A Look Inside Burma

Written by: DFA Staff on Aug 19, 2008 7:24 PM PDT

Writing in the New Yorker, George Packer gives a bleak and thorough account of life in Burma:

Over the decades, the Burmese government has subjected its citizens to epic misrule, systematically destroying every institution of society except the Army, whose leaders have made staying in power their overriding goal. The streets of Rangoon and Mandalay are monitored by the secret police and by a group of armed thugs known as Swan Arr Shin—the Masters of Force. Dissidents are routinely tortured. The generals’ irrational economic policies have reduced one of Asia’s richest countries, once the world’s leading exporter of rice, to penury. Burma’s gross domestic product per capita is now less than half that of its neighbor Cambodia. Economic sanctions—a form of protest against the government’s human-rights abuses—have made the country even poorer.

Danny
Communications Director

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Late night Watercooler

Written by: DFA Community and you

DFA's home for a free form, open-ended discussion of what matters most to committed progressive activists.

10 Stories to Read

Written by: Kenneth Quinnell on Aug 18, 2008 8:58 PM PDT

Linked to groups: Florida DFA, Democracy for Florida, Democracy for America Miami-Dade (DFAM), DFA Tallahassee, Training Academy Alumni, Class of 2007, DFA at Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos) July 17-20

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

This is our regular feature where every day I do a post with the top 10 blog posts that I think people should read from the previous day. Posts are included here and ranked based on a combination of originality, focus on Florida, length (longer, more thorough analysis is better), quality of writing and impact of the story.

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Voting Machines Look Bad for This Year's Election

Written by: Alexandra Ottaway on Aug 19, 2008 10:46 AM PDT

Here are a series of articles in the New York times.  I didn't know they were there and my godfather, who doesn't use the net-- to this day!--actually found these in the print edition!

Way to go, my friend!

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/v/voting_machines/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=voting%20machines&st=cse

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Nothing but the politics...

Written by: tom c on Aug 19, 2008 8:56 AM PDT

Nothing but the politics...  

        Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions.

    Politics consists of "social relations involving authority or power"and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.

    Political science (also political studies) is the study of political behavior and examines the acquisition and application of power. Related areas of study include political philosophy, which seeks a rationale for politics and an ethic of public behavior, and public administration, which examines the practices of governance.

Left-Right politics

       Most political analysts and politicians divide politics into left wing and right wing politics, often also using the idea of center politics as a middle path of policy between the right and left. This classification is comparatively recent (it was not used by Aristotle or Hobbes, for instance), and dates from the French Revolution era, when those members of the National Assembly who opposed the monarchy sat on the left, while those who supported it sat on the right.

The meaning of left-wing and right-wing varies considerably between different countries and at different times, but broadly speaking, it can be said that the right wing is often linked to moral and social conservatism, law and order, and religion, while the left wing is often linked with redistribution of wealth and resources towards the poorer or less successful sections of society (which are generally perceived by the left as unfairly disadvantaged), and with secularism.The right wing is more often linked to the idea of social equity, and the left wing to the idea of social equality.

According to Norberto Bobbio, one of the major exponents of this distinction, the Left believes in attempting to eradicate social inequality, while the Right regards most social inequality as the result of ineradicable natural inequalities, and sees attempts to enforce social equality as utopian or authoritarian.

Some ideologies, notably Christian Democracy, claim to combine left and right wing politics; according to Geoffrey K. Roberts and Patricia Hogwood, "In terms of ideology, Christian Democracy has incorporated many of the views held by liberals, conservatives and socialists within a wider framework of moral and Christian principles."Movements which claim or formerly claimed to be above the left-right divide include Gaullism in France, Peronism in Argentina, and National Action Politics in Mexico.

Thanks,

===================

Massachusetts Drug Treatment

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Ammunition

Written by: Kenneth Quinnell on Aug 18, 2008 8:49 PM PDT

Linked to groups: Florida DFA, Democracy for Florida, Democracy for America Miami-Dade (DFAM), DFA Tallahassee, Training Academy Alumni, Class of 2007, DFA at Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos) July 17-20

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

The latest links to the information you need to counter right-wing spin...

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Gerry's picks today...

Written by: Gerry L on Aug 19, 2008 5:03 AM PDT

Wednesday~

***************round of articles about our domestic ‘issues’ ~ August 20,  2008

Taking Stock as Summer Wanes

by James Carroll

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/08/18/11048/

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The New Evangelical Politics

E.J. Dionne

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/18/AR2008081801850.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1

=========================================

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Video: Rallies & Protests in SF as McCain and Obama Rake in the $$

Written by: Edwin Rutsch on Aug 18, 2008 6:15 PM PDT

Linked to groups: East Bay for Democracy, Oakland DFA Meetup, Lake Park, San Francisco for Democracy, Alameda for Democracy, California for Democracy, Courage Campaign, Take Back Red California, Capitol Area Progressives (CAP) , What are Progressive Values? Study Group, DFA-Link Organizers, Walnut Creek DFA, Blog For America, Blogs United, DFA Film Club, DFA-Marin, DFA Night School, Silicon Valley DFA, brought to you by Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley, Framing Committee, Florida DFA, NJ for Democracy, Democracy for Florida, Democracy for New York, Democracy for Texas, Democracy for NYC, PA for Democracy, Democracy for Washington, Sacramento For Democracy, Democracy for Illinois, Democracy for Maryland, Philly for Change, Democracy for Ohio (DFO), Democracy for America Miami-Dade (DFAM), Washington Fair Elections, Michigan Democracy for America, DFALA, DFA at Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos) July 17-20, blog for America Test and Poll Group

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

 "The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine."
George Bernard Shaw

 Barack Obama came to the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel for a fundraiser yesterday on Sunday, August 17. He raised 7.5 million dollars. Just 3 weeks earlier John McCain had braved being corrupted by the dreaded 'San Francisco Values' at a fund raiser in the same hotel. His campaign declined to state how much their haul was.

Here are videos I made of both Rallies.

Barack Obama at San Francisco Fairmont Hotel Rally, Aug 17, 2008
 

Anti McCain SF Rally - Alec Bash - 07-28-08 at Fairmont Hotel

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Winners & Losers

Written by: Kenneth Quinnell on Aug 12, 2008 8:25 PM PDT

Linked to groups: Florida DFA, Democracy for Florida, Democracy for America Miami-Dade (DFAM), DFA Tallahassee, Training Academy Alumni, Class of 2007, DFA at Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos) July 17-20

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

Winner: Florida's DNCC Delegates - Looks like we'll be getting full voting power after all.

Winner: Kevin Beckner - Continues to rack up the endorsements.

Winner: South Dade Democratic Club - Working hard and changing Miami.

Loser: State Democratic Party Committee Members - If you're going to be on the committee, maybe you should show up for the day that electors are chosen. I'm just saying.

Loser: Harry Sargeant II - So much for John McCain being a maverick who is great on campaign finance...

Loser: Trey Traviesa - Couldn't you have retired before helping Republicans ruin the state?

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The “Being Stupid” and “Sounding Strong” Policy Connection

Written by: Stephen Crockett on Aug 17, 2008 4:29 PM PDT

Linked to groups: Democracy for Maryland, DEMOCRACY for Baltimore, Democracy for Cecil

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

Developments in the ongoing conflict between the nations of Georgia and Russia grew very hot this past week. The conflict has very long historical roots and has been potentially ready to explode since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The comments of John McCain on the current outbreak of war has demonstrated the close connection between “sounding strong” for domestic political considerations and “being stupid” in the execution of American foreign policy.

McCain has a tendency to talk tough and to threaten military consequences far too often for the comfort of many foreign policy experts and American citizens. McCain seems to have the first response impulse to use force and to send in the troops. This sometimes is appropriate but often is not the wise or intelligent course of action. McCain seems to discount the limits of military force in achieving foreign policy objectives and the negative blowback or other unintended consequences of getting involved in military conflicts without carefully studying the facts first.

Basically, McCain’s well-known bad temper marks him as a seemingly dangerously hot-head when it comes to foreign policy. McCain is very opinionated when it comes to many aspects of foreign policy.

When conflict first erupted this week, McCain quickly made harsh comments criticizing Russia. McCain clearly appears to be threatening Russia with economic, diplomatic and, maybe military actions without considering the consequences for the United States.

His comments were not very helpful in persuading Russia to halt military actions. The Russians never respond well to direct public threats or orders from the United States. Intelligent diplomacy requires the very careful use of both carrot and stick measures to achieve the desired results. When you start “being stupid” in your public rhetoric by “talking tough” before thinking through the situation, you almost always fail to achieve your foreign policy goals.

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Pro Obama In Texas

Written by: Nancy N on Aug 17, 2008 2:39 PM PDT

Our family has had some interesting experiences being pro-Obama in Texas. People I have known for a long time are showing a side of themselves that I have never seen. I get emails almost everyday that are outrageous lies about Obama. I have repeatedly tried to inform them using snopes.com to point out that they are spreading falsehoods. I've sent links to sites like middleclass.org and opensecrets.org to give them tools that educate and inform. 99% of these people ignore everything said, they have made a decision to vote Republican and they won't be turned from it. They make offensive, racist jokes and accuse me of being "up tight" and "too serious" when I tell them that I don't appreciate it.

I'm not a native Texan, but I've lived here a long, long time. I am absolutely shocked that after 8 years of probably the most single most destructive presidency in American history - people are still using the same ill-informed, and prejudiced thinking to support what is equivalent to a third term of the Bush administration.

They ignore the fact that the oil companies give 76% of their lobby dollars to Republicans, and claim that gas will be $8.00 a gallon if a democrat is in the office. They ignore that McCain has voted with Bush over 90% of the time. They question Obama's patriotism and ignore that most recently, McCain didn't even support the bill that included expanded benefits for our soldiers. These people blast Bill Clinton for the whole Monica Lewinsky fiasco, but wave off any mention of the absolutely reprehensible behavior that McCain displayed in having an affair with his current wife and her because she wasn't the tall willowy and young woman he married. In her own words "he didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25".

Bottom line, it is a tough time to be a Democrat in such a red state. I am hoping and praying there is more sanity outside the state lines of Texas.

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