Tag Archives: ~ Culture & History

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

A message from Norman Lear …


Norman Lear

Please let me be the first person to welcome you to People For the American Way and www.pfaw.org. Every day, PFAW is fighting hard for the core American values we share: Liberty, Equality, Religious Freedom and constitutional principles like checks and balances and fair courts that provide access to justice for all Americans, not just the very powerful.

In 1981, I became deeply concerned with what I saw as a fundamental attack on the American values I hold dear. Televangelists, then the public face of the growing Religious Right, were increasingly filling the airwaves with divisive messages that mixed religious dogma and politics and that challenged the faith of anyone whose politics were not aligned with theirs.

What I was seeing was not what our country was supposed to be about… this was not the American Way.

I woke up one morning with an idea for a television commercial to counter their televangelists, and the response was overwhelming. It turned out that the concerns I had weren’t mine alone — they were shared by millions of Americans from every walk of life. Taking the energy created by that ad, I joined with the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas, faith leaders and other concerned citizens to form People For the American Way Foundation, and three years later formed People For the American Way, an advocacy organization dedicated to exposing the extremism of the Far Right and defending the constitutional rights and values of all Americans.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll help you get more acquainted with PFAW, teach you about the work in which we are engaged, and offer ways to get involved in the fight for issues you care about. For now, I would like to invite you to watch the TV ad that started it all, along with a more recent video that shows you what we’ve been up to in the nearly 30 years since that ad first aired:

Watch the videos >

vids

And, of course, feel free to explore our web site at your leisure at www.pfaw.org.

On behalf of the entire board and staff of People For the American Way and our affiliate People For the American Way Foundation, thank you for your activism and welcome to the family. Together, we can help make sure that America is the best it can be, and that the promises of Liberty, Equality, Justice for All — the American Way — become a reality.

Sincerely,

Norman signature

Norman Lear, Co-founder

NEXT: Look for an email soon from Michael B. Keegan, President of People For the American Way.
~ my 2cents ...

thorny Thursday … who is sitting out 2010midterms?


An article from a popular online News service stating that “gay voters are weighing in on sitting this one out” and giving the Democratic Party a rude awakening was sad because the rude awakening or bad joke will be on all of us who want to move into the 21st Century.  It also tells me that the public needs to think about the bigger picture and this just seems to be ignored because of all the anger. I understand it – I get it, but why be so angry that you make whatever progress made thus far slide into the abyss with the possibility of ending any chance again for a long while because you “sat this one out.”  I have to say, that I do not get.  Anyway, my response to the article about gays sitting out for the midterms is below and to be honest I question the validity of the article though it uses the New York Times to frame the story. My response below is not just to the article about gays, but to another article as well with a list of folks thinking they might lean toward the GOP and those who have questions: Catholics, older individuals, so-called angry ex-Obama supporters, independents, Women and the less affluent.

I would like to know…Do these “gay voters” thinking about sitting this one out know that any movement on the right the “Republican Tea Party”  will probably keep DADT in place as well as possibly reinforcing bans on marriage? I would like to know if anyone remembers what Tancredo, Paladino and others have been saying for the last 2weeks and with tea party characters being put in line for positions of power just to spite Dems, it is possible that any move into the 21st Century will be placed on hold… for good? -The filibuster and the rule of 60 have done the dirty job so far but if more right of center folks get on the floor of Congress -the vote for repealing DADT or any other equal rights issue legislation will probably get voted down- and it won’t be because of the process needed to make sure it’s legal – but hey that’s just my take
-sitting this mid-term out or voting for Republicans to express anger is voting against your best interest and makes no sense to me …get angry but be pro-active and give President Obama two more years then vote otherwise…don’t get me wrong i believe President Obama deserves 2terms. What is a problem is how few people actually got on the phone to our members of Congress to tell them to do the peoples business and stop the stalling, blocking and making the Senate scale down bills so they only make a small impact.  I personally will support President Obama for the 2012 elections because the ditch dug by the last guy has made it impossible to correct in just one term. I know that people like Michael Moore have something else cooking and i see that as another troubling shoe ready to drop so this is my warning to the President that some parts of the progressive movement are probably behind the scenes organizing. The last 20 months have been filled with obstacles- Republican obstacles, the group that should be held accountable and be made to pay by putting more democrats on the floor of Congress ..again that is just me. I had hoped that both sides of the political aisle would work together but the rude awakening is that McConnell, DeMint, Pence and Cantor all have a different agenda and it has nothing to do with helping the American people –The Political Party of No as well as conservadems in some cases will continue to be the bane of our struggle to move legislation that is more geared toward 21st Century living and that includes finally moving equal rights for all of us into a reality. Vote …but Vote for DEMS. I will admit i do not understand why women feel the GOP would be the Political Party working for our needs -all of us working women ..some single women, single moms, married women with or without families all have over the last few years have suffered under Republican governing and while the air is filled with contentious rhetoric it should not …should not keep women from voting for the Democratic Party because if you were listening the family values platform is against women and has not changed.  In fact if more RTP get on the floor of Congress women our issues along with so many others will become game pieces on our move toward into the 21st Century .  I don’t know about other women but this scares me big time. The right says they want less government are constitutionalist yet lately not so much and when you find out what their family values platform really is you find out that they are social conservatives ready to make all of us abide by what they say not as they have done or are doing .  I have to wonder why those people who stood up and said we need a change in 2008 suddenly have turned away or just don’t get that the Republican Tea Party decided shortly after we voted President Obama into office that they would not cooperate or compromise on anything.

Gallup says …2010 mid-terms

56% of voters ages  18-29  —65%  ages 30-49     —58-66%  ages 50+ plan to vote on Nov.2nd

Overall those that plan to vote: Democratic Party 65% and Republicans 63% and indies 61%

 

 

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Patty Murray -Washington State thanks you …VoTE PMurray Nov.2


Yesterday, President Barack Obama joined me out on the campaign trail in Seattle.

I’m grateful that President Obama came to Washington state to show his support for our campaign and help us reach thousands of voters. I wish all of my friends and supporters like you could have been at the big campaign rally we had on the campus of the University of Washington.

It was quite a day! If you weren’t able to join us in person, I hope you’ll check out this video clip of the President’s visit:

click here to watch the video

While here, President Obama talked about everything that we’re doing to create jobs and fight for hard-working families across our state and across the country.

He also laid out in very clear terms the stakes in this election: whether we’re going to continue to fight for the changes we need to make to get our country back on track, or whether we’ll let our opponents — fueled by tens of millions of dollars from shadowy corporate and right-wing groups — try to buy this election and move us back to the failed policies of the past.

I’m running for re-election to the U.S. Senate because I want to continue to be your voice in Washington, DC — to wake up every day and do everything I can to help people and solve problems.

But I need your help to do that. Please click here to watch the video, sign up to volunteer for our campaign!

I’d like to thank President Obama for joining me here in Washington state to help us get our message out -– and I’d like to thank you for your continued support.

 

Let’s keep fighting hard over these last 11 days for a huge victory on Election Day!

Thank you so much,

Patty Murray
U.S. Senator

P.S. If you have friends or family who may be interested to hear about President Obama’s visit, or learn more about what’s at stake in this election, I hope you’ll forward this email along or click here to share on Facebook. Thanks.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Bringing ultra high-speed broadband to Stanford homes …Google-Official blog


Posted: 21 Oct 2010 09:06 AM PDT

Earlier this year we announced our plans to build and test ultra-high speed broadband networks in a small number of American communities. Since then, a team of Google engineers has been hard at work experimenting with new fiber optic technologies. And following a series of tests we’ve run on Google’s campus, we’re excited to announce the next step in our project. 

We’ve reached an agreement with Stanford University to build an ultra-high speed broadband network to the university’s Residential Subdivision, a group of approximately 850 faculty- and staff-owned homes on campus. Through this trial, we plan to offer Internet speeds up to 1 gigabit per second—more than 100 times faster than what most people have access to today. We plan to start breaking ground in early 2011.

To be clear, this trial is completely separate from our community selection process for Google Fiber, which is still ongoing. As we’ve said, our ultimate goal is to build to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people, and we still plan to announce our selected community or communities by the end of the year.

Stanford’s Residential Subdivision—our first “beta” deployment to real customers—will be a key step towards that goal. We’ll be able to take what we learn from this small deployment to help scale our project more effectively and efficiently to much larger communities.

Why did we decide to build here? Most important was Stanford’s openness to us experimenting with new fiber technologies on its streets. The layout of the residential neighborhoods and small number of homes make it a good fit for a beta deployment. And its location—just a few miles up the road from Google—will make it easier for our engineers to monitor progress.

We’re excited about this beta, and we look forward to announcing our selected community or communities for Google Fiber in the coming months.

Posted by James Kelly, Product Manager