Home » Blog » Dawn Rally for Edwards
Blog for America
Dawn Rally for Edwards
Linked to groups: Rockingham/Strafford DFA
Many of you will be envious when you hear that I was able to be at the 6:15 am "Welcome Rally" for John Edwards in Manchester, NH. About a dozen of us gathered in deep-frozen Dover, NH and headed over to an old mill building Manchester to give John and Elizabeth (as well as Kate) a warm welcome back to the Granite State. The event shows a lot of what is good about the state of politics in America and some of what is wrong.It is great that a candidate like John Edwards can still speak the truth to power and still fight for regular working people while still being taken seriously. And even though several hundred citizens did risk hypothermia to journey to Manchester in the dark, the event still shows how marginalized the political process has become....
I felt a little bit like I was back in the mid-1990s when I went through a brief fascination with techno music and also with the underground "Raves" where DJs spin unmar Some of the Raves I attended were in the same general vicinity, i.e., downtown Manchester. The event was in an old textile mill near the Merrimack River, with no signs directing us there. (The snowbanks in downtown Manchester were full of yard signs, of course, including our guy's, but those had nothing to do with the rally.) After driving around in circles (nearly running over Fox News's Carl Cameron at one point while making a U Turn in front of the Channel 9 building) we finally spot some activity in front of one mill building and after driving around the block one more time we spotted our event.
The building was originally built as a textile mill, and was abandoned when the industry headed south to Edwards's native Carolinas before eventually heading overseas. The space was just the right size to hold the number of people who showed up, and it made for an apt setting for a great piece of political theatre. However it seemed like a somewhat shabby setting... or maybe just a funky setting... for a key event in a campaign which will soon (I am confident) make Edwards the most powerful person on the planet. It makes a huge difference who wins any Presidential election, and this one is especially important... and yet the crowd was no bigger than the crowds which used to turn out for the underground Raves I attended in the same general vicinity. And the venue was no fancier. (In fact it was less fancy: the fire exits were scarily inadequate, and the lack of security was even scarier. We were in an enclosed space, rallying for a candidate who poses a very significant threat to the Bush-Clinton corporate consensus, and yet there was virtually no security.)
Not that music isn't important, but politics matters a lot more. It matters to all of us on a deeply personal level. The few hundred of us who got up in the middle of the coldest night of the winter so far to greet John Edwards know that all too well--- but most of the population have been anesthetized by the corporate media into thinking that politics doesn't matter. Hopefully Edwards will wake up a few more of us over the days and months ahead.
(Yes there were a few cameras in the back of the room, but the coverage will try to make the point that this is a meaningless sideshow and that we really oughta leave politics to the professionals and worry about Britney Spears instead.)
--Tim Horrigan; Durham. NH
Show: Expand All Reply
This is unbelievable! On the previous thread, it was alluded to the fact that Clinton played the 9/11 card today. Here's something else I just read on Huffington. "Upon their arrival in New Hampshire this morning, the Clinton campaign said Obama is too liberal to win. They pointed to his progressive record as a community organizer, state senator, candidate for congress and his alliance with 'left wing' intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community as well as his voting record on criminal defendants rights."
Have the Clinton's no shame? This is right out of McCarthy in the '50's; and Nixon/Agnew. If the Clinton's keep talking like this, they may get me to switch from Edwards to Obama.
Britney really did make "news" . Have I made my pitch for Wellstone parity and the Edwards' truly universal health care plan yet today?
Giuliani had a whopping 4% based on 9-11 maybe Hillary is jealous
Edwards pulled an all nighter here before the caucus he'd better be careful of jet lag gaffes.
Latest Lynn Sweet blog re: New Hampshire and Obama (and a post of Howard's speech)
She's been covering politics for the Sun Times for ages so bookmark and visit often.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/
South siders react to Obama's win
January 4, 2008
BY NORMAN PARISH Staff Reporter/nparish@suntimes.com
At age 21, James Clasberry Jr. shamefully admitted that he has never voted.
In fact, he has never even registered to vote.
But after Sen. Barack Obama's historic win in Iowa's Democratic caucus Thursday night, the West Side security guard said he would make sure he registers before Tuesday's deadline for the Illinois Feb. 5 primary.
"This is something new," said Clasberry, an African-American, as he left an eatery in Obama's Hyde Park neighborhood. "[Obama] is the same heritage. He is from the same city. I just feel hope."
From beauty salons to restaurants, many African-American Chicagoans, like Clasberry, said they were stunned and proud about Obama's win in the presidential caucus.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/72611...
Man, the obama support here makes me think that once again IA has chosen our nominee....and the people have gone along with it.
I remain an Edwards supporter.
Scalia, Parsley and Dominionism. Scary stuff.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1728
Dean looked good on C-Span just now at the NH dinner, and he gave a great speech,
The last 4 presidents lost in Iowa. I remain an Edwards supporter--that's who I'll be voting in my state's primary.
Nevertheless, Obama won Iowa and per the polling data, won by inspiring new caucus participants, particularly young people. Good on him. He deserves congrats for that.
Hi, cC! I'm wondering how many hateful Republicans Hillary inspired. . . . Jus' me, lol!
12:39 AM
I'm an Edwards supporter and contributor. I can still allow myself to congratulate the Obama movement. In either an Edwards or Obama Presidency, we the people still have a fighting chance to get our country back. A candidate who inspires young people to register, to vote, or to take the next step into activism, will have a positive impact on the future of the country regardless of the election outcome.
Hi puddle, Hope the coffee is still full of stars for you. We have a fresh batch of future field trial champ puppies 20 days old and just starting to see through new eyes. A few times a day, since day 2, I stack the pups like furrry fat jenga sticks. They don't stack well, but they learn fast. Now, when I approach the puppycrib they crawl into a pile and wag their stumpy little tails. Will post fresh pics tomorrow.
rdorgan, are you on Cloud 9? :-)
We shall see...Clinton is not going to give up easily. How wonderful it would be if Edwards can stay in for OR and WA voters.
Ron Paul got more than twice the votes of Rudy G. That was a sweet dessert to last night main meal.
Seems to me it's still a dead heat with Obama rising.
FBI/from the ACLU's website: *An Actual Declassified FBI Document: International Terrorism Matters Investigation (1 comments) Documentation from the FBI that peace /antiwar groups are being tracked, monitored and reported on. What country is this?
And which candidate will stop this? Obama? Edwards?
Dodd, yes.
This is another look at Obama that is not flattering.
"...The victors in Iowa on Thursday have used the God strategy to a degree rarely seen in modern history. Obama’s public embrace of faith began in 2006 with a keynote address at Sojourners magazine’s Call to Renewal conference. Syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne suggested the speech “may be the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy’s Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican.” Later in 2006 Obama spoke at an AIDS summit hosted by Rick Warren—a conservative who is one of the most prominent evangelicals in the world.
Since then, Obama’s religious politics have only grown. He often begins speeches—including his address in February 2007 in which he announced his intention to seek the presidency—by giving “all praise and honor to God,” and regularly cites the biblical story of Joshua. In Iowa, Obama had a faith steering committee and his campaign held forums across the state titled “What’s faith got to do with it?”
Still, he lagged behind Huckabee in his religious politics. Early on, the little-known ordained Southern Baptist minister compared himself to Biblical underdogs David and other Old Testament prophets. He wowed Christian conservatives at the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit in October, saying “I think it’s important that the language of Zion is a mother tongue, and not a recently acquired second language.” Huckabee began to surge in Iowa polls not long after, a rise he attributed to divine intervention.
Huckabee sealed his ascendancy by airing perhaps the most religious ads in U.S. presidential history. A signature spot featured Huckabee saying “Faith doesn’t just influence me; it really defines me,” as the words “Christian leader” flashed across the screen. In another ad, Huckabee asked viewers to remember the real meaning of the holiday season: “the celebration of the birth of Christ.” When this message stirred up controversy, Huckabee adroitly painted himself as the target of secularists.
Obama and Huckabee: Two presidential candidates, two political parties, one approach—and the same result. The question now is whether this strategy has legs beyond Iowa.
As the candidates turn their attention to New Hampshire, they’ll find voters who are likely to be a bit more cautious about too intimate a relationship between religion and politics. But soon thereafter comes South Carolina, where faith runs wide and deep. Indeed, Obama’s campaign had a “40 days of Faith and Family” focus there in autumn.
One thing is for sure: we’re light years and a religious political revolution from John F. Kennedy’s candidacy in 1960, when he famously declared that “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute” and “I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair.” That was a winning message then. Today it would be a voice in the wilderness—on both sides of the partisan aisle.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_do_080104_explaining_iowa_3a_the.htm
So IMO Obama is either using religion and the naivete of voters to get elected, or he no longer believes in separation of church and state. Either way, he's not fit to be prez IMO. To compare him to JFK is ludicrous.
ohdave: Huckabee's Bob Jones Moment Ok, we're starting to see a pattern of Mike Huckabee's connections to really extreme evangelical leaders. Republicans, here's what you are voting for.
It's time for Waxman to retire.
Why Congress Can't Chew Gum and Walk at the Same Time! (1 comments) This should give you a good idea why Congress is so inept.
What will it take to stop this madness?
President orders White House lawyers to draw up documents IS IT IMPEACHMENT TIME YET? Bush Thursday ordered White House lawyers to use claims of executive privilege to prevent senior White House aides from cooperating with the Justice Department's criminal investigation into destruction of videotapes that showed CIA interrogators torturing terrorism suspects.
i just drove back from los angeles. it started raining there late morning. it rained all the way back with gusting winds. a semi jack knifed and blocked 3 lanes on the up-grade to the grape vine. that was fun. still made the trip in 5.5 hours though.
all of the candidates received exactly the number of votes they deserved last night. but let's remember something, this is about collecting delegates, and unless a state is winner take all, its the delegate count that is important. don't let the media fool you into thinking about winners and losers at this point. i looked at the edwards blog this morning and they were all freaking out about loosing. fact is, they don't get it. i wanted to tell them so, but relented.
iowa is about painting the thing to your advantage. pretty simple, but who'll buy what is the question. it does mean something that hill placed third. i'd compare it to romney's 2nd in that both had high expectations, money, and staff, and yet still did poorly. the appearance of the thing seems to matter...
...that's why i think that a candidate's personality does matter. who the person is tells me much more than some "painted" issue stance. npr was joking about all hill has left is re-inventing her issue stances since she's squandered everything else???
think delegate count
think about what you can do for your candidate in your area
don't wait for the campaign, but be smart about it
defeat defeatism, don't let the msm rule our lives.
Heads up for next week's IN/SCOTUS voting rights issue.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=3&docID=news-000002651471
well, "deserved" might be a bad choice of words. hmmm...dodd, for example, really did campaign, but couldn't seem to garner the spotlight. therefore, he placed where he did. deserved, earned, what???
i still like dodd's thinking quite a bit and hope that he will play a bigger role in government starting in 2009.
Good morning, BFA! Hi to sea & mprov if you're still around.
***********
Why did HQ get the idea simply to omit the blog clock instead of fixing it?
Where is Sheri?
Is anybody home?
***********
More about the US election processes from the press on this side of The Pond (although it is true that lots of reporters are on That Side).
==============
'Skinny kid with a funny name' reshapes US politics
Gary Younge in Manchester, New Hampshire
Saturday January 5, 2008
Guardian
"They said this day would never come," said the Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama at the outset of his barnstorming victory speech on Thursday night. But as he arrived in New Hampshire early yesterday, Americans woke up to the historic possibility that the day when they might have a black president was closer than they thought - not just within their lifetime, but within the year.
Until Thursday night that was little more than a remote likelihood - a fresh-faced, freshman senator whose middle name is Hussein up against the daunting might of the Clinton machine in the sixth whitest state in America. Last month, former president Bill Clinton asked if the United States was ready to "roll the dice" on an Obama presidency.
Iowa caucus-goers rolled. Obama won, leaving Iowa with 38% of the vote, eight percentage points ahead of John Edwards and having pushed Hillary Clinton into third place with 29%. They also took a chance on the Republican outsider, Mike Huckabee, who vaulted to a commanding victory over his main challenger, Mitt Romney, in just a few weeks, leaving the Republican field in complete disarray.
But the night belonged to Obama, who told his supporters: "Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us but by us." He then flew into New Hampshire brimming with confidence. "I think [Iowa] is a harbinger of what's going to happen around the country," he told reporters on his flight.
But even as the Democratic field narrowed slightly, as senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden withdrew, both Clinton and Edwards were in hot pursuit. Clinton still emphasised her experience: "Who will be the best president based not on a leap of faith but on the kind of changes we've already produced?" she asked.
Meanwhile in Manchester, New Hampshire, Edwards painted himself as the underdog in a battle against Obama. "I am not the candidate of money, I am not the candidate of glitz, I am not the candidate of glamour. Nor do I claim to be," he told a morning rally.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33196...
Bush Thursday ordered White House lawyers to use claims of executive privilege to prevent senior White House aides from cooperating with the Justice Department's criminal investigation into destruction of videotapes that showed CIA interrogators torturing terrorism suspects.
So.....Bush refiuses to cooperate with his own AG MukasyI Couldn't see that one coming?
And just WHICH Democratic committee chairman let Mukasey's nomination be considered -- in betrayel of his own promise not to until Bush came clean on Gonzogate? And just WHICH Democratic committe members voted to recommend him to the Senate? And just WHICH Democratic majority allowed him to be confirmed overwhelmingly?
Business as usual on both sides.
When will he take the hint and realize Democrats simply don't want him?
I always pounce to read anything that I find by Jonathan Raban ... he even wrote about my home state at one time, and pretty much got a good part of the ethos right.
================
Good news in bad times
Barack Obama wooed Iowa with his language. But where did he learn it? Here, a leading writer finds the narrative and rhetoric belong to Obama's local pastor, Jeremiah Wright
Jonathan Raban
Saturday January 5, 2008
Guardian
Belief is the open-sesame word in Barack Obama's vocabulary: on Thursday night he told his cheering audience that January 3 would stand as the moment when "America remembered what it means to hope", and ended with the hoarse, exultant shout: "We are ready to believe again!"
At the University of Chicago law school, famous for its faculty of conservative jurists, Obama, senior lecturer in constitutional law, is still listed as being on leave of absence. Six miles from the university on Chicago's far south side, in the nondescript, low-rent, mostly low-rise neighbourhood of Brainerd, is Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama attends and where his pastor, the Rev Dr Jeremiah Wright, apostle of black liberation theology, delivers magnificently cranky sermons on how the "African diaspora" struggles under the yoke of the "white supremacists" who run the "American empire".
Obama's membership of both institutions, the radical black church and the conservative law school, is a measure of the chasm that this latest candidate of hopes and dreams is trying to span. It's also a measure of his political agility that the senior lecturer in law has managed to recast the language of black liberation theology into an acceptable - even, conceivably, a winning - creed for middle-of-the road white voters.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33196...
an email from howard:
The Republican Party is falling apart today - and we are in a place to take advantage of it.
Iowa caucus voters rejected the mainstream Republican front runners, and gave right-wing extremist Mike Huckabee a surprise victory in Iowa last night. He made a last minute surge - without money, and without staff - and has suddenly become a contender in the upcoming primaries.
Mike Huckabee had a big night, but the clear winner in last night's Republican caucus was President George W. Bush. All of the Republican leaders promised four more years of the Bush Administration's failed policies, from continuing the President's war in Iraq, to pursuing his efforts to privatize Social Security, to extending his budget-busting handouts for special interest friends.
Regardless of your personal candidate loyalties, there's one thing for certain: we can't let Mike Huckabee or any of the Republican candidates take over where George W. Bush leaves off.
We must win the White House and that hard work begins today. Will you help?
http://www.democrats.org/Energized
Seven years after taking office, President Bush's approval rating is stuck around 33 percent. Roughly two-thirds of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.
But on issue after issue, while Democrats offer real solutions and new ideas to provide the American people with the change they want, the Republicans offer a third Bush term.
Keep the momentum from the Democrats' big night in Iowa going, and don't let the Republicans recover from last night's disastrous results. Make a donation to the Democratic Party now:
http://www.democrats.org/Energized
For three years I've asked you to help me build a party that could compete in every state and take back the White House from George W. Bush and his Republican cronies. The excitement we saw from Iowa Democrats, and the total lack of enthusiasm from Iowa Republicans, says a lot about how far we've come.
The wait is over. 2008 is here, and the elections are in full swing. Don't wait another minute to let Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, John McCain or any other Bush supporter get the upper hand on the next Democratic President of the United States.
http://www.democrats.org/Energized
Sincerely,
Howard Dean
"why can't we just live our lives," is a question a friend asked when i tried to get her involved politically...
if true, it will become evident.
It became evident in 2004 and it's been confirmed again. As it will in a few days again in NH. And is he going to take SC away from Obama?
I'm going to save typing and from now on just call Edwards #2.
At this point, #2's best purpose is draw support from and keep Hillary a bay in order to help Obama.
IMO, the best thing that Edwards could do would be to get rid of Trippi. I do not trust the man.
Hillary is taking some hits here too. In many ways, I agree with Rich's comments about both Barack and Hillary. Would either really have been considered so *qualified* if not because of their accidental attributes? Granted that Barack has inspired many and that Hillary has been (at least according to many New Yorkers that I know) a good Senator generally, but frankly, if it weren't for the Clinton name, together with Hillary's gender, and for Barack's ethnic background, I wonder whether either would have gotten the attention and support that they so far have.
But those are facts of political life, I guess. And it is too often the press spin of those facts that leads our perceptions.
How many equally, if not more, qualified individuals toil unlauded and unrecognized? I am so glad that Al Gore is finally getting the recognition and approbation that he has so long deserved, but not enough recognized the man that he was in 2000 to prevent that election from being stolen. That was in large part due to press-manufactured (and politically driven) spin.
Thank God for the advances in the internet since 2000.
=============
Hillary is the candidate of retribution, not of hope
Young voters want to end not only the Iraq war, but the US culture wars. They aim to move beyond Bush - and the Clintons
Martin Kettle in New Hampshire
Saturday January 5, 2008
Guardian
It is hard not to feel sorry for Hillary Clinton. She is, in so many ways, the perfect presidential candidate for the Democrats. She has the brains and the name, the money and the machine. She has worked her passage in the Senate, has accumulated political capital and has spent every day of the past seven years trying to prove that she is not the icy feminist harridan of popular mythology. More than any of her rivals she has adopted the right positions, plans and priorities in order to maximise public support. She has worked out how she will be president, and she would probably be a good one. She is still 20 points ahead of her rival Democrats in national polls.
And yet, when actual voters are given the chance to seal the deal, too many of them balk, as they did in Iowa this week. Coming third in Iowa, with more than two-thirds of the voters choosing other candidates, is a shocking blow to the Clinton campaign. Yet the pollsters have always known what her problem is. Her problem is that a lot of people do not buy into her, while a significant minority actively hate her. She is one of the most divisive figures in American life, however hard she tries not to be. If elected, she would reignite the culture wars in spite of herself. All this makes even her admirers fear that she is neither a winner nor what the country really needs. And in a year when Democrats want, above all things, to win, that is very bad news indeed.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33196...
just popped back in.
12. Puddle, I don't think anyone inspires Republican hatred more than Hillary, sadly.
Hey, Sitka ... and am glad to see mprov still around. This place is practically hopping! Usually, if anyone is around, it's just sea ... and nothing wrong with that!
Glad to hear that you made it back safely from LA last eve, mprov.
******************
People who are watching this situation carefully are afraid that it is truly on a razor-edge.
==================
Pressure grows on Kibaki to hold talks as divisions emerge among own community
· Kikuyus split over leader's handling of election crisis
· 100,000 displaced people in urgent need of food aid
Xan Rice in Nairobi
Saturday January 5, 2008
Guardian
Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, is facing growing dissent within his own Kikuyu community over the way Kenya's election was conducted and his refusal to accept talks with the opposition under international mediation, it emerged yesterday.
Wealthy Kikuyu business people, who control much of Kenya's economy, have seen their companies' value dive over the past week and are trying to persuade Kibaki to soften his stance. Younger Kikuyu professionals, meanwhile, are accusing the president and his advisers of turning the rest of the country against their ethnic group.
Kibaki was awarded a second term on Sunday in a highly contentious election that local and international poll observers describe as not credible. Since then, more than 300 people have died, and thousands of homes, shops and cars have been burnt. Poor Kikuyus living in slums or rural areas have borne the brunt of the violence from supporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga, losing their lives or livelihoods.
"Kikuyus are a mercantilist group and this is the last thing they wanted," said Robert Shaw, an economic analyst in Nairobi. "We're seeing massive intransigence and arrogance by the government, but it's false bravado. The pressures on Kibaki from his constituency are immense."
The UK's foreign secretary, David Miliband, last night called on Kibaki and Odinga to come together in a power-sharing agreement to restore peace.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33196...
Here is an example of this savagery, more reminiscent of Mau Mau days than of recent history in Kenya.
============
Olympic runner stoned to death in Kenya
Xan Rice
Saturday January 5, 2008
Guardian
A former Kenyan Olympic athlete has been murdered in an apparent revenge attack in the western town of Eldoret, the capital of world distance running.
Lucas Sang, who ran in the 4x400m relay at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, was attacked by a gang of men as he walked home with friends on Tuesday night.
Eldoret has seen some of the worst violence since the general election last week. Youths from the Kalenjin ethnic group, who claim to be supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga, have clashed with Kikuyus, whom they accuse of voting for President Mwai Kibaki. Like most of Kenya's best runners, Sang was a Kalenjin.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33196...
Phil was asking about tribal ethos in Pakistan. Here's an article that he may find interesting.
================
Families, guns and feuds: how Pakistan votes
One small town provides a snapshot of an electorate riven by tribal infighting
Declan Walsh in Kashmore
Saturday January 5, 2008
Guardian
The whirlwind of violent destruction triggered by Benazir Bhutto's death lashed Kashmore, a cotton-farming town at the junction of Pakistan's three largest provinces, particularly hard.
A frenzied mob tore through its narrow streets, plundering banks, torching the hospital and trashing its telephone exchange. At the local station an express train was held up and passengers watched their stolen possessions being loaded into carts and tractors.
While one arm of the state burned, the other fled. Police hurriedly shed their uniforms and melted into their houses. The town jail was cracked open, allowing 85 criminals to escape, and the local judge had his home stripped clean.
"Can you believe it, they even took his washbasin," said district nazim, or mayor, Saleem Jan Mazari. Across Sindh province as a whole losses are estimated at more than £500m.
But another storm could be gathering. As the country struggles back to its feet much delayed elections are looming, slated for February 18. They promise to be turbulent, dirty and possibly violent.
The faultlines of Pakistan's complex power system can be seen in Kashmore, where the provinces of Sindh, Baluchistan and Punjab meet. Here, tribe counts as much as party and old rivalries lie close to the surface.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33196...
Here's a real-life *Survivor* story.
=============
Lost crew lived on pancakes for three months
Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Saturday January 5, 2008
Guardian
Eleven people stranded during a fishing trip in a remote area of Russia's Pacific coast were rescued yesterday after surviving for three months on pancakes.
State television said the "Robinzon Kruzos" had survived by cooking flour they found at a deserted military base. The team got stuck in an isolated bay on the Kamchatka peninsula in October when they had to moor because one of their motorboats was holed. Their two other craft were then swept away in a storm.
The group, which included three women, did not realise they were only 65 miles from the nearest big town. They slept at the base, gathering berries and roasting trapped hares over a fire of smashed furniture. When their teabags ran out they drank chaga, a hot drink made from fungi.
[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33196...
The good news is the energy and enthusiasm. The bad news is that there is still a LONG way to go. The worst news is that while we are being distracted with election doings, putzCo are still doing whatever they can to impose their will on us all.
I am personally glad to see that Dodd and Biden will be spending more time in DC than in campaigning, because we need to watch putzCo very carefully over the next several months.
================
Leading article: One state down, 10 months to go, and a presidency still to play for
Barack Obama is the candidate who has created the buzz, the one who appeals to the Democrats' image
Published: 05 January 2008
The Iowa caucuses have provided just as tantalising an opening to the 2008 US presidential campaign as anyone could have hoped for. And while it would be the height of folly to forecast the eventual outcome, even of the nominating process, on the basis of votes cast on one snowy evening in the Midwest, there are amuses bouches aplenty to whet the appetite for what comes next.
By any standards, the Iowa vote constituted a setback for Hillary Clinton and the chances that the United States will elect its first woman president this year. Nudged into third place by John Edwards, though by the slenderest of margins, she suddenly looks less the candidate to beat, than the candidate who has most to do. Iowa may not have been her natural political habitat, but its voters are among those she would have to win over as the Democratic Party's candidate. She can still make up the ground, but the nomination is no longer hers to lose.
The clear victory for Barack Obama, in a state that was not his natural terrain either, was seized upon by some as giving the lie to the view that white voters would never support a black candidate. Gratifying though Mr Obama's victory will be to him and his burgeoning team, however, the white Democrats who constituted the Iowa caucus electorate were never likely to present his main problem. It is white Republicans he has to win over, and – while this may seem counterintuitive – the many black Americans who do not see him as one of them.
[...]
http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading...
Hi JudyforDean! Agree wholeheartedly with your Guardian post re. Hillary.
I get Rich K's point about Hillary and Obama's accidental attributes but at the same time, I can't hold those against them.
Still wish that debates were mandatory and with a completely different format. I would LOVE to see Rich Kolker moderating a presidential debate.....Now there we'd get some serious policy wonking and depth.
We have nothing but sound bite policy discussions from all of them, really {{sigh}}.
Dahr Jamail writes truth about the *myth of sectarianism* in Iraq. Juan Cole and Riverbend have also discussed this topic.
This is not something that we see in US MSM, however.
What many horrors putzCo's illegal invasion and occupation have wrought!
==================
The myth of sectarianism
The policy is divide to rule
By DAHR JAMAIL
IF THE U.S. leaves Iraq, the violent sectarianism between the Sunni and Shia will worsen. This is what Republicans and Democrats alike will have us believe. This key piece of rhetoric is used to justify the continuance of the occupation of Iraq.
This propaganda, like others of its ilk, gains ground, substance, and reality due largely to the ignorance of those ingesting it. The snow job by the corporate media on the issue of sectarianism in Iraq has ensured that the public buys into the line that the Sunni and Shia will dice one another up into little pieces if the occupation ends.
It may be worthwhile to consider that prior to the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq there had never been open warfare between the two groups and certainly not a civil war. In terms of organization and convention, Iraqis are a tribal society and some of the largest tribes in the country comprise Sunni and Shia. Intermarriages between the two sects are not uncommon either.
Soon after arriving in Iraq in November 2003, I learned that it was considered rude and socially graceless to enquire after an individual’s sect. If in ignorance or under compulsion I did pose the question the most common answer I would receive was, “I am Muslim, and I am Iraqi.” On occasion there were more telling responses like the one I received from an older woman, “My mother is a Shia and my father a Sunni, so can you tell which half of me is which?” The accompanying smile said it all.
Large mixed neighborhoods were the norm in Baghdad. Sunni and Shia prayed in one another’s mosques. Secular Iraqis could form lifelong associations with others without overt concern about their chosen sect. How did such a well-integrated society erupt into vicious fighting, violent sectarianism, and segregated neighborhoods? How is one to explain the millions in Iraq displaced from their homes simply because they were the wrong sect in the wrong place at the wrong time?
[...]
http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/rep-se...
Also from Dahr's article ... those death squads in Iraq and their similarities to death squads in 1980s' Central America are no accident.
================
[...]
The only public mention of any of this I have seen was in Newsweek magazine on January 8, 2005. It quotes Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. secretary of defense at the time, who discussed the use of the “Salvador Option” in Iraq. It compared the strategy being planned for Iraq to the one used in Central America during the Reagan administration:
Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported “nationalist” forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.
U.S.-backed sectarian death squads have become the foremost generator of death in Iraq, even surpassing the U.S. military machine, infamous for its capacity for industrial-scale slaughter. It is no secret in Baghdad that the U.S. military would regularly cordon off pro-resistance areas like the al-Adhamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad and allow “Iraqi police” and “Iraqi army” personnel, masked in black balaclavas, through their checkpoints to carry out abductions and assassinations in the neighborhood.
Consequently, almost all of Baghdad and much of Iraq is now segregated. The flipside is that violence in the capital city has subsided somewhat of late now that the endgame of forming the death squads, that of fragmenting the population, has been mostly accomplished.
[...]
http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/rep-se...
Good morning, everybody
It's nice to wake to a brain that's had some good thoughts over night. Even nicer to see yet another thread headed by a screed from Tim. I've known Tim for over forty years, longer than some of my children who weren't even born then. So, I'm inclined to claim a share of any of his achievements. That's shallow of me, I know. But, there it is.
I just hope John Edwards appreciates Tim's efforts.
That said, I have a response ready to the second comment, as well. You see, the brain awoke with the thought that Hillary Clinton is the Michael Jackson of politics. The only difference is that Michael has talent.
Is that unfair? I don't think so. The Senator's assertion that she knows things because "I see the intelligence" is one of the scariest sentences that's been uttered lately. Not only does it immediately lead to the question whether she ever puts on her glasses and actually reads the reports being put out by people who are still looking for needles in imaginary hay stacks, but it sounds just like what she said about Iraq, one country, that was totally wrong. And now we're to believe that her information about a nebulous global network of malcontents is more accurate?
That, btw, is going to be the topic of today's letter to the editor.
Wonder how long it will take her to realize that the media script has changed. That it's no longer about the candidates; that it's about the people. Who came out in Iowa? The voters. Since the voters also happen to be the customers that the media have to win back if their enterprise is going to survive (no matter how many political ads they run, they're not going to keep the lights turned on at the networks), this new script is likely to settle in for a while.
It's the voters, stupid.
Dahr's conclusion is something that every single one of our putzCo-enabling legislators ... including Barack & Hillary ... had better read and think seriously about.
================
[...]
In the context of these facts let us now return to the big question: Will Iraq descend further into a sectarian nightmare if the occupation ends?
An indicator of how things will likely resolve themselves upon the departure of foreign troops may be drawn from the southern city of Basra. In early September, 500 British troops left one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in the heart of the city and ceased to conduct regular foot patrols. According to the British military, the overall level of violence in the city has decreased 90 percent since then.
This may or may not be a guarantee of a drop in sectarianism upon the departure of the invading armies, but it does prove that when the primary cause of the violence, sectarian strife, instability, and chaos is removed from the equation of Iraq, things are bound to improve rapidly.
Are we still going to believe that the occupation is holding Iraq together?
http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/rep-se...
We have been so distracted by political doings lately that most of the news that we hear about Iraq is how much things have *improved* there.
Sorry to say that is not the case.
===================
Saturday, January 05, 2008
3 US troops Killed;
Dulaimi May be Charged;
Najaf Raid
Iraqi parliamentarians are attempting to strip Adnan Dulaimi of his parliamentary immunity. They charge that he is complicit with terrorists. Dulaimi leads the 44-member [Sunni Arab] Iraqi Accord Front in parliament. US forces found weapons and bombs in a house next to his.
These developments came as a blow to hopes for reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites in the Iraqi government.
In an Arabic interview, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki denied that he opposed sectarian reconciliation. He said he supported the tribal levies or Awakening Councils, contrary to what had been reported. He aid he was imply concerned that some criminals might take advantage of the councils as a front for the commission of crimes.
Sawt al-Iraq reports that Sadr al-Din Qubanji, p
-
By audrey.nc on Jan 4, 2008 10:55 PM ESTHoward Dean is always first in our hearts.