[First posted at Booman Tribune.] Amy Goodman and her crew at Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org) who produce the best alternative news coverage I know of, are seeking donations in cash or kind that will help them acquire needed equipment: video cameras and flat-screen monitors.

There's an ad about the video cameras on their web site, and Amy mentioned the need for monitors at the very end of her Wednesday broadcast (which I only now have listened to via podcast).

If any of you can help, please email them at mail@democracy.org, or go via the website. Even once these immediate needs are met, consider donating. I can't think of a better use for a few extra dollars.

These are great people, doing fabulous and important work. Please support them if you can.

Kos's clarification of his vision for the DailyKos got me thinking. Why am I here?

Electoral Issues
I am all in favor of electing Democrats, considering the barbaric policies of the Republicans. But I have little faith that electing Democrats will change the fundamental character of the U.S. government's interactions with the rest of the world. For a change like that, we would need a party similar to the New Democratic Party of Canada, and it's just not going to happen.

The Netroots
I am all in favor, too, of wresting control of politics and information from centralized authorities, and internet technologies are key to that progression. But is it central to my concerns? No.

Iraq
Here we get closer to the real deal for me, because analyzing the Iraq war opens up insights leading to a fundamental reevaluation of America's role in the world since 1945 (and before--but especially since 1945). And that's my agenda: opening the eyes of Americans to what their country has been doing in the name of spreading freedom and democracy, fighting communist tyrannies, and opposing terrorists.

I'm not a huge fan of the Pledge of Allegiance, but I wish George Bush were.

All he talks about is freedom. We are spreading freedom across the globe. Freedom is on the move. A free Georgia. A free Iraq. A free Afghanistan.

At home, too, George talks incessantly about freedom.

Never about justice.

Reports from several different sources indicate that Pope John Paul II used an assumed name for much of his adult life.

Investigators are still trying to ascertain exactly when JPII began using an assumed name, and why.

Some reports suggest that a dark secret in his past prompted the change, while others indicate that JPII was not the first pope to use an assumed name.

I've been hearing a lot of discouraged voices here in recent days. This diary attempts to put that discouragement in a context that may help some of us rediscover the courage to keep working.

In the fall of 1969, close to 100,000 anti-war demonstrators gathered in the Polo Grounds in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. I was 17 years old.

My friends and I were convinced that the magnitude of this demonstration, and others like it across the nation, could not be ignored by the government. Without quite admitting it to each other, or even to ourselves, we expected the war to end very quickly. How could the government continue under these circumstances?

Five years later, the last U.S. soldiers left Vietnam, but by then many of us had seen our idealism turn to cynical discouragement.

Why?...

Education is such a messy, messy subject, and such a political minefield, that it makes a good test case for the dKos community.

Since the site is professedly by and for "reform Democrats", and since slinging barbs at the right-wing can only satisfy the soul for so long, I thought it would be good to put you all to work. Money where your mouth is, and all that.

What do you guys think the Democratic Party platform should say about education?

More--much more--to follow...

Gore Vidal, in an interview at citypages.com, simply kicks ass. I hope I am half as lucid when I'm 80 years old.

Some tasters:

Well, let us say that the old American republic is well and truly dead. The institutions that we thought were eternal proved not to be. And that goes for the three departments of government, and it also goes for the Bill of Rights. So we're in uncharted territory. We're governed by public relations.

Or this:

Keep everybody frightened, tell them lies--and the bigger the lie, the more they'll believe it. There's nothing the average American now believes (because he's been told it 10,000 times a day) that is true. Now how do you undo so much disinformation? Well, you have to have truth squads at work 24 hours a day every day. And we don't have them.

More to come...

The Republicans want to end frivolous lawsuits that result in huge payouts to litigants, right?

Well, yes, but not when they themselves stand to cash the check. The Prez himself collected $2500 from a car rental company when he was Governor of Texas.

Blogger Dwight Meredith skewers George Bush, DeLay, Santorum, and Schwarznegger, all of whom have been plaintiffs claiming big bucks.

Thanks to Dan Gillmor (http://dangillmor.typepad.com/) for bringing this to my attention.

More to follow.

Bob Herbert, the exemplary columnist for the New York Times, has once again put the torture issue on the front burner.

Herbert's efforts to hold the Bush administration accountable deserve some sort of award, and the gratitude of everyone who is outraged at their own government's willingness to torture, even to murder, with apparent impunity.

Excerpt to follow.

Several times over the past weeks I have seen outstanding diaries disappear off the bottom of the page into diary oblivion. Often these have been posted by diarists who live outside the U.S. time zones, so that by the time the bulk of dKos readers are awake and clicking, the diary from overseas has been bumped off the front page.

It's also true that domestic U.S. issues garner more attention than international affairs, and diaries treating important but less sexy international issues tend to attract fewer clicks, fewer comments, and fewer recommends.

Result: we are losing a chance to discuss some really important issues.

What to do? My ideas further on...

Feeling frustrated at the American left's inability to get its message across? Wondering what the best approach is?

How about a campaign of TV ads? Print ads in all the major papers? Street demonstrations, coast-to-coast?  

Teach-ins? Campus events? A national speaking tour by a blue-ribbon panel of Bush opponents? A new cable network?

Or are you out of ideas altogether?

If so, read on to discover what some innovative Germans are doing to spread the anti-Bush message far and wide.

Not in America, anyway.

Big news about the "obscenity" (Tony Blair) of African poverty, the rich world's culpability, and what must be done about it... but barely a peep about it in the U.S. media. Nothing in the Washington Post, nothing in the LA Times; I did finally find a brief piece in the Financial Times section of the NY Times.

So I posted a dkos diary about it, here.

Result? Four comments--two of them from me!--and one recommendation.

As far as I'm concerned, that settles it:

So I flip on BBC World and there's a live press conference with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bob Geldof, etc., announcing a major initiative to actually do something about African poverty. A comprehensive approach: debt relief, eliminate trade barriers, political reform, direct aid.

When I tune in, Geldof is giving this incredible, burn-the-barn-down speech. He's clear, direct, vulgar, pissed-off, indignant, hopeful, passionate, articulate.

And there's Tony Blair, laughing and shaking his head at Geldof, who's saying things like "I don't give a fuck what it costs".

And then Geldof tells what it will cost: the price of half a stick of gum from every person in the developed countries.

And then I check the NYT, WaPo, LATimes, and...

Most Americans are not getting it. They don't know.

We need to inform them. And we won't do that on the internet, or in the newspapers.

We need to do it in the streets.

Only street demonstrations will attract the kind of TV coverage that will inform the mass of Americans about what their government is doing.

Maybe never, but....

All this Gannon/Novak/Valerie Plame business has me wondering.

What exactly are the principles involved here? Why do we all think Novak is a scumbag, whereas we would defend vigorously a reporter who did something similar in a case where the agent--or the entire agency--was involved in criminal behavior?

I think I know the answers, but it seems to me worthwhile to work them out carefully, because next week or month or year the tables may be turned. If you agree, read on.

The Globe and Mail is carrying an AP story detailing an insider's account of Bush's private meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and his staff last month.

Bottom line: If Canada doesn't join the new U.S. missile defence system, Uncle Sam may just tell the Canucks to piss off if Canada is attacked.

Of course, the missile defence system is an unproven money pit, and this whole muscle job by George is just a hold-up for financial support of a stupid program.

The insider quotes are anonymous, but boy do they ring true.

Full story re-printed below the fold.