Hasta La Gadget!

With the midterms one month in the rear view mirror, a number of lessons seem clear. For example, no matter how badly their candidates do, somehow the elitist, loser ideas of the Third Way crowd find their way back into the conversation. It’s funny how unlimited corporate money can help in that endeavor.

Here is a reminder–provided by the always astute, Cliff Schecter — about what this little caucus of Gordon Gekkos hand delivered the Democratic Party in 2014:

There’s also one other group that should have a big bout of indigestion over this. The center-right hedge fund clique known as Third Way, and associated Blue Dogs and hangers on. Because when economically populist measures pass by huge margins and “radical centrist” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) of the cut-Social-Security-and-kowtow-to-the-NRA crowd almost loses a sure-thing Senate seat, it is pretty clear where the country stands; not with him (PDF).

When Blue Dogs–or conservative Democratic House members–of the John Barrow, cocking-my-guns-and-cutting-budgets variety try and claim a mandate for their shopworn policies, these ballot initiatives will be right there to remind Americans that there’s a consensus for the un-Barrow. If you think these are just two examples, plug Third Way Honorary Co-Chairs Mark Udall and Kay Hagan, Blue Dogs Nick Rahall and Pete Gallego, or the most conservative Democratic Senator, Mark Pryor, into this equation, instead (Pryor was going down to an ignominious double-digit defeat while the minimum wage ballot measure was crushing it in his home state). It’s pretty easy to follow: Third Way Kills.

Living up to their ideological heirs, The Bourbon Democrats, who, like French Royalty, “forgot nothing and learned nothing,” this GOP romp of the mushy “can’t we all get along…and please don’t hurt us!” crowd, doesn’t seem to have taught the Serious People much of anything. Which is all one can glean from the aforementioned Mark Warner being added to leadership, totally what you do with someone who betrayed the entire economic agenda the Democratic Party supposedly stands for to pull that kind of a Munson.

Nothing says leadership like running on Social Security cuts that polls say nobody wants and giving voice to more peyote-pipe dreams of the bipartisan tooth fairy. That’s the formula that had him come within a hair of blowing a 20 point lead to a guy he vastly outspent and whose name (Gillespie) is synonymous with one of the largest lobbying shops in DC. Impressive.

When voters pass minimum wage hikes in four of the reddest states–Alaska, South Dakota, Nebraska, Arkansas–but still reject Democrats nationally and, perhaps more troublesome, even locally, that should tell you something. It also provides more clarity in terms of the lessons of this election.

It may not be as sexy and talked about as much, but we have placed many more states in dire straits, Democrats lost numerous legislative chambers this cycle, and dug a larger hole in ones conservatives already controlled. This will also keep the outrageous gerrymandering of not only red states, but purple ones (Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona) in place if not overcome before 2020.

Here are two keys to fixing this mess:

1) Stop ALEC’s corrupt agenda of buying corporate and socially regressive policies in state legislatures with their largesse.

2) Fund more Initiatives in the 24 states that allow them, so we can go around the bought off Tea-Baggers.

When it comes to the first need, there’s a new organization being built to continue Howard Dean’s vision–one that he successfully implemented while DNC Chair–of a 50 state strategy. The new outfit’s called the State Innovation Exchange (SiX), and will be a state-based progressive infrastructure to take on ALEC. They will also create polices and develop new ideas to serve Americans’ needs. Nick Rathod, who is leading the effort, is the former Special Assistant to President Obama and Deputy Director for Intergovernmental Affairs, and is already raising money through groups like The Democracy Alliance. This could be exactly what is needed to start winning back the states.

Regarding the second point, with those minimum wage initiatives, paid sick days, pot legalization and background checks for guns all winning huge victories, it should be obvious that this is a clear route to establishing policies that real life human beings, and not corporate donors, want.

To pick out the last two examples, pot is now legal in Oregon and Alaska, and a Florida medicare marijuana amendment got 58 percent of the vote, and only failed to pass because 60 percent was required to change the state constitution. Also, it still would have passed, and only didn’t because its biggest financial backer, flashy, loudmouth Florida trial lawyer John Morgan decided to show up at a student rally drunk, yelling expletives about being “fucked up.”

And then reminisced in front of that same audience about his days “smoking a lot of grass.” Oops. By the way, word is that someone will try to once again get his passed in Florida in 2016, so please John, find another hobby so this one has a chance.

The other example, I-594 instituting background checks in Washington State, is another success (it passed with just under 60 percent) that can and will be replicated (the requisite number of signatures to put it on Nevada’s ballot in 2016 has already been collected–Arizona, Maine and Oregon are other potential states where it might make the ballot). This is also a way to represent the will of the people in our laws, as the vast majority of Americans support background checks, but their representatives in Washington and at him are too often either bought off or too cowardly to do what is right.

A positive side effect is that the NRA, by coming out against these common sense measures, will continue to see a drop in their job approval and favorability, as as Gun Truth Project poll showed in the wake of the Washington vote. THey had lost 20 points in favorability in the past two years, and only clocked in at a 43 percent approval rating.

This is where the action will be the next two years. Democratic left needs to get up off the mat, brush itself off and go do the hard work of taking back the states–via legislation, education and ballot initiative–while standing up strong for principles and not pursuing some elusive “third way.”

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Cross-posted at The Daily Banter.

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BobCesca.com Blog with special thanks to Karin Riley Porter.

Protests and riots erupted in the days following the announcement of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. Once the riots diminished, however, nonviolent protesters have continued calling for change.

I had the opportunity to talk with community pastor and social activist Anthony Grimes while he was in Ferguson. Anthony lives in Colorado and has made several trips to Ferguson.

Anthony, why are you in Ferguson?

We’re here to offer support — moral, physical, and emotional support to those struggling on the ground. We’re here to engage in nonviolent demonstrations. The people of faith on our trip are here to stand with people who need healing. We’re also here to bring what we experience and learn back to Denver to help our own community.

Why is Ferguson important?

What Ferguson is America is. The issues faced by citizens in every community can be found here in Ferguson. It’s a battleground for what can be won or lost in regard to urban policing, education, and the mass incarceration system.

We know that there was blatant disregard for a young man’s life as he lay in the street for over four hours. The lack of a trial to get at the truth of what happened is a slap in the face for people. If we let this instance go, we’re saying it’s okay to treat black people as if they’re not important.

What do you want to achieve? What does success look like?

First, we want to create a society where people’s lives are valued and policies at every level of society reflect the value of all people. We still live in a very racialized society that benefits from racism itself. We need to call out these things and deal with them.

While we do want to see justice (not just an indictment for murder) — when a person’s life is taken in this country, if there’s any speculation about what happened, there should be a trial — the bigger issue that we want to change and overhaul is an entire system that has become rotten.

We would like to see a new society built where the voices of every person in communities are heard, where lives are valued, where people’s worth and gifts are valued and shared within the community, and where justice lives inside the community.

Next, one of the major problems is that our policing systems are siloed group of people separate from the community, who aren’t from the community, don’t know the community, and yet are responsible for policing the community. This isn’t about any one officer; our current administrators of justice don’t know the people, their stories, or their families.

We would like to see communities become their own stewards of justice. If a community has systems inside it that allow it to thrive and hold people accountable, it won’t need outside policing.

Finally, we need to transform education. Too many of our educational institutions are broken and effectively put people on a path to poverty, incarceration, and failure. That’s something we’ve got to address. What kind of education are we giving our babies, and what chance does that give them to succeed?

How do you respond to folks who look at Ferguson and say, “It’s not hard to avoid being shot by the police: Don’t rob a store, and don’t hit an officer”?

For those who immediately jump to blame, I would invite them to start with compassion. There is a big boy by the name of Mike Brown who was shot. There was a seat at the table that was empty at Thanksgiving. When you begin with compassion, you ask questions about how to prevent this from happening again.

Next, I would suggest that all of the truth of the situation has not been established, and that’s why a trial is important.

Then, assuming that he did steal, people have to ask themselves if stealing is reason for an execution on the streets.

Finally, there is a pattern in America of black people being killed and then having their life put on public trial afterward. The person pulling the trigger ought to be the one on trial.

How do you respond to people who say, “This isn’t about race; we should move on and focus on personal responsibility and stop blaming systems, history, or other people”?

There are people who look just like them who are on the ground fighting on behalf of justice. This isn’t a black-or-white, left-or-right issue. I was in Palestine two weeks ago, and there are people there and around the globe standing in solidarity with this movement.

Also, in reforming the system we are not avoiding personal responsibility. There are people doing all they can do to make it. But all they can do isn’t enough. You can’t have some people begin a marathon with a five-pound weight on their ankles and then wonder why those with the weights don’t keep up.

We want individual responsibility, and we want the system to take responsibility as well for what they are doing to exclude or include entire groups of people from society, from opportunity.

The St. Louis Police Officer’s Association responded to the St. Louis Rams football team members’ raised hands by saying they are “profoundly disappointed with the … display that police officers around the nation found tasteless, offensive, and inflammatory.” How would you respond to this statement?

First, I applaud the athletes for taking a stand, for risking their own celebrity for the sake of the vulnerable. Kudos to them.

My question for the police association is: Are you just as critical of all the racist literature and tasteless, offensive, and inflammatory comments made against the community you serve?

The statement is an example of the gulf between our police departments and the communities they serve. We need institutions of justice that are integrated with and truly serve community, not just protect their own interests.

You have tall goals. How do you believe they’ll be achieved?

It begins when you recognize Coretta Scott King’s words that “[f]reedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.” We can’t assume that we’re in a free country and that it will always be that way. We must earn it in every generation.

They’ll be achieved when you do your part as a human being. Where injustice happens, slow down, observe it, ask what you just saw, and walk compassionately. Let that compassion work within you. If every one of us would respond to one another with “My life matters, and the life of my brother and sister matters,” then that would go a long way.

It will happen when we make friendships with people who do not look like and act like us. Build friendships. Alexis de Tocqueville talked about how associations — relationships across social boundaries — are one of the most powerful forces we have in our democracy.

It will happen when we hold our police accountable. Get to know your local police department and officers. Ask them what they are doing with the resources we give them. How are you ensuring safety and the protection of all people?

For people who want to get more involved, I invite them to join local groups working across the country to dismantle a racialized society, to improve education resources, and to raise consciousness.

I would invite everyone to read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, and Dumbing Us Down by New York Teacher of the Year John Gatto.

Finally, as Desmond Tutu observed during the horrific ethnic cleansings in South Africa during the ’90s, we must repair the soul of a nation even as we repair it socially and economically. And, for that, we need God’s help.

I’ve never been to war, but War lives in my home.

I know him intimately, he is the specter that shares my bed. Some nights he chokes my husband who sobs and gasps and calls out in his dreams. Other nights they fight it out in a thrashing nocturnal battle. In the morning the ghost hides. But sweat-stained gingham sheets are his calling card. 

In a crowd, his cold boney hand will draw up my spine and remind me that I must be ever vigilant for danger. Only I can see this ghostly apparition. My husband, the one who brought him home from a distant desert, senses him from time to time but they do not speak. Isn’t it odd they traveled thousands of miles together and yet I am the shadow’s confidant? 

I’ve concluded that the phantom haunted my husband so terribly on their journey that my love had to lock the dark one away. Yet they remain bonded, infinitely in time and space. My husband isn’t one to give up without a fight. The trouble was carrying that locked box became quite the burden, so I offered to hold it a while. 

At a family barbecue the phantom will whisper in my ear to remind me, “This is what human flesh smells like.” He’ll scream at me when that powder blue Prius swerves on the highway. He injects an extra dose of adrenaline in my veins for balloons that pop or a child’s shriek. He forces me to check that the doors are locked and to check again and again. 

I have been blessed with this ESP. I gladly concede to this clairvoyant gift so long as my husband remains untouched — but that is impossible. The demon is sewn to my husband’s soul. We can lock him up, but he will never leave us.

On July 17, 2014, Jesus was standing on a corner. Officers confronted Jesus. After a brief conversation, Jesus was placed into a chokehold and slammed to the ground. The last words of Jesus were, “I can’t breathe.”

I don’t believe that Eric Garner lived his life as Jesus. I don’t believe any of us do. But based on the exhortation of Jesus to “the least of these” in Matthew 25, I do believe that Jesus inhabits the marginalized and oppressed more fully than anyone else. In this society, black bodies are under the constant assault of all manners of marginalizations and oppressions. In the passion of Eric Garner, I believe Jesus died.

In the graveyard, Jesus lies dead along with all of us. Our society died when it chose to believe that racism is a historical artifact. The church died when it stopped talking about the oppression of racism and pretended it was dead. We die every day when we don’t do anything to stop the constant brutality that is perpetuated against black bodies. Everywhere I look in this nation, there are dead bones.

What good is a dead God lying with a bunch of dead people? I don’t believe in death without resurrection. Faintly, I hear the questioning words of Jesus in the words of Ezekiel 37:3: “[C]an these bones live?” I don’t know what to say. Racism is killing people at all levels of our society. I know I can’t trust government to do better. I know that capitalism remains as prejudiced as ever. I look around and see only death. In desperation, I reply to Jesus, “I don’t think so. I think we are too far gone. I don’t think there is any hope. People are so racist, and racism is so ingrained in all that we do.” Then Jesus replied to me in the words of Ezekiel 37:9, “Prophesy to the breath…. [B]reathe into these slain, that they may live.” I remembered the last words of Eric Garner: “I can’t breathe.” Eric Garner died because our dead racist society choked the life out of him. I believe in resurrection. The resurrection of Eric Garner is our only hope. We must continue to breathe life into his story and case. We must use the details of the horrific tragedy of Eric Garner’s death to shock life into the people of this nation. We must keep demanding justice. Do not ever stop telling the story of Eric Garner. Get out into the streets and breathe the breath of life into this dead, racist nation. Dead bones can live, and in their living is our only hope of salvation.

Amen.

There’s no shortage of options for toting around your data: flash drives, micro SD cards, portable hard drives, and variations of these. Sometimes these options aren’t the most convenient, however, and so the folks behind Pinto have tossed another option into the mix. Pinto is a Bluetooth storage wearable that will be offered in two different capacities, allowing users to … Continue reading