Censored Whig Letters

Sarah Palin Needs To Act Like An Adult (along with the Media)

I know this will be very difficult for Sarah Palin but she really needs to start acting like an adult instead of a spoiled, hateful child. The media needs to stop enabling her very public temper tantrums!

A writer moves in next door to her Alaskan home and Palin loses it. She riles up her very nasty national following and thousands of hate emails along with a number of death threats follow. The national media largely sided with Palin. The writer is the good guy here not Palin.

As a writer myself, I think it is a very good idea to move next door to any subject of a book you might be writing. You get a real feel for the community where the public figure lives, maybe meet people who know them, learn personal stories and understand the values shaping the person. It is responsible journalism of the highest standard.

Palin’s reaction was extreme and shows clearly why she should never hold high public office. It makes an objective observer wonder what skeletons in her closet she is trying to cover-up. Why is Palin so insecure? Why does Palin think she has the right to select her neighbors? None of the rest of us get to decide who lives in the private property of other people. Does Palin not respect private property rights of others?

Why does Palin think she has the right to intimidate writers and journalists? I realize she is not the brightest bulb in politics but she is a public figure by choice. She ran for Vice President of the United States and has a national cable talk show on Fox News. She is certainly a natural and reasonable subject for a book. As a public figure, she has no right to control what an author writes about her.

Palin’s attempt to intimidate the book author should be condemned by every journalist. However, the media has always been very soft of Palin in my opinion because they do not want to be publicly attacked by her. She has a following that is the nastiest and craziest in American politics.

They first showed up during the 2008 elections at Palin rallies around the nation, shouting some of the vilest things ever in modern American political settings. With the backing of Fox News, they formed the radical core of the Tea Party Movement . They started showing up with guns and Palin never condemned the blatant attempts at physical intimidation of political opponents.

Palin has taken herself and her followers outside the political mainstream of American politics. She does not seem to want writers to look deeply into her life or her following. Considering what a force for darkness and evil in American politics she represents, I understand her desire. What this writer does not understand is why the national media seems to helping her conceal the truth about the political movement she leads.

It is time to stand firmly against the growing political extremism of the Far Right in America. Make no mistake about it. Sarah Palin is not a mainstream politician and is most prominent Far Right leader in America. She is more like Lester Maddox than like Ronald Reagan. Of course, she does not want any writers getting close to her roots in radical Right Alaskan politics and she may have personal scandals she wants concealed.

However, she has no right as a public figure to get her wishes on these matters. It is not unseemly for a writer to get to know the subject of their book even when the subject wants to conceal things. Palin always misuses her family to advance her career and conceal her darker side. Journalists should condemn this pattern instead of condemning their colleagues for doing their job.

Writers should not be getting harassed by Palin’s followers. Death threats have no place in American politics. While saying something is Nazi-like in American politics is usually uncalled for but death threats are Nazi-like. Palin needs to apologize for her actions and statements. She needs to condemn intimidation and death threats from her followers.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com) . Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: demlabor@aol.com.

Feel free to publish or reprint in full without prior approval.

You can meet “The Real McCain” courtesy of Cliff Schecter

http://www.americablog.com/2008/04/you-can-meet-real-mccain-courtesy-of.html

Why is the mainstream media ignoring this book?

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The publisher of Robert Parry’s 1993 book, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery, Trick or Treason is an extraordinary account of a remarkable journalistic investigation. It tells the inside story of Parry’s assignment from PBS’s Frontline to examine whether the origins of the Iran-Contra scandal traced back to a nearly treasonous dirty trick by the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980.

Besides investigating the historical mystery of whether Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush conspired with Iran’s Islamic radicals behind President Carter’s back, the book explores the dark side of international power, where results are all that matter.

Written in an engaging narrative style, the book takes the reader into a real-life netherworld of intelligence operatives and ruthless world leaders.

Among the dramatic interviews in Trick or Treason is one with legendary CIA officer Miles Copeland (just before his death), as he describes the workings of what he called “the CIA within the CIA,” the innermost sanctum of American “patriots” who do whatever they deem necessary for the national interest.

Trick or Treason is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the grim history of modern American politics.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at http://www.neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

Two great book signing & lecture/discussion events in Philadelphia this week

Swim Against The Current
by Jim Hightower

In stores March 10: pre-order your copy today!

3/7/2008
6:00pm - 7:00pm
Free
Headhouse Books
619 S 2nd St
Philadelphia PA 19147
(215) 923 9525
http://www.headhousebooks.com/

Filed Under: Book Signing, Lecture
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The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi
by Les Leopold

Date: March 8, 2008
Time: 10am-2pm
Location: AFSCME District Council 33
3001 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

All attendees will receive a free copy of the book signed by the author!
Lunch will be provided!

Sponsored by USW Local 10-1, USW Local 10-86, USW Local 10-234 and PhilaPOSH.

More information: philaposh@aol.com

In The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi, author and labor expert Les Leopold recounts the life of the late Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union leader. Mazzocchi’s struggle to address the unconscionable toxic exposure of tens of thousands of workers led to passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and included work alongside nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood. Mazzocchi was a pioneer whose labor activism ranged from efforts to intergrate environmental concerns into labor organizing in the 1950’s when the term “environment” was nowhere on the political radar; to participation in the formation of the Labor Party in 1996 to give organized workers a bigger voice in the political process.

Author Les Leopold is a member of the United Steelworkers. He co-founded and currently directs The Labor Institute and the Public Health Institute in New York. He is also active in the Blue-Green Alliance.

Dear Stephen,

Get the three hottest books of the season–”The Conscience of a
Liberal” by Paul Krugman, “Supercapitalism” by Robert Reich and
“What’s Class Got to Do With It?” by Michael Zweig–as a
three-book set at The Union Shop Online and receive a 20 percent
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Paul Krugman–New York Times columnist, Princeton economist, and
bestselling author–has released a book calling on the new
progressive majority to “pursue an unabashedly liberal program
of expanding the social safety net and reducing inequality–a
new New Deal.”

“The Conscience of a Liberal” looks at the past 80 years of
American history from the reforms that tamed the harsh
inequality of the Gilded Age to the unraveling of that
achievement and the re-emergence of immense economic and
political inequality since the 1970s.

The book aims to galvanize today’s progressives, while outlining
a program for change, which includes universal health care as
the centerpiece of reform:

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In “Supercapitalism,” Robert Reich, labor secretary during the
Clinton administration, presents a breakthrough book on the
clash between capitalism and democracy. Reich explains how
widening inequalities of income and wealth, heightened job
insecurity and the spreading effects of global warming are the
logical outcomes of supercapitalism:

http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/z1a31_F1YcnU/

“What’s Class Got to Do With It?” is a collection of essays
(edited by Michael Zweig) that seek to expose hidden issues of
class conflict both in the American economic system as well as
globally. The contributors argue that class identity in the
United States has been hidden for too long. The essays cover the
relation of class to race and gender, to globalization and
public policy, and to the lives of young adults:

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Remember, when you purchase all three of these great books, you
will receive a 20 percent discount off your total.

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In solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO

P.S. See everything The Union Shop Online has to offer here:

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New Book Details Cheney Lawyer’s Efforts to Expand Executive Power
By Dan Eggen and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Vice President Cheney’s top lawyer pushed relentlessly to expand the powers of the executive branch and repeatedly derailed efforts to obtain congressional approval for aggressive anti-terrorism policies for fear that even a Republican majority might say no, according to a new book written by a former senior Justice Department official…..

Link to rest of article

‘You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression’ by Matthew Rothschild — Hartmann’s “Independent Thinker” Book
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 06/26/2007 - 9:16am. Thom Hartmann
THOM HARTMANN’S “INDEPENDENT THINKER” BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

I’m a pretty jaded guy. Back in October of 2001, I wrote — first anonymously under the pseudonym “Rusticus” and then over my own name — the first widely-circulated article comparing the Republican response to 9/11 with the Nazi response to the burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) building in Germany in 1933 (it was titled “When Democracy Failed”). It was widely distributed and I was attacked for being an alarmist, although few say so these days.

I thought I’d seen it all. I was part of SDS in the late 1960s, was spied upon, and our group infiltrated by the Michigan State Police and the FBI. I’ve been followed, photographed, wiretapped, and tear-gassed.
Yet that was nearly forty years ago, and even though today I report on the daily Republican outrages 3 hours a day 5 days a week on the most listened-to progressive talk radio show in America, I have to admit — this book shocked me.
Walking around the Take Back America Conference last week — where I was both speaking and doing my show from Radio Row- - Matthew Rothschild walked up to me, introduced himself, and handed me a fresh-off-the-presses copy of his new book, You Have No Rights. We get an average of 6 to 8 books a day in the mail (our mail is about a cubic foot a day, in part because of all the books), and people are always handing me books at public events, but I remembered Matthew from all the great articles he’s written and his work as editor of the Progressive, and so was both glad to meet him and curious about what he’d written.

I started reading it on the plane back to Oregon from Washington, DC, and couldn’t put it down.

If we don’t begin to expose the horrors in this book in a real, meaningful, national, and highly visible way, democracy is in even worse trouble that I thought. And, as I said, I thought I knew how bad it really was.

It’s worse.

As the publisher, The New Press, notes in their summary of the book:

“I’m very liberal and sometimes my friends say I’m giving them some kind of paranoid, nutty stuff, and I agree, but then the FBI show up.” — Marc Schultz, reported to the FBI for reading an article called “Weapons of Mass Stupidity: Fox News hits a new lowest common denominator” while he stood in line at a coffee shop.

In West Virginia, Renee Jensen put up a yard sign saying “Mr. Bush: You’re Fired.” She’s questioned by the Secret Service.

In Alabama, Lynne Gobbell put a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on her car. She’s fired from her job.

In Vermont, Tom Treece had his high school students write essays and make posters either defending or criticizing the Iraq War. After midnight, the police entered his classroom and took photos of the student artwork.

Near Albany, New York, Stephen Downs went to a mall with his son Roger, and the two of them bought shirts in a T-shirt shop. Downs put his shirt on, went to eat in the food court — and was arrested. The T-shirt’s message? “Peace on Earth.”

Most of these stories don’t have the crackling immediacy of the Kent State shootings or the MSU campus shutdown or Watts burning, but in some ways they’re even more sinister, because they reflect a fundamental change in the assumptions held by average people of what America is.

We’re no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave; we’re the land of the fearful and the home of Big Brother. We’re no longer the shining beacon of democracy that inspired nascent democracies for over 200 years; we’re now the example repressive dictatorships use to justify espionage against and torture of their own citizens. We’re no longer a land of laws governed by We, The People, protected from our government by our Constitution; we’re now a land of “leaders” who claim they owe “no accountability” to Congress or the people who elect them.

Very quickly, under the radar but in a deep and real way, we’re moving from being a liberal democracy to a conservative theocratic corporatist/fascist state.

Because these stories lack the violence of the 1960s, they are all the more shocking. The subtlety of this transformation is so very Orwellian, so very much like that imagined by Huxley, that warned of by William Shirer and Milton Mayer.

In a previous book review, I suggested a Rex Stout novel about the private detective Nero Wolfe, written in the 1950s, in large part because it showed how back then a citizen could say through a locked door to the police, “Go away if you don’t have a warrant.” Today TV shows glorify militarized police squads kicking in doors, and citizens are arrested for filming police activity.

The America of 2007 is not the America I was born into in 1951, and with startling rapidity it’s not even the America it was in the last year of the Clinton/Gore presidency just six short years ago. It highlights the banality of evil.

Which is why it’s so important for us all to read Matthew Rothschild’s book … and so vital that we pass it along to those who haven’t yet pulled back the curtain and seen what’s going on in the shadows not covered by our infotainment industry. Buy a copy of this book to read yourself, by all means, but buy a second to pass along. It’s that good.

THOM HARTMANN’S “INDEPENDENT THINKER” BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

Get your copy of “You Have No Rights” from the BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and the host of The Thom Hartmann Program syndicated nationally by Air America Radio. His website is http://www.ThomHartmann.com.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/hartmann/016

Al Gore is Back with His Unfiltered Call to Returning Sanity and Integrity to the United States Government.

Pre-Order Al Gore’s “The Assault on Reason” (Hardcover) — Shipping on or Around May 22
By Al Gore
BuzzFlash.com’s Review (excerpt)
Remember when Al Gore gave a series of “truth to power” speeches hosted by moveon.org?

Well, he’s back.

No, he hasn’t given up his global warming crusade, but he has returned to the fundamental ailments that face America — particularly in regards to our current rogue government.

We haven’t read this book yet. It’s under tight wraps.

But here is what the publisher has to say: “An indictment of the Bush-led radical Right’s disdain for the principles of reasoned decision-making, and a reckoning with the degradation of the public sphere that facilitates their rule of unreason.”

Ah, music to our ears, President Al, music to our ears.

By the way, the complete title for the book is “The Assault on Reason: How the Politics of Fear, Secrecy, and Blind Faith Subvert Wise Decision-Making, Degrade Our Democracy, and Put Our Country and Our World in Peril.”
Read The Full Review >>>
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/598

Other Reviews
Is this trenchant analysis a precursor to a run to claim the White House that was stolen from him, or is it just more wisdom from a man unfettered by the constraints of high-priced consultants who urge caution and centrist policies? Because clearly, Al Gore is a rarity in politics, a person who went to the mountain top and came back a changed man. He found his voice, and is one of the most uncommon of political figures: one worth listening to.

– BuzzFlash.com
Learn More >>>
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/598