The Proletariat

As I, on the morning of August 21st, look at the Top 5, only one article is not written by a Capital Times staff.

There is an article on the Edgerton murder, 911 center improvements, Bassett Neighborhood, and cancer survivors reaction to John Edwards. All of these articles were written by local Capital Times reporters.

Why is it then that the lead story about Ralph Nader is an Associated Press hack job. AP refers to a local Nader volunteer, Briana Nestle, discussing the signature collection process. Why is it that an international corporation sees this as news, but our local paper does not.

I thought the big argument for the Capital Times going online was more local news stories. Thus far that has not been the case.

The good news is Nader is not going anywhere. The Capital Times will have another opportunity on September 5, 2008 to do a local news story on the Nader campaign. I do hope that I hear about this Nader for President Rally from Madison’s own Capital Times, rather than an international news corporation like the Associated Press.

Sept. 5th, 7:30 pm
Nader for President 2008 Rally
Orpheum Theatre
216 State St.
Madison, WI 53703
608) 215-1342
or events@votenader.org
Contribution: $10/$5 student

Today, on the Alex Bennett show, some rightie called attacking Obama for his “relationship” with William Ayers. The rightie saw this as evidence for Obama’s hidden socialist agenda. If only I could be assured of that, he’d have my vote in November.

Watch this rightie video on the “terrorist” (oooh, doesn’t that sound scary) Bill Ayers. As Alex rightly points out his main crime was blowing up a toilet in which no one was injured. Later on, some members of the Weather Underground were injured in “terrorist acts” but no innocent civilians. Why, you might ask, are the righties so scared of Ayers.

Well now it gets kind of funny. When this story first came out I thought to myself, boy, does that name sound familiar. I knew that name from some other context than 60’s revolutionary culture. The Bill Ayers I knew wrote about education, in particular teaching preschool and Kindergarten. Here is America’s most feared, home grown, terrorist talking to what what Bush’s past Secretary of Education, Ron Paige, would refer to as the Future Terrorists of America.

Here is quote from the introduction of William Ayers book on Summerhill.

William Ayer weighs in as a parent and an educator who has spent years in the classroom experimenting with Neill’s progressive approach. He examines Neill’s idea of freedom as it relates to social justice and questions of class and race in today’s classrooms. He explores what it means to have a school that supports and creates freedom and what such schools have looked like in the past. He also considers what it means to have a school founded on love and acceptance of the child, where the teacher’s goal is to understand children and how they learn, and where all students can and do learn.

So, let me make sure I got this straight. The big terrorist boogeyman the right wants us to fear is the author of countless books on child centered education.  If I was Obama I would play up this issue. Can we really  trust the righties on foreign policy when they are afraid of someone who writes books for parents and preschool teachers.

Alex Bennett started his show this morning by announcing Obama’s VP choice. He swears he got this news from a reliable source within the Obama campaign. I guess we’ll be short one more Senator if Alex is right (11:45).

Well, he almost said it. “E-ee-ex, I mean strong” in response to a Supreme Court candidate he would not have nominated.

And then to top McCain’s 5 million dollar cutoff to the rich question,  he upped the ante by 20 million.

done

Today, on the Alex Bennett Show, he asked how much further Obama would move to the right.

The little extravaganza with the preacher at Brokeback Mountain has gotten some airtime from those on the right.  For example, Charlie, was upset that Obama dodged the abortion question by stating it was above his pay grade. The liberals, those political chameleons, are more upset that McCain may have cheated on the test.

Well the conservatives should rest assured that Obama’s stances on gay marriage, at  least for this week, is more to their liking.  He got a standing ovation when he stated in very clear terms, marriage is between a man and a women, and as a Christian he sees it as a sacred union.. with god in the mix.

What I would like to know is why these liberals who were in such an uproar two years ago about gay marriage, find it perfectly acceptable to support the rhetoric of Obama today. It seems every issue that liberals identified with two short years ago have been thrown under the bus by Obama.