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Occupy Oakland

Oakland has once again become the center of the Occupy movement on the West Coast. Last night was the largest confrontation with the most extreme violations of law and civil rights by both sides. Again I got close enough to the action to report but not so close that I am in jail. Over four hundred protesters and bystanders were arrested. Lots of tear gas and bean bag projectiles were fired by the renegade Oakland police and their support troops. Yes, rocks and bottles were thrown by protesters; I have already said their were violations on both sides.

But I wonder just how Yahoo News justifies this type of reporting, when all over the internet were onsite commentaries like this one. In fairness, it looks like the NYTimes basically rewrote the main stream media's press release as well. "Three police officers injured and one protester." I was three blocks away and saw over two dozen battered protesters receiving medical attention.

By the way if you want to feel the moment of conversion from a peaceful protester into a radical police hating revolutionary, read this post.
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Here There Be Dragons

Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations continue this week, in honor of the year of the dragon I offer several Chinese images along with a Welsh great lizard, only a single breastplate fantasy image and one film dragon.


Draco, voiced by Sean Connery, in Dragonheart.





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The Olde Middle

"On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans. Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S. McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea Party, Republicans risk repeating history." 
-David E. Campbell & Robert N. Putnam          
NYTimes Commentary Aug. 2011


I've been saving that quotation in my blog queue since last August. Campbell & Putnam wrote a book - American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, the New York Times commentary piece was the beginning of their promotional tour. I considered reading the book after running into a number of other promo lectures and appearances last fall but the quote above kept bothering me.

I have thought about what it was exactly and today I hit on it. They have managed in a few sentences to insult and condemn anyone who seeks to stand against the status quo of the two party system. Too far right or too far left and you just repel the moderates and damage the party for years. 

Well boys you are talking about the "moderate middle" that doesn't exist anymore. As the "middle class" fell, so did the "political middle" and the "olde middle" ain't coming back, at least not quietly and not in the hip pocket of republicrats. About the only thing "the middle" is good for anymore is for finding political apologists like Campbell & Putnam and tossing them on the scrap heap of olde political wisdom.

The game has changed gentlemen and you are still reading from the rule book of the "olde middle."
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Top Five Articles of the Recent Past

#1 - (The 1%)
"Of the 1 percenters interviewed for this article, almost all — conservatives and liberals alike — said the wealthy could and should shoulder more of the country’s financial burden, and almost all said they viewed the current system as unfair."

Groups, no matter how we define them, are not homogenous. Here is a very interesting article from NYTimes on who are the real 1% and how do they feel about all the talk and anger directed at them in the recent political conversation. A more nuanced look at the rich, how they got there and how they feel about the rest of us.


#2 - (U.S. Economy)
"For most of U.S. history, most people had a slow and steady wind at their back, a combination of economic forces that didn’t make life easy but gave many of us little pushes forward that allowed us to earn a bit more every year. Over a lifetime, it all added up to a better sort of life than the one we were born into. That wind seems to be dying for a lot of Americans. What the country will be like without it is not quite clear."

From the Atlantic 'Making It in America' a well written fact-based analysis of how the true "middle class" of the U.S. economy has been displaced and what the near and long-term future might look like for those in the declining middle.


#3 - (Obama)

This one is difficult for me. It comes via Newsweek, I seldom like anything in that glossy rag. The piece is written by Andrew Sullivan and I rarely agree with anything he says or thinks. Finally, the article defends Barack Obama and I certainly do not. However . . .

If you are a republican who loathes the president or a democrat who is completely disappointed by him, you need to read this article. Quite simply you must face the half of the article that puts forward the rebuttal of your position. If you can't rewind what Sullivan has to say then you  are simply making noise when you criticize the present administration. Now is not the time for silly slogans and softball positions, there is enough of that in the super PAC presidential olympics running all year on television. If you need some help, here is a conservative response by Joel Pollak, which deserves just as much ridicule as the original article.

This is a really telling test for you to sharpen your critique of the president and if you can't, well then maybe you just ought to vote for him in November. Or stay tuned here for the third side of the debate.


#4 - (Wall Street)
"If there was ever a news story that crystallized the moral dementia of modern Wall Street in one little vignette, this is it."

If you're not reading Matt Taibbi, you should be. He writes for Rolling Stone but his work appears everywhere on the web. This piece is a tale that clearly summarizes just what went wrong on Wall Street and how that brought us all to the brink of a global depression.

#5 - (Bizarro/Terrorism)


The Waffle House Terrorists from Esquire magazine. I swear if you can read this rather longish article and then tell me who the bad guys are or even who the whackos are; then you are a better reader, a better american and a stranger person than I. Who needs fiction when the federal government is involved?
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Kung Hii Fatt Choi

The Chinese Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the Year of the Dragon.
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It's Really Not All About Politics













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The System That Couldn't Count

We hear these same platitudes each and every election cycle.

"Voting is your civic duty!"

    "If you don't vote, don't complaint."

"Voting is our greatest right as free citizens!"

The problem is that "Your Vote Counts" are empty words if there is no one responsible enough to accurately and fairly count the votes. Once again we see, this time in Iowa, that addition is a really difficult task for some members of our society. And we seem to allow these math challenged people to run our elections.

Apparently Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucus a couple of weeks ago but Mitt Romney got the boost going into New Hampshire when the counting in Iowa went less than perfectly. Now it seems that eight precincts in Iowa have completely lost their ballots so the republican party of Iowa is calling it a draw, a tie, a non-decision. But what we really have is an admission that there was no fair and legal vote in Iowa. Voters in 8 precincts have had their "greatest right" which they exercised as their "civic duty" - well for lack of a better word - 'lost' or perhaps 'taken away' or simply 'not counted.'

After all the sound and fury, after all the campaign noize and money spewed around Iowa for over a year, they couldn't count the damn votes. OK, so it was only Iowa. But need I remind you that we had a similar problem a few years ago in Florida, which led to the supreme court picking the president.

Now I am sure my liberal friends are waiting for me to go off on the current republican campaign to restrict voter access in the November election. Yes, of course, they are doing that - it's called politics. Need I remind you that the democrats feel you need only be breathing to vote, which of course leads to voter fraud on the other side of the shaky two-party scale. Sorry partisan folks, I just don't care. Why should I? Why should you? Have you not been paying attention - the vote is not fixed by who does or doesn't get to enter the sanctuary of the polling place; the vote is fixed by who does or doesn't do the counting.

It's all about the math and who is holding the abacus in a few key states. You trust this system? Really? Ask the voters in Iowa.


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