http://www.democraticunderground.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:56:32 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:56:32 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

Maybe this happens to you, too. You go away on vacation for a few months, come back and sort through your snail/email and back copies of magazines and 'net stories, only to find that a good share of the mail is third-class junk/spam and not all that much has changed in t... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/228 Tue, 19 May 2009 13:22:44 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

Last Wednesday, in hundreds of "tea party" demonstrations from sea to shining sea, the word was proclaimed: "Taxation (with or without representation) is tyranny!"

The People (well, maybe a small fraction of one percent of them) have spoken, however ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/227 Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:39:19 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]


I suppose that I might be described as a "leftist." However, after more than a century of abusive propaganda that has been dumped on "the left," I can't say that I am comfortable with that label.

Some time ago, I heard an anonymous caller to a talk show remark tha... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/226 Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:34:11 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

Reading Barton Gellman's [i]Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency[/i] (Penguin Press, 2008) is yet another reminder that all too often those who were right early on about the massive dangers facing American society under the CheneyBush Administration were ignored, marginali... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/225 Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:34:50 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

[i]If the Obama economic goals are to be met – a repaired physical infrastructure, educational pre-eminence, health care for all, international leadership in science and technology, etc. – we, the public, must retrieve the cash that was effectively stolen from the publ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/224 Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:20:16 [b]|Bernard Weiner |[/b]

It's like watching someone being sucked down into quicksand. I'm referring to the sad, desperate struggle of the Republican Party to try to resurrect its electoral fortunes by championing the exact same policies that took them to embarrassing defeat in the Obama/Democrati... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/223 Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:00:16 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

I was shocked. For six years, I had been meeting secretly with the GOP mole I called "Shallow Throat"** -- a high-ranking official in the Bush Administration -- and each time, ST made sure to wear different wigs and scarves and dark glasses. Now, here was Shallow Throat ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/222 Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:59:14 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

Regressives (i.e., self-described “conservatives”) have a nasty disinclination to learn from history, as they routinely promote policies that have failed spectacularly in the past. Today, with the advent of a Barack Obama administration and a solidly Democratic Congres... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/221 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:33:02 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

One definition of mental disease is when someone repeats the same counter-productive behavior again and again and again and expects different results. Which brings us to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. This time it's centered in Gaza, but the ramifications threaten to ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/220 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:31:21 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

An economist and his guide, while hunting in Africa, fall into an elephant trap: twenty feet deep with vertical walls.

“That does it,” says the guide, “we’re done for. No escape, no food, no chance of being found in time.”

“Nonsense,” said the economist, “I can g... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/219 Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:50:04 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

Psychiatrists will attest that it is during emotional depression that real strides can be made in radical alteration of behavior and philosophy. Trauma, in other words, can be a great teacher. Everything is stirred-up, topsy-turvy, and thus can rise to the surface and be... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/218 Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:48:55 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

Below are four suggestions for what ordinary citizens can do in our current and growing economic/political /social crisis. But first let's place what follows in some historical context.

Back in the day -- for me the decade-and-a-half known as "The Sixties" -- we disse... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/217 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:26:56 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

Barack Obama is President-Elect, the Democrats have significantly increased their majorities in Congress, the Supreme Court drift to the right has been halted and may soon be reversed, and the Republican Party is in disgrace and disarray.

So is it time, at last, for... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/216 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:53:23 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

We most likely will never find out what really happened inside the CheneyBush Administration until after January 20, when ethically-motivated insiders feel they can spill some beans without violating their oaths of loyalty, but here's my surmising:

I think key officia... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/215 Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:52:31 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

Let's face it. Countries, like individuals, get lost sometimes -- really lost, ignoring the maps of morality and civil behavior, bringing shame and disrepute on themselves.

In terms of individuals, good people do weird stuff on occasion: run off, or inexplicably go on... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/214 Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:19:14 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

Our men's group, currently in our 17th year, is composed of middle-class professionals -- lawyers, educators, therapist, writer, corporate manager, doctor, etc. -- and each of us in this perilous economy in recent months has taken a deep financial hit of one form or anot... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/213 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:57:02 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

Over the past decade, I have written and published numerous essays critical of Libertarianism. In fact, much of the focus of my book in progress, [link:www.igc.org/gadfly/progressive/%5Etoc.htm|Conscience of a Progressive], is a critique of the libertarian doctrines of... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/212 Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:55:20 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

Three times they met, face to face. The 72 year-old military and political veteran, and the 46 year-old "rookie." And after the final debate, there was little doubt in the minds of most of the sixty million Americans who watched which of the two contenders was the grow... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/211 Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:49:06 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

As with most Americans, my emotions were on overdrive last Tuesday night as the symbolic and actual enormity of Obama's victory hit home. So much to think about, but for the first few days I felt as if I were wandering through a dream-world and was somewhat fuzzy in the ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/210 Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:47:46 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

(RENO, NV.) Politics is one of the few activities that matches sports in uniting unrelated peoples in common, competitive, exciting endeavor. That truth struck me yet again over the weekend while my sister, my eldest son and I were canvassing for Obama in Nevada.

The ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/209 Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:55:58 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

In another week, more than one-hundred million American citizens will go to the polls to choose their next president.

Or so most of those citizens believe, along with all of the corporate media and, of course, the candidates.

But might it be possible that the dec... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/208 Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:31:04 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

As I write this, things are looking good for an Obama victory, perhaps one of huge proportions. But well aware of the GOP's history of massive voter-suppression and voter intimidation (examples of which are in the news each day**), and the below-the-radar vote-counting m... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/207 Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:30:43 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

[i]I've sent the letter below to relatives and friends around the country who I know or suspect still are on the fence or are leaning toward the Republican candidates. You may know friends and kin who likewise are undecided or leaning toward the McCain/Palin ticket, and ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/206 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:15:00 [b]| Ernest Partridge |[/b]

Millions of American citizens who identify themselves as "Republicans" are coping with a daunting question: "What is the primary object of my loyalty? My Party? My Country? My religious faith? My conscience?"

The question is implicit, for few American citizens of wh... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/205 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:14:32 [b]| Bernard Weiner |[/b]

Let's talk about the moral issue underlying our current economic crash, and, more broadly, America's slide from the heights of its international economic and political power.

Here's the simple thesis: It's impossible to sustain for long a structure that rests on fault... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/204 Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:53:20