Motley Moose – Archive

Greetings Moose. Let me first wish all of you, and all of yours, Happy Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus/New Year/Birthday (I’m sure I’ve missed several) and the best of wishes for many more. 2011 was an interesting year for my family…both the highs and the lows will mark it as a memorable one.

I am beyond excited to be here in 2012…not only because even numbered years are my friend, but because we get to work to see Obama to another term. Thus far, it seems to me that the Republicans vying to be his opponent are helping further our cause more than anyone or anything else.  Have you ever seen such a circus??

Despite the boost that Obama and the Democrats have gotten from the Republican antics of late, we WILL have to fight to see that Obama is a two term President.

It was during the 2008 battle to see a Democrat elected to the Presidency that most of us met…and I hope to find many ‘old-timers’ resurfacing to take up the fight again.  

I want to see Old Moose and New Moose (and Lurker Moose!) engaged in the battle. I want to hear about ‘feet on the ground’, phone banking, door knocking, yard signs, and bumperstickers. I want to hear about donations and voter registration drives. I want to hear about the discussions held around the family dinner table. I want to hear what Moose feel is worth fighting for…and what is worth fighting against.

We have less than a year before we find ourselves in the voting booth again…I want to be pulling the lever (er, touching the screen?) with the confidence that I did everything possible to see an Obama victory.

I want us ALL to have that confidence.

And I want every step…every action…every frustration…every happy moment…and, ultimately, the joy of victory…to be shared here.

Any takers?

So, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture is hosting a Day of Action: It’s Time to Close a Symbol of Torture in Washington, D.C., with a rally at Lafayette Square at noon, a Human Chain from the White House to Congress at 1:00, and an interfaith service at 3:00.  If it’s possible for you to make it there, please put it on your engagement calendar.

In support of that, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of my Quaker meeting will be hosting a candlelight vigil at the San Francisco Federal Building at 7th and Mission at 5:30.  (Same date: January 11).  Readers from the Bay Area are entreated to attend.

I am also, personally, learning more by reading Alfred McCoy’s A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror.  At only 30 pages in, it is bone chilling, and clearly a text every citizen has a responsibility to familiarize her/himself with.  I learned of this book through Andrea Giovannoni’s essay on torture from a Catholic perspective in Voices of Feminist Liberation, of which I am a co-editor.

Please use the comments to talk about related events in your neighborhood, ruminate on the issues, and, of course, go off topic.

Do you think I’m being hyperbolic?  Did you read that headline and think; no surely he has at least a modicum of respect for supporters of the President.  No he doesn’t and he is completely illustrative of this new lean forward pro left.  

I’ve explained in a previous post why I haven’t been blogging as much as I once did.  I’ve fallen in love with the Twitter for the time being.  It is there that Glenn Greenwald showed his entire ass and by extension has damned anyone who supports him to support this point of view.

I heard a few of the old timers complain about the chirpstory the last time I did one, so I’m going to let Zerlina Maxwell of the MSNBC property The Grio tell the story  

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The state of Texas is one of the Republican Party’s most valuable strongholds. It adds a good 38 electoral votes to the Republican candidate’s electoral vote; Democrats have not been competitive in the state for at least a decade.

One of the only Democratic regions in Texas lies along the Rio Grande:

More below.