Take a look through this powerful photo essay, "Why We Stand in Line to Vote."
Then, bring some snacks and water with you if you think it'll be a while at your polling location. Bring a folding chair if need be. A book or magazine. Your cameraphone. Or maybe a camcorder to document your experience.
Don't let anyone or anything keep you from voting. It's too important.
This year, and every year.
Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.
Like you, I remember 9/11 all too well. We live with its aftermath. More have died because of it.
Will love, empathy, and justice prevail in our deeds? Or will we choose to live and act from fear, hatred, and the narrowest of self-interest?
Go Read It: Richard Cohen tells us what it begat, In the Seventh Year.
Cynematic writes at P i l l o w b o o k.
(warning: graphic 9/11 images briefly shown)
Yes, we know the Republicans are having their convention, and we're watching it with great interest. It's reminding us of how much more positive and inclusive our OWN convention was last week.
We still have a LOT of material from Denver that we've yet to share with you. So we hope you'll allow us to bask a little longer in the DNC's light. We think it will be a nice counterpoint to the bile we're hearing out of St. Paul.
John McCain's supporters have argued vociferously that Barack Obama has too little foreign policy experience to be an effective President in an increasingly dangerous world. (At least, that was their argument before McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate).
I have always thought that the foreign policy argument was rather fallacious. A President is only as good as his or her team of advisors. Our last two Presidents were state Governors, elected without diplomatic experience.
The important thing to consider is who is on a candidate's advisory team.
Bill Clinton appointed Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright as his Secretaries of State and famously listened (and listened and listened) to his staff before he acted. World opinion of Clinton remained high through both his terms, even when his poll numbers suffered at home for the Lewinsky affair.
George W. Bush ignored the advice of first-term Secretary of State Colin Powell while pursuing a dangerous agenda set forth by neo-cons like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle.
We know how well that has worked: We've overloaded our military in Iraq (at the expense of the real work we have yet to do in Afghanistan, and our homeland security). We've lost support of international allies and much of our influence throughout the world, as well as the moral authority to champion human rights.
John McCain continues to support that agenda, by advocating a continuation of Bush's policies; even flip-flopping on the subject of torture. His top foreign policy adviser is lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, a former aide to Donald Rumsfeld and president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
But what agenda would Barack Obama bring to the Presidency? That was the subject of a panel I attended Thursday at the National Democratic Institute's International Leaders Forum, held the final day of the Democratic Convention.
Continue reading "DNC 08: A Look at Obama's Foreign Policy Team" »
Note, I said running mate, because Vice President? I don't think so. In fact, a month ago, Palin was dissing the VP job. And not in the "Don't pick me (PICK ME!)" way. As in the "I don't know what a VP does" way.
Sarah Palin, you and I see eye-to-eye on practically nothing. You are a woman, a mother, a working mother, your job(s) are hard. I know this, but, I feel a little bit sorry for you. You've allowed yourself to be a pawn in the Republicans' game and yet you seem like a smart person. You were chosen to pander to Hillary Clinton supporters. Let's not pussyfoot around that. You addressed those 18 million voters in your speech today. Palin, McCain, we see right through your scheme. Hillary Clinton supporters who would vote for McCain simply because he chose a female running mate don't support the issues and core values that Hillary Clinton stands for. We know that, Hillary Clinton knows that, and McCain, you best believe that that's the truth. (Not only that, I agree with Liza Sabater, your choice as VP is an insult to the far-more-qualified Republican women McCain could have picked.)
Women: we are better than this.
Trying to build up your glaring lack of experience into a curriculum vitae that comes close to Biden or Obama in 60+ days until the election? That's going to be a tall order, but I'll be watching.
When McCain goes down, and go down he will, he will say, "But at least I picked a woman." That may seem like a positive but it isn't. You'll be a scapegoat. The fall girl, if you will. And then it's back to moose burgers and ice fishing for you.
—Stefania Pomponi Butler is delighted with McCain's choice for VP. Oh yes, she is.
Looks like Obama's picked his VP. Will our text messages tomorrow confirm it? We'll see.
Truth be told, I was kinda hoping it would be him.
UPDATE: All MSM outlets are confirming that it's Obama-Biden '08. But guess what? No one got a text message in advance of the media scoop, and that really bites, Obama campaign. Yeah, I'm talking to you. You blew it.
Standard text messaging rates applied to me confirming my zipcode and will apply when I receive your "old news" text tomorrow morning. What a boondoggle. I feel a little used.
—Stefania Pomponi Butler
Dear Senator Obama,
Hopefully you're eating much plate lunch while on vacation in Hawaii, and the lifeguard at Sandy Beach isn't calling out your bodysurfing skills (or lack thereof) by shouting in your general direction, "No can swim, stay onna sand!" (Not that I've been called out like that before, ahem.)
Maybe you've had a chance to relax with family and watch the amazing opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
I have difficulty deciding if Senator McCain is simply out to lunch much of the time (dithery) or if the "Slightly Fuzzy Gramps McCain" persona is part of a super-subtle Jedi mind-trick designed to get your defenses down so you believe he's really a space-case BUT he's instead crazy like a fox (slithery).
Evidence for dithery:
Hmmm. Can't keep Sunni and Shia straight. A wee tiny bit confustabulated, Senator McCain? Straight-to-Hell Talk Express went off the rails?
It's one thing for the American people to be confused. Another for the people who are supposed to be paying attention and deciding policy to be confused. I think I've had enough of the current commander-in-chief's inattention to detail and denial, how about you?
Evidence for slithery:
In this case, McCain's deception about the timeline (the "Anbar Awakening" came before Bush's so-called "surge") of events in Iraq was aided and abetted by shady editing at CBS.
I'd call this covering up of McCain's flat-out wrongness Man-Crushing on McCain, but what's Katie Couric's excuse? She's a woman--so hardly man-crushing on McCain-- and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, the report that disseminated McCain's falsehoods. WTF? Since when does a major mainstream media news organization OPENLY cover for a candidate's errors? (CouricandCo@cbs.com) At least Keith Olbermann's paying attention and taking names.
Most people don't care or don't know what distinguishes Sunni from Shia or what the "Anbar Awakening" is or when it happened--September 2006, according to President Bush himself. But can we afford that indifference when it matters every bit to the Americans serving overseas?
H/T to RogerEaton's DailyKos diary.
Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.
Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice and former CIA officer Bruce Reidel launched a conference call today to address the failure of the Bush administration's approach toward Pakistan and the recently reported safe haven that exists in the country for Al Qaida.
The article on the existing Pakistan bases appeared today in the New York Times and tells of the rising number of Al Qaida operatives being trained in the region:
"Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States. Officials say the new camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001. However, despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one retired C.I.A. officer estimated that the makeshift training compounds now have as many as 2,000 local and foreign militants, up from several hundred three years ago," the article states.
During the call, Rice and Reidel said Sen. Obama, as president would focus on a multi-layered economic approach that could possibly draw in help from NATO to defeat the Al Qaida presence in Pakistan.
Rice was clear to pinpoint John McCain's support of the Bush policies toward the region and called McCain's support "poor judgement."
"We have 5 times the troop levels we have in Afghanistan in Iraq, yet John McCain wants to keep our troops in Iraq indefinitely," said Rice.
She added that by demonstrating economic assistance to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the U.S. would be "in a better position to leverage comparable contributions from NATO."
"The heart of the terrorist threat has always been in Afganistan and Pakistan border," Reidel said.
However, there appeared some defense from Rice and Reidel on comments Obama made last summer on "actionable intelligence" and when and if he, as president would act to make a strike on Al Qaida targets in Pakistan with or without the permission of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Rice called Obama's words "a new approach" and highlighted that he was the only candidate at the time to make such a statement on U.S. policy. Rice added that Obama's plan includes a commitment to an additional 2 combat brigades in Pakistan.
Rice and Reidel responded to a reporter's question on whether or not the NY Times article itself in their opinion constituted "actionable intelligence". Both disagreed.
"It's not the kind of intelligence that tells you where you can drop a bomb," responded Reidel. Rice responded to the question saying, "actionable intelligence is widely understood to mean time and place specific."
-Christine Modern English
You may not have seen much coverage of this topic in the mainstream press. MSNBC.com reprinted an AP article about it, but the small-type headline I saw this morning was hard to notice next to all the flood coverage. And the basketball coverage. And the speculation on Michelle Obama's supposed media makeover. CNN.com posted this more in-depth article, but the headline was only up above the fold for a few hours; it currently seems to have lost out to the headlines, "Victoria's Secret Sued for Thong Injury" and "Naked Frat Boys Run Wild in Street." (I'm serious.)
Physicians for Human Rights just released a new report called Broken Laws, Broken Lives. In it, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization details its findings from a study of eleven former detainees from United States Government prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. The ex-detainees, all volunteers, were intensively evaluated by physicians and psychiatric experts over the course of two days; in two cases, medical records were available for the study subjects and were also thoroughly examined.
The report states, "Using internationally accepted standards, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) conducted medical evaluations of the former detainees to document the severe, long-term physical and psychological consequences that have resulted from the torture and ill treatment." The study found that "[a]ll of the former detainees evaluated by PHR reported having been subjected to multiple forms of torture or ill-treatment that often occurred in combination over a long period of time," and the report notes, "The evaluations provide evidence of violation of criminal laws prohibiting torture and of the commission of war crimes by US personnel."
None of the detainees who participated in the study were ever officially charged with any crime, nor were they given any explanation for their detention. All have been released from prison, which would seem to indicate the government must not have been able to prove them responsible for any serious wrongdoing.
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