Owner: MP3--My Politics and Progressive Perspective URL:http://hankedson.squarespace.com Join Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:48:31 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This blog is devoted to improving the health of our democratic culture through the development of a more sophisticated progressive worldview and a more active response to the authoritarian and anti-democratic alliance of interests that have taken our nati Site statistics:Click here
Political Process Integrity 2007-12-01 03:18:17 Oprah Good; Pundits Bad By Hank Edson With the writer’s strike in play, the nation has been badly missing its nightly dose of John Stewart, especially when it comes to those clips showing a series of one pundit after another banally repeating the same talking points with overwrought intensity. What has particularly been driving me crazy these past few days is hearing over and over again one pundit after another saying they don’t think Oprah Winfrey will have that much impact on the presidential campaign and that she might be getting in over her head. What the pundits don’t get about Oprah is that she is like MoveOn.org and Ross Perot: She is an available high capacity vehicle for the people’s political energy in a time when the political process is completely clogged up by corruption and our government is utterly dysfunctional. It’s not about Oprah’s impact. And she doesn’t have to pass any “gotcha” question test. All Oprah has to d Read more:Integrity
, Process
Impeach Bush and Cheney Now! 2007-12-05 22:23:10 The Neo-Con Foreign Policy of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Yet Again: Why We Must Impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney
By Hank Edson A Time for Humble PieOn Tuesday, President Bush reported to the nation and the world that a recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that four years ago Iran had stopped its covert program aimed at developing nuclear weapons. To many sober minds, this news would be cause not only for a little celebration, but also a little humble pie. After all, over the past several months, the President and other senior members of his administration have depicted Iran over the last several months as bent upon acquiring nuclear weapons. As recently as October, President Bush said in a press conference, “ I think so long -- until they suspend and/or make it clear that they -- that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge,
Corporate High Crimes and Gross Inhumanity 2007-12-17 19:21:08 The Bottom Line on the Halliburton Rape Cases By Hank EdsonThe FactsThe facts are despicable, criminal, worse than animal, just absolutely ugly. In 2005, 20-year-old Jamie Leigh Jones of Houston, Texas had just signed on to work in Iraq for a Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), one of the private military contractors most used by the United States military. Just two days after arriving in Iraq to begin her job, a group of several of her American co-workers drugged her, gang raped her, and left her naked to wake up bleeding and in pain, still groggy from the drugs she had been slipped. Jones writes that she would eventually need surgery because “my attackers tore my pectoral muscles due to the brutality of the attack.” When she got back from the Army doctors who told her she had been repeatedly raped “both vaginally and anally,” however, Halliburton/KBR’s immediate response was to place Jones under guard inside a shipping con Read more:Gross
, Crimes
A Declaration of Renewed Principle 2008-02-29 01:52:31 A New Rule and A New Generation By Hank Edson Americans want change. A spirit of optimism is awakening in the new generation. A new rule of equality and justice for all waits to be born in the politics of our nation. A secret is being whispered from ear to ear by the young and the visionary. The secret is our non-negotiable unity as human beings. The old generation doesn’t understand this point and their failure to understand it betrays a lack of commitment to truly advancing humanity through democracy. Even when the heroes of the old generation proclaimed our essential equality, they proclaimed it only for “all men” and then continued to hold many as slaves. The pattern they gave us has been flawed from the start, flawed by its violation of our non-neg Read more:Declaration
, Principle
Campaign 2008 2008-01-30 23:18:55 A Positive Vision of 21st Century Democracy We need to be as ambitious in envisioning political process integrity as John Edwards has been honest in talking about political process corruption.By Hank EdsonFor supporters of John Edwards, the end of his 2008 campaign for the presidency should not be spent in either deep gloom or false bravado. The future of the cause Edwards champions remains open and John Edwards’ influence on the rest of this campaign and perhaps on the next four years is unknown. We would be mistaken to write him out of our script just because he has bowed out of the race for the presidency. At the same time, clearly his campaign is lost and what is most appropriate in the face of this political loss is to take stoc Read more:Campaign
Campaign 2008 2008-01-25 17:01:25 What the Reagan-Flap Really Says about Obama, Clinton,and Edwards By Hank Edson The recent flap over Barack Obama’s comments on Ronald Reagan speaks volumes about what distinguishes our three democratic presidential candidates. But what it says is not complementary to either Obama or Clinton. Instead, once again, it shows us that John Edwards is the real candidate all Democrats should support. Obama’s Intent When Obama described Reagan’s Republican Party as the “party of ideas,” his intention was to use Reagan as a sort of yardstick for measuring whether or not a candidate has the mojo to rally a large majority of the nation’s political support. By invoking the concept of “the Reagan Democrat, Read more:Campaign
Campaign 2008 2008-01-21 12:48:42 Goldilocks and the Three Candidates By Hank EdsonIt was primary day in the forest and so Goldilocks told her mother she was going to go vote. Goldilocks was a democrat and she was terrified at the terrible condition of her country. Her vote today mattered a great deal to both her and her country. She left her home and went down the path to the local library where the voting booths were all set up. The kind young man at the welcome counter had her sign her name in the register and gave her a voting card to take into the poll booth. When Goldilocks had pulled the curtain closed behind her and sat down on the stool in the voting booth, she was surprised at what she saw. Instead of a computer screen with a touch pad, there was a counter with a Read more:Campaign
Campaign 2008 2008-01-16 19:19:07 The Survivor, The Meteor, and the Champion By Hank EdsonThey all can win in the general election; therefore, the question is which will be best for our nation? Consider:The Survivor: Hilary Clinton has a record of change. She also has a record of failure, a record of compromise, and a record of working with corporatists who have corrupted our system and turned it against the American people. Clinton, in short, has the record of a survivor. She aspired to heroism in attempting to overhaul our health care system in ’92, but the abuse she suffered taught her to be more calculating. Her husband had the strength and intelligence to balance the budget, but this achievement was a matter of fiscal common sense; it was not a demonstration of a Read more:Campaign
Campaign 2008 2008-01-06 19:43:30 It’s Our Democracy, Stupid. Why the Progressive Movement Needs to Unite Behind John Edwards By Hank EdsonLast August I proposed in two sequential opinion pieces that perhaps John Edwards was the man progressives should rally around in order to have the most beneficial impact on our direction as a nation. (See Edwards, Does He Mean It and Edwards/Kucinich 2008? ) At that time, however, we were still months away from the primaries and many readers were not persuaded by my argument. I am hoping that following this weekend’s New Hampshire democratic presidential campaign debate, the time may now be ripe for an organized effort to demonstrate unified progressive endorsement of John Edwards for President of the United States. Saturday night saw four democratic candidates a Read more:Campaign
We, the People of the Democratic Party, Part 1 2008-03-26 00:18:33 John Edwards, Where Are You Now? By Hank Edson As the number of Americans killed in President Bush’s deceitful war surpasses 4000, this shameful milestone ought to be the DemocraticParty
’s bully pulpit for a saner, safer, more humane government. On one hand, it ought to be a bully pulpit that speaks for itself. The leadership of the Democratic Party ought to circle the American people around it for a moment of profound and deliberative silence. On the other hand, it ought to be a bully pulpit from which the tragic aftermath of Republican rule of all three branches of government during the majority of Bush’s administration is reviewed with eloquent and angry common sense. One thing is sure, with 4000 Americans killed by the Republican management o
We, the People of the Democratic Party, Part 2 2008-03-27 20:35:35 Hillary Clinton's Big State Lie By Hank Edson No matter who the DemocraticParty
nominates, that candidate ought to win hands down--following as he or she will, the worst administration in history, during which the Republican Party controlled all three branches of government. That's why diverting the political discourse into considering any other alternative is to put oneself at odds with the interests of the Democratic Party. We, the people of the Democratic Party, already have a resounding victory. Don't tell us our victory is at risk; it is not. Don't tell us you will save us; we don't need to be saved.We don’t need a candidate selection process, in fact; anyone will do. Make no mistake about this. The fact that we would like a genui
We, the People of the Democratic Party, Part 3 2008-03-31 21:31:25 It’s A Landslide Victory for the People By Hank Edson After the worst presidency in history, during most of which the Republican Party
controlled all three branches of government, we, the people of the Democratic
Party are going to win a landslide victory in November over John McCain and the Republican Party. We need to begin every thought with this sentence. We need to test every opinion we hear against this sentence too. We need to use the heft of our conviction on this point in responding to the voices that thrive on confusion. The corporate media has two agendas. One is ratings. The other is aiding corporate control of the American people’s government. Both agendas are served by projecting a “tight” race for the presid
Excerpt from The Declaration of the Democratic Worldview 2008-11-04 23:14:29 Preface to The Declaration
of the DemocraticWorldview
By John Hank Edson
Dedicated To Barack Obama:
History will honor the architects who advance the quality of humanity by improving the structures of democracy.
This Election Day, November 4, 2008, we find ourselves in the midst of an extraordinary and important moment in the history of the United States of America. In May, 7
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