Town Hall Meeting

29 Jun 2009

Change Congress In 20 Minutes

Filed under: — Al @ 3:05 pm

Larry Lessig is an honest, very intelligent person who sees what is going on in America and is fighting to fix the major problems. He has started a project called Change Congress which wants to have public financing of elections. His point is that public financing must be addressed first because all other problems are a symptom of money ruining our democracy – whether its terrible environmental law, health care law, or regulations of Wall Street. Check out this excellent video and get started!

A video used to be embedded here but the service that it was hosted on has shut down.

19 Jun 2009

The Consequences of Losing

Filed under: — Al @ 2:23 pm

I admit it, we regular folks lost the battle when that uber bailout of $800 billion was given to Wall St. banks. When Bush, Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke, Frank, Dodd, Reid and Pelosi gave all our money to bailout Wall Street corporations, aided and abetted by then-candidate Obama and McCain. The writing was on the wall and now Washington has ruled out a bailout for California, the 8th largest economy in the world, which has a $24.3 billion budget gap. Check out this excellent 30 minute report on California, called “Fault Lines – California: Failed State.” Hint: Milton Freidman would love the solutions being put at the front of the table…sell off all our parks and other public assets to private companies while any tax increases are out of the question. It sucks to lose, and we are just now starting to pay for it.

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj200NUQOFo

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRFF1Uo46VI

11 Jun 2009

Reagan Was Worse Than George W. Bush

Filed under: — Al @ 10:41 am

Great article by an excellent journalist, Robert Parry…

Was Ronald Reagan an Even Worse President Than George W. Bush?
By Robert Parry, Consortium News
Excerpts…

Granted, the very idea of rating Reagan as one of the worst presidents ever will infuriate his many right-wing acolytes and offend Washington insiders who have made a cottage industry out of buying some protection from Republicans by lauding the 40th President.

Cruelty with a Smile
With his superficially sunny disposition – and a ruthless political strategy of exploiting white-male resentments – Reagan convinced millions of Americans that the threats they faced were: African-American welfare queens, Central American leftists, a rapidly expanding Evil Empire based in Moscow, and the do-good federal government. In his First Inaugural Address in 1981, Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

To marginalize dissent, Reagan and his subordinates stoked anger toward anyone who challenged the era’s feel-good optimism. Skeptics were not just honorable critics, they were un-American defeatists or – in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s memorable attack line – they would “blame America first.”

Love Reagan; Hate Bush
Ironically, George W. Bush has come in for savage criticism, but the Republican leader who inspired Bush’s presidency – Ronald Reagan – remained an honored figure, his name attached to scores of national landmarks including Washington’s National Airport.

Click here to read the entire article

08 Jun 2009

Contemporary American Racism

Filed under: — Al @ 2:33 pm

This video from ABC’s 20/20 shows a glaring example of racism in America today. Sorry people, your job isn’t done – racism is far from over. Part 1 is an experiment where 3 white teenagers vandalize a car in public. Part 2 is 3 black teens doing the same thing. Just check out the reactions from the members of the mostly white, suburban community where the experiments took place.

For those who like to use the simplistic “But Obama is President” argument, doesn’t that mean by definition that the 46% who voted for McCain are racist? And the 100,000,000 people who did not vote at all, are they also racist? (voter turnout in 2008 was only 56.8%).

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNu-WZdHzaA

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVgMvuCM_k

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