The main purpose of this series is to raise awareness of Progressive Future among progressive activists, because many we canvas are with us on the issue, but haven't heard of us before. We want to encourage people to join us through the canvas, not online, because the point is to build a real-world (rather than a 'virtual') network of progressive Americans-- i.e. to take the networking offline and out onto the street corners and door to door in the neighborhoods of America.

Follow me under the fold for a brief recap, a quick update on where you can find Progressive Future canvassers in San Francisco today, and a few further thoughts!

Book Review: Ginsberg, Benjamin.  The American Lie: Government by the People and Other Political Fables.  Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007.

This, part two in a series, will analyze Benjamin Ginsberg's book The American Lie as a "cynical realist" take on the American political process, suggesting that even though it's marginally useful to be "cynical," we still must be against "bad pragmatism" and in favor of politics for the greater good even when confronted with the corrupt system we have today.

Next: either a history of bad pragmatism, or a diary on the latest bad pragmatist outrage.  There WILL be a Bad Pragmatism pt. 3.

(crossposted at Docudharma)

(Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm crossposting this here from Green Mountain Daily)

I won't belabor the point with a rambling post, but there is a point worth making. Yes, Obama's comments suggesting he is laying the groundwork for re-considering his Iraq withdrawal policy have been overstated and overblown. That's a given.

But the explosion is not simply a media fabrication. Not this time. It's psychological cause and effect in action.

I'm one of those Trusted Users who is slow on the trigger. I almost never us donuts, or zero ratings, or TRs, or HRs, or hydrates, or whatever you prefer to call them.

But I used one last week on a user who was advocating that people stay home on election day. Maybe this is what you'd call a gray area, but I considered the sentiment too hateful to the purposes of this site not to vote to hide the comment.

I believe in voting, and I believe in democracy. It's why I'm a Kossack and a Democrat. And I can't abide people who are so cynical that they would actually encourage people not to vote.

Maybe this makes me a nerd, but I think sometimes we don't take voting rights seriously enough. The right to participate in free and fair elections is something that people have fought and died for. So it's not something we should take lightly.

I'm on the road right now, so diaries will be short and comments few.  Nonetheless, I wanted to relate a conversation I had with a friend last night.

He's a brilliant man, one of the most widely-read people I've known, on subjects as diverse as the development of language to the history of the blues.  He's also infuriating.

After 2000 and 2004, he tells me, it has become obvious that the will of the people will never be allowed to become realized in America, that the corporate interests are simply running a two-party puppet show to give the masses a sense of empowerment, and that voting is akin to recycling, in that it makes the individual feel better but doesn't make much difference to the vast piles of waste.

John McCain is speaking in Buena Vista, Florida today. He is not only promoting his idea of town hall meetings (still insisting that the two candidates travel on the same plane), he is talking again about the "change" that Americans want. Something he said struck a chord with me. He said Americans are "justifiably cynical".

In these skeptical, borderline cynical days we have a tendency to overlook the reality of what has transpired before.  Sometimes scholarship outright fails us, leaving out helpful details that would guide us towards a greater understanding of the truth.  I've unearthed some interesting facts that help explain why we are where we are today.  

In these times, where we'd rather spin out the merits of our candidate and blacken the reputation of our opposition than advance a common dialogue, it's helpful to know how politics and politicians have been influenced by reforms and reform measures.  Some of these have helped and some of them arguably made the system worse.  Voter turnout is one such metric which is rather revealing.  

You belong in the box with the rest of the accused. You're not even qualified to be a juror here, much less the prosecutor. If you don't have any new evidence to present, you should sit down and shut up.

Is anybody getting the irony that the chief propaganda minister delegate is now writing about a "culture of deception"? No? Well, that's because it's not irony; it's hypocrisy, and yet more propaganda.

Sen. Clinton, and her campaign crew have, through their conduct of the primary season, taken self-interest to Olympian hieghts.

The days following the North Carolina, and Indiana primaries boded well for all democrats. Yes the Clinton folks had to suck up a bit of hard news, the writing on the wall was writ large; it's over. The Obama crew exhaled a huge 'aahhhhh' of relief. The major narratives of the long primary season had been told, and now only a nice ending was needed. The heroic struggle written with Obama's soaring notes of hope and aspiration could finally be meshed with the basso profundo of Hillary's grit and determination. Obama would be humble, Hillary would tame her rhetoric of divisiveness. All would be well!

Yeah..

I suspect these will not be popular sentiments in that I doubt it is widely expressed in these parts, but then I don't intend for it to be...

Do we choose one of the most dishonest, ethically corrupt, polarizing people in the political history of the nation, or a person who has pulled himself up by his own shoestrings, inspires us to be better, and has proven to be a capable, sincere, wise, bridge-builder.

Give me a break.

Come on America, come on Indiana and North Carolina, do the right thing.

Make us a better nation.  Help put us on the path to rebuilding our country according to our better angels.

Since we know what the pledged delegate outcome will be (pretty much, anyway) and the campaign has hit the point of being destructive. (Exit polling says that 60% of Clinton voters who won't vote for Obama has grown significantly since Ohio and vice versa for 40% of Obama voters) then why are the super-delegates holding out? Why not close ranks?

Here begins a series on Rochefoucauld’s Maxims in the context of the race for the Presidency. What can a thin book by a seventeenth century Frenchman teach us about modern politics? Possibly quite a lot.

In a letter to Dr. Richard Price arguing for checks and balances against abuses of power, John Adams quoted Rochefoucauld:

The ambitious deceive themselves, when they propose an end to their ambition; for that end, when attained, becomes a means.

Does Rochefoucauld shine light into the realities of power and ambition, or has he has unfairly denigrated much of what we call virtue?  Adams found the maxims meritorious enough to use them in support for his arguments about good government.  Such a concise work (504 maxims in the 1871 English translation), how could we, the denizens of a world made of sound bites and talking points, not find the Maxims well-suited to our purposes? If Rochefoucauld’s arrows of wisdom are on target, they should still hit the mark today.

Like many of you, I'm a Gen-Xer. I'm supposed be a cynical bastard, tuned out and too cool for sincerity. And for most of my life, I have been. Like most of my friends, I spent my teen and college years with three goals: 1)be in a band 2)get really high and 3)hate everything.

But gradually, over the last several years, something has been happening to me. Maybe it's a sort of late maturity--though I doubt it. I think it started to bubble up after Paul Wellstone died and Republicans stood up en masse in protest of his memorial service and elected his sleazy opponent, Norm Coleman, defeating poor Mondale, and the Swiftboaters won, and the Creation Musuemwas born, and Roberts and Alioto joined the Supreme Court, and the VP told a US Senator to go fuck himself...you get the idea.

And that thing kept bubbling and bubbling until it spilled over in a fountain of rage and fear and despair and suddenly, all the cynicism in the world won't mop it up.  And though I feel like a lameass saying it, Barack Obama and his message of hope and unity suddenly seem like the only thing in the world that can save us...

I just can’t get enough politics this election. This is not too much of a surprise, I’ve been interested since my teenage years when my dad convinced me to be a Republican. I’ve since disavowed the Republican party and find myself more aligned with the left wing thanks to George W. Bush. He’s done more for the Dems than anyone since FDR!

Anyway, what’s got me so revved up is Barack Obama. I know there is a lot of hype around the guy and I typically find myself rejecting or being cynical about this type of popular trend, but he’s got me, I’ve drank the Kool-Aid.

I sit on the sidelines in politics.  Not in my views, not in how I discuss politics with my friends and family: I'm a vocal commentator of our political times when I'm with those who value my opinion, and sometimes even with those who don't. I haven't posted a DKos diary in many, many months, greatly because I felt I had little new to offer the site that wasn't already better said by more critical thinkers, more prosaic authors. I'm a registered unaffiliated voter in NC who is very liberal on both social and international issues, but who has long been disgusted by the sly, wink-wink politics of the old-school Dems. I'll vote for them, but I don't have to like that they fall short of many of the ideals I hold dear.

No, I rail from the sidelines to my friends, my family, about the injustices, dirty practices, and radical unfairness, often driven by diaries I've read here, often supported by the endless and tireless fact checking and typically reasoned, passionate debates herein. I write LTEs, I contact my elected officials, I do the small things on the backend that you never see, and frankly, you never will. Until today, however, I had never given one cent to any politician. Ever.

I would describe myself as a very cynical person.  I don't always feel very much hope in the world.  I've been disappointed in my personal and professional life.  I hope that at least the nature of certain battles in my life change, but they just don't seem to.  I am fearful of a lot of things.  The thing that drives me is that on some level, things have to get better, because if they don't we're totally fucked.  Honestly, I have been starting to feel burned out on many things.  I have hated the Republican party for a long time.  Why?  Because of all the people that they nominated for the Presidency in 2000, they nominated Bush, who in the most polite terms can be described as obtuse.  Even if you don't think he's pure evil, he comes off as so clueless.  When faced with the prospect of $4/gallon gas, Bush has said, "Well the Dollar isn't worth what it used to be so you're really not spending that much."  I can't even tell you how angry that makes me.  McCain may have been the Republicans' best candidate, but he's following suit with Bush on everything, especially the war.  I could never vote Republican.  Certainly not for President.

....but I just discovered today that I am freakin' Pollyanna compared to some people.

Allow me to explain ...