law,who was a retired Lieutenant Colonel, who would leave the room when I entered it because he couldn’t stand what I was doing.

Two of the things we worked hard to achieve were the right to vote for 18 year olds, because we were so angry that kids could get drafted right out of high school without ever having a legal drink or voting for any representation in congress; and to eliminate the draft. Read more

2008 Sucked - Hopefully Robots Will Too

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

I’ll let you in on a little secret.  2008 sucked.  Oh, you already heard about that?  OK, I won’t belabor the point.  People are out partying tonight. They’re partying like it was 1933.

There’s stuff to celebrate. We’re getting rid of a vicious, stupid, heartless toad of a President, and his puppet, George W. Bush. Forbes Magazine thinks venture capitalism, with its propensity for tearing apart productive businesses, sucking all the money out of the best parts or shipping them overseas, and leaving the rest as a debt-ridden husk, is dead. Unbridled capitalism is dead. For a couple of generations at least, until the country recovers, and another batch of stupid, greedy morons from the upper class declare that business is good for America and that we should all just let them take care of ethics and self-restraint, rather than having the people do it. Read more

Comments From Cyberspace

by Magginkat

Regarding the great shoe throwing caper………….

Before hurling his leather-soled missiles, al-Zaidi certainly had Bush’s true legacy in Iraq in mind, which includes hundreds of thousands of dead and “disappeared”, over 4 million internally and externally displaced, 70% unemployment, a lack of electricity, a lack of drinking water, a cholera epidemic, the balkanization of Baghdad - a shabby, dangerous collection of Sunni and Shi’ite ghettos separated by high blast walls - and the horrendously incompetent kleptocracy that calls itself the Iraqi parliament. This is what the US gets - a flicker of poetic justice still shining in the post-everything era: a little emperor cowering behind a lectern dodging a flying shoe. …… Pepe Escobar  Read more

Democratic Talk Radio 2008 Villain & Hero Awards

by Stephen Crockett

Political villains were rampant in 2008. It was impossible to give a single award for the injustices committed for solely political reasons this past year. For the first time ever, Democratic Talk Radio was unable to even narrow the infamous winners to just two. We have selected three “Villains of 2008” to share the award.

Our first choice is obvious. Fox News wins the first 2008 villain slot for their disinformation campaign against ACORN. The efforts of Fox News to provide political cover for Republican efforts at voter suppression during the 2008 elections were, in the opinion of Democratic Talk Radio, the lowest thing ever done by Fox News.

The second winner for 2008 political villain is George McGovern. Fans of Democratic Talk Radio may be surprised by this choice. Frankly, we never expected to be giving a former Democratic Presidential candidate a villain of the year award. However, McGovern has lent his name to the Right-Wing, corporate effort to undermine workers’ right to unionize. George McGovern has allied himself with the anti-worker efforts to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act.

His TV commercials are frankly an open act on working Americans. McGovern has disgraced himself by joining with the most anti-working class political forces in America and misleading the American public on the nature of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Senate Republicans out to destroy the American auto industry and the United Auto Workers union are our third villainous winners. Senator Corker of Tennessee, Senator Shelby of Alabama, Senator McConnell of Kentucky, Senator Vitter of Louisiana and their fellow Senate Republicans put the interests of foreign corporations over the interests of the American economy. Since all were opposed by the United Auto Workers in previous elections because of their militantly anti-worker voting records, their efforts are obviously motivated by personal political considerations that directly undermine the national interest. These Senate Republicans have sided with foreign companies to drive down the wages and healthcare benefits of American workers.

The hero of the year selected by Democratic Talk Radio is Al Franken. The American nation should be delighted at his political courage and determination. By insisting that all the votes be counted in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race, Franken has set a good example for all candidates running for office and for American voters. American Democracy has been strengthened by his resolve.

Al Franken will be a great asset should he eventually prevail when all the votes are finally counted. Norm Coleman has been very aggressive in his attempts to undermine a free and fair counting of the ballots.

Comments from Cyberspace…..Randomly gathered comments

by Magginkat

Randomly gathered comments from forums, blogs, and elsewhere on the net, to present readers with a variety of opinions, both serious & humorous, regarding the political situation in the U.S.

JUSTICE! -  A Republican-generated effort to get out the vote for Georgia’s December 2 Senate runoff election “has hit a snag as thousands of requests for absentee ballots have been denied because the applications were not signed,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. Read more

Some Thoughts on Obama

by David Rovics

Friends around the world keep asking me questions.  Are you excited?  What do you think of Obama?  Others are simply congratulating me.  And I must say, it was a thrilling moment.

As a teenager, in 1984, I volunteered for the Mondale/Ferraro campaign, mostly pushing bumper stickers.  An anti-nuclear group was doing this, in the belief that Mondale would be less likely to cause Armageddon.  I grew up in an overwhelmingly white, Republican town.  I was a news junky from an early age, though, and politically active in one way or another.  Of the Democratic candidates my favorite was Jesse Jackson, but looking around me I reasoned he had a slim chance of getting elected. Read more

Go Home Granny Palin! Go Home Joe The Un-Plumber! So Long McSame!

by Maggie Richards

A quick farewell note to Tuesday night’s losers & to the sorryass republican administration which has done so much damage to this country & it’s reputation.

Go home Granny Palin.  Now you can tell the truth about your grandson, not that anyone gives a hoot.  It was just one of many  lies from you and McSame. Read more

God Bless America

by Norla M. Antinoro

Today I experienced both pride and shame in my nation and my species.  It’s Veterans Day and it often has that effect on me.  I live among people who are of the generations who served in the military if they were male.  Almost no exceptions.  Some were sent to the State Department to do diplomatic work, some served in the Coast Guard, but they all served.  But as we stood to sing God Bless America and honor our veterans, the real meaning of all the hoopla came home to me strongly.  Two men in this group of 100+ did not stand or raise their hands when asked if they had served in the military.  One was from Peru.  The other born in Germany in 1920.  The fortysomething man from Peru said he declined military service because there is enough violence in the world and he declines to add to it.  The quiet elderly German in the back of the room spoke very softly and was clearly uncomfortable.  He served in the military of the Third Reich.  The closest the men who on a normal day work and play alongside this man would come to friendly interaction with this man today was saying “You did what you had to do.  And so did we.” Read more

Next Page »

• Letter to the Editor: Good Cars need Good Teams - by R. A. Letcher, PhD

  Good cars need good teams -- designers, engineers, line workers… and learning-oriented managers by Robert A. Letcher, PhD [Author’s note: I submitted the following as a letter to the editor of The New York Times, after that paper carried an article under the headline, "To Fix Detroit, Obama Is Said to Drop Plan for ‘Car Czar’", 02/15/2009.] It is widely accepted that you can't win a horse race without a good horse. Of course, it helps to have a lot of money and a good plan for spending it. But, you still need a good horse. The authors reminded me of this when they wrote: “The companies’ plans are required to show progress in cutting long-term costs as a condition for keeping their loans.” I doubt GM and Chrysler can win this most important "automobile race" merely by having better accountants and more muscular negotiators: they still need a good "horse". That means the companies will have to show that their teams can still design and build cars that people are drawn to buy and willing to pay for: winners. I doubt they can. The problem isn't that they didn't know how to; it's that they don't know how to break out of the group-think that ensnarled them, their managers, their whole organizations, decades ago. I would be more optimistic, had the government also required the companies to include plans for transforming themselves into learning organizations. Aye, there’s the rub: learning entails risk-taking, not “yes people”.

• Bob's Bail Out Plan by bobl-tlm

  

• Fiscal Therapy - Getting the economy back on its feet, giving taxpayers a break, saving your retirement fund and your kid's college tuition? Done. And it won't cost you a penny.

  For years now, whenever I've been invited to lecture students on how our tax system works, I have asked a simple question: What is the purpose of the United States of America? The most common answer, be it at prestigious universities, elite prep schools, rural community colleges, or crowded urban high schools, is this: To make people rich. This should come as no great surprise. For anyone born after, say, 1970, the world has been shaped by Ronald Reagan's remaking of government's relationship with private interests—a vision of lower taxes, less regulation, and maximum economic leeway for those at the top. In this view, the pursuit of wealth is the warp and weft of America; everything else will follow. By contrast, the preamble to the Constitution tells us the nation's reason for being in 52 words that can be reduced to six principles: society, justice, peace, security, commonwealth, and freedom. Individual riches don't make the list. They are a product of American society, not its guiding purpose. Progress, then, must begin with a return to the best of the values that created this Second American Republic—one born, it's worth remembering, from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, whose principles (weak government, unfettered capitalism) found their resurrection in the economic policies of the past three decades.

  ---

  read more at Mother Jones

  ---

  ---

• How Do You Like Deregulation Now? graphic politics by Dicky Neely

  

• Advertisement

• Recent Posts

  • So long and thanks for all the fish.
  • Challenges that confront and confound efforts to bring about institutional change
  • Obama’s A Genius! He Shows Why Unending Madness is Inevitable!
  • General Dave’s Map Shows Human Terrain Really Continues East into Afghanistan and Pakistan!
  • Good Torture - Some torturers are born; the best are made
  • Beyond unemployment insurance in the face of structural job loss: Who ever said it would be easy?
  • Republican Opposition to the Stimulus: Wrong, But Not Treason
  • Neo-Absurdists - They love America and hate the United States
  • The Meaning of the Spector Switch
  • Notes from the Class War - The right moves further and further out of touch
  • Holy Minerva! Scientists at War over Human Dignity
  • Reason Returns to the White House

• Recent Comments

  • bob letcher on So long and thanks for all the fish.
  • Jerry Lobdill on So long and thanks for all the fish.
  • George Thomas on Holy Minerva! Scientists at War over Human Dignity
  • PB on Holy Minerva! Scientists at War over Human Dignity
  • Craig Hawley on Christmas at the Edge of Depression

Copyright © 2008 We! Magazine ·Log in