Last night Madman and I exchanged ideas about many things, including the nature of the Democratic party. The exchange set me thinking about the Democratic Party, but the press of time and obligations kept me from expanding beyond the debate about Sen. Webb's response to the State of The Union Address. Before I had to move to school-related work, I jotted down these names: James Webb, Howard Dean, Paul Wellstone, Barbara Jordan. These people seemed to me to be what the Democratic party could and should be.

It's an odd group, but then, the Democrats are an odd bunch. Republicans have always had a easier time defining what they are for and against. An elephant is an apt symbol for the Republicans because you always tell where an elephant stands. Just look for the trampled plants and small amimals, and the huge piles of dung.

Now, the Democrats , thanks to Thomas Nash, are the donkeys. I was a city kid, and when I first saw the elephant and donkey cartoons, I thought the donkey was a mule. I like the idea of a mule as a symbol of the Democrats. Stubborn, determined, independent, and smart. Kicks like a, well, a mule, when messed with. Part horse, part donkey, a mongrel for our mongrel nation. Poor farmers had mules. Rich farmers had horses. (The sterile thing is a bit of a problem, I admit.)

So, there you have the Democrats - ornery, independent, stubborn, tough, hard-working. No rajah would ever ride a jewled studded donkey.

The Booman Backstory of Family Man is complete and online. Following the link to the website. Go to Archives. Begin with the FM introduction and follow the documents in order. I'll be going back and cleaning up the sloppy typing mistakes and whatnot, but the story is complete.  There is a place at the bottom of each page for comments or to email me. Feel free to use either or both. If you find any plotting errors, names, dates, etc, please bring them to my attention and I will correct them.

I'll now return to the Meta-story and continue to reveal the dark secrets and quiet heroism of the men and women of the Frog Pond.

To those serious souls who object to this diary as inappropriate for a political blog, well, a community needs humor as well as politics. If Booman finds this Project inappropriate, well, I doubt anyone will read this, so I can grovel. Please, Booman, please, it's a joke. I worked really hard on it. And your part has yet to be written. We could work out a deal. Do you still want to be the 6'5", 240 lb, ruggedly handsome Giants QB, the two three-time Super Bowl MVP? It could be arranged. And we can just edit out the desert sheik picture and the infamous "Shorts still" from the Peace march. Think about it, OK?

This Christmas has left me a little down, and I probably should just go to bed, but I don't seem to be able to. I've been reading through BT and ET, and wandering around my mother-in-law's house, instead. Once again this familiar memory from my childhood drifted into my mind. I think I'll write it, and then go to bed.

 It must have been in the mid sixties. (My childhood memories have a certain fuzziness about them.) My family had gone up on Christmas Eve to visit some older friends who had built a small cabin in the Poconos. We were driving home late on a snowy night. My folks had put the rear seat of the VW down and my older sister and I slept under piles of covers.

I woke up and watched the snow through the back window. My parents were quietly talking and my sister was deeply asleep and snoring softly. As we climbed through the mountains, I would see the sky, then the darkened houses and businesses, then the sky again.

The VW chugged up a long climb and when it reached the top and my view leveled off, I saw a sign. "Welcome to Bethlehem." We began our long descent into the valley, and I saw darkened houses, some with a few candles in the window, and closed businesses, their owners long gone home to be with their families on Christmas Eve.

Halfway down the hill we passed a steel mill, its huge doors wide open in defiance of the cold, the snow, and the season. A huge bucket suspended from the the ceiling poured out a vast river of molten steel that glowed orange red against the blackness of the night and splashed into molds on the floor far below.
Then our Beetle fought its way to the top of the rise, crested the hill, and coasted down the other side, and the steel mill was gone.

I awoke on Christmas morning in my own bed. I suppose my father had carried me upstairs and put me to bed without my waking up. I have never asked my family about that night, about Bethlehem and the steel mill. I do not know if I dreamed it, or it was real. I only know that it is one of the strongest memories I have of Christmas as a child. Now I do not want to know any more about it. The image is firmly attached to Christmas for me, and every Christmas I try to find time alone. When I do, I am a child again stretched out under old, woolen blankets in the backseat of that '63 Beetle, peering through the rear window as the river of molten steel silently pours from the heavens in Bethlehem. And I am filled once again with mystery and wonder.

This started as a comment to Booman's story, WSJ: Critiquing Blogs. As so often happens, there was a lot to think about and my comment entered that gray area between comment and diary. A dia-ment? Well, whatever it is, certainly in the rough.

There is at least one overlooked point in the WSJ comparison of bloggers & traditional reporters. There is an overlapping range of goals for the two groups. Three keys goals of both are reporting, advocacy, and community building. These goals are intertwined. The first two are often blurred, and the distinction is often in the eyes of the beholder. Although we don't usually think of it as such, the WSJ also works to build a community, a group of people with common interests. The key difference in my mind is that bloggers and blogging are more democratic, more inclusive, more conducive to building communities, than are traditional media.

We are living through, and to one degree or another, participating in, a Jeffersonian generational revolution. For all our faults and growing pains, I think we are on the right side, the side of openness and democracy.

There is a place here for an analysis of the economic structures of reporting in the MSM and blogging, but I defer to those with more knowledge of the subject. I can only pose this question: How can we of the blogosphere create communities that provide economic freedom for the talented reporters among us to have the time and opportunity to report and for the passionate, informed advocates to effectively advocate?

    This diary is a comment on and divergence from Booman's story on conservative reaction to the announcement that VP Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter is pregnant. Booman concludes that the private lives of the Cheneys are their business and that we on the left should stay out of it. Commenters agreed and disagreed. I happen to agree, but there is a larger issue here. The issue is not family privacy, Gay rights, or the necessity of two parent families. The issue is the double standard, one for PLUs and another for everyone else.

     PLU is a convient shorthand for "People Like Us." PLUs are good people by definition. The Bush Family is the model of the PLU world view. If you are born a PLU, you don't commit crimes, you make mistakes. You are helped out, not prosecuted. If you are born a Bush, you can avoid all wars, Viet Nam, as well as the War on Drugs. The law doesn't apply to you. If you are born a Cheney, you and your lesbian partner can have a child and not have to worry that you might lose your job if anyone discovers your little secret. Bush PLU's are anti-abortion, until one of their little darlings gets inconveniently knocked up and then a quick, quiet trip to a discreet, private clinic and all is fine.

    If Bush had been born poor, not a PLU, he would have been in Viet Nam and walking through the jungle, dodging Viet Cong bullets, not playing junior jet pilot, when he felt like showing up. If Mary Cheney wasn't a Cheney, she would risk the power of the state being used against her partner to deprive her of parental rights.

    A while ago, we had a debate on the pages about what a progressive stands for. Several creeds and litmus tests were proposed. Here's mine.

   A Progressive wants everyone in this country to be treated decently, fairly, and with the same respect and opportunity as everyone else. We want our laws and our institutions to be aligned with our rhetoric. When we say, "All people are created equal," we mean all people. When we say, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," we mean that everyone's life is equally precious, everyone's liberty is equally valued, and everyone's pursuit of happiness has equal value. Progressive is to Privilege, as Liberal is to Conservative. A Progressive wants our country, our democracy, to continue to improve, to progress. We are liberal with freedom, liberal with opportunity. A conservative wants to retain privilege in the small group of families that make up Bush's PLUs, to conserve power and privilege.

   Yesterday, I talked with the mother of one of my students. The family lives a terrible project in Detroit. Two parents, four jobs, three kids, no way out. She is expecting another child in April. Will Mary Cheney's daughter be sitting next to her in my inner city school classroom? Will she be diving under her bed when bullets come through the bedroom wall? Will her parents be so exhausted from working two lousy, dead end jobs, that they have little time or energy to read to her? Will she come to know the police as a barrier between her and her community and the "good" people in "good" communities?

     Good job, Baby Cheney, you figured out the Bush system while still in the womb. This is a great country, if you choose your parents wisely. The privilege system is what Bush conservatives are conserving, and that system of privilege is what progressives should be tearing down.

      Update [2006-12-7 17:7:17 by Teach313]: Minor editorial corrections made by author.

    Last night, well, early this morning really, a strange idea came to me. We were talking in the 3rd cafe of the night about BTers we'd met and not met. About meetups that we'd been to and had to miss. And this really strange vision jumped into my brain. A bus. Some kind of tour bus/rv/van/or something. Pick a two or three or four week period and drive it from clusters of BTers to other clusters of BTers. A Froggy Bottom 24/7 Cafe on wheels. BooMan by Bus. A Moveable MeetUp.
    Some people might ride a short way. They get off and make their way home however they might. Others might stay longer. Some people would meet the Traveling Pond along the way, and  join them for that night. State campgrounds and national parks. The Ritz for Mary and the parking lot for others. Rest stops and mountain overlooks. Breakfast at greasy spoons and over campfires. Stopping to rest, shop, hike, take a break, whatever. And then, another meetup.
     Flexibility is the key. See who's interested and go from there. See what vehicles are available, or what we'd need to rent. Work on costs, routes, etc., after we see if I am the only person insane enough to even consider doing this.
    With as many good writers and photographers as are in the Pond, I could see us producing a book from this adventure. Perhaps a series of articles. Maybe a film. Certainly some great blogging and podcasts. The technical expertise is here. The imagination is here. The country is out there. We're scattered across it. What do you think?
      Be honest. I've had looney ideas before and I'll have them again. You won't hurt my feelings. And to head off the obvious question, I am not drunk or in any way chemically altered. It is possible that I'm nuts.

Mythmother directed my attention to an editorial in the LA Times by JOSHUA MURAVCHIK, at the American Enterprise Institute. This editorial cries out for a bit of rhetorical analysis. Allow me to take a stab at it.

Muravchik presents a clear and direct call for action. His opening sentence, "WE MUST bomb Iran," leaves no doubt about his intentions. He then proceeds to simplify the entire debate and obscure any complexities. He must have mistaken the editorial page for a Bush daily briefing.

(More below)

[update]See additional chart below.

The Scottish branch of my family was unified against two groups: Catholics, or as they were called, "the Bloody Papists," and the Scottish Episcopal Church, "as good as Bloody Papists." They had loud, long, and well-reasoned debates why both these institutions did the De'ils work here on Earth. But then the debates got messier. One branch stayed with the Church of Scotland. They generally prospered and settled into the middle class.

Tensions frayed when a member of the family broke away and joined the Relief Church in a heated argument over the cost of establishment for the Church of Scotland. Two brothers never spoke again when Great- Great-Great-Great Uncle Lawrence called his brother's beloved Church of Scotland, "A hand maiden to the Whore of Babylon."

(More sad history below)

The week ended with a bang in my humble schoolroom. One little darling lost the glow-in-the-dark superball she earned for her behavior last week. She was in tears and angrily accused everyone nearby of stealing it. This wasn't likely as she dropped it two steps from the treasure chest and it probably super-bounced across the room and under something. I told her to go or she'd miss the bus and I'd look for it. I'd straighten it out on Monday, I assured her. She stumbled out to her locker, tears streaming down her face, folders slipping out of her hands, shedding papers,pencils, lip gloss and god knows what else in her wake like a New Jersey trash barge headed into a hurricane. The other kids screaming that they didn't take that bald-headed girl's superball and other less than helpful comments was a perfect complement to the drama that only a wronged eight-year old can suffer.

After she went to her locker and I had squelched the howls of indignation from the falsely accused, I went to my secret goody stash and slipped another superball into my pocket. I told the class to clean up their tables and be in their seats, ready for dismissal, when I returned. Unfortunately, my high speed race to catch the bus missed, and I saw it pull away. Kenya was sitting toward the back by a window, folded arms cushioning her face, her body jerking back and forth in her patented full-body crying jag. Several girls were crowded around her, patting her shoulders and stoking her hair, alternately feeding and being fed at the emotional feast. She didn't see me as I held up the ball that she'd get on Monday.

I went back upstairs to see if the class had kept it together for the four-or-five minutes I was out of the room. I should have known better.

(so much more below)

Many members of the netroots community have been angry, upset, or uncertain about Jim Webb of VA. His record is not what you expect from a Democratic Senator. He is an Annapolis Grad and a former Marine. He was Secretary of the Navy under Reagan. He started out as an Democrat, changed to the Republicans, and has returned to the Democrats.

Today, in the Wall Street Journal, Senator Webb has an op-ed piece. Webb has gone to the paper of record for corporate power, where he has clearly and forcibly stood up for the people against that same corporate power. Read the entire editorial. It's worth your time. I've snipped out some prime pieces below.

It's Tuesday Night. If you are going to send a donation to the DNC in support of Howard Dean by snail mail you should send it soon, so that it will arrive on his birthday, 11/17. This link will take you to my original post on the subject. There you will find addresses and ideas that others have added. Every donation, no matter the size, will make the point that we in the netroots don't want decisions made for us by the Beltway Bunch.

This is an idea that I've seen bouncing around other blogs that I'd like to share with those of you who may not have seen it. As you must know by now the entrenched Democratic power structure is still going after Howard Dean and his position as Chairman of the DNC. Let's step up and support Dean now.  Here are some ways to help Dean.

I'd like to share some ideas posted by pattyp at MyDD.

So far, the only thing everyone seems agreed upon is that we want to make the DNC contributions in time for Dr. Dean's birthday.[Friday, 11/17] The amounts and methods of delivery just differ. So far, proposed methods are:

1. Send birthday cards to Dean at the DNC office (30 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington DC 20003) by snail mail, with check or money order enclosed;

2. Donate via The Bat, which someone started on their own and which has already raised over $4,000;

3. Donate via an ActBlue page.

Proposed amounts are:

1. $20.06, to signify the successes of this week;

2. $20.08, in anticipation of even greater success in 2008;

3. Any amount with 50 cents tacked on, in honor of the great 50 State Strategy
   

Another idea mentioned elsewhere is buying Democracy Bonds.

It's politics, folks, and money talks. One of the main reasons I support Dean is that he has allowed those of us with only a little money to join the conversation.

Here is a chance to show the Beltway insiders that we will not quietly stand by while Carville and others try to maneuver Dean out of the Chairmanship.

I plan to use the at $0.50 approach in support of the 50 state plan.

Update [2006-11-12 18:44:51 by Teach313]: The Bat is at $5,471 with 141 donors. That means the average donation in $38.

Update [2006-11-13 8:22:28 by Teach313]: see no3reed's suggestion below.

Sen. Charles Schumer @ DSCC, 430 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC 20001

Rep. Rahm Emanuel @ DCCC, 430 S. Capitol St. SW, Washington, DC 20001

James Carville james@carville.info

It's 2:30 a.m. Election Night and I'm geeked. What a night!

Now, let's turn our attention to Harry Reid, Rahm Emmanuel, Schumer, and all the other Beltway Dems who think they know what's best for us. Let's flood them with emails, calls, blimps, and sky-writers, and tell them to get the hell off Howard Dean's back and get their sorry asses to work removing the horrible legislation this administration has foisted on America. Let Dean run the Party. You folks need to start investigations across the board. Hit the Repub's hard and keep on hitting.

The voters gave the Dem's a message. Stop Bush. Stop the war. Stop the corporate criminals running the Executive Branch. Get to work and start representing "the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.)

One more thing, tell your ole pal Joe to piss off when he comes demanding his committee chairmanship. The Repub's elected him, not us. We owe him nothing.

    As Man Eegee pointed out in his diary on Russell Pearce this morning, the immigration furor does nothing to address the "underlying economic issues that are plaguing the lower classes of all the nations." National boundaries mean nothing to corporations. They are simply another factor to be evaluated in maximizing profits. If it is more profitable to be an "American" company, fine, let's do it. Otherwise, set up off-shore or move the "home office" to other country.
    But workers do not have the same options. They are bound to their native countries. The anti-immigration rhetoric uses loaded, emotional language to pit the workers of America against workers from outside the country. Who benefits? Neither set of workers, of course. These are the same tactics historically used by the Klan to turn poor whites against poor blacks. Controlling labor is the key issue.
   A key question seems to be, How can workers unite across international boundaries to attempt to exert some pressure on globally transient corporations? I'm not as widely informed on the contemporary labor scene as others here. Are there on-going efforts toward this end? What overtures are being being made to Chinese workers? Any hope for a new IWW? How has the EU affected worker mobility across national lines in Europe?