|
|
HCDFA Film Series Presents
Check back for our Upcoming Films
Always FREE to the Public
|
|
If you are a member of the military who supports the withdrawal of troops . . .
An Appeal for Redress
from the War in Iraq
As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.
Appeal for Redress
PO Box 53052
Washington, DC 20009-3052
info@appealforredress.org
Phone: 360-241-1414
Fax: 360-694-8843
|  |
|
|
The End of the World As We Know It?
By Jane Smiley, HuffingtonPost.com
Posted on October 28, 2006, Printed on October 28, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/43544/
What is the point is human survival. If Americans had started taking the meaning of oil dependence seriously in 1977, when Jimmy Carter asked us to, or had not ridiculed the idea of climate change in 1992, when Al Gore brought it up, we might have gotten a start by this time in reducing emissions, we might not be looking at one horrific disaster paving the way for another.
What it Means to Be a Liberal
By Geoffrey R. Stone. Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime."
Published October 10, 2006
For most of the past four decades, liberals have been in retreat. Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, Republicans have controlled the White House 70 percent of the time and Republican presidents have made 86 percent of the U.S. Supreme Court appointments. In many quarters, the word "liberal" has become a pejorative. Part of the problem is that liberals have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe. As a liberal, I find that appalling.
In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them.
Moreover, because 10 is a small number, the list is not exhaustive. And because these propositions will in some instances conflict, the "liberal" position on a specific issue may not always be predictable. My goal, however, is not to end discussion, but to invite debate.
1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that "time has upset many fighting faiths." Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.
2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)
3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting; "one person, one vote;" limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign-finance reform; and a more vibrant freedom of speech. They believe, with Justice Louis Brandeis, that "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."
4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind. It is liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government, the protection of individual privacy from overbearing government monitoring, and the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. (Note that libertarians, often thought of as "conservatives," share this value with liberals.)
5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people.
6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to "promote the general welfare."
7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women.
8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law. (Conservative judges and justices more often wield judicial authority to protect property rights and the interests of corporations, commercial advertisers and the wealthy.)
9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible. This, of course, is less a tenet of liberalism than a reply to those who attack liberalism. The accusation that liberals are unwilling to protect the nation from internal and external dangers is false. Because liberals respect competing values, such as procedural fairness and individual dignity, they weigh more carefully particular exercises of government power (such as the use of secret evidence, hearsay and torture), but they are no less willing to use government authority in other forms (such as expanded police forces and international diplomacy) to protect the nation and its citizens.
10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants. Liberals adhere to the view expressed by Brandeis some 80 years ago: "Those who won our independence ... did not exalt order at the cost of liberty."
Consider this an invitation. Are these propositions meaningful? Are they helpful? Are they simply wrong? As a liberal, how would you change them or modify the list? As a conservative, how would you draft a similar list for conservatives?
- - -
Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime."
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
|
Gore's Plea on Climate Change Wins Ovation
"We're running the planet like a company in liquidation," the former US vice-president Al Gore told an audience at the Hay festival, in an impassioned plea to act on climate change before it is too late. "For some reason we have now convinced ourselves, too many of us, that we don't have to care about the future," he said.
|
Will the Real Traitors Please Stand Up?
Frank Rich (we haven't heard much from lately)
New York Times Sunday, May 14, 2006
When America panics, it goes hunting for scapegoats. But from Salem onward, we've more often than not ended up pillorying the innocent. Abe Rosenthal, the legendary Times editor who died last week, and his publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, were denounced as treasonous in 1971 when they defied the Nixon administration to publish the Pentagon Papers, the secret government history of the Vietnam War. Today we know who the real traitors were: the officials who squandered American blood and treasure on an ill-considered war and then tried to cover up their lies and mistakes. It was precisely those lies and mistakes, of course, that were laid bare by the thousands of pages of classified Pentagon documents leaked to both The Times and The Washington Post. Read the full editorial here.
|
Site Mailing List
Sign Guest Book
View Guest Book
All Rights Reserved
Harrison County Democracy For America
P.O. Box 964
Clarksburg, West Virginia 26301
Email: jermckeen@aol.com
| |
|
 |
WV Super Delegates - 10
Democratic National Committee
Belinda Biafore
G. Nick Casey Jr.
Alice Travis Germond
Pat Maroney
Marie L. Prezioso
Democratic Governor
Joe Manchin III
U. S. Senate
Robert C. Byrd
John D. Rockefeller
U. S. House of Representatives
Alan Mollohan
Nick Rahall
"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
-- Congressional oath of office
Remind them that their duty
is to the Constitution, not the president:
Capitol Hill Switchboard (202) 224-3121
 |
|
Worst President in U.S. History
"But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history." - - Eric Foner
Several Presidents have done one or two of the items on the following list:, but which of them have done ALL of them?
* Started with a huge budget surplus and left office running gigantic deficits?
* Undermined American liberty, even to the point of disregarding habeas corpus?
* Explicitly specific laws that other Presidents have followed, such as FISA
* Grabbed unprecedented centralized power through signing statements and the legal philosophies of John Woo et al, at the expense of traditional American checks and balances
* Started a gigantic war BY CHOICE, utterly without planning for its aftermath?
* Lost that war, and most likely a second war (in Afghanistan) through pure negligence, as well?
* Spent years ignoring an environmental problem so large it represents a huge threat to national security (global warming), and at the same time working in all international forums to prevent others from acting?
* Transformed America from one of the most admired countries around the world to the most hated?
USA Today Opinion - http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/02/plain_talk_by_a_1.html
|
|
|
