BREVITAS

IRAN

Press TV - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says the EU will not support a military strike on Iran over the country's nuclear program. Miliband said the union supports dialogue to resolve the issue.

MEDIA

Think Progress - At the Netroots Nation conference, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman spoke on a panel about “How the media learned to bend over backwards to please the right.” Krugman discussed the right wing’s success at pressuring the media and how some of that filtered down to him: "I could see a little bit of the effects. I was never told to stop writing what I was writing. It was, however, made known to me that I was making management nervous. There were occasional, “Couldn’t you do more straight economics writing?” Pretty much the last time I heard that was in 2005, when I was sort of urged to lay off a bit. The words that stuck in my mind were, “The election settled some of these things."

ECO CLIPS

Daily Green - California has passed a law that explicitly allows cities and counties to make low-interest loans to homeowners and businesses to install solar panels, high-efficiency air conditioners and other energy-saving improvements. To make things easy, participants can pay back the loans over decades through property taxes, according to the Los Angeles Times. If a property is sold, the loan balance transfers to the next owner. Two towns leading the charge already in this area are Berkeley (big surprise, right?) and more conservative Palm Desert, where an aging population is said to be very interested in reducing hefty air-conditioning costs.

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

Huffington Post - The State Department has barred its employees from attending Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Berlin tonight. . . State Department Undersecretary for Management Patrick F. Kennedy has interpreted the Foreign Affairs Manual in the most restrictive way, claiming that he is ensuring that foreign service officials will remain untainted by a "partisan political act." (Spouse and family members, however, have generously been excluded from this ruling.) The U.S. embassy, which is headed by ambassador Robert Timken, a businessman and crony of George W. Bush's from Ohio, who is widely reviled in Germany for his ignorance of foreign affairs, has instructed officials not to attend the rally. The American Foreign Service Association has complained about the edict but there's not enough time to dispute it..

Reliable Sources, Washington Post - [The Obama children] Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, get $1 per week allowance for chores -- and no birthday or Christmas gifts from their parents. Why? The Obamas say they spend "hundreds" on a day-long slumber party (movies, pizza and swimming) for each girl's birthday, where they get plenty of gifts from friends.

One of the things that has puzzled us about Obama is that if he is so eloquent why can't people find things he has said to quote? While waiting, we throw this in as a placeholder until something better comes along: "So the point that I was making at the time was that the political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamic continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that in fact those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work."

WAR DEPARTMENT

Democracy Now - The secretary of the Army has ordered an internal review to examine the Army’s firing last month of the former public affairs director of Arlington National Cemetery. Gina Gray assumed the role of public affairs director of Arlington in April. She quickly discovered that cemetery officials were attempting to impose new limits on media coverage of funerals of the US soldiers killed in Iraq - even after the families of the dead soldiers had agreed to let the press attend. After she pushed for greater media access, she says she was fired in a retaliatory move.

Progress Report - In testimony before the first Guantanamo military tribunal, FBI Agent Ali Soufan said that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility were instructed not to advise detainees of their rights against self-incrimination. Soufan said that "the Guantanamo Bay Navy base is the only place in the world where he has not informed suspects of a right against self-incrimination." "The way it was explained to us is Guantanamo Bay is an intelligence collection point," he said. Other FBI agents have also explained that "they were instructed not to advise Guantanamo detainees of rights," but Soufan is the first to provide a reason.

HOW THE WAR ON TERROR IS HURTING LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS

HEALTHCARE

Governing Here's an exciting idea from the Commonwealth Fund: Add a long term care benefit to Medicare. It wouldn't be a freebie. It would be financed by a premium to pay for care. It might put the long-term-care insurance sector out of business but it would spell major relief for state Medicaid budgets. According to a recent Health Care Opinion Leaders survey four out of five respondents favor adding such a benefit to Medicare. More than two-thirds believe it's important that the health reform plans of the presidential candidates address the quality and financing of long-term care. The opinion leaders surveyed came from

INDICATORS

LA Times About 25% of people ages 18 to 30 have tattoos, and that number is expected to rise to about 40% in the next few years, according to the study, published today in the Archives of Dermatology. Previous studies have shown that about 20% of people end up dissatisfied with their tattoos, and about 6% seek tattoo removal using laser treatment. . . Women reported that they felt stigmatized by the tattoos. For example, 93% said having to hide the tattoos on occasion was a factor in the removal compared with 20% of men. About 40% of women endured negative comments at work, in public or in school compared with 5% of men.

FURTHERMORE. . . .

Fark news summary of the day - Barack Obama to Angela Merkel: "Send more German troops to Afghanistan." Angela Merkel to Barack Obama: "Nein." Barack Obama to Angela Merkel: "We're gonna need a few more than that"

Rules of Thumb - Cohen's Seventh Rule: Never work for a "start up" business unless you start it up. . .Cohen's First Rule of Painting: The drop goes where the drop cloth isn't.

A SHORT HISTORY OF TREE SITTING

HIS SCHOOL RATED EXCELLENT, BUT PRINCIPAL IS STILL SORRY

Regina Britt, Cleveland Plain-Dealer - The school report cards came out in June. Rocky River Middle School passed the 2008 Ohio Achievement Tests, earned an excellent rating from the state and met the requirements for Annual Yearly Progress.

For all of those accomplishments, Principal David Root has only one thing to say to the students, staff and citizens of Rocky River: He's sorry.

Root wants to issue an apology. He sent it to me typed out in two pages, single spaced.

He's sorry that he spent thousands of tax dollars on test materials, practice tests, postage and costs for test administration.

Sorry that his teachers spent less time teaching American history because most of the social studies test questions are about foreign countries.

Sorry that he didn't suspend a student for assaulting another because that student would have missed valuable test days.

Sorry he didn't strictly enforce attendance because all absences count against the school on the State Report Card.

He's sorry for pulling children away from art, music and gym, classes they love, so they could take test-taking strategies.

Sorry that he has to give a test where he can't clarify any questions, make any comments to help in understanding or share the results so students can actually learn from their mistakes.

Sorry that he kept students in school who became sick during the test because if they couldn't finish the test due to illness, the student automatically fails it.

Sorry that the integrity of his teachers is publicly tied to one test.

He apologized for losing eight days of instruction due to testing activities.

For making decisions on assemblies, field trips and musical performances based on how that time away from reading, math, social studies and writing will impact state test results.

For arranging for some students to be labeled "at risk" in front of their peers and put in small groups so the school would have a better chance of passing tests.

For making his focus as a principal no longer helping his staff teach students but helping them teach test indicators.

Root isn't anti-tests. He's all for tests that measure progress and help set teaching goals. But in his eyes, state achievement tests are designed for the media to show how schools rank against each other.

He's been a principal for 24 years, half of them at Rocky River Middle School, the rest in Hudson, Alliance and Zanesville. He loves working with 6th, 7th and 8th graders. . .

His students, who are 11, 12, 13 and 14, worry that teachers they love will be let go based on how well they perform.

One asked him, "If I don't do well, will you fire my teacher?". . .

"We don't teach kids anymore," he said. "We teach test-taking skills. We all teach to the test. I long for the days when we used to teach kids."

Unless we get back to those days, principals and teachers all over Ohio will continue to spend your tax dollars to help students become the best test takers they can be.

HEAD OF LEADING CANCER INSTITUTE WARNS STAFF ON CELL PHONES

BBC - The director of a leading US cancer research institute has sent a memo to thousands of staff warning of possible higher risks from mobile phone use. Ronald Herberman, of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said users should not wait for definitive studies on the risk and should take action now. He said children should use mobiles in emergencies only and adults should try to keep the phone away from the head. No major academic study has confirmed a link to higher brain-tumor risks.

Dr Herberman said his warning was based on early findings from unpublished data. "We shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," he says. . .

A major six-year research study in the UK said last year that there were no short-term adverse effects to brain and cell function from mobile phone use. However, the UK Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Program said there was a "hint" of a higher cancer risk in the long term and that its research would look into the effects over a 10-year period. . .

CONYERS WON'T LET NADER TESTIFY ON IMPEACHMENT

Letter from Ralph Nader to John Conyers - A few days ago, it was reported that your Committee will hold hearings this Friday July 25, 2008 on Congressman Dennis Kucinich's article of impeachment referred to your jurisdiction.

You have invited four members of the House to testify including, of course, Congressman Kucinich and several observers of the subject, including the inestimable former mayor of Salt Lake City Rocky Anderson, Bruce Fein and John Dean. The Libertarian candidate for President, Bob Barr is also on the witness list, but I am not.

This is not the first time that I have been excluded from testifying on subjects both of us have been concerned about and have discussed. Remember your invitation to testify at your unofficial public hearing right after the 2004 elections regarding 'irregularities' in Ohio? Within two days, your chief of staff, Perry Applebaum, persuaded you to disinvite me.

Applebaum has been a problem with my appearing before a Committee Chairman whom I have known, admired and worked with for nearly forty years. He has performed his exclusionary behavior on other occasions. It is time to make this public and to ascertain why he prevails again and again with his superior either not to invite or to deny requests to testify regarding subjects well within my knowledge, experience, and forthrightness.

WHAT OBAMA MISSED IN THE MID EAST

Ali Abunimah, Guardian, UK When I and other Palestinian-Americans first knew Barack Obama in Chicago in the 1990s, he grasped the oppression faced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He understood that an honest broker cannot simultaneously be the main cheerleader, financier and arms supplier for one side in a conflict. He often attended Palestinian-American community events and heard about the Palestinian experience from perspectives stifled in mainstream discussion.

In recent months, Obama has sought to allay persistent concerns from pro-Israel groups by recasting himself as a stalwart backer of Israel and tacking ever closer to positions espoused by the powerful, hard-line pro-Israel lobby Aipac. He distanced himself from mainstream advisers because pro-Israel groups objected to their calls for even-handedness. . .

Every aspect of Obama's visit to Palestine-Israel this week has seemed designed to further appease pro-Israel groups. . . Other than a cursory 45-minute visit to occupied Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinians got little.. . .

Obama missed the opportunity to visit Palestinian refugee camps, schools and even shopping malls to witness first-hand the devastation caused by the Israeli army and settlers, or to see how Palestinians cope under what many call "apartheid". This year alone, almost 500 Palestinians, including over 70 children, have been killed by the Israeli army - exceeding the total for 2007 and dwarfing the two-dozen Israelis killed in conflict-related violence.

Obama said nothing about Israel's relentless expansion of colonies on occupied land. Nor did he follow the courageous lead of former President Jimmy Carter and meet with the democratically elected Hamas leaders, even though Israel negotiated a ceasefire with them. That such steps are inconceivable shows how off-balance is the US debate on Palestine.

Many people I talk to are resigned to the conventional wisdom that aspiring national politicians cannot afford to be seen as sympathetic to the concerns of Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims. They still hope that, if elected, Obama would display an even-handedness absent in the campaign.

Without entirely foreclosing the possibility of change in US policy, the reality is that the political pressures evident in a campaign do not magically disappear once the campaign is over. Nor is all change necessarily for the better.

MANHOLE COVERS THE NEW COPPER

Zach Patton, Governing - Cities battling theft of copper wire? Old news.The big story now is about disappearing manhole covers. Take Philadelphia, as reported in the New York Times:

More than 2,500 covers and grates have disappeared in the past year, up from an annual average of about 100.

Thieves have so thoroughly stripped some neighborhoods on the city’s north and southwest sides that some blocks look like slalom courses, dotted with orange cones to warn drivers and pedestrians of gaping holes, some nearly 30 feet deep.

The skyrocketing costs of iron and steel mean thieves can get a nice price for the purloined covers, from $5 up to $30 or $40, depending on the size. It's a problem plaguing cities across the country:

Phoenix has lost more than 160 of its manhole covers and street storm drains this year, up from 10 last year.

More than 80 drains and manhole covers have been stolen in Long Beach, Calif., this year and at least two local car owners who drove over the open chambers have filed claims against the city.

Starting last year, such thefts in Cleveland, Memphis, Miami and Milwaukee have more than doubled compared with other years, although New York reports no such increase.

PROTECTING A NARCO STATE AGAINST TERRORISM

Thomas Schweich, NY Times - On March 1, 2006, I met Hamid Karzai for the first time. It was a clear, crisp day in Kabul. The Afghan president joined President and Mrs. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Ambassador Ronald Neumann to dedicate the new United States Embassy. He thanked the American people for all they had done for Afghanistan. I was a senior counternarcotics official recently arrived in a country that supplied 90 percent of the world's heroin. I took to heart Karzai's strong statements against the Afghan drug trade. That was my first mistake.

Over the next two years I would discover how deeply the Afghan government was involved in protecting the opium trade - by shielding it from American-designed policies. While it is true that Karzai's Taliban enemies finance themselves from the drug trade, so do many of his supporters. At the same time, some of our NATO allies have resisted the anti-opium offensive, as has our own Defense Department, which tends to see counternarcotics as other people's business to be settled once the war-fighting is over. The trouble is that the fighting is unlikely to end as long as the Taliban can finance themselves through drugs - and as long as the Kabul government is dependent on opium to sustain its own hold on power.

BUSH SPYING ON AMERICANS MAY HAVE BEEN FAR WORSE THAN THOUGHT

Tim Shorrock, Salon Salon has uncovered further indications of far-reaching and possibly illegal surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency inside the United States under President Bush. That includes the alleged use of a top-secret, sophisticated database system for monitoring people considered to be a threat to national security. It also includes signs of the NSA's working closely with other U.S. government agencies to track financial transactions domestically as well as globally. . .

According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies.

One former intelligence official described Main Core as "an emergency internal security database system" designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law. Its name, he says, is derived from the fact that it contains "copies of the 'main core' or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community." . . .

An article in Radar magazine in May, citing three unnamed former government officials, reported that "8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect" and, in the event of a national emergency, "could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and even detention."

The alleged use of Main Core by the Bush administration for surveillance, if confirmed to be true, would indicate a much deeper level of secretive government intrusion into Americans' lives than has been previously known. With respect to civil liberties, says the ACLU's Steinhardt, it would be "pretty frightening stuff."

GREAT MOMENTS IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM

Boing Boing - The NY Yankees banned sunblock at Yankee stadium "to prevent terrorism." On a blistering hot day. And sold high-markup, crappy sunblock inside the gates. . . Security guards collected garbage bags full of sunblock at the entrances to Yankee Stadium over the sweltering weekend, when temps hit 96 degrees and the UV index reached a skin-scorching 9 out of 10 - a move team officials said was to protect the Stadium from terrorism. . . .The Stadium does sell 1-ounce bottles of Arizona Sun SPF 15 for $5 - a huge markup that makes its beer seem cheap.

SWAMPOODLE REPORT: THE PROGRESSIVE PUZZLE

Sam Smith

Let's imagine that you're a progressive and you are asked to support a candidate who:-

Favors expanding the war in Afghanistan

- Leaving a sizable force in and near Iraq following what he calls a "withdrawal." A large mercenary force would probably also be left.

- Aggressively opposed the impeachment of Bush. This same advisor says he would "be stunned" if his candidate appointed a strong critic of corporations to the Supreme Court.

- Has offered no major new ideas for dealing with the nation's economic crisis.

- Supports Bill Clinton's assault on social welfare.

- Supported making it harder to file class action suits in state courts

- Voted for a business-friendly tort bill

- Voted against a 30% interest rate cap on credit cards

- Had the most number of foreign lobbyist contributors in the primaries

- Is even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain

- Was most popular of the primary candidates with K Street lobbyists

- Has a top economic aide who has written enthusiastically about Milton Friedman and denounced the idea of a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures.

- Has no meaningful urban policy

- Supports the war on drugs

- Supports the crack-cocaine sentence disparity

- Supports Real ID

- Supports the PATRIOT Act

- Supports the death penalty

- Has lent his support to the neo-liberal Hamilton Project, which was formed, as one journalist put it, "to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party."

- Has considered naming as vice president or cabinet members rightwing Republicans rated 0% by SANE, AFL-CIO, NARAL, Alliance for Retired Americans, Human Rights Coalition and the League of Conservation Voters, and who oppose abortion and favor privatizing Social Security

- Voted for a nuclear energy bill that included money for bunker buster bombs and full funding for Yucca Mountain.

- Supports federally funded ethanol and is unusually close to the ethanol industry.

- Supports the No Child Left Behind Act.

- Opposes reintroduction of the fairness doctrine for radio and television.

- Is using hawkish foreign policy advisors involved in past US misdeeds and failures.

- Strongly supports Israeli aggression and apartheid.

- Favors turning over Jerusalem to Israel

- Favored cluster bomb ban in civilian areas

- Opposes single payer healthcare

- Wouldn't have photo taken with San Francisco mayor because he was afraid it would seem that he supported gay marriage

- Favors a national service plan that appears to be in sync with one being promoted by a new coalition that would make national service mandatory by 2020, and which is in line with a bill for such mandatory national service introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel.

- Has dissed both Ralph Nader and Paul Wellstone

- Supports immunity from prosecution for both telecoms engaged in illegal wiretapping and the government officials that had them do it.

You don't have to imagine. It's Barack Obama, whose nomination was assured thanks to a con game that even outdid the one that worked so well for Bill Clinton and which left America essentially without a liberal voice for eight years.

Admittedly, Obama is a far more honest and decent person that Clinton but that doesn't take away from the fact that progressive America has been hit hard once again and much of it doesn't even realize it.

One standard liberal response is denial. You just join the cult and forget about the facts. And to shore up this shoddy state, you excoriate any who remain skeptical, fearful, angry or uncertain.

If, on the other hand, you wish not to participate in the charade, there are no comfortable alternatives.

For example, one may choose to support Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. Based simply on the issues, this is the most logical and moral route. The problem is that history suggests that it doesn't do much good. Not only is the electoral system hopelessly rigged against it, but even under the best of circumstances a presidential campaign depends not only on who is leading it but who is behind it. Neither candidate is backed by the sort of movement where even if you lose you still make an difference. This is not a criticism of either Nader or McKinney. After all, Jesus went to the cross with only 12 disciples. But it is a problem.

With the except of Eugene Debs, all the most successful third party presidential candidates over the past century have drawn primarily from disgruntled mainstream factions, not radical or progressive movements. Further each of the third parties had only one opportunity to make their point in a big way in a presidential race.

Here are the best numbers for various third party candidates since 1900:

Theodore Roosevelt 28%
Perot (1992): 19%
LaFolette: 17%
George Wallace: 14%
Debs (1912): 11%
Perot (1996): 9%
Anderson: 7%

All other third party candidates got 3% or less, including Debs in three additional runs and Thurmond and Henry Wallace in the hot 1948 race.

Obviously the numbers don't tell the whole story. For example, the New Deal drew, Progressive and Socialist ideas despite low turnouts for their candidates. The Populists, despite topping out a 9% in a presidential race, influenced the politics of two Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin.

Still, if you want to affect national politics with a national third party presidential run, history suggests that getting over 5% - preferably closer to 10% - is a good way to start. Otherwise, you can probably expect a less direct impact for your efforts, perhaps decades in the future. And, in any case, you can expect your swing at presidential politics to be fairly short-lived.

That does not mean, however, that third parties - like certain insects - are merely born, have sex, and then die. In fact, some of the third parties have had long, remarkably healthy lives, but in large part because they were as concerned with local as with national results. The Socialist Party is the most dramatic example, with a history dating back over 100 years. By World War I it had elected 70 mayors, two members of Congress, and numerous state and local officials. Milwaukee alone had three Socialist mayors in the last century, including Frank Zeidler who held office for 12 years ending as late as 1960. And let us not forget Bernie Sanders.

In fact, some highly successful third parties never ran anyone for president (except in fusion with one of the major parties). An example was the Liberal Party of New York, the longest lived third party next the to the Socialists.

As one of the founders of the national Green Party I have tried unsuccessfully to encourage a backyard Green approach, working from the bottom up and emphasizing local rather than national campaigns. But living in a time when it is assumed that all change ultimately emanates from the television screen, the White House or God, such a grassroots view is regarded as somewhat antiquated.

Nonetheless, I do not begrudge anyone's choice to go the Nader or McKinney route. Further, Democrats who treat such people as worthless scoundrels and scum need to remember that these are folks who in large part believe in the sort of things once promoted by the Democratic Party. And if Democrats accept the existence of Republicans as an inevitable part of political intelligent design, why not Greens and independents as well?

Another approach to the problem is apathy. I tend to be more tolerant of apathy than many of my ilk because I know precisely how hard it is to remain involved when on every day and at every turn one loses the battle. Besides, most who publicly decry apathy are not looking for independent action or rebellion but blind loyalty to whatever they are pushing at the moment. Further, while I might wish that more were politically engaged, I understand their reticence given the choices with which they are presented.

My only suggestion to the apathetic is to view it as a transitional state, a sort of nap before you discover what it is you might find worth pursuing. And it certainly doesn't have to be a candidate. The list that began this essay is also a directory of things that desperately need more attention.

There is then an approach I think of as grumpy uncertainty. In most any campaign, undecideds are a larger voting bloc than any third party and, since the candidates go to great lengths to reach them, one could argue the case for a well organized group of the blatantly befuddled. On a personal level, uncertainty is disturbing to the blindly committed and sometimes even causes them to think. On a group level, it can be quite powerful.

Another approach is what might be called the one minute endorsement, in which voters extend their support for Obama only as long as they are in the voting booth, following which they return home and immediately upon the closing of the polls aligned themselves with activist critics of the new administration.

(For those of blessed to live in states and colonies with sizable Democratic margins - like my hometown of DC - you can have it both ways: vote for Nader or McKinney and not have to worry about helping to elect McCain.)

Finally, there is what might be called the dental appointment approach. No rational person ever wants to go to the dentist and you rarely feel any better after it's over. But medicine assures us that by keeping these appointments we cut down on cavities and reduce the prospect of pain. And there is some evidence that this is true.

A similar argument could be made on Obama's behalf. For example, by supporting Obama we increase the likelihood that the number of high officials who support a fascistic approach to life will be substantially reduced. There is a high probability that the Supreme Court will not be as painful an experience as it is at present. Obama might even propose some good laws and a Democratic Congress might force others upon him. With sufficient pressure, his desire for post-partisanship might even include the presence of one or two progressives.

And while it is entirely possible that America will continue its move to the right under Obama, it is also possible that he will stabilize the patient. Rather than making us better or worse, he might be a transitional figure, both the last gasp of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush corporatism and the door opener to something better after he's gone.

Not least important is the fact that with a Democratic president, the environment in which progressives work will be substantially altered. We spend so much time discussing the faults and virtues of our candidates that we easily forget that one of their most important functions of a president is to establish an ecology for politics. This doesn't mean that it will be uniformly friendly, only that the options and the opportunities may increase.

Of course, progressives have to use them. They didn't during the Clinton years and we paid a huge price thanks to the Monica Lewinsky wing of the Democratic Party that was willing to do whatever the president wanted even as they still claimed to be liberals.

Being a cynical, amoral, weak-livered sort, I tend to favor the dental appointment approach. After all, politics was designed for people like me; saints and prophets were meant to stick to religion.

Admittedly, when the weather turns nasty, I drift towards grumpy uncertainty. It's especially appealing when some self-righteous Obamite appears on the scene; even a little agnosticism drives them batty.

But the point here is not to argue the proper course, but to point out that those on the left have been presented with one more miserable conundrum and, as should be expected, are finding a variety of ways to approach it.

There is a long tradition for the left to eat its own. Greens, for example, have been repeatedly cruelly attacked or ostracized for their efforts. Much progressive media has blacked out even mention of them. Those liberals or progressives supporting Obama, on the other hand, also come in for a lot of gratuitous criticism from the true believers in Nader or the Green Party.

There are, however, other models. For example, the Socialist Party describes its beginnings this way:

"From the beginning the Socialist Party was the ecumenical organization for American radicals. Its membership included Marxists of various kinds, Christian socialists, Zionist and anti-Zionist Jewish socialists, foreign-language speaking sections, single-taxers and virtually every variety of American radical. On the divisive issue of 'reform vs. revolution,' the Socialist Party from the beginning adopted a compromise formula, producing platforms calling for revolutionary change but also making 'immediate demands' of a reformist nature. . . . The Socialist Party historically stressed cooperatives as much as labor unions, and included the concepts of revolution by education and of 'building the new society within the shell of the old.'"

You can't find a single movement on the left these days that could claim such eclecticism.

And we don't have all that much to play with. A Battleground Poll last May found only 34% of Americans listing themselves as liberal, with only 8% describing themselves as very liberal. Sixty two percent call themselves conservative, with 22% saying they are very conservative.

If we spent more time building coalitions around issues rather than candidates, we might have an easier time getting along with each other. It's been my experience that the most disruptive matters on the left have not been issues, but rather tactics and candidates.

For example, a poll taken at the recent Netroots conference found five key issues that at least 15% of the attendees agreed were first or second on their agenda: Iraq, energy and ecology, healthcare, the growing gap between rich and poor and the loss of constitution rights.

In each of these areas save the economic one, progressives have clear and easily understood positions. When such issues are on top, intramural problems decline. For example, the growing movement for single payer includes labor unions that are supporting Obama as well as Greens and Naderities.

Marc Weisbrodt, in Alternet, offers another example: a congressional bill calling for a boycott of Iran (which, is, in fact, an act of war):

"Groups opposed to military confrontation with Iran sprang into action, including Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, the National Iranian-American Council, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Code Pink, and Just Foreign Policy. They generated tens of thousands of emails, letters, phone calls, and other contacts with members of Congress and their staff. The first co-sponsor to change his position on the bill was Representative Barney Frank (D-MA. . . He apologized for 'not having read [the bill] more carefully,' and pledged that he would not support the bill with the blockade language.

"Then Robert Wexler, (D-FL), peeled off, also stating that he would not continue to support the bill if the blockade language were not changed. Most of the major media ignored the controversy, but two newspapers noticed it. The first was Seattle's Post-Intelligencer, whose editorial board denounced the resolution on June 24 and asked, 'are supporters of Res. 362 asleep at the wheel, or are they just anxious to drag us into another illegal war?'

"Then on June 27 the editorial board of Newsday published an editorial calling for a full debate on the bill. Newsday has a large circulation, and perhaps more importantly, it publishes in the New York district of Congressman Gary Ackerman - the lead author of the H. Con. Res. 362.

"Then, earlier this month, Congressman Mike Thompson (D- CA) wrote: '[Howard] Berman [Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs] has indicated that he has no intention of moving the bill through his committee unless the language is first altered to ensure that there is no possible way it could be construed as authorizing any type of military action against Iran. I will withdraw my support for the bill if this change is not made.'"

Should Obama be elected, there will be plenty of opportunities for similar actions as well as pressing for change we can believe in even if the new president thinks of it as a change he would just as soon forget about.

We need to think of ourselves as a progressive, sectarian equivalent of the religious right in the Republican Party: well organized, ubiquitous cells of carefully directed intent that the Democratic Party establishment wishes would disappear but knows won't and so has to placate it. In the end, Obama will not have given us leadership, but only a better battlefield.

In the meanwhile, however, be kind to your fellow progressives however they choose to deal with this illusionary distortion of democracy we still call an election. Electing a good president these days is the art of the impossible. But we can still choose issues wisely; we can still fight for, and define ourselves by, such issues rather than just obediently walking in the shadow of someone who is almost certain to disappoint us.

OBAMA AGAIN SAYS ISRAEL GET JERUSALEM

Al Jazeera - Speaking in the Israeli town of Sderot, which has been hit by rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza, Obama said the US also supported Israel's right to defend itself "against those who threaten its people".

He also reiterated his position that Jerusalem "will be" the capital of Israel.

However the Illinois senator, currently on the final leg of his Middle East tour, said that he believed the city to be a "final status issue" that must be decided by negotiation and said he remained committed to a two-state solution to the conflict.

The status of Jerusalem remains one of the most contentious parts of any solution to the Middle East conflict.

In June Obama caused anger in the Arab world when he said that Jerusalem should be Israel's undivided capital.

The international community, including the United States, does not recognise Israel's claim that Jerusalem is its undivided capital and Palestinians hope to have occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of any future Palestinian state.

HUNDREDS OF DEAD YOUNG PENGUINS WASHING UP ON BRAZIL'S SHORES

McClatchy Newspapers - The discovery of hundreds of young penguins washing up along the Brazilian shoreline over the past month has sparked a scientific mystery over what may have led the birds thousands of miles astray.

The so-called Magellanic penguins began appearing in late June. Many of them dead or barely alive, they arrived on beaches all over south-eastern Brazil about 2,500 miles from their native southern Patagonia. Some of the penguins have since been spotted as far north as the warm-water beaches of the Brazilian state of Bahia, another 600 miles up the Atlantic coast.

Although the penguins regularly migrate up to southern Brazil in search of food, the sheer quantity of penguins washing up farther away than normal has prompted worries that human activity may be throwing off the animals' migratory cycle.

"The penguin population is intimately linked to their supplies of food, so this suggests something is happening to the population of fish they eat," said biologist Marcelo Bertellotti at the National Patagonic Center in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.

"It appears the penguins are not finding fish where they normally do, and one reason could be that warming waters and climate change have impacted the fish population."

OBAMA BACKED ON IRAQ BY BUSH AND MCCAIN

OLBERMANN: The Iraqi government is saying, 'Get out,' and President Bush swore, you know, "Some day if they say get out, we‘ll get out."

MADDOW: That‘s right. May 2007 in the Rose Garden, Bush said - and I went back and checked the quote directly so I could be sure to directly quote him - "If they were to say leave, we would leave." Also, for what it‘s worth, in April of 2004, John McCain at the Council on Foreign Relations said, "It is obvious we would have to leave if they asked to us leave."

I mean, they told us that the point of invading Iraq was to topple Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was toppled; they told us that the point of staying there after, was to set up a sovereign Iraqi government. Well now, the sovereign Iraqi government is standing up on its hind legs enough to tell us to leave, and we're left with this situation where they need another explanation of why we can't leave. That's the real headline here.

FORMER GITMO PROSECUTOR SAYS TRIALS ARE RIGGED

Jeff Stein, CQ -Air Force Col. Morris D. Davis, who resigned last year after two years as chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, today described the military commissions system as fatally "tainted" by politics and designed to produce guilty verdicts, no matter what the costs.

The possibility of the system delivering "credible verdicts is doubtful," Davis said Tuesday in a remarkable interview on NPR's Diane Rehm Show.

"The process has been so tainted, such a black eye to the country, that we have to make every effort possible to have an open trial. . .

"I'm afraid that what has happened, though, is that we've had a rush, in order to get things done before the election, rather than taking the time -- and getting evidence declassified in order to have an open trial is a frustrating, time consuming process, but in my view a necessary step if these things are going to have credibility.

IS OBAMA PUSHING A NATIONAL DRAFT?

Jim Lingren, Volokh Conspiracy A relatively new group, Service Nation, is planning to kick off a campaign with a Summit for "National Service" on September 11. Time Magazine has signed on to promote the effort. The website trumpets its training of "Change Agents" in cooperation with "Change, Inc." Its blog is called ChangeWire. Does this theme sound familiar?

The website makes it clear that it is not just calling for individuals to get involved, but it is calling for a new National Service Act that will involve the government in transforming American society:

To begin this journey, Service Nation will unite leaders from every sector of American society with hundreds of thousands of citizens in a national campaign to call on the next President and Congress to enact a new era of service and citizenship in America, an era in which all Americans will work together to try and solve our greatest and most persistent societal challenges. This campaign will launch with a Service Nation Summit, Sept. 11-12 in New York City, and build with a national grassroots movement aimed at inspiring widespread public support for a new and transformational National Service Act that will encourage all Americans to step forward and take the lead in bridging our divides, strengthening our communities, and building a more vibrant democracy

The five co-chairs of the Service Nation Summit include Obama aide Caroline Kennedy, Vartan Gregorian (President of the Carnegie Corporation and former Democratic donor), Rick Stengel (Managing Editor of TIME Magazine and former speechwriter for Bill Bradley), Bill Novelli (CEO of AARP and former donor to both Republican and Democratic candidates, including John McCain in 1999), and Alma Powell (Chair of America's Promise Alliance and wife of Colin Powell). Gregorian and Novelli were not originally listed as co-chairs when the Summit was first announced.

What is this National Service Act that Service Nation favors?

Charles Rangel's National Service Act, which is languishing before Congress, provides for a universal draft with two years for virtually all persons aged 18-42, with no deferment for college. The purpose of Rangel's bill is:

"To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security . . . ."

Here is how the civilian service is described in the bill (sec 102(b)):

a civilian capacity that, as determined by the President, promotes the national defense, including national or community service and service related to homeland security.

Note the interpretation of community service as promoting national defense, just as in Barack Obama's July 2, 2008 speech, a juxtaposition that confused most bloggers. Under Rangel's bill, if one is selected for induction into the military, one may choose instead to do civilian service.

With unintentional irony the bill calls this mandatory service "Voluntary Service."

Sec. 103(e) Voluntary Service — A person subject to induction under this title may--

(1) volunteer to perform national service in lieu of being inducted; or

(2) request permission to be inducted at a time other than the time at which the person is otherwise called for induction. . . .

The Americans for a National Service Act. . . . indicates that it is part of Service Nation' campaign. [The] organization'’s website gives some idea about what the goals of Service Nation are:

Service Nation is a 16-month non-partisan grassroots and grass top political campaign intent on pushing the issue of National Service to the forefront of American life and convincing the next President and Congress to put into law a Voluntary National Service Act by September of 2009.

The secondary goal of Service Nation is to set America on a trajectory to become a nation of universal national service by 2020. . .

Here are service Nation's more specific goals as laid out in Powerpoint slides on their website (number 13 is mandatory universal service for both men and women):

Engage 1 million Americans in full-time service, leveraging an additional 100 million volunteers each year.

1. Enroll one million Americans annually in a revitalized and expanded AmeriCorps national service program. Create new corps focused on education, public health, disaster relief, and energy conservation. . .

9. Create the permanent National Service Council to play a similar role as the National Security Council and National Economic Council.

10. Establish a U.S. Public Service Academy.

13. Launch a debate about why and how America should become a nation of universal national service by 2020: debating baby bond, lottery draft, new GI Bill, etc.

This is a breathtaking set of proposals that would create a bureaucracy that indeed might be "just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as our military. It would be much larger than the military. Note the founding of a new National Service Academy like the existing military academies.

Service Nation's short-term goal may be a staggering increase in voluntary national service and the federal bureaucracy, but the ultimate goal of Service Nation is a universal draft by the year 2020, as they openly disclose.

WHY ARE WE BAILING OUT THE F* ING STOCkHOLDERS?

Dean Baker, Prospect - There is a clear rationale for making good on Fannie and Freddie's bonds. If the government allowed these bonds to default, not honoring the implicit guarantee, then investors would recognize that these bonds are far more risky than they had believed. This would raise mortgage interest rates for many years to come. It is understandable that we would not want to see this happen, especially in the middle of the housing meltdown.

But what interest does the public have in protecting the share prices of Fannie and Freddie stock? Don't stockholders understand they take a risk when they buy stock? In this case, the stockholders made a bad investment. They are supposed to lose their money (possibly all of it), right?

I have yet to hear any explanation from anyone as to why the government is supporting the share price. (In an NPR interview this morning, Senator Chris Dodd gave an incoherent answer that implied that supporting the share price was somehow tied to backing up the bonds. It isn't.). . .

HEAD OF PSYCHOLOGISTS ASSOCIATION HELPED CIA WITH TORTURE

Democracy Now New information has been revealed about the role psychologists played in helping the CIA develop its torture techniques. In her new book The Dark Side, Jane Mayer reveals a former president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman, was invited by the CIA in the spring of 2002 to speak at the Navy's SERE school in San Diego. In the 1960s, Seligman experimented on dogs and found that by shocking a dog repeatedly and randomly, he could brutalize it emotionally into a state of complete passivity. Seligman spoke for three hours about his theory of learned helplessness. His theories were later adapted for use in CIA prisons. Seligman is the second APA president to be linked to the CIA's torture program. Last year, it was revealed former APA president Joseph Matarazzo is a partner in the Spokane firm Mitchell & Jessen that was contracted to design the CIA interrogations program. Unlike other medical associations, the APA has refused to unequivocally condemn torture.

ONE DAY OF ECONOMIC NEWS

Compiled by Kevin Zeese

Wachovia loses $8.86 billion, slashes jobs
7-22-2008 • Reuters
Wachovia Corp, the fourth-largest U.S. bank, on Tuesday posted an $8.86 billion second-quarter loss, slashed its dividend and announced the elimination of more than 10,700 jobs after losses tied to mortgages soared.
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WaMu has $3.33 bln loss, may be cut to "junk"
7-22-2008 • Reuters
Washington Mutual Inc, the largest U.S. savings and loan, posted a $3.33 billion second-quarter loss on Tuesday as souring mortgages forced it to set aside more money for loan losses.
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