This Woman Was a Prophet

Ellen Willis's writings are trickling onto a Tumblr run by her daughter, though the links keep breaking almost as soon as they are linked. But it gives me the chance to see some of her articles I hadn't seen before, like this New York Press piece on the Elian Gonzalez controversy. For those who've forgotten the case, five-year-old Elian was rescued from the waters off Florida after his mother

This Woman Was a Prophet

Ellen Willis's writings are trickling onto a Tumblr run by her daughter, though the links keep breaking almost as soon as they are linked. But it gives me the chance to see some of her articles I hadn't seen before, like this New York Press piece on the Elian Gonzalez controversy. For those who've forgotten the case, five-year-old Elian was rescued from the waters off Florida after his mother

I Know: Picky, Picky, Picky

I don't really expect any better from the corporate media in general, but I do wish that nominally liberal commentators would stop talking about Democratic politicians moving "to the center" when they mean "to the right." Maybe Robert Reich was being a tad sarcastic when he wrote today:After a bruising midterm election, the president moves to the political center. He distances himself from his

I Know: Picky, Picky, Picky

I don't really expect any better from the corporate media in general, but I do wish that nominally liberal commentators would stop talking about Democratic politicians moving "to the center" when they mean "to the right." Maybe Robert Reich was being a tad sarcastic when he wrote today:After a bruising midterm election, the president moves to the political center. He distances himself from his

I'd Like to Join the Party, But I Was Not Invited

Actually, I was invited, but I didn't like to join the party -- either party -- that much. Here's a story which may help to explain why, from Driftglass via the Sideshow:

Once upon a time, there was a President named Bill Clinton, who was, by most historical standards, a typical Centrist Republican, although by a fluke of geography and circumstances he ran for public office with a "(D)" after his name. Under his Administration, many Conservative ideas which had long gathered dust on the shelf -- ideas such as welfare reform, a balanced budget, debt reduction, a strict 'Pay as You Go' fiscal regime, a boom in technology jobs, budget surpluses, NAFTA, GATT, official bans on gay marriage, etc. -- were finally realized. And for all of his good work on behalf of their ideology, Conservatives spent eight, long years treating Bill Clinton -- a Southern, White, Christian man -- as if he were a case of flesh eating nuclear syphilis. Because he did not run for office with an "(R)" after his name.

The writer is absolutely correct: Clinton (and now Obama) was subjected to the kind of sliming that Democrats reserve for Ralph Nader, and even then, not with the same whole-hearted dementia. Reading the whole post, I'm inclined to think that I don't rant enough.

Oh, and then there's this, from Whatever It Is, I'm Against It:

Monday, the Obama admin filed a brief in District Court arguing that prisoners at Bagram Airfield have no habeas corpus rights because it is located an active war zone, glossing over the fact that some of the prisoners were only in an active war zone because they were kidnapped from other countries and brought there. Reminds me of the 2,264 ethnic Japanese the US seized from Peru and other Latin American countries during World War II and transported to the internment camps in the US. When the US began paying reparations to interned Japanese-Americans in 1990 it excluded these internees because they had been... wait for it... illegal immigrants.

But the truly faithful (via) can overlook such small peccadilloes.

I'd Like to Join the Party, But I Was Not Invited

Actually, I was invited, but I didn't like to join the party -- either party -- that much. Here's a story which may help to explain why, from Driftglass via the Sideshow:Once upon a time, there was a President named Bill Clinton, who was, by most historical standards, a typical Centrist Republican, although by a fluke of geography and circumstances he ran for public office with a "(D)" after his

I'd Like to Join the Party, But I Was Not Invited

Actually, I was invited, but I didn't like to join the party -- either party -- that much. Here's a story which may help to explain why, from Driftglass via the Sideshow:Once upon a time, there was a President named Bill Clinton, who was, by most historical standards, a typical Centrist Republican, although by a fluke of geography and circumstances he ran for public office with a "(D)" after his