TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME

'ASS, MEET FACE'

Michael Colby, true to form, has a few choice words to say about the undemocratic DNC and the oh-so-important Vermont bloggers who are having the time of their lives in Denver.

It’s going to be a long week if you think democracy is happening in Denver. It’s as staged as staged can possibly be. In the end, it will be nothing short of the most massive, unending documentation of nothing other than the coronation of Barack Obama that democracy has seen since – oh – the most massive, unending documentation of nothing other than the coronation of John Kerry. But America loves spectacles as much as it loves suckers. And, together, it makes a convention.

PAY BACK TIME FOR BLUE DOGS

REMEMBER, Obama voted for FISA.

JANE HAMSHER & GLENN GREENWALD were kept outside an ATT party in Denver --

"It was really the perfect symbol for how the Beltway political system functions -- those who dictate the nation's laws (the largest corporations and their lobbyists) cavorting in total secrecy with those who are elected to write those laws (members of Congress), while completely prohibiting the public from having any access to and knowledge of -- let alone involvement in -- what they are doing. And all of this was arranged by the corporation -- AT&T -- that is paying for a substantial part of the Democratic National Convention with millions upon millions of dollars, which just received an extraordinary gift of retroactive amnesty from the Congress controlled by that party, whose logo is splattered throughout the city wherever the DNC logo appears -- virtually attached to it -- all taking place next to the stadium where the Democratic presidential nominee, claiming he will cleanse the Beltway of corporate and lobbying influences, will accept the nomination on Thursday night."

WARD 6 IN BURLINGTON: EXPECT A SMOOTH RUNNING ELECTION DAY!

OWEN MULLIGAN, elected last March as the new Ward Clerk in Burlington's Ward 6, has made some changes in his oversight and running of the polling station at Edmunds Middle School.

First off, he placed an invitation in the Front Porch Forum to Ward 6 residents to become assistant election workers. Owen told me today that the response has been overwhelming. People actually want to help out on the September 9th Primary and at the General Election on November 4.

It's fairer and more democratic to have election workers from all the different political parties in Burlington. (Indeed, the workers are required to be non-partisan and, under the supervision of the ward clerk, to make sure the election process in Ward 6 runs smoothly and fairly.)

Already - in the spirit of openness and fair-play (actually it's required, too) - Owen tells me there will be a Libertarian, Burlilngton Green, Democrat, Progressive, Republican and Independent on the rota for working both days. I don't think there's ever been an effort like this on the part of a ward clerk to invite this much diversity in election workers.

And, another first: a 16 year old student will be working as an election worker! The young man wanted to help out. Owen checked with the city clerk's office and the city attorney checked the statute.

Subject: Re: age limit for election workers
The BCA can appoint a resident of a voting district who is 16 or 17 to
serve as an AEO. The youth has all the same duties as an adult AEO but
must work under the "direct supervision" of an adult election official.
See 17 VSA s. 2454 (b).

Pretty neat, huh?

There will be some good changes on the outside of the polling place. Back in 2006, Sanders and Tarrant bombarded the lawn, greenspace, and street entrances to Edmunds (and other ward polling places) with hundreds of campaign signs. It's not only unfair to other candidates, but it's a ridiculous use of paper. Plus, it creates a sea of campaign posters that just register as a a mass of campaign colors.

So this year in Ward 6 candidates will be limited to just 4 signs each in the ground outside of Edmunds. Campaign workers can hold as many signs as they want, but they'll be limited to a cordoned-off area - strictly marked and designated - to allow voter access to the path up to the entrance of the school's gym. Meet and greet the voters, but don't hinder their access and right to vote. Good idea!

NAOMI KLEIN ON OBAMA

THE REAL NEWS talks with Naomi Klein about Barack Obama --

THE AUDACITY OF A BIDEN

COUNTERPUNCH

"Change” and “hope” are not words one associates with Senator Joe Biden, a man so ripely symbolic of everything that is unchanging and hopeless about our political system that a computer simulation of the corporate-political paradigm senator in Congress would turn out “Biden” in a nano-second.

The first duty of any senator from Delaware is to do the bidding of the banks and large corporations which use the tiny state as a drop box and legal sanctuary. Biden has never failed his masters in this primary task. Find any bill that sticks it to the ordinary folk on behalf of the Money Power and you’ll likely detect Biden’s hand at work. The bankruptcy act of 2005 was just one sample. In concert with his fellow corporate serf, Senator Tom Carper, Biden blocked all efforts to hinder bankrupt corporations from fleeing from their real locations to the legal sanctuary of Delaware. Since Obama is himself a corporate serf and from day one in the US senate has been attentive to the same masters that employ Biden, the ticket is well balanced, the seesaw with Obama at one end and Biden at the other dead-level on the fulcrum of corporate capital.

PLANNING TO E-VOTE? READ THIS FIRST

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Planning to E-Vote? Read This First (ht2 Undernews)

In their rush to avoid a repeat of the controversy that plagued the 2000 presidential election, and to meet the requirements of Congress's hastily mandated 2002 Help America Vote Act, states and counties flocked to electronic voting systems they hoped would eliminate hanging chads and other flaws inherent in paper-based systems. Six years later, with another presidential election less than three months away, many e-voting systems are fraught with security glitches, and the technology has yet to prove itself as the solution voters were looking for.

Such systems could allow voters and poll workers to place multiple votes, crash the systems by loading viruses, and fake vote tallies, according to studies commissioned by the states of California and Ohio within the past year [. . .]

One of the reasons e-voting systems turned out to be such a failure is that the only people involved in checking these systems were the vendors, who wanted to sell their technology, and the local election officials, who were ill-equipped to understand the security issues. . .

And there's this WaPo article where Premier Election Solutions f/k/a Diebold (the irony of that new branding!) admits error. (ht2 Talk Left)

A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges.

All the more reason to do what Canada does: use paper and hand-counted ballots! Deb Markowitz, are you listening?

GETTIN' UPPITY

Read this McClatchy story about Barack Obama and tell me if you don't think it's inherently racist. And shame on the former Middlebury poli sci prof Eric Davis (a Vermont "media favorite"), who's quoted in the article.

OUR CRUELTY TO ZOO ANIMALS

TERENCE BLACKER The Independent on the deal to send two giant pandas from China to the Edinburgh Zoo

The deal is simple: Britain's political leaders and Royal Family have been working tirelessly to hire a couple of sensitive, endangered animals as prize money-making exhibits for Edinburgh Zoo.
---
Exploiting these luckless victims of human arrogance by presenting dysfunctional animal behaviour as if it were some kind of soap opera compounds the immorality. The idea that children are educated by gawping at miserable wild animals is an insult to the intelligence. If anything, all they learn is that it is fine to treat wild animals as a show.

The age of the zoo is over. Sensible families will keep their children away from the two luckless giant pandas who will soon be making Edinburgh their miserable home.

A SUCCESS, OF SORTS

A SUCCESS, OF SORTS:

I stopped by the local downtown Borders bookstore today, looking for the newly published paperback edition of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. The store clerk told me it was in stock and he directed me to the proper shelf. Well, it wasn't there. Lo and behold, he checked the inventory and found that all the books had been sold. "We had a run on the hardcover, too," he told me. I ordered the book.

So, I'm gazing over at a display of books ("Read These Books Before You Vote," the sign said) and found the usual Republican and Democratic crap. (Amazingly there were a lot of what-looked-like conservative books displayed; this, in a so-called "socialist" town.) I told this nice clerk man that he really should have Dennis Perrin's Savage Mules on display as a MUST READ, too. (Check out Christian Avard's HuffPost review here.) I 'splained a bit about the book's premise and he checked to see if there were any in stock (there was one copy). "I'll order more copies," he said as he clicked the appropriate screens on his computer right there in front of me. Coolio, dude! Apparently he had the authority to order the book, so I thanked him heartily.

LITA ROSA

My mother, were she still alive (she would have been 95 next month), would remember her. Lita Rosa, has died this week at age 82. She sang with the renowned Ted Heath Band

and with her smouldering looks, immaculate gowns and trademark stiletto heels, she became something of a pin-up. She signed with Decca Records and had hits with Allentown Jail and Blacksmith Bessie, both regarded as classics, but ironically her biggest success was How Much is that Doggie in the Window?, a song she hated. “I went into the studio and only sung it once and I’ve never sung it again,” she recalled. “It was rubbish.”

She was the singing voice of her native Liverpool before the Fab Four knew what a guitar was. I still have the LP album Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea my mother bought back in 1959.

"In the 50s we were called pop stars, and then we became middle-of-the-road, and now it's the end of the road." - Ms. Rosa, in a very cool 2005 BBC Radio Liverpool interview.

MYSTERIOUS WAYS

No, not the Shroud of Turin. On this August morning, it's worth giving y'all the whole post from Ten Percent

Something to brighten (at least where I am) this damp drizzly Monday, the snack food Messiah is here! Via the splendidly named Lesbian Pirate Queen blog (nevermind a blog, that’s a movie waiting to happen!)-

A Missouri woman is claiming she recently discovered a depiction of the crucifixion in her Cheetos. “I think I found Jesus on a Cheeto, as funny as that sounds,” said Kelly Ramey of High Ridge.

Ramey’s pastor, David Bennett, was not as enthusiastic about the Cheeto’s theological significance, but he thinks some good may come of it. “If people can find Jesus, somehow, in each of us like she’s found in this object, that would be a wonderful thing.” Her husband has a special name for it. “He calls him Cheesus.”

SPANGLISH

DUNGLISH (Yeah, from Dunglish - posting now, back from their summer holidays) ...

It’s not really fair to call this Spanglish, a mix of English and Spanish that makes me think of East Los Angeles, but ‘Cataglish’ (Catalan and English) sounds terrible. Anyhoo, this was spotted in Barcelona, a city that I can safely say is very easy to get around in in Spanish, Catalan, English and just plain pointing at things.

But this is just funny because the Italian is apparently good and the rest goes ‘de mal en peor’ (’from bad to worse’). The French has spelling mistakes, as it should be ‘français’ (odd, since the Catalans use the ‘ç’, as in ‘Barça’, short for ‘Barcelona’). The European French as opposed to French Canadians would argue it should be ‘nous parlons français’ (’we speak French’) as opposed to the impersonal ‘on’ (’one speaks French’), which almost looked familiar to me.

And I have a theory about the ’speak English’, which is giving an order to speak English. The Spanish, and maybe the Catalans, remove the personal pronoun in front of a verb when they speak. The idea is that when reading the verb, you know who’s talking. This is true in Spanish, but not in English, while in French it’s not allowed. Hence, the commanding tone. But my theory doesn’t work with the rest, which is why I posted this mess in the first place.

HOW CAN YOU LOSE?

HERE'S a fascinating bit of downtown Burlington history from Greg Guma's MAVERICK MEDIA. It's part of a series of posts this month, Vermont: Prelude to a Revolution (Don't miss the YouTube clip at the bottom.)

Queen City: Finding the Weak Spot

“A $52 million commercial complex will be built in Burlington during the next five years, unless residents of the City strongly resist plans now being made by City and State officials. In bits and pieces, people will be urged to pay $8 million to help business and banking interests turn the Queen City into a regional center for tourism and entertainment.” -- Public Occurrence, Spring 1976

“What’s this shit?" The mayor barked, tossing a copy of the latest Public Occurrence on his desk. He’d already confiscated a pile left near the entrance to City Hall. Thousands more were circulating all over town and across Vermont. The same “call to action” was being printed in several community newspapers.

At the bottom of the back page, below an article headlined “Stop the South End Connector!” was my name. Gordie Paquette could barely believe it. Someone working in City Hall had attacked the biggest commercial project in city history. But I wasn’t a city employee. I was a contract worker being paid by a grant, and the advisory panel didn’t care about my off-the books activities.

I’d been coordinating research on “youth needs” for a few months, using sophisticated survey tools with more than a thousand kids and staff at the various schools and social service agencies. In the process I’d built some rapport with members of the Burlington Youth Council, the panel appointed to supervise the project. It was led by Vivian Hartigan, a savvy local matron with solid city and Party roots. She didn’t trust Gordie to do much about the problems but was determined to make him try.

Access to city records netted some useful information about local projects. I read the files and copied reports, feeding information to the activists. Despite the high stakes for the city no statement had been issued about the true scope of redevelopment. The politicians and planners were hoping to sneak it through, bit by bit, worried that if the general public saw what was really going on, before the pieces were all in place, there could be some resistance. Exactly.

After examining economic and planning data, and identifying various pieces of the Master Plan, I reached the conclusion that the South End Connector, a proposed access road to link the Interstate with downtown, was the lynchpin. It was the key incentive developers wanted, and could only be built if the city won approval for spending, probably by floating local bonds, to cover its share of construction. If the road was stopped, or at least questioned and delayed, other projects might be derailed or changed.

But my thoughts went farther. Step one was to change the local debate, convincing enough people that Burlington faced a series of related crises – housing, youth, employment, traffic, and commercial development. To do that meant finding ways to legitimize dissent through various local media and organizing tactics. It would also be necessary to create more media alternatives. Public Occurrence was just the first step. Step two was to connect the dots between issues, build links between special focus groups, and create new ones to deal with issues like the Connector, mall development, and suburban sprawl. It might take years, but in the end the City would have to respond. Finally, a new citywide organization would be necessary if we were going to split the Democratic Party’s base, motivate the disenfranchised, and win political power.

In short, I devised a Five-Year Plan to overturn the local power structure. For obvious reasons I kept most of the details private. Some friends already thought I was a bit unrealistic. But I did write down and share the basic strategy with a few close associates. Persuaded by the analysis they nevertheless doubted that it would work.

My wife came straight to the point. “Who’s going to become mayor? You?” she asked. I hadn’t actually thought about running yet, focused on creating the right conditions for rebellion. But why not? Was it so outrageous? “You’re really not electable,” she added, answering her own question. “Why?” I inquired.

“You’re just not white enough.” What she meant was that Vermont, even a city like Burlington, wouldn’t accept an ethnic “outsider” as a political leader. Especially not an olive-skinned newcomer with an “exotic” name.

She had a point. I wasn’t “mainstream,” and Vermont tended to elect either born-and-bred Vermonters or professional ex-urbanites like Phil Hoff, Tom Salmon, and Richard Snelling. But I could worry about that later. The task at hand was to frame the issues, legitimize the opposition, and peel off part of the dominant power’s base.

Gordie Paquette had no idea what I was thinking. He barely knew who I was, just some consultant brought in to appease a few locals about the kids. A report would be filed and promptly forgotten, he assumed. But he wasn’t about to let someone work in his building and criticize his agenda.

I’d prepared for this moment. The consulting gig wouldn’t last beyond the summer. There wasn’t much Gordie could do beyond bluster. But I could find out something – what made him tick, what he thought about what he was doing. Basically, I could size him up. Thus, I just ignored the bluster and spoke as if we were equals, just two guys shooting the bull. People were skeptical about his plans, I explained. They didn’t understand why he was ignoring local problems and planning to roll over for commercial developers.

His defense was a shock. “I have no choice,” he complained. If he didn’t back these public improvements some of the city’s biggest local merchants were threatening to relocate to the suburbs. It was blatant commercial blackmail. Williston, a nearby “bedroom” community with Interstate access, was destined to become a commercial center; an upstate New York mall chain called Pyramid was already eyeing property. The only way to “save” the city was to improve access and make downtown more attractive to developers, chains, and tourists, he said.

Gordon Paquette was supposedly a “strong mayor,” the reputed boss of the city for more than a decade. Yet he sounded powerless, weak. Almost whining, he protested that he was really a man of the people, but the people didn’t understand the stakes. I acted sympathetic but stood my ground. Meanwhile I thought: this guy can be beaten with the right campaign.

Part Seven of Prelude to a Revolution

Next: From City Hall to the Streets

Greg added this to his post: Where we are now

Thirty Years Later: Touring Burlington

THE COPS ARE WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE...

Back in June, I wrote about Burlington:Surveillance City. GMD links to a disturbing story in the WaPo

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.

Taken together, critics in Congress and elsewhere say, the moves are intended to lock in policies for Bush's successor and to enshrine controversial post-Sept. 11 approaches that some say have fed the greatest expansion of executive authority since the Watergate era.

Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, published for public comment July 31, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases.

Criminal intelligence data starts with sources as basic as public records and the Internet, but also includes law enforcement databases, confidential and undercover sources, and active surveillance.

"If police officers no longer see themselves as engaged in protecting their communities from criminals and instead as domestic intelligence agents working on behalf of the CIA, they will be encouraged to collect more information," Michael German (an FBI agent for 16 years )policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said "It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government."

And, in my June post, BDP "community policing" means citizens becoming spies for them.

the local Burlington Police officer assigned to our area gave a run down of the usual summer house and car break ins ("keep your doors and windows locked") and encouraged the law abiding citizenry to report to BPD any questionable activity on our streets and in our neighborhood parks. Even if it turns out harmless, he told the Assembly, the police would find out what's up.[...] If the person is not doing anything wrong, he continued (I'm paraphrasing), a good citizen won't mind being asked a few questions by the officer.

RICK WARREN, MODERATE?

Jim Naughton in THE LEAD

Homophobia remains socially acceptable. You can consort with anti-gay bigots and still have snazzy friends.

FEEL LIKE A SANDWICH?

No, it's not an offer of lunch. The media report that many of us are functioning as full- or part-time unpaid caregivers, for elderly and/or disabled parents or grandparents, for children, for grandchildren whose parents are absent or temporarily or permanently unable to care for their offspring. And some of us are caring for two or more generations at a time!

The new name for baby boomers is the "sandwich generation." It's a funny term for a very serious challenge, which often brings overwhelming financial and emotional demands, guilt, burnout, and overstressed, damaged relationships.

IS IT A MOPED OR A BIKE?

RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE

There's a revolution going on in the world of the bicycle. The new electric bikes, or e-bikes, are a hit in the Netherlands with everyone from pensioners to school kids. The demand is so great, the manufacturers can't keep up, and you can wait up to six months for one.

BUT IS IT WORTH IT?

I just noticed that the price of print editon of the weekday Burlington Free Press has risen to 75 cents. With all that cash, one would hope the paper will hire a real investigative journalist. And not continue to rely on the lazy cut and paste of press releases that John Briggs gives us.

Wishlist: Sell the paper to McClatchy. We need quality journalism in Burlington.

PANDERING TO BIGOTS

Savitri Hensman has written an op-ed in the Guardian [11 August 2008]

As the Lambeth conference in Canterbury was drawing to a close, Michael Causer died. He was not an Anglican bishop, but an 18-year-old hairdresser, a popular lad described by his family as "definitely a 'people's person'. Our world will never be the same without him." He was the victim of a homophobic attack.
.....
Every decade or so, the Lambeth conference has urged bishops to champion human rights for all and enter into dialogue with the gay and lesbian community. But this has been widely ignored: blessing same-sex couples is apparently a far greater offence than allying with repressive governments to hunt them down.
....
On the Sunday when the conference ended, speakers at the International Aids Conference in Mexico highlighted the deadly impact of homophobia. Discrimination against men who have sex with men must end, the secretary general of the United Nations urged. "We need to engage them, we need to take care of them, we should not forget about them," said the director general of the World Health Organisation.

Meanwhile, at the Lambeth conference, the Archbishop of Canterbury appealed for a "covenant of faith" that would "promise to our fellow human beings the generosity God has shown us", and suggested "a Pastoral Forum to support minorities". But to him, those needing greater generosity and pastoral care were mainly Christians with strong objections to same-sex partnerships. While he is a humane man, his priorities seem strange. If Anglicans are to remain relevant, and a force for good, bishops need to listen more carefully to people like Michael Causer's family.

(Thanks to Episcopal Café for the heads-up.)