AlexWalker's blog
Is California Really Broke?
Submitted by AlexWalker on Tue, 05/20/2008 - 10:46pm.FREE PUBLIC HEARING
ON THE CALIFORNIA STATE BUDGET
Thursday, May 22, 2008
7:00 pm – 8:30 PM
Holy Faith Episcopal Church
260 N. Locust Street, Inglewood, CA
SPEAKER:
Nancy Berlin, Director, California Partnership
CAP is a coalition of over 40 Californian anti-poverty grassroots organizations
GUEST OF HONOR:
Curran Price, CA State Assembly
QUESTION AND ANSWER:
Walter Johnson, Holy Faith Episcopal
Justice and Mercy Commission
ACTION STEPS:
Cathy Deppe, 9to5 Los Angeles
National Association of Working Women
For More Info: Walter Johnson 310-450-5017
Technorati Tags: So Much For Our 'Conversation' On Race
Submitted by AlexWalker on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 10:15am.
When everybody started saying "Let's have a conversation about race", I wrote a blog post saying "No, Let's Not." (see on Green Commons Let's Talk About Race? NO! Let's Not on January 26th). My first post was a reaction to Uzodinma Iweala's Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, "Racism in 'Post Racial' America" (with 'post racial' in quotes) criticizing the "media-concocted fiction" that "not speaking about race is the equivalent of making progress."
I still say: No! No! No!
====================
UPDATE:
MY COMMENTARY POSTED ON LOS ANGELES TIMES WEB SITE
Posted on The Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com, Wednesday, May 07, 2008
NO MORE RACE TALK
By Alex Walker
Enough about Obama and Wright. This election is about Bush. (Read More...)
= = = = = = = = = = = =
Gary Kamiya: Jeremiah Wright Isn't the Problem
Submitted by AlexWalker on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 9:45pm.Forget Alex Walker. Who the hell is he, anyway? A failed computer programmer! Instead, read Gary Kamiya's excellent essay posted on www.salon.com. Kamiya says almost everything I was trying to say in my post last week. He does it much better than me and since Gary Kamiya is executive editor and oncofounder of the online magazine Salon.com, and a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review, unlike me, he has a license to say it. I have deleted my entire essay from Green Commons and substituted Gary Kamiya' because I think this so important. Please note the powerful quote from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address which today's ignorant US "intellectuals" never remember.
Posted on Salon, Tuesday, March 25, 2008.
Rev. Jeremiah Wright Isn't the Problem
The hysteria over Obama's former pastor's attacks on America shows we're still in thrall to knee-jerk patriotism.
by Gary Kamiya
Maybe we really are doomed to elect John McCain, remain in Iraq forever and nuke Iran. Nations that forget history may not be doomed to repeat it, but those that never even recognize reality in the first place definitely are. Last week's ridiculous uproar over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons proves yet again that America has still not come to terms with the most rudimentary facts about race, 9/11 -- or itself.
The great shock so many people claim to be feeling over Wright's sermons is preposterous. Anyone who is surprised and horrified that some black people feel anger at white people, and America, is living in a racial never-never land.
Wright has called the U.S. "the United States of White America," talks about the "oppression" of black people and says, "White America got their wake-up call after 9/11." Gosh, who could have dreamed that angry racial grievances and left-wing political views are sometimes expressed in black churches?
It's not surprising that the right is using Wright to paint Barack Obama as a closet Farrakhan, trying to let the air out of his trans-racial balloon by insinuating that he's a dogmatic race man. But beyond the fake shock and the all-too-familiar racial politics, what the whole episode reveals is how narrow the range of acceptable discourse remains in this country. This is especially true of anything having to do with patriotism or 9/11 -- which have become virtually interchangeable. Wright's unforgivable sin was that he violated our rigid code of national etiquette.
Education not an issue? - - 'Demopublicans' won't talk about it
Submitted by AlexWalker on Sat, 03/01/2008 - 11:53am.Forget ideology. Forget the personalities of individual politicians. I think I could write a whole book arguing for the Green Party simply based on all the important issues that get short shrift simply because the damned Democrats and Republicans don't talk about them. And according to the two-party totalitarian culture of the United States, if "liberal" Democrats and "conservative" Republicans don't talk about a problem, then it's not a problem.
Jeffrey Henig has an interesting op-ed in the Boston Globe on why education is a missing issue in this year's political campaign. "Liberal" Democrats are now divided on the question of charter schools and "Conservative" Republicans are now divided on Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. And so, the gutless politician's are doing what gutless Demopublicans always do -- playing it safe.
Michael Bloomberg is Out of It!
Submitted by AlexWalker on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 1:01pm.In a New York Times Op-Ed published today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared that he is not a candidate for president.
Good!
Now Greens won't have to worry about this billionaire trying to buy the election as a phony "independent." Bloomberg goes on and on about how "as a businessman, I never believed that either party had all the answers," how "the message of an independent approach has resonated," the need "for a new urban agenda," and how "more of the same won't do." However, he has not one kind word about any actually independent individuals or organizations and his rap is nothing but a blend of Democratic and Republican Establishment clichés.
Ralph Nader is in it!
Submitted by AlexWalker on Sun, 02/24/2008 - 12:44pm.UPDATE -- LOS ANGELES TIMES EDITORIAL:
"...Does He Deserve to Be Heard? Yes"
On Meet the Press this morning, Ralph Nader declared his candidacy.
If Mr. Nader is the nominee of the Green Party, I intend to support him 100% regardless of the slogans and hacks packaged, advertised, and sold in million-dollar TV ads by the "One-Corporate-Party-With-Two-Names."
Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens
Cynthia McKinney on Green Issues
Submitted by AlexWalker on Sun, 02/03/2008 - 12:01pm.Los Angeles, Sunday, February 3, 2008 -- It is two days before the California Primary. Accordingly, I am exercising the blogger's privilege to post information about my favorite candidate. See pasted below a video of a set of concise statements on Green Issues by former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney at the Green Party presidential debate.
See my post on California Greening at:
Cynthia McKinney on GREEN Issues
http://cagreening.blogspot.com/2008/02/cynthia-mckinney-on-green-issues....
Cynthia McKinney on Green Issues
Submitted by AlexWalker on Sun, 02/03/2008 - 11:53am.Los Angeles, Sunday, February 3, 2008 -- It is two days before the California Primary. Accordingly, I am exercising the blogger's privilege to post information about my favorite candidate. See pasted below a video of a set of concise statements on Green Issues by former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney at the Green Party presidential debate.
See my post on California Greening at:
Let's Talk About Race? NO! Let's Not
Submitted by AlexWalker on Sat, 01/26/2008 - 7:26pm.Barack Obama says: "The press has been focused, almost, you know, maniacally, on the issue of race." Meanwhile, a chorus of self-serving, neurotic black intellectuals who supposedly love Brother Barack, bleat: "Let's talk about race!"
No. Let's not.
Los Angeles Times Poll - Hillary Leads Big in California
Submitted by AlexWalker on Tue, 01/15/2008 - 1:41pm.The Los Angeles Times published the results of their latest opinion poll in this morning's paper:
In California, it's Clinton and McCain
by Cathleen Decker
Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2008
Presidential Candidates Debate
Submitted by AlexWalker on Thu, 01/10/2008 - 2:20pm. 
A PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE THAT MATTERS
SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 2008 AT 2:00 PM
HERBST THEATRE
VETERANS MEMORIAL BUILDING
401 VAN NESS (Opposite City Hall)
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Cynthia McKinney Announces Run for President
Submitted by AlexWalker on Fri, 12/21/2007 - 4:30pm.Cynthia McKinney Announces Run for President
YouTube Link:
youtube.com/watch?v=03cOM9r51Nw
Cynthia McKinney's web sites, with Windows Media Video and MP3 Audio version of the video:
California Republican Hack du jour - Orange County's Chriss Street
Submitted by AlexWalker on Mon, 12/10/2007 - 12:16pm.The California Republican Hack Du Jour is Orange County Treasurer Chriss Street.
Orange County Funds Hold SIV Debt on Moody's Review
by Michael B. Marois and William Selway
Bloombeb.com
December 5, 2007
Orange County, California, the wealthiest U.S. municipality ever to declare bankrupcty, bought structured investment vehicles similar to those that caused a run on funds invested by local governments in Florida.
Twenty percent, or $460 million, of the county's $2.3 billion Extended Fund is invested in so-called SIVs that may face credit-rating cuts, said Treasurer Chriss Street. In all of its funds, the county holds a total of $837 million of SIV debt, including $152 million in its $3.5 billion of money-market funds that isn't under ratings review, said his spokesman, Keith Rodenhuis.
. . .
''We'll find out real quick if we have a problem,'' said the county's former Treasurer John Moorlach, who is now a county supervisor. ''But for now I need to be patient and wait and see.''
. . .
Moorlach sought to have Street stripped of his authority to manage the county's $6 billion of investments in September amid federal and local corruption probes. He said Street was too distracted by the probes to manage the county's money.
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Street's spending from a bankrupt trucking company, allegedly for his personal use. . .
Let the whole church say "Amen" to those good old-fashioned Republican conservative "values."
A Debate: Do Greens Need a 'People of Color' Caucus?
Submitted by AlexWalker on Fri, 11/30/2007 - 9:32am.
EDITOR'S NOTE: My op-ed below is the first of a series to be published in Green Focus on applying Green values for people of color. Breaking the Democrat-Republicans monopoly on American politics requires the destruction of big city Democratic Party Machines to which many of us have emotional attachments. It's important for Greens to free our minds from the tyranny of Democrat-Republican old politics about race and ethnicity. Thus, we need to consider if we need a "People of Color Caucus" at all.
I am posting this essay on www.greencommons.com. Many will disagree vigorously. Good. Accept this challenge: Post a comment with your thoughts; write an 800-word op-eds for Green Focus and send it to don.boring@gmail.com .
Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens
A Debate:
Do Greens Need a "People of Color" Caucus?
No - Let's Be The Change We Want to See
by Alex Walker
"Be the change that you want to see in the world." -- Mohandas Gandhi
Australia - John Howard, Bush Lap Dog, Ousted
Submitted by AlexWalker on Sat, 11/24/2007 - 10:26am.Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of U.S. President George W. Bush's biggest lap dogs, has been ousted. See excerpts from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.
Rudd Ousts Howard in Australia With Climate, Troops Out Pledges
By Gemma Daley
Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Kevin Rudd's Labor Party won Australia's election, ending John Howard's 11-year rule after promising to tackle climate change, restore workers' bargaining power and withdraw Australian troops from Iraq.
Howard Government Suffers Defeat In Australian Parliamentary Election
By Partrick Barta and Rachel Pannett
