The Pennsylvania Progressive

Common Sense 2 March Edition

I've been very busy and remiss in discussing the March issue of Common Sense2, a progressive ezine based in Pennsylvania.  The March issue is, again, filled with interesting articles.

"All About Target" by Brenda Koehler discusses Target's questionable hiring practices and the fact they are building a new store in Berks County without local union labor.  An excerpt:

"Target has refused to take any bids from local contractors, either union or non-union, to build its new Muhlenberg Township store, except for the initial site work, which was done by non-union masons. Rumor is that it plans to outsource this labor to people from more depressed regions of the country who will work for less money. Although the last Target in Spring Township was built entirely by Berks County labor, the corporate retailer may now be feeling confident enough to begin shedding its accommodating disguise and revealing its true identity."

The "Unsung Hero" spotlight this month shines on Dorothy Reilly, a tireless advocate for peace and justice.  Some of the interview:

"

CS2: How about the positive rewards of activism?

Dorothy: The people you meet. That’s the only thing. I have said this before and I’ll say it again. There’s one thing I toast George Bush for. I really hated living here, and I’ve been here 33 years. I’ve always hated it. I had a few friends here, but I found this place to be very provincial coming from New York City. It was always backward. New ideas were never welcome. So I was not welcome. But since August of ‘02 I have made wonderful friends. They’ll be lifelong friends. With depth. Around here people think their best friends are acquaintances. Because what happens when you meet people in this movement, you start in the middle. You know, like when you meet somebody for the first time. Hi, how are you? Where are you from? But it takes a while to learn someone’s values, whether you click with those values, whether you are really going to be friends. Well, here you start out in the middle of that whole process because you know that your innate values, the things that are totally important to you, you have in common. So you already are friends. Because the most important things you have in common. It’s interesting, though, because you get to be friends very quickly. Some of them are so crazy (laughing) and some of them would say that about me probably."

There is also an updated list of those state legislators supporting our single payer, universal health care bill in Harrisburg.  Leslie Welch has an article about the trials and tribulations of having an autistic child.  Kathleen Welch talks about "What's Happening In India:"

"All the judgment and persecution that has occurred down through the ages might arguably be attributed to the presumptions that my perspective is right; that I need this perspective as a matter of survival to prevail against my own highly objectionable primordial nature; that your perspective threatens mine, and therefore threatens my survival; and that I’m therefore obliged to fix or kill you to save myself."

Crackberry Addicts in Withdrawal

Blackberry service went down this afternoon and millions of crackberry addicts are in a panic, I presume.  My own Blackjack isn't working well either.  People are having trouble calling me and I'm having trouble even calling voicemail.  If you're trying to get hold of me try my email addresses please.

February Common Sense 2

The progressive ezine Common Sense 2 is out with their latest issue.  I spent some time yesterday perusing various articles and, again, it is good reading.  Chuck Brown pulls no punches and I like that.  His writing is articulate and to the point.  I worry for him though with this month's article about Rep. Dave Kessler.  I worry Democrats will come after him for having the cojones to criticize "one of ours" as they did to me for condemning Traitor Tom Caltagirone.

Chuck's article about Kessler is damning.  I had the opportunity to sign my State Rep's petition last week and passed.  I also neglected to sign or circulate a petition for my state Senator but that is because of his executive assistant's involvement in legal action taken against me by the Party.  Who knows maybe Raven will pop up out of the woodwork again this year.  She has been chafing at the bit trying to get me to publish more of her stuff.

As for Kessler, I have my own problems with him for hiring Caltagrione's brother as a staff person.  This was a bad move and indicates he is under their influence.  That became more obvious when John Caltagirone called me an idiot in front of a room of 200 people and Dave refused, as yet, to apologize for his staffers egregious misconduct.  Of course it's too late now, many month slater.  I am not supporting my own State Rep this year.  Kudos to Chuck for calling him out on these policy positions.

While on the subject of our State House Sylvia Baylor does an analysis of what they accomplished this year and at what cost.  An excerpt:

"Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court recently ruled that citizens lack taxpayer standing to compel financial audits of the state legislature by the auditor general. That’s basically what the court did when it ruled recently that political activist Gene Stilp doesn’t have the legal standing to sue the auditor general to force an audit of the legislature’s financial accounts."

This month's cover story is about liberal Christianity and the separation of church and state.  It begins with this quote from Jefferson:

"Because religious belief, or non belief, is such an important part of every persons life, freedom of religion affects every individual.  State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermines all our civil rights.  Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion.  Erecting the wall 'separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society."

I was conversing with some friends this week and mused that Barry Goldwater, in today's Republican Party, would be considered moderate.  I use John McCain for this analogy and because both are/were from Arizona, I think it interesting.  If there was any water there maybe I'd muse over there being "something in the water there."  Eric Johnson also explores McCain's "moderate" credentials in this month's issue.

Eric asks this question:  "What would things be like today if fewer

South Carolinians

were gullible enough to fall for rumors of McCain’s black baby, or bigoted enough to be bothered by them?"  He uses a clever depiction of bad movie sequels to bang home his message.

"Jack Straw" writes about the new movement for the expansion of nuclear technology in "Choose My Poison?  I Prefer None."

"Choose my poison? I prefer none. We’ve lived on dirty, poisonous coal, oil, and nuclear technology for so very long, but now let’s stop throwing good money after bad. Now let’s phase out nuclear and thermonuclear technologies.Now let’s put away poisonous technologies, and do safe engineering for solar, wind, ocean, and microbiological energy. Now let’s re-engineer combustion to scrub effluents and recapture carbon, and let’s share and transfer those technologies. Now let’s invest heavily in healthy, sustainable, renewable technologies. Now let’s prosper and live well. "

Sheldon Kaplan does a great satirical piece of cartooning about what Rudy's rebate checks would look like.  Check out the legs!

Bob Johns critiques the media coverage in "You can't Even Call It News:"

"America long ago tired of the occupation of Iraq, gross over-spending, dying and maiming. Not that you could determine this from your cable news. They have moved on to minutiae. Instead of focusing on furnishing information, cable presumes to tell us what we think or how politically astute their pundits are, then interview one another in the echo chamber."

Amble over and visit the ezine and read the entire columns.  It's worth the time.

Hackers Shut Down State Website

The Pennsylvania website was almost completely shut down by computer hackers yesterday in an internet attack.  The Chinese hackers targeted four departments and resulted in officials taking down most of the website.  This, of course, is why any weakness in a government website operation is considered extremely critical and cause for concern to officials, including the FBI and DHS.

Lately a commenter on my other blog bragged about having unauthorized access to a local government's computer network.  I notified the county government of the comment for investigation.  Now a comment on another website about the incident leads me to think the county's changeover of IT managers may have caused a problem.  This story about the state website being attacked reminds I need to forward the information about this commenter's actions to the federal authorities also.  Unauthorized access to a government computer system can jeopardize much personal information about citizens and also leave them vulnerable to attack.

Common Sense 2 December 2007

The progressive e-zine Common Sense 2 is up with all new content.  I'm quickly beginning to look forward tot he first of each month and a new edition of this fine web publication.  Please take some time and go read these excellent articles.  Their traffic is increasing considerably every month and people are finding this e-zine and telling their friends.

Sierra Gladfelter writes about Hillary Clinton and why, just being a woman doesn't qualify her to be president:

"Although having a woman in the White House would appear to be a step forward in the democratic quest for equality and women’s rights, I do not believe that voting a woman in solely based on her sex would do any justice to our foremothers who fought for women’s suffrage. What would make having a woman president such an accomplishment would be the fact that she was chosen based on her morals and ideals regardless of her gender."

Also on the subject of Hillary Karen O'Mara Voytas writes about the McCain campaign appearance where she was called a b*tch:

"As a man widely hailed for his character and rectitude, I expected Senator McCain to denounce his supporter’s sexist characterization of another candidate, and to proclaim that obscenity and name-calling have no place in a civilized democratic election. (Really. I did. I am not being disingenuous for effect. If naïve, I am sincerely naïve). Granted, he was put on the spot and flustered, but people running for or serving as president have more challenging situations than this to deal with. At the very least, he could have given some indication that he did not support such a characterization rather than yukking it up and immediately acknowledging that the b*tch was, indeed, Hillary Clinton."

Publisher Chuck Brown does part 3 of his excellent series The Path to the Voter:

"Dennis Kucinich is a presidential candidate who should be strapped to a chair, have his eyes propped open with toothpicks and be forced to watch the Dukakis-Shaw exchange over and over again until he gets it. Here’s a candidate who’s great on the issues and knows what he believes. His supporters believe that if only the public could hear Dennis, if only the media would stop marginalizing him, the public could find him. They’re wrong. The biggest obstacle to Dennis becoming president is Dennis. He has no clue about the path to the voter."

Dr. Michele Ramsey debunks the Fox News "War on Christmas:"

"Detractors of the “War on Christmas” rhetoric should also pay attention to the double standards that abound in these arguments. For example, the “War on Christmas” crowd regularly communicates (explicitly or implicity) that those who believe or feel that they are being discriminated against as Christians exist as actual evidence of harm. But strangely (and hypocritically, I’d add), those non-Christians who feel left out amongst all of the Christmas regalia are met with indifference when they feel excluded. Similarly, citizens like myself who are concerned about a weakening separation between church and state are repeatedly deemed anti-Christian, anti-Christmas, and radical, but those who fight to maintain Christian dominance are “hypervigilant” rather than “pro-Christian” - and they are certainly never deemed members of the radical Right."

In her monthly column The Road Less Traveled, Kathleen Welch discusses fundamentalism:

"I was talking with a friend, Rick, recently about the fundamentalist mentality. We decided that the major components of it were the beliefs that 1) there is only one way to behave; 2) the one way applies to everyone, no exceptions; 3) I know what the one way is; and 4) if you have a different way, you’re wrong. We observed that fundamentalism was alive and well in politics (both Left and Right), in religion, of course, in social ethics, international relations, family/spousal relations, the medical field, education … well, everywhere humans interact.

There is this intrinsic need to be right. Most of the time it takes precedence over being happy. For fundamentalists, it always does, poor things. They tend to be a sexually repressed lot."

There's much more but you'll have to go read the rest of all these articles and enjoy the magazine.

Red-Facedbook Backs Down

An embarrassed Facebook has backed down from using a feature which automatically tracked and reported member's online behavior and purchases.  Facebook was posting information about members without their permission and authorization for everyone in their networks to see.  I'm sure not everything you purchase online is something you'd like publicized on your Facebook page now, is it?

Imagine a closeted lawmaker getting exposed for buying a gay porn video or a married person buying an expensive gift for their lover?  That could all require some painful explaining when it showed up on your Facebook page.

After getting a huge amount of grief for violating their customer's privacy Facebook has seen the light and is modifying this feature so members must opt into it.  Christmas shopping season, especially, began playing havoc with gift purchases for many folks.  The Post writes about a man who bought a ring for his wife for the holidy then saw her read about it on his Facebook page.  Good thing for him it was for her.

I have a Facebook page where this blog is syndicated.  You can find it here.

Common Sense 2 November Edition

I'm beginning to catch up after being gone.  Yesterday we drove around Boston and saw some of the city after having breakfast at Zaftig's in Brookline.  We hit the road around 1 pm and drove for hours and hours.  I was exhausted and hit the sack as soon as I could.  Today the TV people are coming to hook us up again after seven months with no television.  DirecTV has been a nightmare to deal with over this.  We'd never had a problem before but trying to get them to adhere to our agreements last spring has been enough to make us consider Dish Network.  I still have to move a few things so they can access the attic area and then I'll be able to catch CSPAN, the debates and all the news once again.

Meanwhile it's November already and that means another edition of the new progressive online e-zine Common Sense 2.  This month's edition is a bit heavy on, well, me, so I'll concentrate on articles other than the one from here on Myanmar and Iraq while you can read Part II of Chuck Brown's interview of me about the blog.

Jerry Policoff has an article about healthcare reform in Pennsylvania,  Brian Moyer writes about locally grown food, Jack Lineman talks about beagles, sheep and Appleseed Hollow, Dave Lindorff asks what difference is there between Republicans and Democrats,   Kathleen Welch writes about setting down roots after 60 years and publisher Chuck Brown writes part II of his feelings about activism, the Evil Party and the Stupid Party.

It's another great issue filled with interesting articles and columns (more even tha I listed here).  Go check it out.

Common Sense2 Issue 2

The second edition of a new, progressive online ezine is out with more interesting content and thought provoking ideas.  Among the articles this month is an interview with Chuck Pennacchio, Executive Director of Healthcare4allPA.  An excerpt:

"The medical delivery system has been hijacked and virtually destroyed by what I call the Medical Industrial Complex, which smacks of the Military Industrial Complex comparison which Eisenhower laid out in 1961. It’s the collusion that goes on among and between the private health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and their allies, their allies in the media, their allies in politics, their allies in ostensibly non-profit organizations such as the Farm Bureau, AARP, the American Medical Association and so forth, organizations that are simply perpetuating this system that has broken down."

"The Sleep of Reason," by Eric Johnson discusses creationism and intelligent design:

"The political influence of conservative Christians makes itself felt in more profound ways than social issues such as gay and reproductive rights. It has contributed process in American culture that Phillips describes as “disenlightenment” whereby evidence that contradicts what one wants to believe is willfully suppressed or ignored and science is placed on an equal footing with religious doctrine."

There's also a great interview with my good friends Rosie Skomitz and Ron Stauffer.  Rosie taught with my Mom at one time when she was a young teacher.  They are a great couple, dedicated activists and true friends:

CS2: How do you think that politics have changed from those years, the Vietnam years to what we have now.

Ron: I don’t see any changes. I think the same government that was telling us we had to go to war then is telling us we have to go to war now. I don’t think the reasons were valid then. I don’t think the reasons are valid now. I think that a lot of the war fever in our country is done on behalf of the large corporations in order to make money. Corporate welfare.

Rosie: I would agree with everything that Ron said and would add I think what’s different is that we have the internet, and that has connected us with more people. Back then everyone thought they were alone. And now we know we’re not. If there’s one thing that’s good about George W. Bush it’s that I know you, Chuck, and I know a lot of people that I wouldn’t have without him. In that respect (laughter) he is the great uniter.

Chuck Brown, the publisher of Common Sense 2 does some good interviews. Another example is this one with Mike Morrill, candidate for State Representative in the 127th District:

"Anybody can put Democrat after their name. I believe in being a Democrat that starts with a capital “D.” Embracing democracy. Being a Democrat means more than just calling yourself a Democrat. There are certain values that the Democratic Party has that go back to the 1930s and the Roosevelt revolution. That is, standing up for working people and supporting unions. Now Tom Caltagirone has been very good at supporting unions. However, some general concepts–issues that stand up for working people–he hasn’t done that. For example, on issues of fighting racism by standing up for the rights of minorities, or women’s rights–issues that have been championed by the Democratic Party–Tom’s views on these issues are the opposite of what the Democratic Party stands for and are more in line with the Republican Party. On issues of concern to gays, women, and minorities, Tom holds Republican views. Tom got an 80 percent rating from Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition–the highest of any Democrat in Pennsylvania. That’s who he is. There’s a website called Dino-Tom which describes Tom’s Republican-like attributes. If you look at issue after issue, the voting record is not what you think of when you think Democrat."

There's also an interview with a blogger if you'd like to discover a bit more about me:

"We can remind the voters of all the things liberalism has accomplished. How every part of their lives has been affected positively by the liberal agenda. The forty hour work week, fair working conditions, overtime pay, Workers’ Compensation. These have all been causes championed by liberals. One thing we need to do is take the demonization out of the word liberal. Redefine it to what it really means. Democrats need to embrace their liberalism; that we stand for something and it is constructive. Howard Dean showed in 2004 that the online community can raise millions of dollars. It’s at the point now where major powers cannot ignore the online progressive community. If they do, they do it at their peril."

Common Sense2 is rapidly developing a following and I recommend it to all.  Supporting efforts like this helps the movement tremendously.  There's much more at the ezine website so go spend a bit of time reading.

PoliticsPA Launches Revamped Website

PoliticsPA, the popular website frequented regularly by anyone politically involved, has undergone a major make over.  New ownership promised major changes and they've come through with a spectacular new look.  My first reaction was "Wow."  The overly busy former front page is replaced with a very pleasant look with large tabs to each section.  This is a modern, clean, attractive look which is easy to navigate.  The top news stories jump right out on the left while the regular columns and features like "Up and Down" are on the right (appropriately for this site).

The four large links at the top of the page lead readers to the blogroll, Top Stories (then separated by region), their list of Resources, and the Press Releases.  The chief reasons I visit this website several times a day are the top stories and press releases.  The new website design is very appealing and much easier to read.  Congratulations to "Sy Snyder" and the team there for a much improved experience.

Common Sense 2 E-Zine Debuts

A brand new E-Zine hit the internet today with the first issue of Common Sense 2.  A few excerpts:

Words Matter by Chuck Brown:

"I’m driving in stop-and-go traffic, looking at the American flag and ribbon on the car in front of me. Another Bush lover, waving the flag, supportin’ the war and just feeling like a super-patriot. I’m thinking - what a jerk! Then it hits me: Who’s the real jerk here? How did they get this deep into my head? I’m mentally conceding that the American flag stands for right-wing things. How come when I saw that flag I didn’t think of Lincoln freeing the slaves? I didn’t think of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence or Tom Paine’s Common Sense. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” did not come to mind. How did the American flag come to stand for their things?"

How No Child Left Behind is affecting our schools, by Anonymous:

"The school secretaries have been overwhelmed with the paperwork to document student attendance. I wonder how much time and materials are being used to get all absences documented. Due to NCLB standards every child must have a parental signature for every absence and the school is left to send somewhat threatening follow-up notes to every student that does not turn in a signed absence form. Many of my students have received up to 10 notices for ONE absence…"

The Rhetorical Power of "Support Our Troops" by Dr. Michele Ramsey:

"For example, we might note that the ultimate support would be to not unnecessarily put them in harm’s way based on false or misleading intelligence. We might ask them what they think the morale of the troops is as they’ve learned about the false and misleading intelligence that got them there to begin with. We might note that the military is made up of individuals and many, including Iraq veterans, are against the war; therefore the monolithic abstraction TheTroops, is problematic."

There's much more on unsung heroes to health care to "That Woman."  Go read the new publication and tell us what you think.