Don't Blame BP

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Monday May 31, 2010 · 1:00 AM PDT

2010/05/31 · 01:00

Pissed.

I know that's the first feeling I get looking at the photos of the devastation of the gulf coast. I'm pissed that people were so stupid, so mindlessly greedy, that they were willing to play dice with God's creation to achieve a higher shareholder dividend. Someone must pay. And that someone shall be BP, the company that made this disaster inevitable. That's what anger demands: a recipient.

But is it sufficient to lay the blame with BP? Wasn't Exxon similarly greedy and negligent during the Valdez disaster? And why stop there? Why not look at Union Carbide and Bhopal? Or, to use a more timely example, Goldman Sachs and our financial system? Why are so many corporations so blatantly rogue?

Could it be because the system is designed to reward the rogue corporation over the responsible? More below the fold.

chris

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Thursday August 27, 2009 · 11:17 PM PDT

2009/08/27 · 23:17

Just a little open letter to our friends in the DLC here.

Ladies and fellas, I hate to bring you down from your pedestals of centrist self-importance, but somebody needed to let you know that you are now in what I like to call a real bind. On the one hand, you've got your old friends in the insurance lobby, keeping your palms nice and slick for lo all these many years. And on the other, you've got the people who do the actual lining up and voting that keeps you in a job.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, "Those folks are Reagan Democrats, they'll vote for me but they aren't interested in any big government program." I got news for you... before Reagan, they, or their parents, were New Deal Democrats. Your anti-government pro-business voters are already voting against you, for Republicans. You're not going to win those votes even if you paint yourselves red and endorse Ghengis Palin for President.

chris

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Monday March 31, 2008 · 9:53 PM PDT

2008/03/31 · 21:53

Crossposted at BOR:

Two days after the big meltdown here in SD10, and already those of us who served on credentials and had a hand in running the convention are trading emails speculating on how we can prevent things from spiraling so far out of control again. After all, we want our conventions to be meaningful and well-attended, from the state convention all the way down to the precincts. We have to fix some things to make that truly possible, though.

Go below the fold to find out what we've thought of so far.

chris

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Saturday March 15, 2008 · 3:57 PM PDT

2008/03/15 · 15:57

This is an open letter to the progressive blogosphere...

I’ve been reading DailyKos for nearly six years now and started reading diaries in support of pie back in June of last year. Over the past few months I’ve noticed that things have become progressively more abusive toward my dessert and its supporters.

I’ve put up with the abuse and anger because I’ve always believed in what our on-line community has tried to accomplish in this world. No more. DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community.

I’ve decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash pie and distort its taste without any fear of consequence or retribution. I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately. I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my dessert – a good and fine PASTRY - is attacked in such a horrid and tastist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.

Poll

74 votes Show Results

I want to have my cake and...

74 votes Vote Now!

I want to have my cake and...

Eat it, too

2 votes

Yours as well

15 votes

Leave it out in the rain

11 votes

Trade it for the One True Dessert: PIE

13 votes

BAKE MY %*#*ING PIE, KOS

33 votes

Why the Netroots Must Stop Hillary

chris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday January 20, 2008 · 6:32 PM PST

2008/01/20 · 18:32

UPDATE: While I call in this diary for the Anybody But Hillary netroots to coalesce behind Obama, I am not a particularly devout fan of his. He is not The Perfect Candidate. He will not be The Perfect President. He may not even be a particularly strong friend of the progressives as president. My point below is that Hillary has a record and a staff that speaks for her intentions regarding the Democratic Party, and those intentions are not good who have worked for people powered politics. That's the crux and the limit of it.

First, a disclaimer: I hate primary season. I hate primary season intraparty polemic. For the most part, I think we had a fine roster of candidates this year, and I never really had a horse of my own. Now that we're essentially down to two candidates, though -- sorry, Edwards supporters, I just think he's done -- the netroots need to compare to the two candidates in terms not only of policy differences, but also of their likely effect as leaders of the Democratic Party. In my view, a Hillary Clinton presidency would do more to undo the hard work of the netroots over the last four years than any other possible single event.

More below the fold...

chris

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Thursday January 03, 2008 · 4:13 PM PST

2008/01/03 · 16:13

[I sent the following to a dear friend who spent two weeks in Iowa in 2004 working for the Dean campaign. I share here with all of you because I think it's important to remember where we've been as we plot our course for the future.]

Four years ago tonight on the political calendar... it got away from us. I wonder if you don't think back to that night in Iowa and tear up still. It seemed like we had it in our hands, then the weirdness of the Iowa process followed by the vapidity of big media snatched it right away.

Try as I might, I just can't find the passion in me to get behind any of our candidates this year the way I did for Howard. I'm sure you feel the same way. Plus you have so much else on your plate.

more below the fold...

chris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday August 17, 2007 · 2:59 PM PDT

2007/08/17 · 14:59

There are times in life when truths that have gnawed at you finally crystallize into a single moment of uncompromising lucidity. Maybe it's the friend you've admired for years whom you one day realize you love. Or maybe it's the propaganda outfit disguised as a news outlet that deals primarily in smears and lies, whose utter obscenity you never quite comprehend until that moment of clarity hits you like a kick to the groin.

I had that moment last night at a local sports bar, where one of the televisions was silently tuned to Fox Noise as they covered the accident with the rescue workers in Utah yesterday. Fox is as disgusting and obscene a presence on television as can be imagined. More below the fold.

chris

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Monday July 02, 2007 · 7:37 PM PDT

2007/07/02 · 19:37

[UPDATE: madame defarge suggested in comments that everyone as disgusted as us wear black armbands to July 4 parades and other observations on Wednesday, with signs calling for justice for Scooter Libby and the rest of this corrupt administration. I wholeheartedly endorse this suggestion. I also want to see a single, dignified, mammoth demonstration in Washington before the summer is out, but that requires organization. Making a statement at our local July 4 observations does not. -c]

I snapped this afternoon. Cheney's gambit to commute Scooter's prison time, still leaving him with Fifth Amendment protections so he need not testify to Congress, sent me over an edge I didn't know I still had left. I'm livid, but I'm not hot. I have reached that point of ultimate anger where everything goes very cold -- the temperature best suited for serving revenge, said Don Corleone. But it's not revenge I seek. It's justice.

More below the fold.

Poll

56 votes Show Results

Are you willing to travel to DC to join a mass demonstration against Republican corruption?

56 votes Vote Now!

Are you willing to travel to DC to join a mass demonstration against Republican corruption?

Definitely yes

28 votes

Probably yes

15 votes

Unsure, 50/50

4 votes

Probably no

2 votes

Definitely no

7 votes

FDR as Howard Dean: The Past is Prologue

chris

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Tuesday May 01, 2007 · 10:09 PM PDT

2007/05/01 · 22:09

In college all those many moons ago, I was assigned to read Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 1882-1940 by James MacGregor Burns. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing a historical understanding of the dynamics of the two-party system in this country since the Republicans became solidly pro-business and the Democrats... well, not Republicans, I guess.

I reread this portion of the book this evening and was struck by the parallels between the Democratic Party from 1924-1932 and the same party today. Allow me to quote at length:

The dreary convention fight and the dismal election results of 1924 left the Democrats divided and leaderless. "Something must be done, and done now," Roosevelt wrote in December 1924, to restore the voters' confidence in the party. But what? His almost singlehanded effort to rejuvenate the party in 1925 gave him a harsh lesson in the internal power arrangements of the Democratic Party.

[More below the fold.]

Poll

26 votes Show Results

Does this story from the 1920s bode well for Democratic fortunes today?

26 votes Vote Now!

Does this story from the 1920s bode well for Democratic fortunes today?

Yes

22 votes

0 votes

I dunno

4 votes

Shifting of the Zeitgeist: Texas

chris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday March 30, 2007 · 12:18 PM PDT

2007/03/30 · 12:18

Greetings from Fort Worth, seat of Tarrant County, recently the most strongly Republican county of its size in the United States. I'm a lifelong resident of 41 years, having seen this blue collar town accept desegregation with relative ease but then slowly, inexorably, slide to the right ever since. Today, though, I saw something that frankly shocked me: war protesters at the city's most hightone public high school, Arlington Heights.

chris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 28, 2006 · 11:05 PM PDT

2006/09/28 · 23:05

American Casualties
Revolutionary War: 50,000
War of 1812: 7,800
World War I: 360,000
World War II: 970,000
Other wars, including Iraq and Afghanistan: Uncounted but not forgotten

This country was different. When we sent our citizens into battle, it never was for a king, an emperor, a fuhrer or any other person. We fought for an idea: that ordinary people, entrusted with certain inalienable rights, could govern a country, providing for the common defense, while still aspiring for liberty and justice for all. Lord knows we never got there, but we never quit trying, and generations of Americans put their lives on the line in defense of those ideals.
Read More

Lieberman Hacking Story Improbable: A View from Up Close

chris

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday August 08, 2006 · 3:45 PM PDT

2006/08/08 · 15:45

My company's servers live in the same building as Lieberman's, at The Planet in Dallas -- or, at least this was true before they moved their hosting to another company this afternoon. (Traceroute to southpaw.goodshow.net, my blog, if you wish to confirm for yourself my business relationship with the provider in question.) The Planet is a full service hosting and collocation company, with a Network Operations Center staffed 24/7/365. Among their many services, they offer intrusion detection and response.

What does it take to get their security team to respond to an attack? A phone call. That's it.

(More below the fold.)
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Don't Blame BP

The Insurance Companies Can't Save You Now, Blue Dogs

[Texas] After the Flood: Fixing Our Caucus System

Readers Strike at Daily Kos

Why the Netroots Must Stop Hillary

Four Years Later: Raise a Toast to Howard

I Hate Fox News With The White-Hot Fire Of 1,000 Suns

Takin' It to the Streets: Independence Day Beckons

FDR as Howard Dean: The Past is Prologue

Shifting of the Zeitgeist: Texas

Today, our government betrayed these people

Lieberman Hacking Story Improbable: A View from Up Close