Turnaway audience, wonderful panel - an honor to be on it - and
the film itself is absolutely extrordinary, the best sum up, not only
of Phil's life and great art, but of the most meaningful era of most
or our lives, the one where people's power actually meant something.
I'm hopeful we're entering another which could match or exceed it.
The film "Phil Ochs - There But For Fortune - is now playing throughout
60 cities in the U.S., so far; here in So Cal, at Laemmle theaters.
Here are two short, but meaningful items, which can be extended;
your choice. The 3rd is not only incalculable, but incomprehensible,
outrageous and inhuman, let along unamerican. It has to be read
and remembered, as the media and the president cover it up.
Ed
Republican Pollster:
The GOP Is Jumping Off a Cliff, Chased By Tea Party "Tiger." Most
Americans -- including independents -- don't want spending cuts. The
GOP's agenda is appealing to its far-right base, not the American
mainstream.
By Steve Benen
Washington Monthly : March 3, 2011
If there's any good news for Republicans in the new NBC News/Wall Street
Journal poll, it's hiding well.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with
Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, says these results are a "cautionary
sign" for a Republican Party pursuing deep budget cuts.
He points out that the Americans who are most concerned about spending
cuts are core Republicans and Tea Party supporters, not independents and
swing voters.
"It may be hard to understand why a person might jump off a cliff, unless
you understand they're being chased by a tiger," he said. "That tiger is the
Tea Party."
Literally every day for the last few months, GOP officials have argued, ad
nauseum, that "the American people" want and expect Republicans to pursue
their far-right agenda. The public wants deep spending cuts, they say.
Voters are demanding austerity measures, they insist.
And yet, the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming -- the party's
agenda is appealing to its far-right base, not the American mainstream.
On the party's union-busting efforts, for example, a 62% majority believe
it's unacceptable to eliminate public workers' collective-bargaining rights
as way to deal with state budget deficits. Only 33% think it's acceptable.
On national priorities, most Americans believe job creation and economic
growth -- not deficit reduction -- should be policymakers' top issue.
Similarly, a 52% majority of Americans believe GOP budget tactics "go too
far" in "cutting programs and reducing federal spending."
But the results that should cause Republican leaders to break out in a
cold sweat were the ones on how Americans would like to see policymakers
reduce the deficit.
The most popular: placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who
make more than $1 million per year (81 percent said that was acceptable),
eliminating spending on earmarks (78 percent), eliminating funding for
weapons systems the Defense Department says aren't necessary (76 percent)
and eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries (74 percent).
The least popular: cutting funding for Medicaid, the federal government
health-care program for the poor (32 percent said that was acceptable);
cutting funding for Medicare, the federal government health-care program for
seniors (23 percent); cutting funding for K-12 education (22 percent); and
cutting funding for Social Security (22 percent).
In other words, the most popular ideas are the one Republicans refuse to
even consider, while the least popular ideas are Republican favorites.
GOP pollster McInturff added that the numbers should "serve as a huge
flashing yellow sign to Republicans."
Of course, Republicans aren't likely to see that huge flashing yellow sign
if they're busy running from a tiger that's chasing them off a cliff.
For the full results from the poll, click on:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_Politics/___Politics_Today_Stories_Teases/2-24-28-11.pdf.***From: "Portside Moderator" <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>Corporate 'Education Reform': A Moment of National InsanityBy Diane RavitchEducation WeekMarch 1, 2011http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/I'm beginning to think we are living in a moment of nationalinsanity. On the one hand, we hear pious exhortations abouteducation reform, endlessly uttered by our leaders in highpolitical office, corporate suites, foundations, and themedia. President Obama says we have to "out-educate" the restof the world to "win the future."Yet the reality on the ground suggests that the corporatereform movement-embraced by so many of those same leaders,including the president-will set American education back, byhow many years or decades is anyone's guess. Sometimes Ithink we are hurtling back a century or more, to the age ofthe Robber Barons and the great corporate trusts.Consider a few events of the past week:To read more, go to:http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/***From: earthactionnetwork@earthlink.netSent: Sunday, March 06, 2011 10:21 AMhttp://www.zcommunications.org/incalculable-by-kathy-kellyIncalculableBy Kathy KellyZnet: March 4th, 2011Recent polls suggest that while a majority of U.S. people disapprove of thewar in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, onlythree percent took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midtermelections. The issue of the economy weighed heavily on voters, but the warand its cost, though clear to them and clearly related to the economy intheir thinking, was a far less pressing concern. U.S. people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparentunconcern of the crews of two U.S. helicopter gunships, which attacked andkilled nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan's Kumar province,shooting them "one after another" this past Tuesday March 1st. ("Thehelicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from thehelicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hoveredover us and started shooting." (NYT 3/2/11)). Four of the boys were seven years old; three were eight, one was nine andthe oldest was twelve. "The children were gathering wood under a tree inthe mountains near a village in the district," said Noorullah Noori, amember of the local development council in Manogai district. "I myself wasinvolved in the burial," Noori said. "Yesterday we buried them." (AP, March2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, thetragedy. He has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar provincealone. Last August 26th, in the Manogai district, Afghan authoritiesaccused international forces of killing six children during an air assaulton Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said agroup of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATOaircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base."In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed," the policecommander In the Bamiyan province of Afghanistan, Zekirullah, a young Afghan friendof mine, age 15, rises at 2 a.m. several mornings each week and rides hisdonkey for six hours through the pre-dawn to reach a mountainside where hecan collect scrub brush and twigs which he loads on the donkey in baskets.Then he heads home and stacks the wood - on top of his family's home - to betaken down later and burned for heat. They don't have electrical appliancesto heat the home, and even if they did the villagers Sadly, more and more of us in America are getting used to the idea ofchild poverty - and even child labor - as our own economy sinks furtherunder the burden of our latest nine years of war, of $2 billion per week wespend creating poverty abroad that we can then emulate at home. Things aregetting bad here, but in Afghanistan, children are bombed. Their bodies arecasually dismembered and strewn by machines already lost in the horizon asthe limbs settle. They lie in pools of blood until family members real In October and again in December of 2010, our small delegation of Voicesfor Creative Nonviolence activists met with a large family living in awretched refugee camp. They had fled their homes in the San Gin district ofthe Helmand Province after a drone attack killed a mother there and her fivechildren. The woman's husband showed us photos of his children's bloodiedcorpses. His niece, Juma Gul, age 9, had survived the attack. She and Ihuddled next to each other inside a hut made of mud on a chilly December Next to Juma Gul was her brother, whose leg had been mangled in theattack. He apparently has no access to adequate medical care andexperiences constant pain. The pilot of the attacking drone, perhapscontrolling it from as far away as Creech Air Force Base here in the UnitedStates, knows nothing of this family or of the pain that he or she helpedinflict. Nor do the commanders, the people who set up the base, the peoplewho pay for it with their taxes, and the people who persist in electingcandidates intent on i But sometimes the war is like it was this past Tuesday March 1. Sometimesthe issue is right in front of us - as it was to those helicopter crews -it'sup close so there can be no mistake as to what we are doing. According tothe election polls we see the cost of war, dimly, but, as with thehelicopter crews, it doesn't affect - or prevent - our decisions.Afterwards we deplore the tragedy; we make a pretense of acknowledging thecost of war, but it is incalculable. We can't hope to count it* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence(www.vcnv.org) and has worked closely with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers(www.livewithoutwars.org)From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives--You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list,to be on our list: earthactionnetwork@earthlink.netFor more info: www.earthactionnetwork.org"We are dealing with a far more ominous threat than sickness and death. Weare dealing with the dark side of humanity -- selfishness, avarice,aggression. All this has already polluted our skies, emptied our oceans,destroyed our forests and extinguished thousands of beautiful animals. Areour children next? . It is no longer enough to vaccinate them or give themfood and water and only cure the symptoms of man's tendency to destroyeverything we hold dear. Whether it be famine in Ethiopia, excruciatingpoverty in Guatemala and Honduras, civil strife in El Salvador or ethnicmassacre in the Sudan, I saw but one glaring truth; these are not naturaldisaster but man-made tragedies for which there is only one man-madesolution - Peace."~Audrey Hepburn, April 1989, in a speech given while serving as goodwillambassador for Unicef
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