Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community

Essentially, Lieberman heard that Dean and Weiner and a lot of the blogosphere were happy about a Medicare Buy-In proposal, which was something he himself has supported, and that was enough for him to spike the idea.

Booman's referring to reports put out by The New York Times and which Steven Bennen discussed at WEINER SCARED LIEBERMAN AWAY?

I cannot repeat enough how going forward, this "Joe Lieberman" moment has to be remembered for eons to come. Because it doesn't matter if you extricate Joe Lieberman from the senate, or as I suspect will happen, it will not matter a bit the day he walks away on his own accord by "retiring" from politics. You will always have another asshole who will point to a bill or a cause and say, "if that's what those radicals want, am voting against it".
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This link comes courtesy of The Vegan Sistah Project and, I am sad to say that no, I do not think this is a hoax. This is absolutely consistent with the tactics of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Just read Jan Frel's article from back in 2005 PETA: Whatever It Takes, a revelatory yet tad too applauding article on their tactics.

As Frel well says, PETA doesn't care about it's reputation. Even though their original goal as an organization was the "total liberation of animals"; they've done an interesting detour in their pursuit. Sometime in the 90s PETA figured out it was more profitable to focus on selling themselves as the only liberators of animals. 

So they've walked way from overtly funding terrorist organizations like the Animal Liberation Front. They've also gone through great lenghts to scrub the web and recorded history from any connections Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA, had with the cultish teachings of gurus who call for radical liberation of all creatures from "human suffering"; meaning, no use of honey, no killing of lice or cockroaches, no drinking of milk, wearing of pearls, clothing with silk.

What they've done is to take their extremist yet highly privileged origins and completely channeled them into a 24/7 advertising cycle for the organization. All PETA does is to spend their time and effort bringing attention to PETA. It's in this onanistic pursuit they go to great lenghts at offending as many people as possible since any defense or push back will only bring more attention to them. It's no wonder they spend considerable time and effort throwing racist, mysogynist, exploitative, ableist and transphobic advertising petards to unsuspecting passers-by.

Most importantly, PETAs tactics have focused on selling their brand of activism as a form of mainstream pornography that has every celebrity-seeking famewhore normalizing the organization with their naked endorsements.

PETAs uses the soft-core porn of "I rather go naked than wear fur" ads to hide their more hard core and snuff campaigns. It doesnt matter to the celebutards and Hollywoodiots they sign up for their campaigns --and that includes you Benicio del Toro!

Celebrity is a parasitic ecosystem where someone's host is somebody else's victim and PETA has learned to play both host and victim with their campaigns.

They cry poverty and hence the need to make their ads porno-ish and exploitative because "sex sells". And yet nowadays many fameseekers of all kinds use the PETA ad campaign as a measure of their celebrity and famewhoring success. Professional famewhore Khloe Kardashian being a prime example of Hollywood hipocrisy.

And before I forget, let me reiterate : YES BENICIO DEL TORO, YOU'RE A HOLLYWOODIOT FOR EVEN THINKING OF LENDING YOUR NAME TO PETA.

So this doesn't shock me in the least: PETA is looking for an African American or Mixed-Race Vegan Actor Needed for PETA Video to play you know who? A STRIPPER VERSION OF BARACK OBAMA. Twenty-something years in existance and PETA has never done anything like this for any of the WHITE MALE PRESIDENTS this country has had. Get a black man in the White House and they'll go after him with every exploitative trick in their bag:
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Mercedes Sosa ... wow.

I've often said I never really declared myself a feminist until I came to this country. In Latin America izquierdismo has always been defined in terms of your political commitment to either socialism or communism. Even in Puerto Rico we would never describe the pro-commonwealth party (which it's equivalency in the Democratic Party) as being of "the left". The socialist and independence parties were the Left in our country and the closer you were in your political tendencies to communism, the most likely you were in circles that adored Mercedes Sosa.

Mercedes was an unrepentant communist who had to flee Argentina during the years of the dictatorships that brought infamy to the country with its laundry list of Desaparecidos. As a Tucumana, she was a powerful voice for South American First Peoples. And In an odd way La Negra tucumana was cultural, political and social counterpoint to the other Negra I'd listen to for inspiration, Celia Cruz.

Just as Celia, Mercedes Sosa lived life at it's fullest, never backed down from what she believed it. She had an integrity to her ideals and values that was absolutely fierce. When I think of "Wise Latinas", Mercedes Sosa is right up there on my top ten.

La Maza which is the song she is singing here with Shakira, was a fixture of her repertoire and one she made popular with Sylvio Rodriguez (another fixture of my youth). The song is about the meaning of engagement: What good is it to live if you had no reason for it?

What's beautiful about this song is how engagement is define: "If I didn't believe in" all the things she outlines, she wouldn't have just a reason to live but the foundation, La Maza, to lead a life worth living. She would be a blob of meat and tendons; a tool for showing off with nothing worth seeing behind it; a supporter of idols in decline (awesome reference to Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols").

I wish I had the time to translate it right now, but I'll leave you with the beat, the heart and the soul of Mercedes Sosa.

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Here is a roundup of events in New Jersey over the next couple of weeks fighting for healthcare reform with a strong public option. All from Organizing for America:

Morris County Democrats Phone Bank (Phone Bank)

This Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 4pm until 9 pm, we will be having a Phone Bank in our Morristown HQ, 11 Washington Street. Shifts usually run from 4-6pm and then from 6-8pm and we need all the support we can get. Our office is located in Morristown right across from the Famished Frog, down from the green. If you have any questions please give us a call at 973 984 8080.

Times: Tuesday, August 25 from 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Wednesday, August 26 from 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Thursday, August 27 from 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Friday, August 28 from 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Host: Bassam Gergi
Contact Phone: 973 984 8080
Location:
Morris County HQ (Morristown, NJ)
11 Washinton Street
Morristown, NJ 07960

Westfield canvass (Health Care Canvass)

Collect signatures in support of Pres. Obama's healthcare reform principles of reduced cost, choice, including a public option and affordable access. We will operate from 7 - 9 PM in downtown Westfield on Tuesdays during the Sweetsounds in Downtown performances.

Time: Tuesday, August 25 from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Host: Edward O'Malley
Location:
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I am leaving for Pittsburgh in about an hour to go NOI's "Netroots Nation Blogger Summit". From their site:

NOI runs the only progressive advocacy and campaign training program focused on cutting-edge online organizing techniques (e.g. writing effective emails, engaging bloggers, leveraging social networks, utilizing video), political technology (e.g. using data effectively, progressive technology infrastructure), and the intersection with field and management of these areas of new organizing.

I am not going to the Netroots Nation conference --I have a rule that if I am not in a panel, the conference better be intrinsically related to my ability to earn a living in order for me to make an out-of-pocket appearance. And grock knows I've had to abide to that rule because things have been tight this year. Anyhow, the meeting is supposed to bring bloggers from across the country and across spheres of influence to talk about new trends in activism, coalition building, etc.

Of course, my eye zeroed in on one item of the agenda:

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