Back stage pass – Speaking truth to power

May 9, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Back stage pass – Speaking truth to power

Publisher’s note:

I met Tamara at the Speaking Truth to Power – a permanent state of war event in Asheville last month and asked her to give us a glimpse into the behind the scene world of putting together this great event. She was kind to take the time to do so for us!

Speaking Truth to Power EventWhen I was asked to share my experiences of working on this event, I wasn’t really sure where to start or how to go about it. First off, let me just say that I do not consider myself to be a peace activist of any kind. I have never attended a peace rally or been thrown in jail for standing up for my beliefs. I am, however, a liberal individual who believes in the greater good of mankind and believes that violence begets violence and therefore peace is the only way for us to move forward in our world today.

With that being said, in January of this year, I was asked to be a part of a small team of four whose mission was to put on an event called Speaking Truth to Power: a permanent state of war. I was tasked as the social media and marketing specialist for this first-time ever event.  It would also be the first time for all of us to work together on an event such as this one and it would be a great learning opportunity for all of us.

The event itself would be held at the Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville, NC on Saturday, April 9th, 2011. We would be showcasing two keynote speakers, Gareth Porter and Ray McGovern, along with four young Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Our goal was to bring attention to the permanency of war and how the American people need to know the truth regarding the political power and financial policies that drive our nation.

At this point, I had never heard of neither keynote speakers, nor any of the vets. The genre of peace activism and those organizations in that field were all very new to me. I realized early on that I was going to learn a lot about something I had little knowledge of or had taken any personal interest in up to that point.

The creators of the event, Paul Turner and Ymani Simmons, wanted desperately to get this message out to everyone they could possibly get to listen. As Americans, we need to know the truth and see it for what it truly is and hear about it from those who have experienced it first hand. This is no small task and I greatly admire their sheer devotion and commitment to this very worthy cause.

This event was their first step in helping to get that truth out to the public at large. We brought in seven incredibly bright, intelligent and dynamic speakers. We tweeted, Facebooked, emailed, hung posters, contacted media, contacted college professors and like-minded organizations, placed ads, set-up radio interviews and did everything else we possibly could to promote this event. Over the course of three months, we made hundreds of decisions that all culminated into a three-hour event. And the evening was beautiful!

Behind the scenes, we worked as a team the whole time. No stone went unturned. Our speakers were impressed and graciously applauded us on our professionalism and attention to detail for each of their experiences. The audience stayed in that theatre until almost 11:30 at night listening and singing to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, which was being played instrumentally. It may have been a small and intimate audience in the theatre that night but every single person was moved by what they had witnessed. Once the DVD of this event comes out it will begin to ripple out to the mainstream via YouTube…and I can’t wait! And if all things go as expected, this event will begin to make it out to other cities and continue to spread the word.

I met several new people while working on this project and I observed and learned several things. I learned that it only takes a few willing and devoted people to begin to make a difference. I learned that the smaller you keep a group with a common goal ahead of them, the easy it will be to accomplish that goal and find success. I witnessed the passion and fierce determination that one person has can quickly impact those around them. At a time when people are fatigued and depressed by our political and financial systems, there are several people out there energized and working feverishly to show us the light to a situation. The beauty of working on an event of this nature is to see people at their best and to actually see into their hearts and feel what they feel in real time.

I feel blessed to have been able to work on this event. I stated earlier that I wasn’t familiar with this particular subject matter when I started working on this project. Well, I am now. I felt a direct experience during the event that will stay with me forever. I look forward to being a part of future projects like this one and know that I will continue on my path of speaking truth to power as I move through my own life.

Tamara Lee
Talee Professional Services

The Al Qaeda New-Leadership Qualifying Questionnaire

May 8, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on The Al Qaeda New-Leadership Qualifying Questionnaire

Thanks to Jonathan Wolfman for this piece. Check out his other work at Blog Shots and tell him AWOP sent ya.

 

Al Qaeda has announced that its search for a new leader is underway. — John King on CNN


1. Your Name_______________________

2. Your Courier’s Name________________

3. Your Disaffected Pre-Teen Jihad-in-Training Name__________

4.  Your Facebook Name________________

5.  Your My-Jihad Name__________

6.  Check All That Apply:

a.__ I can build a Kalishnikov rifle from sand.

b.___I can wield a scimitar.

c.___If selected, I will give up

My Comcast account__.

My S.I. subscription___.

Chinese Take-Out___.

d.___I dislike the Renaissance.

e.___I very much disdain modernism.

f.___I simply cannot abide post-modernism.

g.___Jews like d, e, f; I dislike Jews immensely.

h.___I think the Indiana Jones scene where he offs the Brother in the robe who’s wielding a scimitar, you know, the one where he casually shoots him with a gun, is

(check all that apply)

___unfair

___very unfair

___a grossly unfair by-product of American arrogance

___Hollywood is controlled by Jews

___so is Bollywood

___was plagiarised from an Israeli Army documentary

i. ___I used to like my Crickett Phone but now I hate what the data-package includes.

j. ___I think The Temps were better than The Four Tops.

k. ___I am a deeply spiritual killer.

 

l.  Is There a Song In Your Heart?

Yes!

I Most Identify With (check one):

i ____     Bet You’re Wondering How I Knew

Of Your Plans To Make Me

Blue

With Some Other Guy You Knew Before

Between the Two of Us Guys

You Know I Love You More

It Took Me By Surprise, I Must Say

When I Found Out Yesterday…

Don’t You Know That I

Heard It Through The Grapevine

Not Much Longer Would You Be Mine

Oh, I Heard It Through The Grapevine

And I’m Just About To Lose My Mind

Honey, Honey, Yeahhhhh

or

ii  ___       I Don’t Like You, But I Love You,

Seems That I’m Alwaa-aays Thinking of You.

Oh, Oh, Oh You Treat Me Badly,

I Love You Madly…

You Really Got A Hold On Me.

or

iii  ___    The Night We Met I Knew I Needed You So,

And, If I Had The Chance, I Knew I’d Never

Let You Go.

So, Won’t You Say You Love Me?

I’ll Make You So Proud of Me!

We’ll Make ‘Em Turn Their Heads, Ah

Everywhere We Go…

So

Won’t You Please, Be My, Be My Baby,

My One & Only Baby

Be My, Be My Baby

Be My Baby

Now-ow-ow.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

 

m. __ I dislike nosey neighbors with multiple antennae.

n.  ___I think Pakistani Garrison Towns aren’t really all that.

o. ___I think Matlock’s Jihad name, when he was in the Atlanta Cell, should remain among the Pure.

p. ___I have no fear of:

-1 __”24″ re-runs

-2 ___Penelope Garcia

-3 ___Abby from NCIS or that nerd-guy she works with

-4 ___Jinns or Djinns

q. __I Can See Ramallah From My House.


Oh, give it up already

May 4, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Oh, give it up already

Rep. Peter King, Republican of New York, claims that bin Laden was captured because of the torture administered to prisoners during the Bush administration.

I noticed a post on Facebook yesterday from a friend of a friend who said, “I suppose Obama will want credit for killing Osama bin Ladin.”

Well, duh. Whether Obama wants it or not, he deserves credit.

Some on the right have said the president doesn’t deserve any credit, even that the mission was accomplished because we tortured people (Rep. Peter King, Republican of New York), or that it was illegal (Fox News).

The right’s tactic now will be to turn the conversation away from the capture of bin Laden to something else — probably torture — to make Obama look weak.

But the fact is, Bush couldn’t get bin Laden and Obama did.

There’s plenty of credit to go around, but President Obama promised during his campaign that he would go after bin Laden and that if Pakistan wouldn’t or couldn’t help, we would go in and get him anyway. I consider that a campaign promise kept.

Once in office the president instructed Leon Panetta to make finding bin Laden a priority. It took awhile to track him down, and then a few months more to figure out how to get him with the least risk for our people and for innocent people who might be nearby.

Obama is a patient man, and he wanted to be certain this was done right. Remember the beating Jimmy Carter took when his attempted rescue of the hostages in Iran failed? That’s how this mission could have looked too, but Obama and his people took the time to get it right, and now the world’s most wanted criminal is dead.

Now, contrast this focused search and planning with President George Bush’s comments on March 13, 2002: “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”

And this one: “I am truly not that concerned about him.”

Those comments came just a half year after bin Laden’s people had killed 3,000 Americans, and some people want Bush to get credit for the capture of the man? I don’t think so.

President Obama hgas said he won’t release the photos of bin Laden taken after he was shot, and I’m fine with that, although I’m sure conspiracy theorists on the right will claim he’s not really dead. We’ll call them “deathers.”

So, let’s just say this to those of you who doubt: President Obama WAS born in the United States and he was the man in charge when bin Laden died in Pakistan.

Ed and me

May 3, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Ed and me

Me and Ed Shultz at this morning's brunch before the show this afternoon.

Radio talk show host Ed Schultz came to Asheville today. Naturally, I was there.

I was on Ed’s radio show a few months after my son died, telling his story, and Ed called me back the next day to talk more.

Thanks to Health Care for America Now, I was booked onto his television show a month before the health care bill was passed.

I adore Ed because he was one of the only people in the media to keep talking about health reform when everyone else thought there was no possibility of anything passing.

He talked day after day about the immorality of our system and the need for reform. He was relentless.

I got to thank him on national radio today.

During a break, Ed told us about his conversion from conservative to liberal, and about how he feels a moral obligation to tell the truth as so much of the media is owned by conservative corporations. Ed is a man who’s usually rather brash and boisterous, but he was very soft-spoken as he talked about his mission, and about how he feels called to do this.

Big Eddie is a mush. I saw him weep after hearing a story about a young mother of twins who’s a half-million dollars in debt because her insurance company cancelled her policy without telling her when she developed problems in her pregnancy.

This afternoon, he asked how many of us wanted to see the photos of a deal bin Laden; most of us said no, and he laughed. He talked about why President Obama deserves credit for the slaying of bin Laden, obviously amused that Obama did in three years what Bush couldn’t do in seven.

It was a great afternoon. Several of us in the audience talked afterward about how his energy exhausted us. He’s funny, he’s smart, and I’m really glad he’s there for us.

A Better Woman

May 2, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on A Better Woman

Just a quick little post to share a few things I found this weekend that went a long way toward restoring my faith in humanity.

Asheville, North Carolina is a very special place. It feels like I took a moment to look up from all the bedazzlement of the terror baby, oil sucking, death-dealing, lying out their asses, soul-less,  toupee wearing, freaked out “conservative” “Teabagger” Republican menace… and saw the future. The future a more fully realized person would create. Yes, I mean a liberal-minded person. I use the word “menace” with the utmost sadness for those who are already hopelessly lost in the delusion that the master will someday choose them,  his good and faithful servant when we all know this master doesn’t give two shits about you. So, yeah that was nice to take a break. Here are a few things that chilled me out and lifted my spirits for the battles to come.

c’mon, stop laughing… I’m serious here : ) I know we are headed down the drain at a breakneck pace, but just hold on a second and get to clicking these links.

The Honeycutters…

Played the French Broad River Fest this weekend.

From Goodnight Irene “this world ain’t as bad as the papers make it seem”

People you need to hear this. It’s Outstanding.


Myspace music player

 

Yarn was kick ass… but, I can’t get their Reverb Nation song pack to work so here is the link. Definitely worth a click.

And that was just River Fest… Then we headed over to The Big Love event and I met some amazing artists who are creating amazing works of art despite such a hostile economy. Just buying from local, handmade artisans alone will go a long way to restoring faith in your own humanity.

Here is one of my favorites for you to check out.

Steampunky Raku Robots with Attitude.

Yes, really. These are the coolest little avatars ever.

Bottitudes is local Asheville artist Susan Lee Decker.

“I’m an artist, adventurer and recovering Iowan who LOVES robots and always has. Since I don’t have a proper robotics lab, nor the technical skills to build real robots, I’ve settled for the ceramic variety. They might not do housework or build cars or diffuse bombs or anything, but they do make people smile while they just stand there looking all steampunky cool.”

 

 

 

Gotta go… have a great week y’all

Bin Laden is dead

May 2, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on Bin Laden is dead

I feel very uncomfortable celebrating the death of anyone, even the monster that Osama bin Laden was.

I was relieved to hear the news last night,  but this does mean he becomes a martyr, and there will be attempts at retaliation. I don’t think this will cause al Qaeda to fall apart all at once, and it certainly won’t end terrorism.

And I don’t believe it’s proper to throw a party.

Bin Laden caused a lot of pain and heartache around the world. He was the leader of a group that killed nearly 3,000 Americans in a single day. I knew some of the dead and a lot of the survivors whose lives were changed forever on that morning nearly 10 years ago.

I do not believe in the death penalty; I never have. But the world is a safer place without him, and it is best that he died.

However, need to remember that it was American policy in the 1980s that created Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We wanted him to fight the Russians, who had invaded Afghanistan. We armed him and trained him, and he turned against us, as often happens when one creates a monster.

In the 1980s, we didn’t care that he was a religious fanatic; giving him arms and training was expedient then, so we did it without considering the consequences. We did the same thing with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and then we took him down when he turned against us and we couldn’t use him anymore. History is full of such examples.

One might hope we would learn our lesson, but I don’t think so. We Americans tend to be short-sighted, looking at what appears useful today, despite the havoc it might create next week.

I don’t want to be an isolationist because we are members of a world community, but we are not called to be the police of the world. We spend more on our military than any other country in the world and we consider the Pentagon’s budget to be untouchable.

At the same time our money is being spent on war and destruction, our soldiers are underpaid and often under-supplied when going into battle. KBR and Halliburton are making a fortune, but soldiers are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan again and again, living for a year or more at a time on an income far lower than they were making at their jobs, and not being treated properly for the damage done to them physically and emotionally.

Bin Laden casued a lot of pain in our American lives. It is good that he is dead, but we are not without blame.

The Donald is an ass

April 27, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on The Donald is an ass

Donald Trump opens his big, flapping mouth.

So, Donald Trump is “honored” that he played a part in forcing President Obama to show his long-form birth certificate, and some people take him seriously as a candidate for president.

Trump, aside from the incredibly bad hair and annoying habit of talking through pursed lips, is so far from being the important person he thinks he is, and the media attention just feeds his massive, yet undeserved, ego.

We in this country have serious problems we need to address: The uber-rich are creating a permanent underclass; 45,000 people a year are dying because they don’t have access to health care; the Republicans are slasing the social safety net as they give the money to the wealthy and to big business.

All the while, the media chase this miserable middle-aged man who has no real answers. He is only wealthy because his investors prop him up so they won’t lose everything. He has minor shares in casinos, hotels and office buildings that carry his name. He is not an expert in anything but being a blowhard.

Most of the stuff he spouts is pure crap. He refuses to answer any real questions. In fact, his most-uttered phrase in a recent interview with George Stephenopolus was, “Move on.”

If he’s a real candidate, let’s treat him like one. Don’t just let him be a barking seal; make him answer real questions. Challenge his “facts.”

I don’t understand why he gets so much airtime. There was a time when the media would have seen through him and just not put him on the front page or on the air.

He is a distraction as “yooge” as the royal wedding, but he won’t go away after Friday morning. Pity.

Where are the cameras at this year’s town meetings?

April 25, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on Where are the cameras at this year’s town meetings?

Two years ago, the Koch Brothers and their big business allies paid a bundle to get Tea Party members out to congressional town hall meetings to shout down any resasonable discusson on health reform. The media were all over it, running footage of the confrontations and the weeping I-want-my-country-back women.

This year, Progressives are coming out in force to confront Republican members of Congress about budget cuts, Medicare “reform” and the attempts to repeal, defund or otherwise cripple reform, but you won’t see a whole lot of coverage. Maybe part of the reason is that Progressives seem to be less violent and screechy in their confrontations.

Progressives also tend to have real questions to ask, like those posed to GOP Rep. Jim Renacci from Ohio.

According to a report by Daily Kos, a questioner asked why Republicans don’t come up with an alternative plan before they repeal the current law.

Renacci replied with a non-answer: “Remember, it was the American people what sent us down there…”

I have a feeling the American people what sent them down there weren’t counting on such deep cuts to the social safety net alongside deep tax cuts for the wealthiest.

I don’t recall seeing anything about the confrontation in the “mainstream” media that was so happy to cover the Tea Party.

However, you will see conservatives claiming these people are being organized by unions and other “liberal” groups as they claim the opposition to health reform two years ago was spontaneous.

Our local paper here in Asheville wrote a story about one of the traveling groups, and the reporter failed to ask who paid for the bus and why people who obviously were on Medicare were holding placards that said, “Keep your government hands off my health care!” The reporter didn’t ask where the bus riders came from or where they were going. The reporter never spoke to anyone with an opposing point of view, and whoever edited the story didn’t see anything wrong with this one-sided piece with no real questions asked.

That’s par for the course in this country now. Our “free” press is free to cover the right, and free to ignore the middle and the left.

Gambling with our money

April 22, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Gambling with our money

OK, let’s say your friend comes to you and begs to borrow $500. He’s got a system that’s sure to beat the house. He’s always been a good friend, so you trust him enough to lend him the money.

He gambles and loses every penny, so he comes to you and demands $1,000 because it’s your fault he lost. You weren’t wise enough with your money, he says, and he forces that $1,000 out of you through the court.

Now you’re really hurting, so you ask for help and your now former friend laughs at you and says he needs more. He goes to the government and gets millions and you have to pay higher taxes so the government can get it back. At the same time, the government cuts off any assistance you were getting, and your employer cuts back on your health care and other benefits.

This is what the banks and Wall Street have done to us.

They took out homes as collateral and gambled away the money we were paying in mortgage payments. When the bottom fell out, they demanded our homes back and then pleaded poverty to the federal government, which bailed them out.

There were no payments to working Americans; in fact, before the government would agree to bail out General Motors, it made the workers make concessions, like cuts to their pay and benefits, for the sins of their management.

What’s worse is that no one has gone to jail for this theft. The wealthy bankers who casued this mess have had their taxes reduced while the rest of us are paying a higher percentage of our dwindling salaries.

They have destroyed private-sector unions and now are working on killing the public-sector unions. They took down ACORN, one of the most effective community-organizing groups ever.

They want is in disarray because that makes us less effective in fighting against them.

But there is some hope. Recall groups in Wisconsin are doing well. People are waking up and understanding that these budget cuts are a sham designed to move more wealth to the top, and they’re getting angry.

The banks and Wall Street haven’t changed the way they do business. Everything that brought us to disaster is still being done.

It’s our money, and we have to break their gambling habit.

Do they really believe their own spin?

April 21, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Do they really believe their own spin?

I was in Raleigh this week to testify before the NC House Insurance Committee against the insurance exchange bill, but I figured while I was there I could visit my state representative, Tim Moffitt, a Republican. I had e-mailed him last week to tell him the 39,000 people who just lost their unemployment benefits aren’t going to blame Gov. Bev Perdue for their loss.

I know he reads my e-mails and he usually responds, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate that me makes time to see me when I’m in town. Naturally, we started the visit with a discussion of unemployment benefits.

He went into an explanation of how unemployment insurance is funded and how much it costs businesses. He mentioned that he hasn’t drawn a paycheck from his own business in awhile and is living off savings.

Well, most of the 39,000 who just lost their unemployment benefits don’t have much money to dip into. They’re screwed. But he thinks the agencies and people in the state need to know what the budget will look like so they can plan, and that the move to connect unemployment benefits to the Republic budget proposal was appropriate.

That’s the party line on this: What if the budget negotiations drag on and on? Don’t agencies and businesses that receive state money deserve to know what they’re getting so they can plan? Of course people aren’t going to blame the Republicans for the veto of a jobless benefits extension.

Well, Tim, you and your fellow Republican lawmakers need to listen. The NC Issues Poll, conducted by the NC Justice Center, shows that people in the state overwhelmingly blame the Republican majority, not the governor, for the cutoff of unemployment benefits. The poll showed that 65 percent of North Carolinians support the governor, and they want the Legislature to vote on a 20-week extension by itself.

Rather than cutting taxes and laying off hundreds of teachers’ aides, 66 percent of those polled want to see the aides kept on in our schools; 57 percent want to save the funding for the state’s university system; 61 percent want to make sure students in community colleges stay eligible for low-interest student loans and 84 percent do not want to allow interest rates on consumer loans to be raised.

Republicans ignore all this at their own peril. People across the country are seeing the truth about what the party is doing to the middle class, and they’re not happy. Four recall campaigns in Wisconsin have gathered the signatures they need to hold elections. People in other states will follow.

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