Action Point with Cynthia Black 7-29-2007: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• SICKO as Protest: Healthcare-NOW: Inspired? Organize in your community.

• Commentary: The 5% Solution: Article on Voice of Arizona by yours truly about rethinking the Bush 5%'s license to steal!

• Election Protection: Scientists Hack Voting Machines Nation-wide: Breaking news.

• Local Stuff I Support: Arizona Community Media Foundation: You can never have enough competition; support community radio in Phoenix.

• National Stuff I Support: Picture New York: The city considers rule changes that would require a permit to photograph and film in public places and filmmakers and photographers protest.

• 5% Report: News Corp. Out To Crush Assets it Can't Own: If you can't own 'em, beat 'em-- 5%'er Murdoch takes aim.

Scientists Confirm England's Downpours Result of Global "Warming"

Not much more for me to say then, oh, well, when are we going to do something about global HEATING (not "warming", please):

England under water: scientists confirm global warming link to increased rain> This Britain: "It's official: the heavier rainfall in Britain is being caused by climate change, a major new scientific study will reveal this week, as the country reels from summer downpours of unprecedented ferocity."

British Prime Minister Drops Phrase 'War on Terror'

Oh, sweet sanity. When will it reach our shores?

New British Prime Minister Brown drops 'war on terror,' redefining the fight - International Herald Tribune: "What had just been narrowly averted, he said, was not a new jihadist act of war but instead a criminal act. As if to underscore the point, Brown instructed his ministers that the phrase 'war on terror' was no longer to be used and, indeed, that officials were no longer even to employ the word 'Muslim' in connection with the terrorism crisis."

I feel a wave of relief. Finally. Could world leaders possibly be ready to quit Bush's Crusade?

Action Point with Cynthia Black 7-22-2007: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links

• Framing: O'Reilly Hyped 9/11 Conspiracy Book on Air and how that makes a difference to elections from Jeffrey Feldman

• Inspiration: Abraham Epstein: How a fiery immigrant Russian Jew managed to influence the high and mighty, including FDR himself.

• PUSHBACK: New angles on Fixing Health Care: Not Government vs. Market and The Conservative Nanny State from guest economist Dean Baker.

• Election Protection:
  

CLEAN ELECTIONS
PUBLIC CAMPAIGN ACTION FUND

BRAD FRIEDMAN
HOLT HR 811 AND FEINSTEIN S 1487 VS THE US VOTER

THERESA HOMMEL
PROBLEMS WITH FEINSTEIN'S BILL S1487

ALTERNET
Bush Government to Poor Voters: We Don't Want You to Vote

Action Point with Cynthia Black 7-15-2007: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• SICKO as Protest: Michael Moore on CNN. Video: CNN report on SICKO and Mike's response.

• Commentary: The Protest Movie SICKO and Mo(o)re: Article by yours truly on SICKO and more at Voice of Arizona.com
  

• PUSHBACK: What Kind of People Are We? SICKO viewer's AZ Republic letter to the editor.

• Election Protection: Connecting the Dots. Rebecca Mercuri's article on HOLT HR811 and Avanti.

• Protest Protection: An Urgent Appeal on Behalf of Carol Fisher. The Free Press online update on Cleveland woman jailed for protest activities.

• Follow the Money: Where the Money Leads. Media Transparency follows the money fueling the right-wing movement, to show how conservative philanthropies, through their tax-exempt funding strategies, shape public discourse.

The Protest Movie "SICKO" and Mo(o)re!

Michael Moore, regardless of subject (but let's take managed health care and SICKO for example) pushes back on American fascist politics. Even if there were no reasons other then his current willingness to lambaste the media and his documentary work as examples of powerful media protest, I would say he is a national treasure and we need all the examples of single individuals committed to personal political responsibility --for the good of working people-- that we can get!

One thing that Moore's work should not be used to inspire is an attempt to redirect American protest into a third political party.

At the launch of SICKO, the Green party sent Mike this letter. The letter's lead point (emphasis mine) “ ...we're not going to get a national health plan as long as the political landscape remains limited to two parties addicted to corporate contributions,” is spot on-- except for the qualifier “...limited to two parties.” Creating third-party competition as a push-back mechanism to stop corporate influence on politicians --a very compelling argument –presumes political parties and not the individual people of which parties are comprised control lawmakers in this country. That premise is wrong for a strong democracy.

Think about this: Want to stop a massive pro-business immigration bill that even the current imperial president desperately wants? You don't need a political party. ACCEPT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTEST and just do it!

That's what right-wing radio “hawk” show hosts—all three of them and their impersonators --recently did on the issue of immigration reform. Their ten-to-one market dominance over all other voices makes them radio's “main stream” media and gives them access to millions of listeners. Providing awareness of an immigration policy (spun as it was) and which they did not like-- combined with a leadership-style call to action to destroy that policy -- led angry security-panicked listeners to flood state and federal politicians' offices with threats of future election retaliation should that representative be associated with passage of the bill. 51% of Americans polled on support for the bill said they didn't have enough information to form an opinion, yet the 16% who were against it created protest enough for a crushing defeat.

There was no time to create the mechanism of a third party challenge, nor was there a need. Instead, the irresistible force of citizen anger met the immovable object of bad legislation and like it or not, The People Prevailed. On issues of health care, the imperial presidency and so much more, I believe that you can too.

Join me this Sunday on Action Point, noon to 2PM, 1480 KPHX. Let's talk about your reaction to SICKO and hear what author Drew Weston is advising Democrats do to recover the emotional influence of their ideas in politics. We'll talk about protest options in the form of impeachment and more --the how-to part YOU control for taking your democracy back!

Compact Action: In with the Old (part.2)

Cynthia let's me share with you our family's effort's to live without buying anything new as part of a group called "The Compact." In the face of ongoing revelations about the abject criminality of the current administration, it sometimes seems like wasted effort. What we get out of it is community, a divorce from advertising, and a heightened awareness of consumerism’s grasp. Along the way, we save a little carbon and a lot of sanity by making due instead of chasing new.

As a compacter, you spend a lot of time looking for things used. It doesn't add up to as much time as we shopped before, but the quest for used items requires effort. Bay Area flea markets provided most of the household goods we needed. As people discarded last year's model, we were right there to scoop it up. It has been hard replacing that resource.

It was a quirk I hadn't counted on. A flea market here in Missouri isn't the same as a flea market in California, or even my childhood home of Tennessee. Around here, the outdoor gathering of sellers I think of as a flea market is called a swap meet. The flea markets are antique malls where you can rent space by the booth. They are useful for a compacter, we got some shelves for our daughter's room at one, but not quite what I'm looking for.

It is a local linguistic quirk that changes right at the border apparently. In Collinsville, Il, just across from St. Louis, flea markets revert to what I'm used to. We haven't found a good one yet so we lean heavily on thrifts and garage sales.

One Missouri perk has been the trend of city-wide yard sales. From Neosho to Bolivar, you can find one every weekend in spring. This amounts to dozens of easy to find smaller sales and has been a great resource for kids clothes, tools, and household items.

Thrift stores have been a disappointment. In the high-living bay area, space and fashion meant the thrift stores were full of new and barely used items. Here, good old hillbilly thrift sees to it that items get used until they are threadbare.

Overall, this means we've had to adjust some of our buying. We remain largely on the path, blithely throwing out the circulars from Wal-Mart and Target unread. As I told a friend here, I don’t care how cheap the prices are, the cost is too high. Next week, we'll look at a major Missouri development toward sustainability that will soon be heard about nationwide.

Defending the Freedoms of July 4, 1776: America's Hope for the World

The entire post from election integrity "super-attorney" Paul Lehto, from which this is excerpted, is long but well-worth the read...

You gotta stand for something,

Or you’re gonna fall, for anything.

--John Cougar Mellencamp

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.

--Tom Van Meurs

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

–William Somerset Maugham

All Power, Freedom, and Democracy comes from rights. Starting on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence changed forever how the world thinks of rights, and thereby became one of the most important political documents in the history of the world.

The Declaration of Independence especially was intended not just for Americans, it was declared for the benefit of all of humanity. Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Our cause is the cause of all mankind, and…we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.”

The American Declaration of Independence boldly declared Independence from King George III as a matter of inalienable human rights, and rejected kingly tyranny under claim of divine right. By shifting the idea of who holds rights away from the king, the government and the British East India Corporation and instead in favor of the human beings in We the People, it was as though the Founders had diverted a Nile River of rights. Instead of the blessings of the Creator fertilizing the king’s divine rule, the Founders declared that all people were born with rights, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and created “self-government” by We the People.