October 7, 2012

Never run 'Republican-lite' is the lesson I learned.

Gore ran a tepid and cautious campaign and chose known right-winger Joe Lieberman as his VP pick. That was a big reason the election was close enough to steal.

Know what the 2012 version of rw-lite is? Obama saying 'Mitt Romney & I agree on Social Security.' WTF is that? If Obama wants us 'troops' aiming our 'guns' against our Republican enemies, he needs to run as a solid populist Democrat on this issue.

Protecting Social Secrity 100% is the popular position, as woo & Hydra have already noted. It is right & proper for we Democratic constituents to demand this right now, during election season.

-app

October 7, 2012

Dangerous chemistry gone awry

Like so many persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons, the body's own metabolism cannot detoxify BPA. The next paragraph from the article begins to explain the consequences:

In new research published in the October 4 online issue of the journal PLOS ONE, two scientists at UC San Diego School of Medicine say three-dimensional modeling suggests a metabolite of BPA -- a molecule produced when BPA is metabolized or broken down by the body -- actually binds to the estrogen receptor much more strongly than BPA itself. The finding could point the way to development of a new class of drugs designed to specifically inhibit excessive estrogen activity linked to disease.

Scary stuff. And we (i.e.- society) line our food containers with this stuff, despite having known the gist of these facts since the mid-1990's at least. While the possibility of a new drug might be promising for those in need of its effects, the widespread and common use of BPA means that the whole planet is presently part of an uncontrolled drug experiment.

k&r,

-app

October 4, 2012

The deck was stacked by 'our' guy.

Honestly, wtf did Obama expect to happen with that Commission? On the 'shred-the-safety-net side,' he appointed rabid ideologues like Alan Simpson.

Meanwhile on the 'save-the-safety-net side'... Oh wait, that side was barely represented, if at all on that Commission.

Meanwhile on the 'Democratic' side, Obama appoints weaselly-little corporatists like Erskine Bowles. Erskine-goddamn-Bowles stands for no one except Morgan Stanley and Erskine Bowles (and he does the latter badly, as he has been unable to get elected to any office lately; plus his tenure at the helm of the UNC system was utterly without distinction).

The 'Debt Commission' should not even have been constituted during Obama's first year in office. But even if you think it was necessary, it should have contained at least a plurality of pro-Social Security, pro-Safety Net, pro-progressive taxation voices among the Democrats (I know it would be too much to ask to find even one Republican to fit that description). Instead, the 'Debt Commission' was stacked against us from the start. It was bad policy from the outset, so it should be no surprise that the result is some bad politics.

And before someone jumps down my throat for describing Obama as 'our' guy in the subject line ask yourself, did Obama serve the working, payroll-taxed citizenry with this Debt Commission in any way? No, no he did not. I am a Democrat, but I am not a sheep. This Debt Commission is naked robbery disguised in emperor's clothes as policy.

-app

October 4, 2012

An honorable legacy!

Back when Obama was protesting Apartheid, Cheney/Reagan/Bush41/etc. were busily trying to prop it up. The Apartheid issue is one of the first I cut my activist teeth on back in the late 1980's, along with anti-nuke work and Latin American solidarity/anti-death squad work. President Obama can be proud that he stood on the right side of history back then, and I am glad to have been a very tiny part of that movement too. My greatest hope for the President is that he can retain his moral fiber and commitment to justice during a second term, and act upon it further.

K&R

-app