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The month May, named for the Greek goddess Maia, Eldest of the seven Pleiades, is the month of promise. May begins on Beltane in the northern hemisphere and Samhain in the southern hemisphere. It is the month of union, in so many ways... In 1707, May 1 marked creation of Great Britain, formed from a union between England and Scotland. Nearly 300 years later (2004), eight former Communist nations and two Mediterranean countries joined the European Union (EU) marking its largest-ever expansion.
An American pilot demonstrated just how small the world was becoming, when in 1927 Charles Lindbergh made a 33-hour flight between the United States and France, uniting the world in wonder at the achievement. But, it was over the Soviet Union, in 1960, that U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was shot down. The incident, however, scotched a summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Russia's Premier Nikita Khrushchev. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law in May. The bill had passed the House 288–95, after being amended and passed by the Senate 71–18. Sadly, though, May was the month when Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy. Her crime? Cross dressing!
Which begs the question: Have we progressed very far since 1431?
A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.
Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God. -Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (2 May 1903-1998)
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete. R. Buckminster Fuller
I explained why I was changing my vote in the Oregon primary from Bernie to Hillary in a piece, they call them diaries, on Daily Kos…. and it generated over 500 comments and still going up what wth 66 shares on Facebook….
Some of the comments just attack me, mostly for being a newbie just out for clicks, others agree or disagree with varying degrees of thoughtful analysis for “did they even read what I wrote” to worthy of an essay in their own right.
Hillary needs the Bernie progressives to win the general election. Once president, she doesn’t need a lot of disgruntled Bernie supporters attacking her.
On the contrary WE need Bernie's supporters to apply a flamethrower to her feet to ensure that she does not hew to the right, to the Third Way, to the dictates of the DLC and her corporate masters.
It's a fact that she will face blistering opposition from the GOP in Congress. No honeymoon, no compromise. The last thing a Hillary administration can afford to do is alienate her own party, and here's the clincher:
Bernie, win or lose, HAS changed the face of liberalism and of politics in general. He has now promised to do his part "to keep the GOP from winning" if he loses the nomination but he and Jane have also promised to take the movement permanent.
(And NO, he is NOT running third party)
Bernie Sanders will return to Congress with his head held high and most likely with a lot more political capital, and only a fool would waste an opportunity to spend that.
I do not hate the Clintons. They saved my son's life, literally. Without their early work on childhood health care, Daryl never would have gotten the three open heart surgeries he endured before age five. So...I don't hate Hillary. But she is obligated to serve the oligarchy and that is the last thing we need today, so we need a Bernie Sanders movement to ensure that she doesn't move the party (and the country) even further to the right.
Nomination or no nomination, election victory or no election victory, Bernie Sanders has already won. And his support for Hillary is not unconditional, nor should it ever be.
And those who are working down-ticket, this is your final notice. You serve the establishment at your own risk. Regardless of who takes the White House in November, some 400 of you are at risk of losing your seats.
There are already a good many "Bernie Democrats" running for office down-ticket. This is about way more than electing a president.
I intend to continue supporting Mr. Sanders as long as I can perceive a chance. Primary season is not over yet. Once I see the California results, if they are not favorable to him, then I may have to consider all options.
But that won't change my overall mission to do whatever I can to swing this country at least back to a center, if not center left once again. Forty years of a tack to the right has damaged everything this country is supposed to stand for, and has stood for.
Enough.
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Jeff, you express my sentiments quite well. In the 1960s, the Republican party started the nation down a path that would inexorably lead to disaster. I thought, at the time, that Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was the right thing to do to heal the country, but history has proven me wrong. Ronald Reagan used that pardon as an excuse to push his party -and consequently, the nation - so far to the right it couldn't recognize itself (people forget that he ran against Ford in 1976 and almost "primaried" the sitting president). The corruption of the "Reagan revolution" was legendary, and the same cronies and ideologues infested the Bush administrations (and all those unqualified litmus-tested radical judicial appointees!).
All of those choices have come home to roost. Obama's election was far more profound than is given credence in the press. The "youth vote" he inspired is now the core of the Democratic party. Sanders would not be a candidate but for the foundation Obama laid. Like the Obama voters of 2008, his coalition will become the energy that drives Democratic politics for the next generation.
Make no mistake, though: Just like Roosevelt changed the complexion of the Democratic party for a generation, as the reforms and programs of his terms became "the establishment" in the 50s and 60s, but were riven by internal strife in the 60s and 70s, eventually that core will begin to fragment. We've got maybe 16 years to put this stamp on the country before the next revolution occurs. We'll need to make great progress until then.
A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.
Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich
...I was one for four regular columnists writing once a week for the little website Capital Hill Blue where I generally had a few thousands readers per essay...
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