Obama Finds the Real Power

Here's a little screed from across the pond (The Telegraph, U.K.) which will have you ruminating -
Barack Obama finds out who really holds power
On both sides of the Atlantic, the same group of people decide who wins elections, says Janet Daley
Be sure to click on over and read it.

Chomsky On Crisis and Hope

I have read of Chomsky for many years although I have only read a few of his 100+ scholarly books. He fascinates me because I feel you really have to be on to something for the huge corporate interests to spend as much energy as they have demonizing him. He's been slyly cast to the masses as a "communist" for his freedom-advocating and egalitarian ideas.

As usual, I prefer to form my own opinions rather than buy into the pre-digested ones offered on a tray by the TV talking heads.

From Democracy Now, the War and Peace Report with Amy Goodman.

QUOTE Noam Chomsky turned eighty years old this past December. He has written over a hundred books. But despite being called "the most important intellectual alive today” by the New York Times, he is rarely heard or quoted in the mainstream media.

Today we spend the hour with Noam Chomsky. He spoke recently here in New York at an event sponsored by the Brecht Forum. More than 2,000 people packed into the Riverside Church in Harlem to hear his address. The title of his talk, “Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours.” This is Noam Chomsky. UNQUOTE
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Dreams and Creativity

This book was brought to my attention today by Rob Brezsny, and has bumped its way to the top of my long must-read list. Dream on, dear friends, dream on. Let's re-dream the world.


The Secret History Of Dreaming by Robert Moss
From Amazon.com

QUOTE What do the first major oil discovery in Kuwait, Mark Twain’s fiction, and Harriet Tubman’s success conducting slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad have in common? They were all experienced first in dreams. Dreaming is vital to the human story. It is essential to our survival and evolution, to creative endeavors in every field, and, quite simply, to getting us through our daily lives. Robert Moss traces the strands of dreams through archival records and well-known writings, weaving remarkable yet true accounts of historical figures influenced by their dreams. With eloquent prose, Moss describes beautiful Lucrecia de Leon, whose dreams were prized by powerful men in Madrid and then recorded during the Spanish Inquisition, as well as the fascinating dream correspondence between Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung. The Secret History of Dreaming addresses the central importance of dreams and imagination as secret engines in the history of all things human, from literature to quantum physics, from religion to psychology, from war to healing. UNQUOTE

Twin Cities Police Get a Head Start on Ignoring Citizen's Rights

It seems I'm not the only one eschewing politics-as-usual in favor of sanity and noticing the enthusiastic application of the local gendarmerie to ridiculously small matters. From Eric Parks over at Red State Eclectic.

QUOTE Well, the Democratic Convention is over and I'm proud to say I watched none of it. I just don't have the stomach for it and that goes for the upcoming Republican Convention as well. It' bad enough I have to pay for a private party of thieves to get together and schmooze with each other.
It seems that the police in the Twin Cities wanted to get a head start on ignoring the rights of others:
August 26, 2008: Cameras, camcorders, cell phones, computer, notebooks – even clothes and a sleeping bag – were confiscated by Minneapolis police in the name of Homeland Security Monday night, according to a trio of young artist-journalists in town to report on the RNC.
... “We kept saying we do not consent to any search,” Brathwaite said, but the officers searched their belongings anyway. The three young people were questioned separately, photographed, and released, but police refused to return their belongings. They even took the backpack and sleeping bag that held all of Brathwaite’s clothing and personal belongings for the week ahead. UNQUOTE

Law and Justice

Georg Thomas over at Red State Eclectic has an interesting post up on the people who built America, and law and justice. While Georg and I don't always see eye to eye, he makes some brilliant observations. Also while you are over there please check out the post Georg was responding to, The Emperor's New Clothes, and also their Think-Tank. There's a piece posted which I wrote on abortion, Towards A Comprehensive Pro-Life Meme (pardon the tooting of my own horn) as well as many other fine examples of American libertarian/conservative thought (and German thought; pardon me Georg!)

QUOTE The worst of all the powers that government has, if it is allowed to have it, is to spread the ignorance amongst the population as to what justice means.
If people, like the women and men who built America, but unlike our contemporaries, have a clear sense of what justice means, no government will be strong enough to break that force. America has been on the rise as long as that force was stronger than those trying to alienate it from its roots.
What worries me most is that government has made us accept the fact that we live without law, instead muddling through by calling things "politically correct" or "not politically correct". UNQUOTE

What're You Cooking, Sweetie? The Pollster is Asking...

How about this: figuring out people's politics by their menu choices

QUOTE For example, Dr Pepper is a Republican soda. Pepsi-Cola and Sprite are Democratic. So are most clear liquors, like gin and vodka, along with white wine and Evian water. Republicans skew toward brown liquors like bourbon or scotch, red wine and Fiji water.
When it comes to fried chicken, he said, Democrats prefer Popeyes and Republicans Chick-fil-A.
“Anything organic or more Whole Foods-y skews more Democratic,” Mr. Dowd said. UNQUOTE

Who knew the pollsters were rifling through our grocery store receipts, garbage and credit histories to find our preferences? And what about the Crunchy Cons and the Left Libertarians?
Do they just exist to confuse the pollsters?

A man I know works for Gallup, the bigtime polling group. He was so confused after the New Hampshire primary. "They lied to us" he kept saying. Disappointed.

Right. As if whatever some poor droning college kid wage slave in a call center asks you while you're busy helping with homework, making dinner, feeding the pets, geting ready for work etc etc is going to be answered with perfect truthful candor. Or maybe they all DID answer the pollsters truthfully, and the Diebolds were hacked.

I'm going for some free-range eggs and whole wheat toast. Can anybody tell me how I'll be voting?