Outsourcing our Future

See washtech.org for the tens of thousands of engineering jobs that have gone overseas.

There's currently a bill before the state senate that would create a statewide task force to investigate offshore outsourcing and its impact on the state economy. [SCR 8407] There's a similar bill before the house [HCR 4405]. Both bills would need to be voted on by House and Senate in order for the task force to be formed.

AlterNet: How to Turn Your Red State Blue

In this article Christopher Hayes offers advice for reaching the rural voters -- focus on debt. However, we've heard how the Republicans already handle this. They say that the rich people are in the cities and the poor people are in the rural areas. This is where the urban vs. the rural areas play.

State Republicans say that the rich software engineers live in Seattle, and that they can afford to pay more for teachers. According to them the regular people live outside of Seattle and can't afford to keep up. The Republicans won't say that they've sold out to corporate interests and that soon no one will make a middle class wage.

Watching America

This is a great resource! Look at translated news articles from around the world and see what they have to say about America.

From Nancy Pelosi:

The leaders of five Protestant denominations, the Episcopal Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church, recently called President Bush's budget "unjust." The leader of the National Council of Churches said that "this budget is immoral and does not reflect the values we hold as people of faith." The Interfaith Alliance declared, "Fairness, compassion, integrity, and justice are the moral principles that should drive the crafting of the federal budget. As a moral document, the federal budget should not, and cannot, be built on the backs of the poor, the elderly and future generations."

This weekend marks the two-year anniversary of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. I grieve for the harm we have caused in Iraq. I grieve for the torture and for the deaths. I grieve for the soldiers who have come been killed, wounded, and come to realize that it was all a lie.

In spite of all the propaganda and right-wing media we know one thing for certain: All the rationales posed by the White House as justification for the war have been thoroughly debunked. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein had no collaborative ties to al Qaeda. Bush's talk of freedom and democracy were afterthoughts to justify a war of his choice. The war is based on oil and winning the 2004 election. It is our Falklands island -- that's why it was supposed to be a cake walk.

The war did not pay for itself and U.S. forces were not greeted with open arms. Today, the U.S. is on track to spend close more than $200 billion for the Iraq war. We are spending more per month than we spent in Vietnam, when adjusted for inflation. In July 2003, there were an estimated 5,000 insurgents fighting against U.S. troops. Today, that estimate is closer to 18,000. And while a year ago, there was an average of 14 attacks against U.S. troops per day, now it's more than 70.

According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 53 percent of Americans said the war was not worth fighting and 70 percent said the number of U.S. casualties is an unacceptable price. Despite the administration's unrelenting propaganda about Iraq, Americans understand the consequences of the administration's actions and don't
like what they see.

We have a protest vigil to go to tonight. See you there.

Fairvue Central >> Bloggies >> Fifth Annual Weblog Awards

You've got to look at these. Some of these blogs are so funny!

Legislative Blogs and RSS Feeds

Blogging has not caught on for national or state legislators yet -- but check out which states have the most legislator blogs going. It Minnesota followed by North Dakota.

t r u t h o u t - MultiMedia
Take a Look at the Red State Road Trip Videos. People who voted for Bush who didn't realize that he's against what they think is right. Aaargh.

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
So, how do you counter a fencing attempt? Here are a few ideas, based on the above:

1. Express outrage, even if the charge is small. Make even the initial fencing attmepts appear outrageous, and explain why it is outrageous. Generally speaking, people find things outrageous when they're told other people find them outrageous.
2. Call the charge out for what it is. Make clear that the "fencer" is trying to change the subject from what actually makes a difference to people. At the same time, make those making the charges look unapproachable, unbelievable and extreme. Example: go after the Swift Boaters as a cultlike group, led by partisans, who have been feeding each other's lies for nearly a year. Make their personal motivations the center of the counterattack. Attack them on the grounds that they're lying, so who can believe anything they say? Fight fire with fire.
3. Respond to the charges immediately. Explain exactly why they're false. Play up the credibility of the target with specific examples where the "fencing" frame simply doesn't fit.
4. In combination with the other tactics, redirect the issue toward what the "fencer" wants people to avoid thinking about.
5. Laugh at the charges (different from "ignore" the charges). Make them and those who are making the charges the objects of ridicule. Does anyone actually believe this?

Just found out that the DNC has a credit card through Providian that pays 1% back. You can either take the 1% back yourself or elect that it go to the DNC. I think I'll let the DNC have it.

Salon.com Politics: "
Money talks

If the Democrats are demoralized, they have a funny way of showing it. Howard Dean, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, tells the Associated Press that the DNC has raised $3.4 million in the last three weeks -- more than double the amount it raised in a similar time period just after George Bush took office four years ago.

That's the good news for Democrats. The bad news: The AP says that the Republicans had a 6-1 cash advantage over the Democrats at the beginning of February. The DNC has raised $9.6 million so far this year; the Republicans raised $10.5 million in January alone.

Dean told the AP that he's happy with the progress Democrats are making. 'We're just delighted the fund raising is going better than we had dared to hope,' he said. Democrats stress that Dean has been helping state parties raise money -- efforts that aren't reflected in the DNC totals -- and that the DNC hasn't yet put out a new internet solicitation. Dean promises that will come 'sooner rather than later.'"

Coulter lied and distorted to defend "Gannon," ... [Media Matters for America]

This morning The Oregonian had a front-page article, "Social Security Fight is Getting Dirty" where the right-wing has hired the Swift Boat smear agency to attack AARP. Their first ad is that AARP doesn't support soldiers but does support gays. The left-wing is saying that the Republicans are being inconsistent in what they're saying about social security and that people should check to see whether their representatives are supporting their constituents' positions on social security.

The press runs such things to appear balanced -- but where is the balance. Shouldn't they be pointing out the huge difference between the two approaches? There are some reasonable Republicans who are doing what the Democrats are doing -- but there are no Democrats who are hiring public relations firms to smear the President's proposals. Both sides are not doing this.

Ann Coulter, who gets more air time than liberal pundits, says that the liberal media has gone after Gannon because of his use of a pseudonym. Yet, she says, Clinton, Hart and Kerry all ran under assumed names. Clinton legally changed his last name to his stepfather's last name when he was in high school. Hart's father legally changed the family's last name to Hart in the 1950's. John Kerry's grandfather legally changed the family's name in 1901. Those are not pseudonyms.

FDR's framing message: "There is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are: equality of opportunity for youth and for others; jobs for those who can work; security for those who need it; the ending of special privilege for the few; the preservation of civil liberties for all; the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living."

From my SO, a LTE for the Columbian:

In defending the supermajority requirement for school funding elections, Ms. Hovde's writing in The Columbian, February 24, 2005, was particularly unfettered by logic, reason or accuracy.

To provide a remedial civics lesson for Ms. Hovde, except in extraordinary cases such as the 2000 Presidential election, the majority does rule. Ms. Hovde is just plain wrong when she makes the statement that "in any given election, the reality is, the majority rarely rules" It is a very simple concept. In the vast majority of elections, whoever gets the most votes - wins. Contrary to the title of her opinion piece, a simple majority is just that - simple! It may not be the majority Ms. Hovde would like to see voting, but it is the majority of voters who vote in an election who rule the outcome of the election. Simple.

Further in her article she states that school employees "make up a good bulk of voters in lots of communities." She references the fact that in Clark County the Evergreen and Vancouver school districts are among the top three slots and the Battle Ground school district rounds out the top ten of the largest employers in Clark County. She then uses this information to conclude that if one were to "Isolate school employees in their given community . . . they can dominate a voting area."

Again, it's back to school for Ms. Hovde for math class this time. If we add up all the employees in every school district in Clark County and we assume that all of them are eligible to vote in Clark County we have a total of about 8100 voters. According to Mr. Kimsey at the Clark County elections office, there are approximately 203000 registered voters in the county. Apparently in Ms. Hovde's world, the 8100 cuts a "large swath" through the 203000.

In her next paragraph she insinuates that the taxes that are levied to support our schools only affect a small group of people, the landed gentry, and those people need to be protected somehow from all those apartment dwellers. The truth is that providing funding for education affects every single person in Clark County and not providing funding for education affects every single person in Clark County. We are all affected by the quality of our schools.

Ms. Hovde's statement that school employees are likely to vote in favor of school levies because it will benefit them personally is completely misplaced. They vote in favor of the levies for the same reason they are teachers. They are committed to providing the best education to the children of Clark County, they believe in what they are doing, and they understand the need to provide adequate funding for schools.

Ms Hovde certainly has a right to her opinions concerning the foibles of our taxation system. If she truly wants to effect a positive change, she needs to work a little harder on the facts and presenting a reasoned approach. In this issue she has resorted to misstatements because to look at it from the 'simple' view she espouses, the 60% supermajority requirement is indefensible. The simple majority should rule. It's a no-brainer.

Jim Hightower
Just when you think you've bottomed out on the level of cynicism it's possible to have toward Washington's constant kowtowing to the monied interests – along comes the "American Jobs Creation Act."

These days, whenever the White House and congress put a positive-sounding title on a piece of legislation, you can bet that the law itself does the exact opposite of what the title so gloriously proclaims.

The American Jobs Creation Act, pushed by George W and enacted last fall, does not create a single job. Instead, it's a massive multibillion-dollar tax giveaway to global corporations. Through this law's "homeland investment" loophole, corporations operating abroad are allowed to have some $400 billion in foreign profits taxed at the bargain-basement rate of only 5.25 percent, rather than the normal rate of 35 percent.

Is this another example of Owellian speech?

NewsMax - Center for the Study of Popular Culture Contributions

Students for Academic Freedom is a neo-con attack against academic freedom. If offers books "Indoctrination or Education: the Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution Program at Ball State University" and "Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left." Instead of looking at why more educated people aren't conservatives -- neo-cons just state that it's due to indoctrination.

The war is out there and this is their propaganda.

village voice > news > Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young:

The Greatest Generation had the G.I. Bill to pay for college. Baby Boomers got the Pell Grant program in the 1970s, and back then it paid for an average of 50 percent of a public university education, compared to 25 percent today. Students these days are supposed to be grateful that Bush's new budget will allow them to borrow even more, raising the annual limit on federal student loans from $2,625 to $3,500 for freshmen.

Along with that are fewer seats per capita in state universities. We are falling far behind.

HBO Bill Maher 021805
Bill Maher talks about the Jeff Gannon story. LOL.

I spoke to Hayden Reiss, the producer of the Lakoff DVD, today. What a remarkable person! His organization is called "Educate the Base." He came up with the idea of making a DVD of Lakoff after reading Lakoff's book, Moral Politics. He tested it with progressives to determine how long to make it -- and decided on that short format. I think that really works! More discussion comes from having a 20 minute video than from having a 2-hour video. He's done other mini-documentaries, mostly on poets. He's interested in doing more educational videos for progressives, and is using the proceeds from the Lakoff DVD to fund that.
After he made the DVD he tried to get Moveon and other organizations interested in distributing it, but they were so busy with other things before the election that they didn't pick up on it.
Talking to him was really inspiring. It made me feel that there are so many people out there trying to figure out a way to take our country back that we WILL be able to do it. We just each need to play our part.

Guckert/Gannon: Fake Newsman in White House -- Why isn't this being reported?

I have no idea why we aren't seeing anything about the Gannon story in the Oregonian. I know why we aren't seeing anything in the Columbian -- they're Republican shills. They're still publishing lots of articles for a re-vote. Sigh. So one-sided and the major news source for our communities in SW Washington.