by David Burn | Sep 30, 2004 | Digital culture, Politics
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, a.k.a. Kos (rhymes with rose) is one of the world’s most popular bloggers. Thankfully, he’s also a smart guy and good writer. Actually if his traffic is any indication, he may be much better than good. His blog DailyKos receives 350,000 to 400,000 visits a day or over 8 million a month. That’s twice the traffic of FoxNews dot com, and a readership that equals many of the world’s leading print publications.
Now, Kos has a new gig. He’s writing a column for The Guardian. In his first effort for this venerable news organization, Kos pontificates on the rise of a true liberal media online. He also wisely points out that liberals are just starting to shape the story–something conservatives in this country have been successfully doing for over 30 years now.
From his Guardian column: “It would be really sexy and dramatic to claim that a few brave blogger souls set out to build an alternative media structure, but that’s not really true. We set out to write for ourselves, to provide an outlet for the angst we felt in a politically hostile environment – where criticising the president on domestic policy was somehow unpatriotic. And we weren’t alone: there was a huge audience out there hungry for this content. And suddenly, the seeds of a liberal media blossomed online.”
by David Burn | Sep 24, 2004 | Chicago, Music, Politics
The Chicago Tribune reported today that local gay rights activists protested last night’s concert at Chicago’s House of Blues by Jamaican dancehall star, Capleton. This is the latest in an ongoing struggle by gay activists to bring international attention to the hate-filled lyrics of several Reggae artists, including Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Elephant Man, Sizzla and most notably Buju Banton, an artist Amnesty International claims took part in a June beating of six gay men in Jamaica. Banton’s own performances have been recently cancelled in England, and his contract with Puma–despite his recent Olympics performance–is under intense scrutiny by the hip lifestyle brand.
Capleton’s show at HOB went on as planned, solidifying HOB’s position as one the most corporate venues in popular music today. According to The Trib report, Jack Gannon, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-based entertainment company, said performers deserve the same freedom of expression on stage that the protesters have in the street.
by David Burn | Sep 22, 2004 | Music, Politics
English citizen Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, the legendary 1970s folk singer was taken off a flight from London that was forced to land in Bangor, Maine yesterday. Islam, who was born Stephen Georgiou, took Cat Stevens as a stage name and had a string of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including “Wild World” and “Morning Has Broken.” He abandoned his music career and changed his name in the late 1970s after being persuaded by orthodox Muslim teachers that his lifestyle was forbidden by Islamic law. But last year he released a re-recording of his 1970s hit “Peace Train” to express his opposition to the war in Iraq.
Does this man look dangerous to you?
by David Burn | Sep 22, 2004 | Politics
Thanks to Open Secrets dot org, I finally found one category where Cleveland Congressman, and my favored Presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich, managed a clear victory. Kucinich gathered the highest percentage of campaign contributions worth less than $200. At the opposite end of this pole, Democratic Senator from North Carolina, Smilin’ John Edwards, is the man large donors love to like.
by David Burn | Sep 21, 2004 | Politics
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the soon-to-be retiring Republican Senator from Colorado, in full Cheyenne head dress. Campbell, a native American, led the ceremony at today’s grand opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, on the Washington, DC mall. Nighthorse Campbell then appeared on the Senate floor in native garb and delivered an appropriations bill.
by David Burn | Sep 21, 2004 | Politics
This graphic pretty much sums it up. When we turn these numbers on their heads by involving the majority of lower income Americans in the electoral process, the underrepresented will then have a voice, and not until.
Thanks to Inequality dot org for the chart.
by David Burn | Sep 21, 2004 | Politics
WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shown, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. —from The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
The “Political Bands” we postmodern Americans must now dissolve is the corrupt-to-the-core, corporate-owned two-party system. Voting for Kerry, or Bush, will not address this basic need for a major political overhaul. By the way, if Nader had 15% in the polls today, they would have let him participate in the Presidential debates, or so they say. For those Dems who think progressives like myself should throw our vote to Kerry, I have this to say, “The guy does not speak to me. My concerns are not being heard, nor voiced.” Yet you demand that I lend my support to such a person, for to do otherwise will destroy America even further in your estimate. No, what’s destroying America is bigger than Bush. MUCH BIGGER. If we realized, as a people, just how much bigger “IT” is, we would demand better for ourselves and our children’s future. We would back an honest citizen for office and turn this into a real race.
by David Burn | Sep 21, 2004 | Politics
“The fact is a crisp, sharp analysis of our policies is required. We didn’t do that in Vietnam, and we saw 11 years of casualties mount to the point where we finally lost. We can’t lose this. It is too important,” said Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran with two Purple Hearts to his credit, on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.
Leave it to a Nebraskan to break it down. Hagel’s not going to fall in line. Nor would the former Democratic Senator from Nebraska (and current President of The New School), Bob Kerry, fall in line. Like Republican Senator John McCain, these two gentlemen from Nebraska share a key commonality with John Kerry, Democratic Senator from Massachusetts and Democratic nominee for President. Their experience under fire in Vietnam informed their lives. Bob Kerry lost a leg. All four lost friends. And all four forever lost what the Bush people demand–blind faith in America’s mission overseas.
The junior Senator from NE won his second term with 83% of the vote.
by David Burn | Sep 20, 2004 | Politics
Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would take its own approach to democratic reform. “We’ll do this at our own pace,” he said. Democracy can mean different things in different countries, he said. “In Russia, democracy is who shouts the loudest,” he said. “In the U.S., it’s who has the most money.”
Using the latest Chechan terror attacks as an excuse, Putin then consolidated power in The Kremlin, saying he will now assign governors to the country’s 89 regions. In his first year in office, Putin compelled the regional governors to remove themselves from the Federation Council, the upper chamber of parliament. The next year he put the TV networks under state control and after the terrorist siege of a Moscow theater 2002, he tightened news coverage. Putin has also brought criminal charges against wealthy businessmen who helped to finance opposition politicians and campaigns, and this spring cakewalked through an election that western European observers dismissed as a sham.
According to journalist Tom Teepen, through all of this, U.S. President George Bush has remained oddly unconcerned, even taking some of Putin’s power grabs as occasions to praise him anew for his democratic ways.
by David Burn | Sep 17, 2004 | Politics
John Kerry please listen. You can win this thing. The Democratic Party is historically and presently petrified of appearing to be weak on defense. You can fix this. You can be the antiwar candidate. Step up and say the Iraq war, like Vietnam before it, is morally and strategically plain wrong. Say you were right to criticize the Vietnam War when you did–that you’re just as proud of your informed dissent as you are of your service in the Navy. Say if you want to mire our nation in another imperialist quagmire, while leaving the homeland open to attack, vote for Bush. If you want peace and prosperity vote for me.
