United Nations Day: "World Piece"

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Sunday October 24, 2010 · 11:37 AM PDT

2010/10/24 · 11:37

Launched on United Nations Day, October 24, 2010, this work is a tribute, in part, to the spirit of that organization, founded in 1945 to maintain peace and foster international communication among all peoples of the world.

teresa mccollough, pianist

soothsayer99

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Wednesday September 29, 2010 · 4:02 PM PDT

2010/09/29 · 16:02

Criminal InJustice Kos every Wednesday at 6 pm CST

Sounds Of Silence
by blueness

Before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what any one knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling.

It’s too bad that Joseph Heller didn’t live to see this one.

Then again, maybe it isn’t.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that in order for a criminal defendant to invoke and enjoy the Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, s/he must first speak.

soothsayer99

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Sunday September 05, 2010 · 3:27 PM PDT

2010/09/05 · 15:27

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx & Engels (1848)

soothsayer99

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Friday August 27, 2010 · 8:02 AM PDT

2010/08/27 · 08:02

..."I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today."

Martin Luther King Jr, I Have a Dream - Address at March on Washington

soothsayer99

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Friday August 20, 2010 · 7:13 AM PDT

2010/08/20 · 07:13

Not a day passes here without some outrage over the Democratic "betrayal of the base" or "true progressives".

Not a day passes here without some vitriolic critique of President Obama and a host of elected Democratics for perceived inaction and yes action too, action that was too slow too fast too little too late.

Not a day passes here without some premature schadenfreude over the losses Democrats may suffer in Novemeber.

Not a day passes here without some needless niggling debate over the meaning of racism or sexism or heterosexism or classism.

Not a day passes here that I don't shake my head in utter amazement at some segment of this so-called "reality-based community" that is allegedly dedicated to electing "more and better Democratics".

How are the views represented here at such odds with those held by the communities I am a part of here and in real life???

And then, because I am a sociologist, there is not a day here where I do not remind myself of Daily Kos Audience Demographics and the overwhelmingly preponderance of White. Over 50. Well-off. Male.

soothsayer99

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Saturday August 07, 2010 · 5:03 PM PDT

2010/08/07 · 17:03

On Tuesday the delivery truck driver arrived early to Hartford Distributors beer warehouse. The occasion was a disciplinary hearing regarding a matter of stolen beer. His employers presented him videotaped evidence - obtained by a private invetigator they had retained - and offered the choice -- resign or be fired.

He signed the letter of resignation and retrieved his lunchbox of guns from the kitchenette. Ten white men were shot -- 8 fatally - in a matter of minutes..

After retreating to an office to await the inevitable, the driver took the time to call both 911 and his mother. His message to all parties was clear -

"You probably want to know the reason why I shot this place up. This place is a racist place. They’re treating me bad over here. And treat all other black employees bad over here, too. So I took it to my own hands and handled the problem. I wish I could have got more of the people."

An hour after his arrival, 9 victims of everyday racism lay dead.

And one of them was Omar Thorton.

soothsayer99

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Wednesday August 04, 2010 · 5:02 PM PDT

2010/08/04 · 17:02

Tonight's EcoAdvocates edition includes posts by soothsayer99 on Mustangs and Burros Remain at Risk,and rb137 on Alaskan Wolves: Preditors or Prey.

MUSTANGS AND BURROS REMAIN AT RISK
by soothsayer99

soothsayer99

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Friday July 09, 2010 · 9:07 AM PDT

2010/07/09 · 09:07

If Oscar Grant had been white, odds are he would be alive.

If Oscar Grant had been white and dead and shot in the back by law enforcement, odds are the verdict would have come closer to a sembalance of justice

But he wasn't and it didn't and so it goes on. Another day, another death, another crossing of that thin blue line that divides justice black and white.

soothsayer99

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Tuesday June 08, 2010 · 9:18 AM PDT

2010/06/08 · 09:18

title=

"In the early hours of December 3, 1984, chaos and panic broke out as a poisonous cloud, twice as heavy as air, enveloped the Indian city of Bhopal, wafting into homes, schools, temples, everywhere.....

This was the world’s worst industrial disaster: 25,000 people died while another 100,000 to 200,000 people were estimated to have crippling injuries, according to independent sources."