Wow.  At first glance, that's all I can say about the comments from Pastor Hayes Wicker of Naples, Florida.  Here's what he said at an anti-gay event last week:This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery.Wow. 

Today, April 25th, is Arbor Day, a day to celebrate trees.  I am writing to you today on behalf of the Nature Conservancy, an organization dear to my heart.  Thanks to thousands of caring supporters, more than 271,000 trees have been sponsored through The Nature Conservancy’s ambitious Plant A Billion campaign launched earlier this month.Through the Plant A Billion project, where one dollar plants one native tree, The Nature Conservancy is working with partners in Brazil to protect and restore the Atlantic Forest, one of the world's biggest and most endangered tropical forests.This is one of several Nature Conservancy projects currently underway to reverse deforestation and reestablish the great native rain forests that are the lungs of the earth.  Just one dollar plants a native tree that will remove thousands of pounds of carbon from the atmosphere over our lifetime. I’ve set a personal goal of raising $1,000 this year for the Conservancy to plant 1,000 trees.  Together, a little bit at a time, we can plant a thousand trees that will sequester tons of carbon, helping to offset our personal carbon footprint and reduce our role in climate change.  Amazing how such a small investment can do so much over a lifetime!  Please join me in celebrating Arbor Day by making a donation today through the Nature Conservancy’s secure contribution site:The Nature Conservancy is one of the largest and most respected conservation groups in the world.  Explore an interactive map of the Atlantic Forest to learn more about the Plant A Billion project and how the Nature Conservancy will put your investment to work to replant the Atlantic Forest in Brazil.  If you are already a member of The Nature Conservancy, or want to become one, you can take an extra step to celebrate Arbor Day and save existing trees by signing up to be a Nature Conservancy Monthly Donor.  By becoming a Monthly Donor, you can take your support of The Nature Conservancy paperless, reducing your use of trees and saving the Conservancy the cost of postage and mailing.  Plus, it will cut down on your mailbox clutter.  What a deal!I hope you will join me in supporting this very worthy cause, and tell your family and friends about it, too.  Thank you, and Happy Arbor Day!DeniseRiverside, CA

On April 15, thirty one Penn State students, including DFA member Tina Robinson, were arrested for sitting in at Old Main to demand that President Spanier adopt the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP), which would ensure that manufacturers of Penn State branded apparel pay their workers a living wage and afford them the right to unionize. Though in his office all day, President Spanier did not engage the student protesters or the 200 supporters outside. This was the largest sit-in ever for the DSP!University Police have now notified the students that they will be charged with defiant criminal trespass which carries a maximum sentence of 12 months in jail or a $25,000 fine. PLEASE SIGN the online petition to Free the Penn State 31!The sit-in was a non-violent act of civil disobedience and the participants were respectful of Old Main employees, administrators and police. In a notice informing students that refusal to leave the building would result in arrest, administrators wrote, "Penn State commends the civility of the students who expressed their interest in urging the university to endorse the proposed Designated Suppliers Program." A day later, the administration kicked students off of the Old Main steps for passing out fliers (Activists keep protests alive). Tina wants you to know, "We will not be silenced""You can also write to President Spanier to inform him that you oppose his attempts to silence those demanding improved conditions in the factories where Penn State apparel is made. Send the following letter to Spanier at president@psu.edu or call his office at 814-865-7611. President Spanier, Please do not press charges or take academic disciplinary action against the thirty-one students who sat in Old Main on April 15, 2008, in support of the Designated Suppliers Program. and, "We will not go away""Spanier is hoping he can wait us out, but it won't work. The university community has been demanding the DSP for two and a half years and will demand the DSP for two and a half more. "Our goal is to get 1,000 students and community members to sign the online petition and 100 professors to sign the letter! Please help us make this happen. Please support Student Activism for worker's and human rights. Please support our right to peacefully assemble and speak our minds." PLEASE SIGN the online petition to Free the Penn State 31!

AFL-CIO Weblog | Pay Discrimination OK by McCain District may have to cut jobs | floridatoday.comFLORIDA TODAYReport alleges abuse in Asia shrimp industry – CNN.com TBRC sends $9.5 billion tax swap to voters by Aaron Deslatte Orlando Sentinel - More on Les Miller v. Haridopolos by Aaron Deslatte Orlando Sentinel -CSX Battle Set for Friday by John Kennedy Orlando Sentinel - CSX deal, Alligator Alley lease headed for a shotgun wedding by Aaron Deslatte Orlando Sentinel -Working Families Vote 2008: AFL-CIO's Candidate QuestionnairesWorking Families e-Activist Network

Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.  Howard Thurman I interviewed Peter Harvey at a Oakland, California Democracy for America meeting.  Peter  passionately talked about the progressive value of community and shared an early memory of the community reaching out to him.  However, he thinks that conservatives have completely missed the mark of religious teachings by going off into intolerance  Progressive Values Stories: Peter Harvey on Community versus Intolerance -->I’m Peter Harvey from Piedmont, California.  My job is program manager for NASA projects, and I think progressives see government as a way of combining all of us and making us all part of each other.  We are a community, and that sense of community should not be just with the nation, but with the world.  We have a global climate crisis, that we need to come together.

Actually since there were 105,480,101 households in America in 2000 there are actually--by my calculations--about 97,041,692 reasons (or should I say households) to oppose the Fair Tax; or any sort of consumption tax.Don't follow what I mean? I know, unfortunately at least a few supporters probably hope you don't.  I'll turn to the tax policy center and their online issue brief: National Retail Sales Tax: Who would bear the burden?Under a national retail sales tax, the wealthiest households in the country would receive stunningly large tax cuts. Households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution have an average income of about $475,000. Their average tax cut would be $79,000, or more than the incomes of all but about 8 percent of households. Put another way, the roughly 1.1 million taxpayers in this top 1 percent would save a total of $87 billion on their taxes each year. This cut would be financed by tax increases on the bottom 92 percent of households. Households with income between $5,000 and $50,000 would face an average tax increase of over $1,000.If someone turns to you and asks why you don't want the Fair Tax... "cause like its Fair" and "who would be against that."  Just smile and respectfully say... "Speaking as just one of the 92% of us in this country who would actually get a tax hike from it... I'd have to say no its not, and no it wouldn't be."crossposted at Speculative Fiction

UNNATURAL CAUSES: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? is a seven-part documentary produced by California Newsreel and aired nationally on PBS in late March and early April 2008.  This is a story about health, but it's not about doctors or drugs. It's about why some of us get sicker more often and die sooner in the first place. UNNATURAL CAUSES sheds light on mounting evidence of how inequities in our lives - the jobs we do, the wealth we enjoy, the neighborhoods we lives in - can get under the skin and disrupt our biology as surely as germs and viruses.  -->

This rocks. The NYTimes editorial board gets how important this campaign is. Whether we succeed in forcing Sec. Rice out is important, but the real game changer here is to make sure she never gets an important job in American government again.  Head on over to the NYTimes and check it out. Then leave a comment so they know how important this is to you. http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/condoleezza-rice-teflon-no-more Thanks!  -Charles

Condi Must Go Campaign:National JournalWashington PostThe New York Times Ed Fallon for Congress:The Politico Jimmy Dahroug for New York State Senate:New York Daily NewsMark Leno for California State Senate:The San Mateo Daily JournalEnjoy.DannyCommunications Director

 What a piece of work is man... the paragon of animals. The paragon of animals? Six thousand years of brutality, murder, and slavery. An animal does not do this to its own kind. Byron: [Hamlet] This article is a rather harsh critique of deeper Failed Conservative Values.  In interviews, Richard Wagner told me he thinks thuggery is a failed conservative value and Herman Blackmon mentioned the lynch mob. I didn't think that either the lynch mob or thuggery were actually values. They seem more like manifestations of a value or perhaps of multiple values. Sometime it's hard to know what is a value and what isn't.  The largest listing of values that I have found is the Union of International Associations - Human Values online.  They have a database of around 5,000 values. I checked and neither thuggery or the lynch mob are listed. However, the dictionary definition of thuggery mentions both violence and brutality and they are listed as values.  Violence and brutality seem to work as the values behind the lynch mob as well.  We do see Failed Conservative Values of violence and brutality continuing to be  manifest in domestic violence, school yard bullies,  the beatings and killings of gays, the starting of an unnecessary war in Iraq and the ongoing conservatives support of torture. Herman also talked about growing up in Texas and fighting against  violence backed segregation and working for the progressive value of justice.    Failed Conservative Values: Richard J Wagner on Thuggery--> Richard Wagner: Conservative values go back to the Romans, especially thuggery.  Those who are strong and can take what they want because they have the strength to do it.  This is a struggle going on for thousands of years. 

Not in literacy,  not in standard of living, not in life expectancy, but in throwing people into jail.  The United States has more people in prison than any other country on the planet.  The New York Times reports:The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.DannyCommunications Director

DFA-Endorsed candidate Joe Garcia (http://www.dfalink.com/campaign.php?id=2699) is running for Congress against Republican reactionary Mario Diaz-Balart in South Florida. Joe is running a people-powered campaign and has really engaged local DFA members.Up on the Miami Herald blog is a video made by a volunteer for the Garcia campaign:-->Go over to the Miami Herald blog and fill up the comments with words of support for Joe Garcia. Mario Diaz-Balart has never had a serious challenger and, with your help, we can put Joe Garcia over the top.DannyCommunications Director

To restore native rain forests and offset the effects of climate change, earlier this month The Nature Conservancy initiated an ambitious fundraising campaign to plant 1 billion trees in the Atlantic Forest on the coast of Brazil.  Through years of accelerating deforestation, the Atlantic Forest has been reduced to only 7% of its former size.  It takes the Conservancy just one dollar to plant one tree.  In the three weeks since the campaign was launched, the Conservancy has raised over $252,000 - enough to plant an impressive 252,000 new trees.  Restoring the Atlantic Forest with 2 billion trees over the next several years will reestablish a crucial carbon sink.  Won’t you join me in celebrating Earth Day by supporting The Nature Conservancy’s Plant A Billion campaign?  As little as $10 or $20 will plant a small grove of trees that will create a lifetime of carbon sequestration.  Please donate whatever  you can to this worthy and necessary cause.  It's quick.  It's easy.  Just click the picture below:For more information on The Nature Conservancy's Plant A Billion project, or to create a fundraising campaign for them of your own, go to:http://www.plantabillion.org/ 

It doesn't sit well with me, on Earth Day in particular, that those who carry the mindset of entrenched authoritarian perspectives fashion themselves "Conservative" and Progressives politely adopt their vernacular.  We have done so thoughtlessly, like the television anchors who started to use the Republican party moniker for it's opponents even in the possessive (i.e. the Democrat platform rather than the Democratic platform).  Democratic sounds too,,,well, Democratic.  This isn't correct.  The only thing they wish to conserve is the status quo.  I'm leaping off of the double speak bandwagon. Perhaps "Rightist" would be more proper.  Or "Traditionalist."  Or "Reactionary."  I'll have to keep working on it, though, Rightist rings pretty well true. I do not object to conservative notions in a wholesale manner; not by a long shot.  I want to maintain and nurture the earth my children will inherit, for example.  I want it's vitality preserved and strengthened.  Rightists often don't, which means, of course, they aren't truly conservative.I want to eliminate the glut with which we have all been deluded in this wealthy nation.  I want responsible behavior to guide my use of the abundance available to me.  That's conservative, but not rightist.Words count and we CAN change those that roll out without reflection.  I know it's important, and I know this vocabulary ought be altered.  When I was very little, people didn't catch tigers by the toe.  It is significant that that will not even be understood by young posters.  For older readers my point is made; for younger ones...some things change for the better when there is a co-operative shift in what is reasonable to accept. 

My dad pointed out that the recent press release on McCain's gas-tax holiday for the Henry County Democratic party was a possibly antagonistic.Jim Nichols, Chair of the Democratic Party in Henry County, responded today to John McCain's political pandering in a recent economic speech by the Republican nominee. In the speech, McCain called for a gas tax holiday.For more on the issue you can go to a post I did on the Henry County Democrats site. Republican nominee. In the speech, McCain called for a gas tax holiday.My dads comments were:The opening sentence of the Release referred to John McCain's "political pandering". Right off the bat that puts off those that may not yet have formed an opinion on McCain - whether they be Dems or Repubs. To me, use of that phrase - outside of your quote - immediately discounts the rest of the Release - it's clearly one-sided and shrill. Can I really glean anything useful from it? (that's my reaction).I think it's more powerful for that phrase to be in your quote. Something like: "This is simply political pandering by John McCain" That's legit for you to say that - but not for the text of the release to say that. The text of the Release should set you up, in a neutral way - not do your work.For what it's worth...

There's a reason why witnesses called to testify in a court of law are required to pledge to Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Things left out or embellishments stuck in pervert the truth and turn it into a lie. We recently saw that happen with Hillary Clinton's sniper fire in Tuzla and it's also been apparent in the stories told by the twenty-two dirty pensioners--perjurers in the court of public opinion--who spread half-truths and snippets of mis-information about the invasion/occupation of Iraq to deceive the American people and enrich themselves. And yesterday Secretary Robert Gates joined them. Or maybe he just decided to do his own dirty work. Because the dirty pensioners were a Department of Defense operation.

In my recent post DFA Training Works I said something that still sits with me as not quite accurate and fair. Conservatives don’t care if the lady down the street has health care or not. Conservatives don’t care if our economy doesn’t work for working people. Conservatives want us to stay demoralized, sitting all alone in our houses, angry at the world. Conservatives want to tell people it’s a dog eat dog world, that people can’t trust the government. Every time we show up we challenge those conceptions to the very core of its vacuousness. I can't really decide if I said it wrong, should have used other words, or kept it out all together. I know a number of Conservatives who do care about health care, about poverty, about all the things I speak about. They just disagree with me on the methods and approaches. I feel that they haven't looked very closely at the evidence and policy ideas surrounding those issues. And I feel they do not put up a great deal of effort in responding to my questions and challenges, aside from putting trust in Conservative leaders on TV and the radio.

UPCOMING SHOWS (times are Eastern) Thursday mornings 8:05am-9am WGPA 1100AM, Bethlehem, PA.On May 8, we have Ron Ennis who is Editor of the Lehigh Valley (PA) Labor Council, AFL-CIO newsletter and an American Postal Workers Union activist on the show. He is a great writer on union and political topics. Tentatively have Cindy Sheehan scheduled for May 1 at 8:35am. About her Congressional run against Pelosi. We have Steve Raysely , who is the Steelworkers (and PACE) Rapid Response Coordinator for eastern Pennsylvania, in the studio for the entire show.  April 24th in studio whole show: Dennis Hower, VP of Teamsters Local 773 http://www.teamster773.org/hower.html & Allentown City Council President Michael D’Amore. April 17th we had Pennsylvania State Representative and candidate for Pennsylvania Treasurer Jennifer Mann on the first half of the show. Brad Friedman from Brad Blog http://www.bradblog.com/ was on at 8:40am.  April 10th- Sam Bennett http://www.bennett2008.com/ , Democratic Congressional candidate in the 15th District (Lehigh Valley) and Joe Long, Chair of the Northampton Democratic Party, Chair of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Democratic Caucus and retired UAW organizer were are guests on this show.  April 3rd- Joe Long (see April 10th for bio) was in the studio for the whole show. We were joined by IBEW National Rep. Paul Simon at 8:35 for the end of the show. Democratic Talk Radio will have Jack Wagner, Pennsylvania State Auditor; Gregg Potter, President of the Greater Lehigh Valley Labor Council, AFL-CIO; Larry Cohen, President of the Communications Workers of America and Paul Tucker, Editor & Publisher of the Union News newspapers in eastern Pennsylvania on future shows.  We hope to soon announce the appearances of several talk radio show hosts (Rick Smith and Jerry Pippin have agreed to appear) and at least two other Presidents of very large international unions. Keep checking back for details! I forgot to mention that Sam Lathem, President of the Delaware AFL-CIO and Senator Joe Biden have both agreed to be future guests. We are still working on a schedule for them. Sincerely,Stephen CrockettHost, Democratic Talk Radiohttp://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com

After all these years and all this money, you would think the Bush administration would put some sort of priority on bringing regular water and power to  Baghdad.  If you thought that, you'd be wrong.  The New York Times reports: Even as American and Iraqi troops are fighting to establish control of the Sadr City section of this capital, the Iraqi government’s program to restore basic services like electricity, sewage and trash collection is lagging, jeopardizing the effort to win over the area’s wary residents.DannyCommunications Director