From the Folks Who Brought You "Gore Is a Liar"....

Be extremely careful about anything that the corporate media says or does about any Democratic presidential candidate. Seriously. If you do not believe me, go read the Rolling Stone piece about the Press V. Al Gore. Remember, Kerry Was a Waffler, NBC beat the Drums of War for Iraq, and we had 24-7 panty sniffing when Clinton was president. Oh, and "America Held Hostage" during Carter.

The Heaven and Hell of Colonialism or the Dangers of Economy First, Women and Children Last

For many in the third world, western Europe---Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain seems like heaven compared to the places where they were born and live. The irony is that some of these hellish places are the hellholes which they are because Western Europe and later the United States continue to enrich themselves by plundering the resources of their colonies. Yes, the little Colony that could, the U.S. has become a colonial superpower itself. Go figure. Apparently the right to life, liberty and happiness--and property rights---only applied to white men who could trace their ancestry to Europe.

One hundred twenty-five years ago, the so called Plains Wars ended when the U.S. stole yet another chunk of Lakota territory, slashed rations for the Lakota on the reservations, then turned around and outlawed the Ghost Dance by which the Natives hoped to reclaim their land, their buffalo herds and their freedom. One hundred-twenty-five years ago, Tatanka Iyotake (aka Sitting Bull) was murdered and then Spotted Elk and 300 his followers were killed as they attempted to surrender. The dead at Wounded Knee included woman and children who were chased down and murdered up to two miles from the initial battle site, giving the lie to the soldiers' claim that they fought in self defense.




Wounded Knee was no accident. It was an object lesson. Indian Agents across the west then advised their own Natives to settle down---with the implied threat that what happened at Wounded Knee could happen to them. It was Colonialism's last stand in the United States. After that, our government was careful to maintain at least a semblance of fair play when depriving Americans of their land and lives. Abroad, anything still went and no excess was too excessive, especially if we could claim that we were fighting the scourge of communism. Hey, the South China Sea was full of oil and gas.



Ironically, colonialism abroad helped the poor, downtrodden workers of Western Europe to improve their own lot. When dock owners in London decided to cut the already pitifully poor wages which they paid to day laborers for unloading cargo, the laborers balked. And 100,000 stevedores, firemen and other workers balked with them. They staged the Great Dock Strike of 1889. One year before, the women who worked making matches at Bryant and May in London staged the first ever successful strike as the public realized that British women were working in conditions akin to slavery. The Great Dock Strike was much bigger. The dock owners knew that hunger would eventually force the workers back to their jobs. All they had to do was wait---

And that is when colonialism turned around and bit the capitalist hand that fed it. Australian workers, no doubt remembering the poverty and tyranny that forced many of them from their home country, gathered enough money to keep the striking workers fed. The dock owners capitulated. Labor had one of its early, great victories. And today, if you are a British citizen, you have all kinds of rights and benefits, because of the efforts of those early union organizers and those early strikers and their compatriots in the colonies who made their fortunes depriving Aboriginal Natives of their land. Today, if you are a United States citizen you have all kinds of rights, privileges and advantages because we sent the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears and stole the Black Hills of Dakota when gold was discovered.

I present this slice of history from 1889 to prove a point. If you get too fixed on a single problem and a single solution to the problem, you lose sight of the big picture. London's East End workers rose from third world living conditions thanks to colonialism. That same colonialism committed cold blooded theft and semi cold blooded genocide against the Natives of North America. Colonialism abroad quickly turns to colonialism at home as the rich realize that they can use colonial tactics on their own countrymen. Once any one of us starts treating anyone anywhere in the world as expendable, the door to hell is opened and we all end up burning.



Those who say that there is only one issue that matters this election---the economy--had better think about whose economy they are referring to. The economy of the guy who lives in Detroit? The economy of the child soldier in Africa? The economy of the infant girl being exposed because she is not wanted in India? The economy of the Silicon Valley engineer? The economy of those who still languish on Reservations in our country? Because what makes one of them money may cause the other to starve to death or to die at the hands of right wing paramilitaries.



So called Women's and Children's issues---making sure that no policy is unfair to or kills any child anywhere so that someone else can have more money than he or she needs---are not merely optional. So called Women's and Children's issues are essential if we are ever to end the hopelessness that breeds war. No one anywhere will ever be able to build a tower high enough or secure a mortgage with interest low enough or accumulate a pension fat enough to protect him or her from the devastation that can happen when a single child anywhere is treated as expendable. Karma is not an esoteric concept. Karma is what happens when our own lack of love for others comes back to bite us on the ass.

If you think you can have economic security while ignoring the plight of women and children, you are delusional. But don't feel too bad. You are only parroting what your corporate masters have told you. Get your own slice of the pie, first. After you are set for life, then you can begin to do something for the_____

Welcome to hell. Enjoy your stay. Count your money. Pay no attention to that nagging little itch at the back of your mind. That's just your conscience speaking to you. No one ever suffered for not listening to their conscience.

Some People Can Not Afford to Lose the Next Presidential Election

In 2000, when some liberals sat out the election by claiming that Bush=Gore (bad math) and others voted Green as a protest and then Brother Jeb disenfranchised Black voters in Florida and the Supreme Court broke the law by voting based upon the identities in the case, it was bad for our democracy.

It was even worse for some of the most vulnerable members of our democracy.

At the time, I thought--and wrote an angry letter to Nader---in which I predicted another war for oil (We got two and an attempted coup in Venezuela!), delays in universal health care, negative action in reducing the world's dependence upon fossil fuel and global warming and a run on the bank, with the rich being allowed to plunder middle class wealth. It all came to pass, just as I and many others predicted.

2016 and here we go again. "Winning does not matter," we are told. "It is better to make a statement and lose than to support a candidate who is not liberal enough."

I am glad that so many people are doing so well that they can afford another 4 to 8 years of Bush style economics, environmental policy and war. Many of us are not doing quite so well. Some of us will probably die if we do not win the next election. These include:

The people who will lose their affordable health coverage right in the middle of treatment for their heart disease, cancer etc because the GOP Congress will not have a Democratic president to veto the bill when they get rid of the "no pre-existing clause" allowing insurers to drop policies for anyone who is sick.

The members of the military (including the National Guard and the military reserve) who will be shipped to Iran to fight another war for someone else's oil.

Children and adults with asthma who will die of pneumonia, because clean air standards will be rolled back once again in our major cities.

Everyone who lives on the coast, who will be at risk for rising waters and more violent storms like Katrina---which the GOP will exploit for social cleansing as they did in NOLA and Galveston.

Those who just barely scrape by on their Social Security and Medicare who will not get by at all when those program are "privatized" and benefits slashed to create more corporate profit.

Unions, which will see a decrease in membership as so called "right to work" laws become the rule of the land---which will cause all wages of all workers to drop.

Latinos, who will lose any chance of ever being more than underpaid, disposable citizens.

American born children of Latinos who will become the slaves of the 21st century, with no citizenship anywhere, they will be forced to work for any wage the employer sets in any condition the employer sets. And everyone else's wages will fall again.

Minorities will find that the DOJ is once against waging war on anyone who is not white.

Veterans will become sitting ducks again, easy targets for budget cuts.

Gay rights will be rolled right back to the Reagan era, when HIV was considered God's rightful curse on gays.

Women will lose their contraceptive options and end up stuck in pink collar ghetto jobs as they struggle to support children they were not prepared to have---

I am glad that some of us are doing so well that 4-8 years of another corporate fascist state won't impact our lives or our lifestyles. But some of us will not survive. Some women. Some children. Some old folks. Some immigrants. Some disabled people. Some folks really need to keep a Democrat in the White House to keep Congress in check and swing the Supreme Court back to the left and keep the military from being used as the private mercenary force of Big Business and to force the EPA and HHS and other agencies to enforce the law. Someone to follow in the footsteps of Barrack Obama, rather than the footsteps of Bush/Cheney.

Do not be like Nader, who back in 2000 declared that a Bush presidency would be good for the country, because it would mobilize the left. That is a fascist point of view which treats the most vulnerable of us as expendable. Instead, work to make sure that the GOP does not steal another election with voter intimidated, election fraud, Citizen United Money. Work to find and support the candidate who has the best chance of winning in the scary new post Citizen United election world of 2016---

If you aren't worried about your own future, do it for the women, the children, the elderly, the soldiers, the veterans, the immigrants, the unions, the gays, the minorities. They are just barely crawling out of the hole Bush/Cheney dug for them. They can not afford to lose.

A Few Modest Suggestions for Making DU's Presidential OPs More Friendly to Women

Since some may claim that they do not understand when they are denigrating women with their posts, here are some suggestions:

1) If you feel yourself tempted to call a woman candidate or political leader of either party witch, bitch, bimbo, slut, whore or cunt---DON'T.If you have a specific complaint, take a few minutes to clarify and put into words your complaint. Do not resort to sexist name calling, even if you think that "everyone" will know what you are really talking about. Everyone will know what you are talking about, and trust me, it is not something pretty. If you must use profanity, try gender neutral profanity like asshole, dirtbag, shit for brains.

2. If you feel yourself tempted to say of anyone "She is good on women and children's issues, but---" DON'T. You have just marginalized women and children who make up over half the world. If you have some specific issue for which you think the candidate deserves phrase but not elected office--for instance, helping to broker peace in Northern Ireland--say "She helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, but that does not qualify her to tackle______ at home." And then tell us which issues the candidate can not tackle at home.

3. If you feel yourself tempted to write "She only got where she is because of some man"---DON'T. Politics is an expensive and time consuming business. Every politician got ahead thanks to the help of someone else. Jack Kennedy had his dad and his dad's fortune. LBJ had Brown & Root. W. had his dad and Karl Rove. John Kerry has his wife's money---you wouldn't say "John Kerry is where he is today only because of his wife" would you?

4. If you feel yourself absolutely compelled to criticized clothing, hair or ankle width---ask yourself when was the last time you did a scathing piece about Mitch O'Connell's wardrobe malfunctions? Yes, we all talk about Boehner's fake tan and Trent Lott's atrocious rug, but that is because they are so obviously fake. Tell you what, if a female running for office puts on a pair of huge fake breasts and huge fake derrière and wears them to a public event, you have my permission to make fun of that--the same way you would if a man stuffed socks down his underwear. But do not make a political point about normal street clothes. Clothes do not make the man and they do not make the woman.

Keep these four rules in mind, and the discourse will still be heated but at least it won't offend as many women. And really, if you absolutely despise a certain female candidate, do you want to encourage all other women to rally around her just because they perceive that she is the target of a sexist attack?

"Women's and children's issues": Marginalizing Over One Half of the World

I'm gonna make this short and not so sweet. When we say that Clinton is good on "women's and children's issues" but not acceptable on other issues and therefore not a good choice for president, what does that say about the position of women and children in this country? The world? Keep in mind that "women and children" make up the majority of people everywhere. Women and children are more likely to live in poverty everywhere. Poverty and inequality start in childhood--when kids are denied education, healthcare, home, nurturing, because the "Village" does not value them. Women are universally underpaid, under represented in government, too often treated as chattel, scapegoated, brutalized----

Basically, if you say Clinton is good on "women's and children's issues" but not qualified to be president, you are saying that the needs of women and children are not important.

If we are gonna fix the world and this country, maybe we should start by fixing the way that we marginalize women and children. Maybe if we treated women and children better, we would create a better world.

ACA 2.0

Reasons we need to retake Congress in 2016 so that the Affordable Care Act can be improved:

1. To put the Affordable back in Affordable Care: Too many plans tack the whole annual out of pocket onto the start of the insurance as massive deductibles, $3000 to $5000 a person. Since these are the plans that the poorest people pick (because they are the only plans they can afford) they do not use their new insurance, except in an emergencies---and sometimes not even then. I see too many people in the office who refuse to get necessary care at the hospital. "I can't afford that $3000 deductible. You'll have to give me something for my ____ (insert stroke, heart attack, concussion) in the office or I am going home without treatment." High deductibles kill. More often, people put off necessary tests---like breast biopsies, because they do not have the cash up front to schedule "elective" procedures. Meaning when they finally get so sick that they have to bite the bullet and go to the hospital, their disease has progressed.

2. To Put the Care back in Affordable Care : Too many insurers have found a sneaky way around the "No exclusion for pre-existing conditions". They refuse to pay for necessary treatments for the most costly pre-existing conditions---in effect denying care to those who need it most. AIDs patients suddenly find that they can not get their meds. Cancer patients can not continue their chemotherapy. The same insurers make most medications available for a reasonable copayment. When insurers choose not to cover the treatments which the sickest people need, they do so in order to discourage the sickest people from signing up for their plans. For those who say "Some insurance is better than none", AIDs patients on Medicaid get good drug coverage. If we force them onto private plans that do not cover their meds, they will not be able to afford their meds.

3. To Force Red States to Act on Affordable Care: The Supreme Court found a nasty loophole. States could choose not to accept billions in federal funds earmarked for their poorest citizens. In effect, some states could decide to let their poorest citizens die---just because. The result has been the closure of rural hospitals in Red States, causing everyone, even those with insurance to be at risk for preventable death. This is a public health disaster. If the states won't take the money, then the feds need to write a new law creating a new program which is federally managed to insure the poor.

Universal health care is a work in progress. The job is not done. To make any progress, Dems will need to control both houses again.

Hugs and Kisses: Dems Got a Whole Lot of Love

GOP gets this:



We've got this:

Social Justice is the ONLY Path to Economic Prosperity for Workers in This Country

I am truly dismayed at the number of folks posting today who dismiss "social issues" as if they are extras. Gravy. A cherry on the sundae but not something that we need to be concerned about right now, when so many people are unemployed, uninsured, homeless. So many white people. So many men. So many adults.

How do you think we got into this financial mess? Why is our minimum wage so low? Why do so few people belong to unions? Why do most folks in Western Europe have health care but we don't? Why don't working mothers get maternity leave? It's because the bosses, the capitalists who employee us can undercut wages and deny benefits by hiring the scapegoat du jour. Once upon a time, it was the Irish. Then the Italians. And the Blacks. Now it is women and Latinos.

Say you are an unwed mother, 18, no college degree with a small mouth to feed. You got pregnant because the Koch Brothers lobbied to deny you sex ed and birth control. That's because the Koch Brothers want you slaving in their Dixie Cup plant until the day you die. The Koch Brothers tell the world that you are a drain on the economy. Because you could not keep your legs together, now you have a baby you can not support. They make sure than everyone hates you---and your baby--and that they feel no sympathy at all for you---and your baby---as you struggle to get by. As you make the already insanely rich Koch Brothers even richer through your labor, which they are getting for a bargain price, because you do not dare go on strike or ask for more---your baby could die!

Worse yet, the Koch Brothers tell their "responsible" employees "I'm gonna have to cut your wages, because all those unwed mother sluts will work for less." And so, the workers who should be hating the Koch Brothers end up hating the unwed slut mothers and their undeserving bastards instead. They begrudge them health care and education. And so we raise another generation of underfed, undereducated, low income low expectation workers to drive down wages for all.

If we really did act like a village, if we demanded that all children get a decent start in life, there would be no one on the bottom to be exploited. There would be no hopeless, despairing, self hating demographic to work for less than a living wage.

Anyone who thinks that a few demographic groups can rise out of this depression while leaving the rest to wallow is deluding him or herself. When some workers get left at the bottom, everyone else is pulled down.

Wanna know the real reason why right winger hate and fear Hillary Clinton? It's because Divide and Conquer is the way they keep themselves rich and us poor. Their worst nightmare is that the 99% will look around at each other and say "We're not different! We're the same. We're united. We all have value. We all have worth. I have your back and you have mine. We're a Village---one big family--- and we aren't going to be pushed around anymore."

Angela Davis writes about this issue eloquently in "Women, Race and Class."

Oh, and before anyone gets any ideas about tombstoning this thread by saying "unwed slut mothers" and "bastards" are inflammatory words, those are what the Koch Brothers call us. I call us "mothers" and "children." I mention this, because Divide and Conquer really is the capitalist's best money making tool, and they will go to any lengths to keep us divided and conquered. It is that important to them.

Clinton Not Progressive Enough? Depends Upon What You Mean By Progressive

The great challenge of this conference is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences go unnoticed, whose words go unheard. Women comprise more than half the world’s population, 70% of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write. We are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly. Yet much of the work we do is not valued -- not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.

A Valentine for Big Dog: I STILL Love You, Bill Clinton

I am good with Hillary Clinton for president, but my heart still belongs to Bill, the most intelligent man in my lifetime to be 1) president and 2) NOT a dick (as in Tricky Dick Nixon). You gotta love a man with brains and a conscience. It is such a winning combination.