As the story goes, sometime between 1580 BC and 1215 BC, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, then the wilderness, eventually arriving at the Mountain of God (Mount Sinai). There Yahweh hands Moses 15 10 commandments on three two tablets,  giving the Israelites their laws. It also enters into a covenant with them, by which it will give them the land of Canaan in return for their faithfulness.

Fun story, with golden idols, pieces of bread flung from clouds, and a whole bunch of parable like stories intended to scare the young uns and those weak of mind.

Well, times have changed. Now, the exodus is FROM the promised land, ie the White House.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

more below the flood:

A while back, I had an exchange with a nephew stemming from and offhand comment I had made to the effect that we need to vote out every incumbent of national office.  He responded that there were worthwhile people in the House and Senate who deserved to be reelected.  This is eminently reasonable but, on further reflection,I think it is wrong.

Please follow me below the fold for more.

I've seen a lot of talk here and elsewhere on the blogs lately about what it means to be a Progressive. Though I think of myself as being very rational and practical, it seem I always come out on the radical left fringe of these discussions, which may be a function of my being a bit older and having seen something other than post Reagan, or my being more vulnerable to nostalgia about the hopeful times of my youth, or maybe because I live outside of the US now and have a different perspective on politics in the sole remaining superpower.  Or maybe I really am just more radical in my politics than most Americans. I'm a product of a left-wing political family with many generations of hell raisers and reformers and my ideas about what's reasonable may be shaped less by what others regard as prudence.  

Recently, a division of The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Pew Center on the States, graded how each individual state government governs each state. Three governments tied for first: Virginia, Utah, and Washington State. I noticed that each of those states was won by Obama, so I did a simple analysis correlating the grades of each state with who won each state.

The results are clear: for whatever reason, voters that elect good state governments also voted for Barack Obama.

Who will Inherit the Bush Recession?
"close ties may exist also among thieves"

"Close ties may exist also among thieves...but since it is not invincible, it does not bring good fortune... Where the community of interest ceases, the holding together ceases also, and the closest friendship often changes into hate. Only when the bond is based on what is right, on steadfastness, will it remain so firm that it triumphs over everything." - "Book of Changes"

In 2004, I wrote the following column:

Wealth & Inner Truth
Keys to Good Government
by HyperLincoln
http://hyperlincoln.blogspot.com/...

In the column, I explain why and how BushWorld was going to fall apart. It has everything to do with a lack of inner truth, and how thieves eventually turn on one another.

Well, Bush and Congress are at an all-time low, and Rush Limbaugh is pulling for Hillary Clinton. Everywhere you see one or more of the colluders in corruption, you see and hear anger, back-stabbing, desperate attempts at thinking, reaction against reaction against reaction. Perhaps Robert Fripp was correct, when he said: "Let the Power fall."

MORE BELOW...

There are folks that I like to imagine drifting around us, who've gone on, the giants on whose shoulders we stand and I think about what they've said, the visions that powered them...

I've been ill, and the wretched boredom of chronic pain circles like shadows. I couldn't read, and still have trouble with too much computer time. So, I'm left to my own thoughts: horrors!:-)

Seriously, the last thing I want to have to do is occupy my own mind without a book or a blog...

But, when forced, as life will, to do something I really don't want to do, I found in it a kind of...not peace, exactly. Just a sense that there are large perspectives to this fight we have, to get to the bottom of what ails America and effect a lasting cure...

Everyone remembers former Governor of New York Mario Cuomo’s famed speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Even me (and I was 5).  In it he said:  "President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. ‘Government can't do everything,’ we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class."

The speech could have just as easily been delivered in 2007 as 1984. So as the country plunges into another Presidential election cycle, Governor Cuomo, a practitioner and one of the left’s most eloquent voices, once again asks to candidates to step back and examine their governing philosophy and the challenges the country faces, arguing that pat answers and rhetoric are insufficient to address them.

This is a diary about the situation of the Dem coalition now and what can be done to improve it moving forward
It is a difficult time, and a good time to look for lessons

There is clearly a lot of anger and frustration, coupled with a demand that the war be ended asap, which noone in the Dem party can guarantee at this point in history, regardless of what they do.
People who are on the receiving end of much of the anger may not understand why it is so personally directed.
Others may wonder why the very vehicle that many have built up as a as yet nascent conveyer of their dreams is being so disparaged.

So this anger must also point to aspects of how business is being done, how politics is being done, how the Dem coalition works internally, that can be addressed, regardless of policy and political limits being faced.
What can be learnt that can lead to the construction of a coalition that will earn stable support, even in difficult political situations?

Here's one attempt to shed some light on why there is such contention going on.

It has to do with coalitions and how coalitions can work.
How this one could work

more ...

This is a topic that I have been thinking about for a while. Okay, really it is one of those pet peeves that makes your back teeth hurt when it happens.

What the heck am I talking about? The near total abandonment of the use of the titles of elected officials. We have Hillary, Obama (both of whom have not only lost their titles of United State Senators, but a last and first name respectively), Bill Richards, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich and the list goes on and on.

In addition to the hatchet job John Solomon does on John Edwards today, a couple of days ago Solomon gave Hadassah Lieberman a pass in his story on politicans' wives working for lobbyists:

Democrats made ethics reform a major issue in last fall's congressional elections, but the ethics package the House approved earlier this month didn't address the issue and neither did the one proposed by Senate Democrats. Last week, however, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) proposed banning spouses of senators from lobbying any part of the chamber. The lone exception is for spouses who were lobbying at least one year before their husband or wife was elected.

Solomon lists a number of spouses who work for lobbying firms. The one he misses? Holy Joe's wife Hadassah, who works for Hill and Knowlton, a lobbying firm for Glaxo Smith Kline, a beneficiary of Lieberman legislation. More.

For the past three Saturdays, I've been in front of the Huntington Beach Central Library sharing information on California's Proposition 89, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act. There are many things I'd like to relate regarding that experience, but today I'll focus on one thing that really struck me.

Most people who talk to us at the table approach us with questions. Whether they are initially for or against the initiative -- or whether they know nothing about it -- we engage in a non-partisan dialogue on good government and fair elections. One thing I really like about this initiative is that there's virtually nothing a naysayer can ask me or challenge me on that doesn't have a good answer in Prop 89. To one person I finally had to say, "Look - if you believe that our politicians should pay the most attention to the organizations that give them the most money, then this proposition probably isn't for you." That's enough to get people thinking.

Introducing the first Weekly Top Ten List of Good News produced especially for my political-activist friends. I hope you enjoy (recommend?) and that you look forward to next Friday's list... geri

#1)  Wrongly-convicted of Murder, Man Freed by Law Students' Project

In 1996, Christopher Ochoa was serving a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit but today he is free and getting ready to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School -- "the same institution that rescued him from his worst nightmare."

"Ochoa, now 39, was the first person exonerated by the Wisconsin Innocence Project, a UWM law school course that investigates possible wrongful convictions. . .
APs story with photo at cnn.com

One of the biggest successes of the modern conservative movement has been the branding of "government" as inherently bad.  We all know the infamous Grover Norquist statement about shrinking government until it can be drown in a bathtub.  A major component of reframing the current political discourse involves redefining government as good.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to find the good in a government that is poorly managed, but we can discuss things that our government does well.  I'll discuss some ways the government can play a positive role in people's lives below the fold, but I'm sure others can add more in the comments.

Over on LiveJournal, there are a number of progressive communities of which I am a member.  One post in particular deserves rehashing over here at Kos.  The main theme of the post can be summed up in this exerpt:

Good government is expensive, so it's best to have as little of it as possible. That way you can afford the best. And the best should benifit those who pay for it, so the expense should be borne broadly.

The entire post and its thread can be found here.  Firewheelvortex makes some intriguing points about whether or not we are getting value for the amount of taxes we pay.

I don't know if this is as much a diary as an open question. We talk a lot about the problems with the current government. I understand that, there are a lot of problems. But what does our party stand for in a positive light?

The Columbus Dispatch, on today's editorial page, is urging Ohio voters to vote no on issues 2-5. The editorial can be viewed at http://www.columbusdispatch.com/...

I suppose this should not come as a complete surprise, as the Columbus Disgrace, er, Dispatch has traditionally been sympathetic to the Republican establishment in Ohio. But this is shameful nevertheless. Please bombard them with pro-RON LTEs!

I don't know about you, but when I hear about corruption in government, the first thing I think of is graft. Somebody pays somebody for a favor, somebody embezzles taxpayer's money. That's corruption.

It's not true, of course. By a dictionary definition, corruption is any kind of rottenness: dishonesty or an assault on integrity. On the other hand, the word itself is derived from parts meaning "to rob" and "heart." It's something that "rips the heart" out of an institution.

Which helps me understand how--David Safavian aside--George W.'s White House could be so free from the usual scandals, and yet be surely the most corrupt  administration in American history.