Fellow recovering revolutionaries, prepare to fall off the wagon

I haven't found anything here that I can disagree with. No interventions, please. http://leftymathprof.wordpress.com/join-now/

Love thine enemies..

Here's something from Truthout that has an appropriate ring of Truth:

Martin Luther King Would Have Loved the Teabaggers, Not Called Them Racists

Friday 02 October 2009

by: Mike Elk, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

While we may not agree with the teabaggers, they are not all crazy.

A few weeks ago, I attended the teabagger protests in DC. The thing I noticed the most about the folks there was that, for the most part, they were friendly, nice, hardworking people. Sure, there were some crazies; sure, there were some racists. For the most part, though, they looked like the type of folks I grew up with in the labor movement, coming to DC to enjoy a protest and spend the rest of the weekend taking in some monuments and museums. These weren't rich suburbanites; the teabaggers I saw were mainly poor people, whose trip to DC were probably the only the vacation they would be able to afford this year.

[more at link above]

I'm not quite as lazy as I look

I haven't posted here in a long time, obviously, but here's a recent comment from me on Openleft.com. You can search there for commenter redstatepinko if you have any reason to wonder what i've been thinking.

Three hopeful themes on on which to mastu--oops I mean meditate:

1) Many people who currently answer opinion polls in a "conservative" fashion are more persuadable now than they have been for long time, for reasons that are easy to imagine. And many of them just voted for a "socialist," who we hope will be persuading them on a regular basis from his bully pulpit. This will at least move some of them closer to the center.

2) Obama and his team are not merely good message-crafters, but good temperature-takers as well, and have proven their ability focus on obtainable goals, thus avoiding the possibility of a Gingrich-style midterm ambush. Pragmatism need not be identical to "center-rightism," because...

3) ...There is every reason to believe that Obama is sincere in his dare-to-dream hopeyness. This means that he will have to be receptive to well-crafted arguments for progressive policies that are clearly in the national interest.

Do as we say, not as we do

Hey, I DO love that goddam america. It's high on the list of my six favorite countries. We ("they"?) have our hypocritical moments, however...

Ann Wright | From War to Peace - Japanese Style
http://www.truthout.org/article/from-war-peace-japanese-style
Writing for Truthout, Ann Wright discusses her experience with Japanese peace: "After World War II, Japanese men (and women) have been spared the obligation of serving in any wars. Because their Constitution (written by Americans) says war is not the Japanese national doctrine for resolving international disputes or for ensuring their national security, the Japanese people have been given 60 years of peace."

Won't get fooled again Part II

As the Republicans defend poor General Betraeus [sic!] against the moveon.org swift boaters, I suggest we watch this space for a more informed view. It seems to me that the issue is not so much that the good General is cherry-picking the facts, but that he himself was cherry-picked by the Bush administration for reasons that have more to do with loyalty than objectivity.

Yes, I am once again master of the obvious!

UPDATE! Yep, Juan Cole has once again trumped my expectations with a sobering scenario. I wish it weren't too early to drink...

And this, from Juan's favorite news source, McClatchy...

Won't get fooled again

You've seen it a million times, but no blog should be without it...

Medal of Freedom for Randy Newman...

...if only I were President, that is. An excerpt:

I'd like to say a few words
In defense of our country
Whose people aren't bad nor are they mean
Now the leaders we have
While they're the worst that we've had
Are hardly the worst this poor world has seen...

...See the whole thing on "looka," Chuck Taggart's blog, which includes an embedded video).

Read Randy's Newsweek interview here.