Clipmarks | debbyski's 'political' clips

Fear Is The Cheapest Room In The House

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 02:01:22 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends up in folly.’ Political activists are more inclined, though, to heed an observation from Richard Nixon: ‘People react to fear, not love. They don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.’

To give into despair is to succumb to fear, the ultimate source of all human violence.

A vibrant and functional democracy depends on the honest dissemination of information. The corporate media, in its rightward drift and easy compliance to political power, is failing the general populace

Don’t let consumption define who we are. True peace is to see ourselves as citizens, not simply consumers.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable." If we commit ourselves to creating peaceful change by not giving into despair and a culture of fear, we practice the spiritual ecology of peace.

Real Political Issues: Peace or Perpetual War?

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:52:27 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: What is the real lesson of 9/11?

I still want to discuss this election in terms of issues not polemics and ad hominems, so I'm going to keep trying...

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

“We live in a dangerous world,” Mr. Bush said, “And we need a president who understands the lessons of Sept. 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain.”

Tags: 9/11, iraq, afghanistan, bush, mccain, obama, issues

The War On Terrorism In Sweden

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:36:43 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.lewrockwell.com

On June 18 a new law was passed in Sweden granting the national defense’s civilian agency National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) the right to collect and analyze all communication data that in some way passes the borders of the Kingdom of Sweden.

The official lie offered as excuse for this horrid, uncivilized law is, like in all other countries, the threat of terrorism. It is unlikely anyone actually believes Sweden, an insignificant socialist country in the far north in moral, financial, and political decline, is on the terrorists’ list of future targets, yet the sense of a common external threat of a faceless enemy seems to be as effective in Sweden as elsewhere.

Most of these Orwellian laws are part of a new "anti-terrorism" initiative in the European Union, where a new union-level situation center in Brussels, called SitCen, is proposed in order to coordinate the EU countries’ national security police, intelligence and surveillance efforts

Rick Warren, Obama, And McCain

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:28:22 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: déjà vu

Clip Source: www.boston.com

If anyone had any doubt about the influence of Rick Warren, last night provided a remarkable demonstration of his pull -- Barack Obama and John McCain both agreed to submit, one after the other, to televised questions from the evangelical pastor at his church in Orange County, California.

Warren asked the candidates about marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, and what Christianity means to them

But there is also some critical comment now emerging about Warren's role in the campaign.

"Some of the questions Pastor Warren posed crossed the line and promoted the fiction that the American people are electing a pastor-in-chief, rather than a commander-in-chief. Questions like 'What does it mean to trust in Christ?' create a religious test for public office and should have no place in the political discourse for a secular office.

And both the candidates deserve criticism for engaging in a competition to be 'holier than thou.

WOMEN TRIED OF JUST OBJECT TO MARRY !

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:35:14 GMT

clipped by: jt3600
clipper's remarks: How much do we loose when we hold to tight to tradition ? To bad they can't wake up to the fact that girls just want to be and with girls sometimes.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Spotlight on Egypt's marriage crisis

"I want to get married" is a perfectly normal thing to say for a young Egyptian man. But when a girl says it in such a conservative society - let alone writes a book with that title - she is making a political statement.

She says her target is not Egyptian men but a tradition known as "gawwaz el-salonat" (living room marriage), where a stranger is brought to the family home and the daughter must decide whether to marry him on the basis of this brief encounter.

Sociologist Madeeha al-Safty of the American University in Cairo believes one consequence is sexual harassment of women and rape reaching unprecedented levels in Egypt.

Too Dumb To Succeed?

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:49:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part.

And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy.

Mininum Wage Goes Up Thursday

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:05:24 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

Burger flippers rejoice! The federal minimum wage will go up on Thursday to $6.55 from $5.85. Too bad the minimum wage isn't rising as fast as gas prices. Still, this is an improvement. Congress went nine years without raising the floor for low-wage workers, finally boosting the minimum last year when its value hit a 51-year low. One more bump next year will bring the federal minimum wage up to $7.25, a far cry from the $10.50 an hour paid in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but a step in the right direction. Another decade, the minimum wage might actually lift someone above the poverty line.

Now that Congress has come this far, the next step ought to be indexing the damn thing to inflation like many of the states do. I've never understood why poor working people should be made to suffer so much from political gridlock. Making sure that work pays ought to be one thing people in both parties can agree on.

What Is Evil?

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:18:41 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.venusproject.com

Evil is a heinous oppressor who through fear and division causes ruin, injury and pain, in order to secure his or her social, economic and political dominance.

The building blocks of Evil in any given society are: greed, racial and religious prejudices, ignorance, greed, bigotry, elitism, individualism, greed, poverty, lack of clear, unbiased and unambiguous public education, conducive social and economic conditions, in which the value of humankind is replaced with commercial profits, where the public is constantly bombarded with divisive messages of fear, hate and violence, ranging from violent sports to fearful violent news and fearful, hateful violent entertainment.

REMEMBER, REFORM ALWAYS BEGINS WITH ONE-SELF.

The Death of Reaganomics

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:18:45 GMT

clipped by: Geshizar

Clip Source: axisoflogic.com

The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.

Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing.

You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution. The distribution of income and wealth doesn't matter. Providing incentives for the investors of capital to "grow the pie" is the only policy that counts. Free trade produces well-distributed economic growth, and any dissent from this orthodoxy is "protectionism."

The old script is in rewrite. "We are in a worldwide crisis now because of excessive deregulation," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview.

Tags: economics, deregulation, capitalism

Facebook Never Forgets

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:43:17 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "The Internet's anonymity, long memory and free-for-all gossip culture may yet prove a poisonous cocktail. But as our generation grows older and enters public life -- thankfully, we have some time -- we'll find ourselves in a political culture that increasingly views these "gotcha" moments in context and with an eye toward forgiveness. After all, the incriminating photo, the offensive blog post, that drunken 3 a.m. e-mail -- it could have been any of us."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Imagine if the current crop of public figures had grown up during the Facebook era. We might have photos of John McCain in Florida slurping body shots off his stripper girlfriend. Barack Obama rolling a joint on a beach in Hawaii. George W. Bush passed out at a Yale frat party, 40-ounce beer bottles duct-taped to his hands. Hillary Rodham Clinton at a Wellesley peace rally, locking lips with her husband's future secretary of Labor, Robert Reich.

It's one thing to hear that your elected representative had a wild time in college. It's entirely different to have pictorial proof. Would you still vote for someone after viewing a photograph of him passed out in his own vomit?

This isn't just a thought experiment. The next generation of political leaders is coming of age right now -- and it's unlikely that any one of them will escape digital documentation of their college-era foibles.

Lefts Are Smarter

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:15:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: mwcnews.net

Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported todayin the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results.

Tags: ;)

The Key To Happiness

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:43:55 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "At this stage, what does a society have to look like in order to create more free choice and more happiness? The study indicates that you need democratization and, most important of all, social tolerance."
The study suggests that religious faith and social tolerance are a winning combination. Which leaves me wondering: Perhaps people in the U.S. would all be happier if more ministers, rabbis, imams and priests conducted more gay marriages."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Who knew? The legalization of gay marriage might make Californians happier. At least that's what a new study based on surveys of 350,000 people in nearly 100 countries suggests.

No, the authors aren't gay activists, nor do they seem to be peddling any particular political agenda. But in their search to discover which countries are happier than others and why, these scholars -- led by University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart -- have stumbled on one pretty fundamental conclusion about what people want out of life: freedom.

How exactly, you ask, is gay marriage connected with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?

In most developed countries, the relative level of their acceptance or rejection is a sensitive indicator of that society's overall tolerance toward minorities. And -- here's the takeaway -- social tolerance "broadens the range of choices available to people," thereby enhancing happiness for both the tolerant and the intolerant alike.

Seeking A Broader Political Agenda

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:03:15 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "None of that means younger evangelicals have abandoned the core tenets of their faith, including a belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus and the literal truth of the Bible. They think abortion and homosexuality are sins."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Journey, a megachurch of mostly younger evangelicals, is representative of a new generation that refuses to put politics at the center of its faith and rejects identification with the religious right.

They say they are tired of the culture wars. They say they do not want the test of their faith to be the fight against gay rights. They say they want to broaden the traditional evangelical anti-abortion agenda to include care for the poor, the environment, immigrants and people with H.I.V., according to experts on younger evangelicals and the young people themselves.

About 17 percent of the nation’s 55 million adult evangelicals are between the ages of 18 and 29, and many are troubled by the methods of the religious right and its close ties to the Republican Party.

Coming Around Again

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:49:29 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: 62 years old and so beautiful! In this youth obsessed media age, I love stories like this one, especially about strong beautiful mothers and women like Carly.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

CARLY SIMON isn't the first name you'd expect to find on a list of classic-rock superstars who keep tabs on " American Idol."

Today, Simon still questions the status quo -- whether musical, social or political. But her main interest, the way it always was even when she was helping alter the outer world, is understanding and expressing her inner world.

SIMON remains impeccably rock-star chic at 62 in a black leather jacket covering a flimsy burgundy dress slipped over a black body- stocking.

She had her own encounters with rampant sexism -- one of Weller's anecdotes intimates that a noted rock engineer once refused to work on one of her albums unless she slept with him.

A Fan Letter From Hell

Wed, 21 May 2008 21:54:25 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

Dear George Jr.,

First off, I want to say that I am your biggest and Number-1 total and complete Fan. Ever.

Today, you — and members of your family and friends — continue the work of our sacred Cause. For instance:

Your Department of Justice serves as the Political Action Arm of Karl Rove. Its function: protect and reward friends, punish and destroy enemies.

Your excellent Domestic Policies have not merely left no child behind, you have left an entire nation of rabble behind.

De-regulation” coupled with your fiscal policies have served the interests of the monied class to the exclusion of the masses, including your bourgoise middle classes.

I must say the way you ignored the cries for help from the people of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina was most devilish.

Thank you from the bottom of the space in my chest where my heart, I am told, used to be,

Yours in Eternity,

Uncle Adolf

Tags: good, job, hunny