Blue Mass Group

Alternet has an excerpt from Zinn book, on the pair that were executed near the end of WWI in Charlestown MA whose only crime was being Italian and poor with capitalist-threatening anarchistic opinions. The comments are passionate and eloquent as if it happened yesterday. The New Yorker 5/17 has a profile on Obama that fascinated me. A different sort of guy, certainly for a politicion. Best to all, TB 

The latest in a monthlyish series or the ups and downs of the last few weeks in the Dem presidential race. As described earlier: “An entirely personal, somewhat arbitrary, ranking of the fortunes of declared and otherwise Democratic candidates for the 2008 presidency. Not in terms of who’s winning or might win, but how the last month went, based on a [inconsistent] recollection of news stories, rumors, and gossip.”

Debate, debate, debate. The main story of the past month was the first of innumerable debates featuring innumerable candidates for the Democratic nomination, watched by a small audience of activists who’ve mainly decided who to support already.

Goldscheider wants LaGuer’s story to end well. He also wants to let it go. But he can’t, for two reasons: his research has convinced him LaGuer is innocent, and no other reporter is waiting to take up the cause. Adam Reilly of the Phoenix turns in a well-written profile of BMGer and freelance writer Eric Goldscheider, who posts here about Ben LaGuer, under the name “Speaking Out.”  Worth checking out. 

I went to the budget talk hosted by Sen. Pat Jehlen on Tuesday night, hosted at the Century Bank headquarters in Medford. (Century Bank’s message board read “Welcome Senator Jehlen”, for all the I-93 commuters’ benefit. That’s pretty nice for her.) I ran into state rep Carl Sciortino on the way in, and fellow BMG netizen and OpenMass guru Jim Caralis — we sat in the back, smoked cigarettes and made wise-ass remarks. (OK, we didn’t actually smoke.) Here’s a write-up in the Somerville Journal.

Speaking on Tuesday were folks representing the independent-wonk perspective, the government-wonk perspective, and the community-activist perspective: Noah Berger of the Mass. Budget and Policy Center; David Sullivan, legal counsel to the state’s Admin. and Finance office; and Carl Nilsson of the bad-ass community organizing group Neighbor to Neighbor. So the event was compellingly structured: Identify the problem; introduce the proposal to deal with the problem; show what you can do as a citizen.

Sorry for the light posting yesterday — all three of us have had work-life commitments … Anyway, here’s what’s doing: MA-05: Candidates continue to evolve on health care. Not to get too circular and self-referential with the other blogs, but Susan sums it all up well: clipped from www.beyond495.com Check this out:  Lynne calls Eileen Donoghue out to clarify comments she’s made about healthcare.  Discussion ensues in the comments.  Candidate responds.  Lynne invites Jamie Eldridge to respond to a question.  Discussion ensues.  Campaign manager (correctly identified as campaign manager, and not writing under the candidate’s byline) responds.  Read the whole thing at Left in Lowell.   Interesting strategy: MA Dems chair John Walsh wants to get national party leaders to lean on local legislators to kill the anti-marriage amendment. Good political sense, since a full ballot-battle would be an enormous, national distraction to the party. clipped from www.boston.com Walsh said the legislators on MassEquality’s list are Democrats who would be open to considering the impact of a highly emotional and expensive ballot campaign. Also trying to negotiate a role for the national party is the recently resigned chairman, Philip W. Johnston, who has made the case to Dean’s staff that [...]

On three topics that have been in the news lately I have been increasingly concerned by what appears to be an increasingly more common tactic of Democrats: Placing the blame in the wrong place. 

Democrats seem to want to blame on what ever was used to commit the offending act instead of the individual that committed the offending act.

The three topics I am referring to are gun laws in light of the tragedy at VT and shootings in Boston, the banning of plastic bags and, most recently, trying to ban certain breeds of dogs.

It’s hard to read today’s op-ed by Kevin Phelan and Chad Gifford without bursting into laughter. Or tears. These two millionaires are looking for sympathy – and to shut down small non-profits – because they are so “overwhelmed” by everyone asking them for money.  It’s “difficult for donors to know which to support,” they say.  Gawsh, poor them! The underlying systemic problem has little to do with the corporate mergers resulting in fewer local CEO’s to cultivate relationships with. It’s the wildly increasing imbalance between haves and have-nots, the corporate control of government favoring business profit over the public’s interests, and the abandonment of social spending by our federal government. I have little sympathy for these guys. They may be good guys, but they sound like out-of-touch whiners. Gifford pulled down a “bonus” of $20 million, give or take, if I remember, for the backbreaking work of merging BankBoston into Fleet and God only knows what his retirement salary and bennies amount to today. And when Jim Kilts sold Gillette to P&G, he got a $160 million bonus for that backbreaking job.  Get the picture? There’s plenty of money to go around but it’s not being spread around sufficiently to [...]