I ran into an article in the New York Times this morning about the new Progressive Book Club. Initially I was skeptical. It seemed to me that it was simply the Book of the Month Club’s way of cornering yet another market of readers. However as I continued to read the article it appears that the investors behind the club don’t really believe it will make much profit at all. They are truly doing it for the good of the progressive movement.

The club will go a few steps further than the run of the mill mail order book club. There will be no mailings, it will be completely online based. It also will provide social networking on the site and encouragement to members to form their own local book clubs to share some of the books. It will also allow members to donate $2 of each book purchase to an organization chosen from a list of participating groups. Groups such as the Foundation for National Progress, which publishes Mother Jones magazine and the Wellstone Action Fund will show the book club’s banner on their sites in exchange for being included.

The publishing world itself is not overly impressed by the new club. The feeling being that readers are typically a pretty liberal group anyway. They probably don’t need a book club to encourage them.

Time will tell.

The time has come, We don’t care how.
But Hillary Rodham Clinton
Will you please GO NOW!

Your campaign is becoming
An endless charade,
So get off the trail,
Burn out now, don’t just fade.

You can read the rest at The New Haven Advocate

I personally love it. But then again, I’ve had “Clinton Fatigue” since 1998.

Posted by Carla

More and more I’m starting to think that all this hubbub over the “experience” of Hilary or the “spirit” of Obama is pointless. For the most part they are not that different. At least from the liberal perspective. Realistically when faced with getting things past Congress or the Senate they will face the same challenges. Aside from certain specifics like healthcare, (and I’m sorry Obama but yes everyone needs mandatory healthcare; when you’re 22 years old you may think you don’t need it but then you get hit by a bus and surprise, surprise you have no health coverage to get you through) their platforms are nearly identical.

Therein lies the problem or more correctly the lack of one.

We’re spending far too much money, time and sleepless nights trying to figure out who is best suited to beating the Republican candidate. While it is important, it’s not as important as we seem to think. Why? Simply put, the chances of our next president actually sitting for two terms is next to nil. It seems to me the bigger the mess left behind by the previous president, the harder it is to get it fixed in 4 years. Being the impatient crowd that we are we’ll probably kick the person out at the end of their first term anyway.

This happened here in NYC. After years of Ed Koch, we were in quite a bad state. In came Dinkins. He actually started a lot of the programs that helped put the city back on it’s feet but since they didn’t bear fruit immediately we got rid of him right away. In came Guiliani who expanded on many of those programs (such as putting cops back on the beat in crime ridden neighborhoods) and reaped all the rewards.

At the end of Nixon/Ford, Jimmy Carter didn’t have a chance. It took four years just to start climbing back out of the hole we were in so by the time Reagan was sworn in he was able to ride the wave to a seemingly robust 8 years. Bush Sr. of course had to suffer when the Reagan facade crumbled and we plunged back into a recession. Along came Clinton and we know how that was. Bush Jr. breaks it a bit but I attribute that to the whole 9/11 thing and the election weirdness. Nothing about his presidency has been predicatable.

What does this mean for you and me? Take it as a sign to not stress so much over this election. You’ll have another shot at it in 4 years anyway.

Posted by Nancy

This is how the Merriam Webster dictionary defines torture:

1a. anguish of body or mind agony b: something that causes agony or pain2: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure3: distortion or overrefinement of a meaning or an argument.

Lieberman in his eminent lack of wisdom said yesterday,”It is not like putting burning coals on people’s bodies. The person is in no real danger. The impact is psychological.”

I wonder if someone tortured waterboarded Lieberman if he would feel the same way while he was suffocating.

Whether one believes in torture as a means of obtaining information or not, let’s call a spade a spade.

He then went on ot say,”Lieberman asserted that waterboarding isn’t torture because it leaves no “permanent damage.”

Could someone please send this man a dictionary!

Posted by Loren

Last night Barack Obama made an appearance in my adopted hometown..

I’m so freakin’ jealous. Luckily, MSNBC carried it in full. And WMTV streamed it live. So I didn’t miss a minute.

ON WISCONSIN!

Posted by Carla

posted by Loren

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…they will only grow louder and more dissonant ……….. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea –

Yes. We. Can.

http://www.yeswecansong.com

Posted by Carla

I couldn’t resist posting this.

Brought to you by Loren

I’m frightened..

Scary days my fellow democrats. Scary days indeed.

And people wonder why I’m so opposed to nominating Hillary Clinton?

Posted by Carla

…that is America. I ran into this article this morning. It’s always the people who espouse the highest of moral values who end up actually being the lowest of the low.

Yes, I love Playgirl’s blog, so sue me;)

Posted by Nancy