You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 44

PLAYS: 8

(Sargent Shriver and Peace Corps Volunteers - an abundance of optimism)

The Peace Corps came about as the result of The New Frontier - the brainchild of the Kennedy administration. In 1961 a program was set up to get Americas youth involved in the world by going overseas to help set up schools, libraries, infrastructure - anything to be of service where it was needed. A nice idea, and one which captured the imaginations of thousands of young adults wanting to be part of the optimistic change that was so prevalent in the 1960s.

R. Sargent Shriver was given the task of setting the agency up. He was its first architect. He was also given the task of having to explain just what it was he planned on doing. And so he went on the talk show circuit to lay out in plain terms, just what the Peace was and what it wasn't.One of those talk shows was CBS News' Capitol Cloakroom from October 1961.

Nancy Hanschman (CBS News): “Are your Peace Corps men expected to proselytize to Democracy in any way at all? What is the briefing you give them on this?

Sargent Shriver: “ Well we give them a lot of instruction in American history and government and theory in government and political life and we expect that when they’re asked questions by the people in their foreign country they’ll be able to give them intelligent, informed answers. We don’t go out there and tell them ‘now here is Course Number 101 in American Government – sell this, if you can to the people in the Philippines.’ They’re not out there as traveling salesman, they’re not out there to get up on a soapbox and give a speech. But they are supposed to be out there as well informed, intelligent Americans, able to respond to questions, and even to tough questions from people in foreign countries.”

The Peace Corps became a great success and did a lot to improve our somewhat sagging reputation throughout the world.

And considering the number of "yanqui go home" placards from demonstrations around the world that graced most newspaper front pages and nightly newscasts through the 1950s, that was a good thing.

Via Raw Story. Actor/comedian Andy Cobb once did ads for Blue Cross in Florida. And now CIGNA's Wendell Potter has someone to talk to:

Teaming with the liberal Brave New Films, a former Blue Cross pitchman is now pitching against Blue Cross.

Andy Cobb, who once tried to sell Floridians on a Blue Cross health insurance plan, says he's fed up with the industry.

"I was a spokesman for BlueCross and Blueshield of Florida," Cobb says. "Call me a spokesjerk. People who make money for buying things you don't need. And we're telling you lies."

"They, by which I mean I, make money by standing in the way of reform," Cobb says in the ad, which appears as a spoof of something like a freecreditreport.com ad. "It's time for change."

"That's why I'm calling on leaders from the spokesjerk industry," Cobb continues. "The freecreditreport.com guy. The Shamwow dude. And Senator Bill Nelson, recipient of big money from insurance companies -- to lead us. To walk away from their cash cows and tell American people the truth.

"And us spokesjerks, we'll be fine," Cobb adds. "There's plenty of room in entertainment for people who tried to sell you the worst product in American history. Private health insurance."

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1090)

PLAYS: (7290)

Michelle Malkin was the featured guest on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to talk about President Obama's address to the United Nations, and it was a sight to behold. A wretched, horrifyingly ugly sight, but yeah, a sight:

Malkin: He doesn't like this country very much. And I think you did a great video tour there of all of his wonderful hits on his "We Suck '09" tour, ah, so far. And this latest speech before the United Nations and its cast of villainous characters -- it was really a Legion of Doom parade that he dignified with his presence -- and he solidified his place in the international view as the Great Appeaser and the Groveler in Chief!

Hannity finds it "almost shocking" that "Obama was saying we're not going to force our values on you." Malkin correctly calls this "a rejection of American exceptionalism" -- as though that were a bad thing. Maybe that's one of the differences between movement conservatives and sane people: The latter do not harbor megalomaniacal visions of American power ruling the world and forcing our values on other nations.

Ah, but we liberals are so naive, Malkin says, because "hatred of America is never going to go away" -- which is probably true. On the other hand, policies that arrogantly inflame and deepen that hatred are not, you know, really in our best interests.

And then Malkin finishes with a flourish:

Malkin: With this speech, and over the last eight months with his policies of retreat and surrender, he has solidified his place as the weakest of weak leaders of modern American history. There's no question about it! They laugh at us! He is a laughingstock.

There she goes, projecting again.

At some point, you have to wonder whether these people understand that the angrier and more venomous and more hateful they become, the more disempowered they become? Because the only people who are going to be convinced by this kind of nastiness are already True Believers. And even some of them may take pause at how bottomless is the pit from which this stuff crawls.

I apparently missed the largest flash mob in American history today, and it took place just a few blocks from my house. Michelle Malkin and the redstaters have been abuzz about how there were more than two million people marching on Washington today, (that would make it bigger than even the inauguration) but all anyone who wasn't a right-winger saw today was 30,000 to 60,000 right-wingers bused in from around the country.

Here's what the organizers themselves told us to expect. Dick Armey told the right-wing Newsmax that they're generating hundreds of responses in interest to the 9/12 March. The tea party patriots told us that they were expecting as many as one million to turn out and that they had permits for a one million man march on Washington.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 94

PLAYS: 5

(William Green - succeeded Samuel Gompers as head of the AFofL)

Following in the footsteps of his predecessor Samuel Gompers, William Green headed up the American Federation of Labor from 1924 to his death in 1952. He presided over the merger of the AFof L to the newly formed Congress of Industrial Ogranizations (CIO), becoming the most powerful trade union in American history.

During their annual convention in 1944, Green addressed the delegates on the Union's role during wartime and the outlook for the union movement in a postwar world.

William L.Green: “If there ever was a time when Labor in America should be united, it is now, and in the months to come. For that compelling reason, I publicly renew the appeal to the American Federation of Labor to those who left us to come back to the home of labor and reunite with us. But regardless of what course others may take, we in this convention will do everything in our power to strengthen and maintain the free and democratic principles upon which our trade union movement was founded.”

Like they say, if you're being paid to take a vacation today, thank a union member. And if you're a union member, thank this guy.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1067)

PLAYS: (5299)

Howard Kurtz this weekend was only the latest media critic to pile on Lou Dobbs for his promotion of the Birthers' conspiracy theories on CNN. Like nearly everyone else, Kurtz dismissed the coverage of the story as "ludicrous," and his guests pointed out how profoundly irresponsible it was.

Indeed, Kurtz was a bit late to the story, as Jamison Foser observed:

Well, by the time Kurtz got around to addressing the issue on today's Reliable Sources, CNN President Jonathan Klein had weighed in, calling Dobbs' birtherism "legitimate" and denouncing Dobbs' critics as "people with a partisan point of view from one extreme." (Klein had earlier indicated that the story was dead and the birthers' claims baseless; his flip-flop raises the question of who is in charge -- Klein or Dobbs.)

... Had Kurtz addressed the Dobbs issue last week, when he should have, he might have been able to get away with not coming back to it. But by waiting until today, he put himself in a position where he had to either address Klein's comments, or shy away from criticizing the boss. He chose to keep quiet about Klein. And so we learned from Kurtz's unwillingness to criticize Klein that he likes having the job of media critic more than he likes doing the job of media critic.

As Eric Boehlert observes, the whole dustup has been overall a good thing:

But there was some good news last week, and it came from watching Dobbs' slow motion train wreck unfold on the airwaves. It came from seeing how eagerly -- how convincingly -- the birther claims were debunked, not only online by progressives, but within the mainstream press as well -- the same mainstream press that's often reluctant to show up high-profile media players such as Dobbs, no matter how badly it has botched the facts. And let's not forget conservatives, who dismissed and ridiculed the birther claims.

In the case of the birthers, though, Dobbs' corporate media colleagues were utterly relentless in their fact-checking. I still don't think Dobbs knows what hit him. And frankly, I'm not sure I've ever seen such a well-deserved media pile-on. It's hard to see how Dobbs' career survives the humiliation.

Of course, it's always dangerous when hateful and cuckoo conspiracy theories are ushered into the mainstream and right-wing critics are given a platform to peddle their hateful whodunits about Obama's nationality the way Dobbs did. But, in this case, I almost think it was worth running that risk in order to watch the tidal wave of media disapproval that Dobbs' fearmongering unleashed.

This is all true. It certainly is a heartening sign that Dobbs is finally facing this tidal wave for attempting to present as mainstream absurd rhetoric from the fringes of the far right -- because he has been getting away with doing precisely that for years.

Most of the time, this has involved his rantings about immigration, including his false claims that immigrants were bringing leprosy across the border and that they intended to take back the American Southwest for Mexico. As Alex Koppelman noted at the time, there was a consistent pattern even back then of Dobbs drawing on beyond-dubious far-right fringe sources for his "reporting."

Meanwhile, Dobbs has been overly generous in his dealings with right-wing extremists on his show. He's hosted Glenn Spencer of American Border Patrol without explaining to his audience that ABP is a longtime SPLC-designated hate group, and for good reason: they are unmistakably racist and white supremacist. He also hosted many leaders of the Minutemen movement (most notably Chris Simcox) on his programs over the years while hailing them as "a neighborhood watch" -- though he noticeably has failed to report it when the evidence becomes violently manifest that it is not anyone's idea of a civic-minded organization. More recently, Dobbs was one of the many right-wing pundits who attacked the Department of Homeland Security for its warnings about right-wing extremists.

That Dobbs has been permitted to operate in this fashion without facing the consequences among his fellow journalists has been one of the real ongoing media scandals that no one in the media wants to write about. So now it's out in the open -- and about time.

MM has put together a page where you can chime in on CNN's Lou Dobbs problem. Go make yourself heard.

Well, if this doesn't paint Blue Gal as an aging hippie, nothing will.
Today is the 39th anniversary of the anti-war protests at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. For those of you under 40, May4.org has the history recap here.

Although I was in the first grade on May 4, 1970, I can't forget what happened in Kent, Ohio on that day.

I was there.

Not on campus, I was in first grade. In Kent, Ohio. My father and my mother's father were both faculty members at Kent. By 1970 my grandfather had retired from the Math Department. When he retired in 1968 he was the only math professor on record as opposing the War in Vietnam.

My dad, on the other hand, was in the Art Department. Nuff said.

We were rushed home from school that day in a panic of police sirens, smoke, and confusion.

When I got home, my mother had the front door locked for the first time in my life. "Mommy, what is happening?" "I don't know, dear." Mom not knowing, being visibly scared and shaken. Another first.

But she had the TV on and Walter Cronkite was talking about Kent. That was exciting to my six-year-old heart. I didn't see the consequences, had no idea what death was, let alone that four college students had been shot to death that day in my hometown. Their only crime was protesting their government's illegal, unilateral invasion of Cambodia.

I know, it's hard to believe a Republican president invaded a far away country based on lies and innuendo. (/snark)

The sad irony of Kent State, and what made it so explosive in terms of the "silent majority" of Americans, was that those Americans who could afford it avoided the military draft and the dangers of Vietnam by enrolling their children full-time in college and graduate school. All four students killed on May 4 were full-time students. If the war was going to kill sons (and daughters!) in OHIO? Many who were not outspoken before May 4, now said it was time to stop the war once and for all.

At my own house, a mile or so from campus, my two younger sisters, both pre-schoolers, were in their pajamas in the middle of the afternoon because my mother thought there might be an evacuation and getting the girls in their pajamas was something she "could do." They were playing making a tent with a blanket and the dining room chairs.

They do not remember that day, because it was just another day to play and make a tent.

I remember a few days later Kent was really, truly, on that proverbial "cover of Newsweek." I said to my dad:

"Daddy, before no one ever heard of Kent. Now no one will ever forget."

The University now holds an annual two-day symposium on democracy to commemorate the events of May 4.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1792)

PLAYS: (7402)

Sean Hannity's been transmitting his Fox News show from Planet Wingnuttia all week, but last night managed to bring on a guest who comes from the even more distant galaxy of Outer Wingnuttia: Cincinatti talk-show host Bill Cunningham, who proceeded to mount a display of complete crackpottery over the course of the "All American Panel" segment.

What really sets Cunningham off is Ed Beckel's declaration that "this was the greatest presidential 100 days since Franklin Roosevelt, bar none". Cunningham is outraged by this, and proceeds to indulge every anti-Obama smear in the book he can concoct:

"Sean, what we have here is this little boy who grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia, at the age of 6 to 10, rejected by his own father, rejected by his own mother, rejected by his stepfather, raised by his grandparents, bowing before the King of Saudi Arabia, kissing the behind of every European socialist, saying okay to people like Ahmenijad -- we have the most dishonest, the most disreputable 100 days in American history, and this guy actually believes it's good!"

The Panama Canal Treaty (a fight that was over in 1979) comes up: "Another mistake of Jimmy Carter's. We've got Jimmy Carter's second term right now! ... I want the canal back! Can I go back and get my canal back? It's our canal! That's another mistake of your guys! It was our canal! We fought and died for that! We built the damned thing!"

Geraldo Rivera responds: "What about the Statue of Liberty? France built it. Is the statue France's?"

Cunningham: No! It's our Statue of Liberty. I say the Statue of Liberty belongs in Cuba, and it belongs in Venezuela.

Continue reading »

The Reaction: American history is littered with scores of examples of doing business with tyrants but the GOP hypocrite brigade now has the unmitigated gall to claim that some handshakes are "irresponsible." 

Mondoweiss: Palestinians don't have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, US says

DownWithTyranny!: Publicity seeking, lunatic fringe, Republican, Chuck DeVore vs Don Henley

Truthdig: Female soldiers battle sexual violence

Whiskey Fire: Guns don't kill people, but sick cultures do

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: CNBC worried about image...Edmund Burke denounces George Will...Lights, Cameras, Mayhem!...Shoddy by choice...BillO's power in Spain...Escalate To Babble Tantrum...A different view of America...Your liberal media sets a new standard...Media fails America again...More WaPo horse pucky...Dems letting Net Neutrality die...Time Warner scraps metering trials...Swelling WH press corps...Then and Now...He said/She said Journalism...Certain facts omitted...

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (281)

PLAYS: (1155)

It wasn't just Fox News that was there to cover the tea bag protests. The Daily Show was there as well. John Oliver takes the tea bag protesters to task for their comparison of the Obama administration to just how bad the Brits were during the American Revolution. Sadly as with Glenn Beck, most of the protesters don't seem to be up on their American history.