George Lakoff is someone who I think has much to contribute to the political strategy arena.  He is going to be far more effective than Karl Rove in the long term.  His blog on The Huffington Post:  The Mind and the Obama Magic is very helpful as we see Obama become an increasingly controversial candidate here in our own ranks as well as elsewhere.  In my own work, I rely heavily on Lakoff's ideas so I would like to discuss this piece in some detail below the break

Our nation is in need of being reborn.  The spirit of '76 is no longer with us.  The fireworks will not do it.  I can't get that feeling back about this country anymore.  I spent the day in the presence of a wonderful group of young people from all over the world.  I am a Lion and we sponsor a Youth Exchange every year at this time.  My wife and I are hosting two wonderful young women, one from Algeria and the other from Croatia.  They have been here for a little over a week.  The District 24D Lions  had a picnic and it was the first time the entire group of students were together in one place.  It was refreshing to see this miniature United Nations having fun together.  By the way, did you know that The  Lions Clubs International are the only service organization that has its flag flying among those from all the Nations at the UN?  That is because the Lions were instrumental in helping the UN get organized.  Later , at dark, we came back to Mathews County to watch the fireworks.  Let me share my thoughts about all this with you below the break.

Well it has been 232 years!  Actually things went sour quite a while ago, but that is the time from then until now.  The last really strong thoughts I had about a new American revolution were during the Vietnam War.  I wasn't alone.  Not at all.  I just reached over to my bookshelf to pull out my copy of the book that sums that all up.  It is entitled: The Movement Toward a New America: The Beginnings of a Long Revolution  Assembled by Mitchell Goodman, A Charter Member of the Great Conspiracy, in behalf of the movement.  It is 752 pages long and the size of a big city phone book.  Here's how it starts:

WHAT IT IS

This is not a book of the mind alone.  There are minds here - some of the best in America.  The Movement is not mindless.  It is a book of bodies, souls, minds - inseperable.

It is a book of the Movement experience; ideas, theories, analysis are set inthe experiential context.  It is a book of acts, of voices, plans, hopes - of how to live, what to do.

 It may seem funny that we have such a document.  I'll bet almost no one has seen it.  Look beyond the break and allow me to share some things with you.  I think they matter very much right now.

Suddenly I am besieged with questions from family and friends.  What is happening to Obama?  Why is he doing this and that and that?  Did I read the article in The Nation, Surveillance Protest Group Tops Obama Website .  Then today's Huffington Post Obama's Faith-Based Plan by Jim Wallis.  Well folks, I'm more than a bit confused.  maybe you can help me understand?  Look below and I'll explain myself and also tell you what I think is happening.  Then I hope you will try to straighten me out.

According to what Seymour Hersh told us during Fresh Air on NPR today, the war with Iran has already begun.  Our democratic leadership has funded it.  Meanwhile, life goes on as usual.  I'm not really able to comprehend people any more.  Does everyone think it is not happening?  Do they not understand the magnitude of what is going on?  Hersh made it clear that the caving in by North Korea was the final step in paving the way for Bush to go ahead.  Why are we just going about business as usual?  Will it matter who wins the election (IF there is one)?  Maybe I have lost my sense of perspective.  I think not.  Here is Hersh's New Yorker article: Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran.  Hersh is reasonbly sure that the operations are already being carried out and that the funding is flowing for them.  Look below the break for more.

First of all it was a good read!  At 72 I have been reading about politics for a long time.  Sirota's book was a breath of fresh air for it has been a while since I have seen anything that takes what I learned during the Vietnam era and carries that spirit forward to the very different milleau of today's strange politics.  That may sound strange to some the younger members of our group and it may sound pretentious to my contemporaries.  I'm speaking now as one of the people we called "the walking wounded" half with respect and half with derision as we let our own young juices drive us during that phase of American politics.  What do we old codgers have to offer now?  Had we done our job better we would not be in the mess we are in now.  It certainly is not because we did not try.  So why are we here?  What did we learn?  How did we fail? And what does it have to do with Sirota's book?  Come and look below the break and I'll explain.

I had fun today.  I gave a talk at the Math Science Innovation Center in Mechanicsville Virginia.    It was part of a conference on

Fractals: A New Lens on the Natural World
A Conference for 6-12 Science Teachers

 My talk was not on fractals but was entitled: TEACHING  SCIENCE THAT MATTERS: REFRAMING THE QUESTION IN SCIENCE, and can be viewed from my webpage.
 I was dealing with  issues that may reflect back on the way science is being taught.  The three examples I was using for them were

Global warming and climate change
Evolution vs. creation ("Intelligent" Design)
Determining when something is "alive"

 I thought some of you might be interested in what Complexity Science has to say about these issues and their relationship to "standard" science.  Look below the break if this is of interest to you.  I'll suggest that there is relevance to this election in what I had to say

In today's Washington Post there is the following article: A New Social Contract  By Michael Kazin professor of history at Georgetown University and  Julian E. Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. They state:

For the first time since 1964, Democrats have a good chance not just to win the White House and a majority in Congress but to enact a sweeping new liberal agenda. Conservative ideas are widely discredited, as is the Republican Party that the right has controlled since Ronald Reagan was elected. The war in Iraq has undermined the conservative case for unilateral military intervention and U.S. omnipotence. Economic insecurity has led Americans to question the rhetoric about "big" government, while President Bush's embrace of new federal programs has undermined GOP promises to cut spending.

 That is one way of seeing why we are at this threshold.  There are others.  Look beyond the break and see what I am getting at.

Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac celebrates the birthday of one of my all time "heros" today:

It's the birthday of Jean-Paul Sartre, born in Paris, France (1905). His father died when he was 15 months old. When he was eight, he started writing plays, which he performed with hand puppets in the bathroom. In college, he fell in love with philosophy and literature. He kept a portrait of James Joyce on his dorm room wall. He met Simone de Beauvoir there, who became the love of his life. They promised never to tell each other lies, and also agreed that if they wanted they could take other lovers.

Sartre became a teacher. At a time when the European teaching style was lecturing from a distance, he drank with his students at local bars, played cards and ping-pong with them, and joined them for picnics on the beach. In his spare time he began to write a novel called Nausea (1938). The book was his first major success, and it made him famous. People called him the French Kafka. He went on to write Being and Nothingness (1943), about the meaning of freedom. He wrote, "Hell is other people." And, "If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

Look beyond the break for his opinion of America.

Today is not the kind of day that makes me optimistic about the political realities in this country.  The one bright spot was the 25 Obama bumper stickers that arrived.  I ran out and pasted one on on my pickup truck.  No not a hybrid a 2000 Toyota Tacoma.  I put about 1,500 miles a year on it so I'm not even going to blink an eye at any self-righteous comments.  How's this for a headline?  SENATORS WARNER AND WEBB INTRODUCE NATURAL-GAS EXPLORATION BILL.  Interesting rationale:

Senator John Warner (R-Va.) and Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced legislation today that would allow the Commonwealth of Virginia to explore for natural gas off its shores, empowering Virginia – not Washington – to make decisions regarding its own coastline.

 That's just one of the things that got to me today.  I keep looking for signs of coming change, but...well look below and I'll explain.

How much more do we need?  Do you see the stakes being raised as this goes on?  It is going to be harder and harder to explain to future generations why we let them get away with it.  I was born in 1936.  I saw the news reels of the American forces entering the concentration camps at the end of the war.  I'll never forget seeing the human skeletons expressing joy as they realized it was over.  But was it?  Their children and grandchildren had to go through some pretty rough times living with them.  The damage was huge and lasting.  Things like that do not just go away.  The Effects of the Holocaust on the Children of Survivors

According to studies, the long-term effects of the Holocaust on the children of survivors suggest a "psychological profile." Their parents’ suffering may have [led to]a second generation 'complex' characterized by processes that affect identity, self-esteem, interpersonal interactions and worldview.

 Why is it necessary to point this out in the context of the present day attrocities?  Look below the break to find out.

If I had to invoke one cause above all others for the mess we are in now, I'd go back to this classic:  Marshall McLuhan's first book:

Few people know that Marshall McLuhan's first book, published in 1951, is completely devoted to the phenomenon of advertising. Although popular in the 1960s, The Mechanical Bride is difficult to obtain nowadays

 Marshall McLuhan  was a folk hero to many in the 1960s but his fame was well earned.  This book from 1951 was an eye opener even if it failed to change the course of what it sought to warn us about He was a modern prophet and his legacy of ideas needs to be read and reread right now.  Look below the break and I'll make my case.

Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment  
Among the growing number of people who realize that our Nation can not be allowed to be raped and pillaged  without taking action against the perps Gore Vidal joins in.  Here's what he has to say:

On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our liberties and the Constitution itself.

 That's a good start.  Put the blame where it belongs.  Too often we see the congress being protected from having to own up to its complicity in these foul deeds.  Look below the fold for more of what he has to say.

I was greatly influenced by Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (1) when I read it before the 2004 election.  It was convincing enough to make me want to make sure everyone read it before they voted.  Of course that didn't happen and the question asked on the jacket of the book

Is our president psychologically fit to run a country?

is more meaningful than ever before.More from the book jacket:

Frank traces the development of Bush's character from childhood to the present day.  Examining closely the role of the president's parents - especially Barbara Bush, an acknowledged disciplinarian whose own insecurities may have prevented her from adequately nurturing her son- Frank finds in Bush's childhood the roots of a dramatic psychic split that remains a dominant influence on his adult worldview.

 Look below the break to find out why this is so important right now.
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(1) by Justin A. Frank, M. D,  Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center.

I've been trying to get more people aware of the terrible toll the war is taking on our veterans.  I am not talking just about their physical wounds but the trauma of being sent to do something that is based on the worst lies and disinformation one can imagine.  Today I received an e-mail from citizens blogging for resonsibility and ethics in Washington about

a truly remarkable response from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to its FOIA request for documents relating to the VA’s abhorrent practice of under-diagnosing PTSD in veterans to save money. According to the VA, CREW is not entitled to a fee waiver -- meaning it has to pay for the costs of finding and copying responsive documents -- because there is no longer any public interest in this issue! Ignoring the wealth of news articles triggered by CREW’s and VoteVets.org’s release of an internal VA e-mail and the congressional hearing that release prompted, the VA claims that any records CREW requests "would not reveal anything new."

The full letter from the VA is at:CREW

Are they the same person?  Very much so.   The New York Review of Books Volume 55, Number 11 · June 26, 2008 has a review of A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America entitled "The Jim Webb Story", by Elizabeth Drew.  She starts bt saying:

Webb is a serious writer, not a politician who writes books on the side. His first book, Fields of Fire, published in 1978, when Webb was thirty-two, is a sweeping, unflinching novel about Vietnam featuring two of life's losers who signed up for lack of anything else to do. It conveys with stark vividness, and also a touch of farce, the stench, the filth, the fear, and the bewildering unexpectedness of fighting an elusive enemy in a jungle. Fields of Fire has often been called the best book about Vietnam and likened to the war writing of Norman Mailer and Stephen Crane.

 Look beneath the break for more.

We had our Mathews County Democratic Committee meeting today and I am fired up and ready to go!  Who cares if this what was once considered safe republican territory?  We are witnessing one miracle after another and there will be plenty more.  We Have Barack Obama at the top of the ticket and Mark Warner running against (can you believe?) Jim Gilmore for the senate.  We know we will win  those two.  The first congressional district race is the challenge.  Dr. Kieth Hummel is our challenger to Robert Wittman who took over Joan Davis' seat last December after she died of cancer.  Since December Wittman has voted with his party about 97% of the time.  He even voted against the child healthcare bill and the attempt to override shrub's veto.    The district was gerrymandered to make it safely republican, but this year anything is possible.  I was out and about after the meeting this afternoon in the close to 100 degree heat which is to last for almost a week and wonder how my townsfolk can not understand what the stuff Wittman has voted for and Davis before him  is responsible for that and so many of our problems.  I want to pick your brains out there so come below the fold.  I have some questions for you.

I hope everyone will join me in thanking Senator Clinton for what she has contributed so far and join with me in anticipating the vital role she will continue to play in the months and years to come.  We have just finished an energizing and stimulating primary season and thanks to her strength and resolve we have come through it strengthened and more prepared for the campaign ahead.  In today's WaPo, Marie Wilson articulates this very well in her column: Clinton's Real Victory

"I am here because of Hillary Clinton."

Over the past few months, that phrase has been repeated to me by hundreds of women you've never met but whose names you may one day recognize. They are this country's next generation of female leaders -- women of all ages and persuasions who have been searching for the means and encouragement to step into positions of leadership in their communities; women of all political affiliations who thank Hillary Clinton for making the impossible finally appear possible.

 Come with me below the fold to read more of what Marie Wilson has to say: