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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Act Green for Cheri Honkala for Sheriff and Ian Murphy for US Representative

Both Cheri Honkala and Ian Murphy are two very exciting candidates running on the Green Party slate. Here's the big question: can they run competitive campaigns? Both of them probably need to raise $250000* each in order to even compete at a professional level. Both of them could probably win if they raised a million dollars each but let's see if they can get to a quarter of a million first. Keep in mind that a serious third party race would be met with incredible hostility from the overtly fascist party (The Republicans) and the Republican lite party (The Democrats, excluding the courageous exception of the Wisconsin 14 and the Indiana holdouts). Gosh knows you wouldn't want a party that would actually move us away from investments in nuclear energy. Its so safe, after all.

Both face extreme hurdles but their candidacies could answer some interesting questions: can third parties win if they're adequately funded by small donors? Can a white progressive beat an African American machine pol in Philly? And can someone make a successful progressive third party run as an atheist in a republican house district? I hope the answer is yes to all of those questions but I do know that if the Green Party runs its usual underfunded campaigns then neither candidate has a shot.

So I've created Act Green ChipIn campaigns for both of their campaigns.

Here's the widget for Ian Murphy:




Here's the widget for Cheri Honkala:





Related:  Both of these campaigns have created excellent ads and excellent websites. I can't tell you how rare that is for Green Party campaigns. These are two very talented candidates. Ian Murphy is also the first candidate to ever run for a major office who has created a national story with a viral video. We'll see how well that translates to the campaigning stage.

Here's the ad by Cheri Honkala:




Here's the ad by Ian Murphy, which is funny. Kind of a John Belushi vibe with a slight dig at Palin's infinite Stupidity. I like the anger part. I just think that a campaign based on frustration with both parties can make traction, even in this district described as conservative and rural.




More Related: You can also give directly to their campaigns here and here.

More Related to the Hollywood Left, Matt Damon and other rich people appalled by the GOP lite leadership of the Washington D.C. Dem establishment: Okay, you're Matt Damon and you're mad. You're Bourne mad. You've got a magazine in your hand  and you want to kill the two party duopoly but you can only give 2500 bucks. Where or where could I, Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, indirectly support a campaign with a million dollars? An Angry Jason Bourne or Ed Begley Jr could make unlimited contributions to the Greater Good Coalition, a public interest 527. Theoretically anyway...





*There are paypal and administrative costs associated with doing this. Those costs shouldn't exceed 3 percent.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Stolen Election links and older video list

Old list of best online television links

Wikipedia, converter links, alt television

Interesting links to other search engines, video search, odd things.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Added new Twitter Feed to highlight Stories of Interest

Please check out twitter feed on right for daily news stories. I will preserve this space for longer bits of prose. I think this would be the follow me twitter link...

Saturday, March 12, 2011

World Class Toon Contrasting Military vs. Education Spending

World class toon by Tom the Dancing Bug. A riff on "when the military needs bake sales" theme. Also a direct but no doubt fair use lift of Marvel's Counter Earth/High Evolutionary mythology.
Read the whole thing at Boing Boing, who we should thank for hiring Ruben Bolling.

Friday, March 11, 2011

My cousin Leonce Gaiter's next novel: 1890's criminal/rebel band of Blacks and American Indians. Wow.

My progressive cousin's next novel, I'm not sure if he's sold it yet or if he's self publishing, looks to be outstanding.

It's called "Terror and Retribution."

It looks to be about 1890s black and american indian vigilantes waging war against the US government, at least partly. Feels like "Deadwood" meets "Avatar".

Check out the Ken Burns style promotional video.







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Saturday, March 05, 2011

Black Republican cousin can't find work and wants to crash with me. Insert karmic rant here.






 My black republican cousin--who shall go nameless because I don't want to out the guy who thought McCain/Palin was better than Obama, disappointing though he may be--is apparently having trouble finding paying work and openly bridged the possibility of crashing with me for awhile. I have mixed feelings about this as you can probably guess. On the one hand, blood trumps everything and that's just how I feel. I even housed his half brother for awhile. The same half brother who wrote me a 300 dollar check that bounced. Yet my slightly more vindictive hand thinks: "You reap what you sow" and "There must be a god of karma". I should point out that my cousin, who's a year older than me, has three strikes against him. He's black, he seems to be slightly overweight--which as someone who's slightly overweight as well I can tell you: this disqualified me from probably as many jobs as being black--and he's pushing 50. These are things that don't help in this particular job economy. 

I should also note that jobs in the private sector really aren't unionized. By not unionized, I mean its kind of hard to keep a job even if you get one. "At will" means you don't really have any rights on the job. Ever lose your temper at the job? Ever lose your temper at the job justifiably? Did you keep that job? Ever organized a union and been fired a week later? Ever had a white co worker tell you on his last day that he was working relentlessly to get you, the only black employee, fired? Ever feel that you weren't given the best leads by a boss who you were certain was playing favorites? Ever feel any real job security at an at will job? I never have. But that's for another essay titled "Why I Didn't Mind Being a 99er." And that was before the downturn. If you browse through the Craigslist listings you can see the return of just straight out rip off jobs. Jobs where you lose money by doing the work. Jobs that are clearly pyramid schemes or feature psychotic bosses or just plain bad deals. Or that offer of 7.25 an hour. How do you live on that? I feel like strangling people when I get a request to check my credit history. (Hope the EEOC does something about that...)
So I know what my cousin is up against. Yet, to return to my vindictive hand, this is the world that the Republican Party has created. It should be clear that the GOP is the party of class stratification and third world wages. Their tactics, plain to anyone who can fuckin' read, has been to sabotage the economy in the hopes that they'll make electoral gains. It worked in the midterms and it might work in 2012. Frankly, I blame the national dems for not fighting like the Wisconsin 14. That's leadership. Even if those guys lose I know they've got my back. But here's the thing: I know who my enemies are.

I've always thought that my cousin was the kind of black guy who would fight for the Confederacy and then be surprised to feel the lash upon his back. I think he's genuinely surprised that he's having a hard time finding work. But, beyond all that, beyond the God of Karma, can I forgive a guy for openly rooting for what Ted Rall once described as the most successful fascist party on the planet?
 I mean, if a foreign agent did what the republicans routinely do you would consider it an act of war. Osama Bin Laden wants to cut 1 billion dollars from Wisconsin state public education. The fiend. Jihadists want to undercut the EPA and allow industry to pump carcinogens into your air, water and food supplies. The bastards. (They also want to cut funding for cancer research. First they give you cancer and then they make sure that it kills you. Now that's evil...) Old fashioned commies are giving away our natural resources, subsidizing oil industries and allowing BP to drill for oil in the Gulf. O that darned red menace. Sissified French atheist abortionists want to lower your wages so that you can be paid like Mexicans (Actually, this is a bi partisan effort but you get the point...) and give all your money to corporate executives. Predictable really. A radical anarchist thinks public teachers, who work like dogs and I know because my mother was one, shouldn't get paid decently or have any say in their class sizes (probably so they can safely declare public education a failure.). Somebody send in the troops.

 Would you want this guy, who endorses all these things--if he does so knowingly he's evil and if he does so unknowingly he's stupid-- as a roommate? Would you want him to get back on his feet so he can quote Rush Limbaugh to you? I have to be honest I'm just not sure...Perhaps there are limits to even blood. Or as I told him: "If you need a job, you're an idiot to vote Republican.

Friday, March 04, 2011

How tax cuts morph into spending cuts

The cunning Republican plan that we can see in operation in Wisconsin: first the tax cuts. Two, now we have awful budget deficits. Three: We must stick it to the working class and demonize teachers.