Anti-war movements have their bases set in popular culture.  Political leaders will co-opt the popular culture in order to shape their images and to present their messages.  Being a pop culture leader in an anti-war movement is not without its peril.  Being the target of pop culture is similarly not without its peril.

The purveyors and icons of popular culture have to climb aboard the Peace Train (thank you, Dolly Parton) in order for an anti-war movement to advance.  We saw this in large measure during the Vietnam Civil War when artists like Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and others wrote and performed anti-war rhetoric.  Norman Whitfield wrote the song “War” and wanted the the Temptations to perform it.  However, apparently in response to the conservative following of the Temptations, only Edwin Starr of the Temptations and Whitfield recorded the single so as not to alienate the fan base.

More recently, we have seen the results of The Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines making an off-handed remark and Michael Moore’s film-making which were excoriated and blown out of proportion by the Repugnants.  More specifically, fans of Maines, Emily Robison, and Martie Maguire were encouraged to destroy the group’s albums and CDs following Maine’s remarks about the embarrassment which is the so-called Pres. Bush.  However, The Dixie Chicks kept its stride and bounced back with with an amazing anti-war song, “Not Ready To Make Nice,” one of my favorite songs of all time.  The song and album won five Grammy Awards at the 49th Grammy Awards Ceremony.  I also personally credit The Dixie Chicks for helping to significantly turn the country away from the dominion of Darkness.  Michael Moore has similarly risked his life and standing in the community in order to present Truth to Power with his documentary films including “911.”  As with The Dixie Chicks, Moore has suffered at the hands of the Repugnants and their lackeys.

Now, Pink has joined the fray.  I love her song and lyrics “Dear Mr. President” that features the Indigo Girls and adore the accompanying video as well.  If you have not heard the song, check it out at i-tunes.  If you have not seen the video, it is now playing on Time Warner Cable On Demand, at least in the Beaumont/Banning area:

More below the flip…

The lyrics are from lyricsandsongs.com

Artist:  Pink
Album: “I’m not Dead” (2006)
Dear Mr. President (Feat. Indigo Girls) Lyrics

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let’s pretend we’re just two people and
You’re not better than me
I’d like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We’re not dumb and we’re not blind
They’re all sitting in your cells
While you pay the road to hell.

What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye?

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don’t know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh!

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You’d never take a walk with me
Would you?

Here is a list of anti-war songs that can be found at onegoodmove.org:

• The Price of Oil-Billy Bragg
• CodePINK For Peace-Pat Humphries/Sandy Opatow
• Bombs Over Baghdad-John Trudell
• The Bell-Stephan Smith, Pete Seeger, Mary Harris, Dean Ween
• My Hero Mr President-Paula Cole
• To Washington-John Mellencamp
• Jacobs Ladder-Chumbawamba (not in our name)
• Bomb The World-Michael Franti and Spearhead
• March of Death-Zack de la Rocha & DJ Shadow
• A World Gone Mad…-Beastie Boys
• The Final Straw-R.E.M.
• We Want Peace-Lenny Kravitz
• Life During Wartime-Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)
• We’re the Enemy-The John Kasper Band
• Freestyle Live From No Man’s Land-Saul Williams (not in our name)
• Perfectly Comfortable-Alan Fletcher
• Bomb The World (Armageddon Version)-Michael Franti and Spearhead
• Bush and Saddam-Everton Blender
• Self Evident-Ani di Franco

I would appeal to the artistic community to become more visible in the anti-war movement.  Songwriters, musicians, actors, screenwriters, producers, filmmakers, arise!

After all that nasty news yesterday, we finally get some GOOD NEWS out of OC to wake up to this morning! (From OC Register)

The city is drafting a law to expand its minimum pay standard to include contract workers along with city employees who already receive at least $10 an hour plus benefits.

Irvine is the only city in the county with a living wage law, and Tuesday night voted 3-2 (with Christina Shea and Steven Choi dissenting) to have staff add to the law to pay contract workers an hourly wage to raise their annual salaries above the national poverty line.

“We ought to set a standard that anybody paid by the city is paid at least $10 an hour,” said Councilman Larry Agran, who suggested the concept. “We need to join other United States cities that are not just satisfied with paying a minimum wage.”

Yep, you heard me right! The Democratic majority on the Irvine City Council (Beth Krom, Larry Agran, and Suhkee Kang) voted last night to expand the living wage ordinance in Irvine to city contractors. And yes, Irvine is not only THE FIRST CITY IN ORANGE COUNTY TO ENACT ANY LIVING WAGE LAW, but now they are also ensuring that city-contracted workers earn enough money to afford living in this very expensive area! Kudos to Irvine for leading the county again in treating its workers well, and I can hardly wait to see the final living wage law that will be enacted! : )

(cross-posted at D-Day and Governor Phil)

The close of this week’s legislative session drew an unequivocal distinction between Democrats and Republicans in this state. It was not in any way a victory for bipartisanship. If it were, you would be able to find ONE Republican in the State Senate or the State Assembly who actually voted for the “cap-and-trade” greenhouse gas emissions bill. You’d be able to find more than Abel Maldonado, the only Republican in either chamber to vote to increase the minimum wage. You’d have a SINGLE Republican member of the State Assembly, and more than TWO Republican State Senators (Denham, Harman) who voted for the bill providing universal health care in California. The only “bipartisanship” on display was between a Democratic legislature who moved California forward on the big issues, and a Governor trying to save his job in an election year. In this way California is a mirror image of the country at large. In election years of the recent past, Republicans have typically thrown red meat at their base, hoping to increase turnout among conservatives to carry them to victory. California’s governor has completely abandoned that strategy, and in so doing neutured his party for decades to come.

By accepting such major legislation on global warming, on prescription drugs, on the minimum wage (although trying to steer a middle course on all, and rejecting universal health care), the governor has essentially validated that the progressive message is the right message for the state. He’s enabled Democrats to make the argument that they have the only positive message on legislative issues, that they are the only ones with any ideas to move the state ahead.

This website is about the 2006 California governor’s race. But I think it’s notable that Governor Schwarzenegger, in his desire to appeal to everyone and sell out his own party’s core principles time and again, has destroyed the CA GOP’s chances to win in 2010, 2014, 2018, and maybe beyond. There is no electable Republican in the state for the next decade and a half. Schwarzenegger is proving by his campaign that the only electable Republican is not a Republican at all, but a Republican that becomes a Democrat for three months leading up to the election. Republicans are out of touch on global warming, on health care, on wages for working families, on pretty much every major issue facing the state.

This really was not always the case here. In 1992, Bill Clinton broke a 28-year record of California voting for Republicans in the Presidential election. We’ve had a string of Republican governors and colorless technocrat Dems like Gray Davis. The changing demographics of the state and the disaster of Prop. 187 have shifted the balance. And this year’s legislative session provided confirmation that the only ideas that work in the Golden State are progressive ones.

This is where Phil Angelides comes in. He can deliver the knockout blow to the state Republican Party. If a guy who basically adopts dozens of Democratic frames can’t win, no Republican will be able to for a long time. Angelides’ Harry Truman analogy is apt: When given the choice between Democrat-lite and a true Democrat, what would you do? Take the guy who governs from the left for three months to get elected, or the guy who’s been calling for a progressive vision his entire career?

This is how the choice must be framed. This is what voters need to hear. And given those options, this can be a winning strategy that would send the California Republican Party home, licking their wounds, in a cataclysmic event that would reverberate for a long while.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-11, CA-04, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, Proposition 89, redistricting, health care, minimum wage, reform.

Governor’s Race

• Dan Ancona on Phil.
• Two new TV ads from Angelides’ team: one showing Schwarzenegger’s ties to Bush (see also this campaign press release, courtesy Randy Bayne), and one on Angelides’ support of the middle class.
• Julia has a quote from a Steve Maviglio piece concerning the Schwarzenegger team’s Bush/Cheneying of the press and some comments thereon.
• Bill to give one-time bump to minimum wage passes in election year, after Schwarzenegger threatens veto of indexed minimum wage. Angelides would support indexing, just like we do with the tax code. Great Analysis from Frank Russo.
• Even Daniel Weintraub has grudging respect for the Angelides budget plan. Julia has the commentary.
• Not entirely relevant, but amusing: Schwarzenegger in “Carnival in Rio”
• Schwarzenegger: Always willing to pander to the hard-line Republicans, but without the strength of his convictions in an election year.
• Schwarzenegger on Health Care: No plan, not now. Too hard. Maybe next year. Watch me pose.
• It’s election time, so Schwarzenegger pretends to care, unless you’re an extremist Republican, and then he really does care as long as nobody’s watching too closely.

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

• Veterans for McNerney
• Down With Tyranny asks why the DCCC is not helping either Jerry McNerney or Charlie Brown.
• It’s election time, so Paid-For Pombo pretends to care.
• Paid-For Pombo: Rubber-Stamp Bush Republican.
• Defenders of WildLife has a couple ads in the district. They’re really pretty good.
• I recently said to a friend of mine that the last 6 years could be described by the phrase: “I could not make this shit up.” Paid-For Pombo’s response to the massive oil pipeline leak on Alaska’s North Slope was to advocate for more drilling and fewer regulations. I could not make this shit up.

Charlie Brown / 15% Doolittle / CA-04

• If 15% Doolittle thinks stem cell research is immoral, will he pledge never to use any of the results? Well, even if he did, since when can you trust him?
• 15% Doolittle: After a sudden change hits a forest, the FIRST thing you want to do is rush in the clearcutters!
• Dump Doolittle raises a good point: when you’re focused on raking in the bribes and doling out the pork, you don’t do a very good job at anything else. Tough talk and wrapping yourself in the bloody flag does not make the country safer.
• Dump Doolittle has a great series of LTEs: One, two, three, four and five, six, seven, eight.
• 15% Doolittle: Corrupt or ineffective? Don’t worry, it’s an inclusive or.
• 15% Doolittle flips the bird to our planet.

Health Care

SB 840, a plan for universal health care, is coming up for a vote. This PowerPAC contribution explains why it’s important and has a link for you to contact your rep.

Propositions

The Prop 89 folks are having a blast showing why clean money is necessary.

Reformalicious

• Debra Bowen continues to do good work on voting integrity. Let’s get this woman elected to Secretary of State. And throw her some cash.
• D-Day on the bill trying to make corporations report all of their income to California, instead of hiding some. Will Schwarzenegger sign? More here.
• Bill Cavala on redistricting.
• D-Day has an interesting post up about possible voting and electoral reforms.
• Frank Russo has a great summary of the bill currently making its way through the legislature to kickstart a national popular vote for president.
• This came up in the context of a coordinated fear campaign by the Schwarzenegger team, but why exactly is Prop 13 a good idea again?

The Rest

• Badlands Journal has a great long piece up on water politics and policy in California. Whiskey’s for drinkin’, waters for fightin’ over.
• Randy Bayne (nice new theme on his blog) on the minimum wage bill.
• D-Day on Monet Politics: bills that look good from election-distance, but are really not all that impressive up close.
• Mmmmm, Burritos.
• A bill to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the verboten grounds for discrimination in California’s schools is slowly wending its way past the Republican bigots in the legislature.
• Endorsements for SF residents: Rescue Muni, and the SFDP.
• Sheila Kuehl on resources and the environment in the 2006 Budget.
• s9 at the MojoWire on the coming housing crunch.
• SoHum Parlance has some genuinely interesting thoughts on the Humboldt County marijuana industry.

The Legislature and Arnold Schwarzenegger have agreed to a deal on a minimum wage increase from its current position at $6.75 to $8.00.  However, there will be no inflation indexing.  The Legislative Leaders were forced to abandon the indexing due to threats of veto from Schwarzenegger.  I understand the Legislature’s inclination to agree to get some sort of deal passed.  Any delay in getting an increase passed costs the poorest workers in the state.  That is not acceptable.

Schwarzenegger claims that his previous vetoes of minimum wage increases were because the business climate in the past couldn’t accommodate it.

Schwarzenegger praised the agreement as a boost for low-wage workers and the business climate. “I have always said that when the economy was ready, we should reward the efforts of California’s hardworking families by raising our minimum wage,” he said. (LA Times 8/22/06)

The problem with that is minimum wage increases do not result in job losses, but rather job increases. But the lack of an indexing provision is a travesty of justice. Card and Kruger have already disproved that one.  No, what Arnold is really trying to do is putting the interests of his big business contributors ahead of the state’s working families.

“It’s a long time coming, and frankly the reason it’s coming is because this is a political year,” said Art Pulaski, secretary-treasurer of the labor federation.

He said Schwarzenegger, running for reelection in November, had twice before vetoed similar bills but changed his mind this year as part of an electionyear move toward the political center.

Despite expected opposition from Republican lawmakers, a minimum wage bill is expected to win easy passage from the Democratic-controlled Legislature and be on the governor’s desk shortly after lawmakers adjourn Aug. 31.

The GOP still can’t bring themselves to support the working poor.  Do they respect big business that much more than California’s working families that they will push that hard against the bill? I guess so.  Isn’t that a bit scary? Yikes.

Indexing does nothing to increase the real wages of the state’s poorest.  It merely does what is done for most people in government jobs, ties their earnings to what stuff actually costs.  It takes politics out of the equation.  If we passed indexing, we could set a real minimum wage once and let the indexing take care of the rest.  But now we’ll be back where we started in five years.  Hopefully then we will have a Democratic governor who understands the valuable role of the state’s minimum wage workers.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry McNerney, Charlie Brown, John Doolittle, Brent Wilkes, Republican corruption, Proposition 89, minimum wage, prisons, environment, redistricting reform.

Governor’s Race

• Phil comes out in favor of the redistricting reform embodied in SCA 3 [Warning, PDF]. Combine that with his support for Prop 89, and we’re looking at a real reform candidate.
• Phil steps up to support working Californians — backs a hike in the minimum wage and periodic increases to keep up with inflation. Schwarzenegger, on the other hand… tried to slide the question through the Industrial Welfare Commission he controls, but even that dodge didn’t really work.
• Berkeley Bubble likes Phil’s energy plan.
• Schwarzenegger’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, tries to pull the same thing he did as a part of Bush/Cheney ’04, and dump facts down the memory hole. Steve Maviglio steps up to refute Schmidt’s lies.
• Maybe not everyone likes Schwarzenegger as much as he thinks they do.

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

Randy Bayne attended the opening of Jerry McNerney’s Stockton office and reports back.

Charlie Brown / 15% Doolittle / CA-04

• firedoglake has a great post up by Howie Klein making the case for Charlie Brown (honestly, it’s not that hard, but Howie really sells it), and CB answers questions in the comments.
• 15% Doolittle apparently senses an opportunity to funnel government cash to his cronies and pick up his 15% of the campaign contribution kickbacks — concrete pays, canyons don’t.
• Here’s another view of this 15% Doolittle photo-op, with some background on the Auburn Dam. Also, video.
• If anyone is curious about what kind of world 15% Doolittle wants, it’s a world where poor women are exploited and abused, and the rich pay off politicians like Doolittle to keep it that way.
• The Left Coaster points us to a SacBee Page One article on 15% Doolittle’s corruption.

Other Republican Paragons (Brent Wilkes Edition)

• California Republican taught Brent Wilkes how to bribe. Awwww… isn’t that sweet?
• Ah, the top tier of Wilkes “transactional lobbying” recipients (purty euphemism for “bribery”, ain’t it — lots of California Republicans. Makes one proud.
• Down With Tyranny: You simply can’t walk away from the [article] without wondering why Randy “Duke” Cunningham is the only Republican in prison for the widespread corruption that virtually defines the GOP political culture of the last half dozen years in Washington, from lowlife slimeball congressmen to a lowlife slimeball president and vice president (yes, Wilkes gave BushCheney hundreds of thousands of dollars in quasi-legal bribes too).
• Apparently, corruption is what you get when you put Republicans in positions of power. Of course, since they don’t believe in government, they probably don’t think they did anything wrong.

Propositions

• The CDP Executive Board votes to remain neutral on Prop 89, defying its rank and file.
• Why this is a bad decision.

Prisons

• Politics in the Zeros: Take control of the prisons away from the Schwarzeneggers and prison guards, and force reform.
• Don Perata: what we’re doing with the prisons isn’t working. Time to try some actual rehabilitation.
• Schwarzenegger’s last-minute election year stunt, calling a special session to deal with the prison crisis he’s known about for years, is pretty much guaranteed to fail. No matter what the Bush Republicans say, you don’t just whip up a solution to problems of this size, just in time for an election.

The Rest

• Alicia of last left turn before Hooterville explains how she became politicized, and what she wants to do with that energy.
• We at Calitics are not huge fans of Diane Feinstein, but we recommend you give her a call and thank her for this:
  

  Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) called the [Republican] proposal [to legalize Bush’s domestic spying] “worse than no bill at all,” arguing that it would weaken current surveillance law and would “allow the president to exercise unchecked authority.”

  Her office #’s are here.

• Classic Republican move: pull money out of public schools, complain about their failings, respond by pulling more money out with vouchers for religious schools.
• Debra Bowen presses onward, trying to make sure Californians’ votes matter. We are huge fans.
• Howard Smith of the Ojai Post gets involved locally, and his side makes some progress.
• The feedback spiral of rising foreclosures and falling housing prices may have started in CA.
• Politics in the Zeros has links to the LAT’s five part series on our oceans. It’s not cheerful reading, so be warned.

Just in time for the weekend, today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry McNerney, Paid-For Pombo, 15% Doolittle, Dan Lungren, Republican corruption, Proposition 89, Proposition 90, minimum wage, infrastructure bonds, prisons, global warming.

Governor’s Race

• A lot of people are writing about Phil Angelides’ support of Prop 89:
• Frank Russo from California Progress Report: once, and twice
• Randy Bayne (with bonus summary of Prop 89)
• Jack Ryan of Berkeley Bubble
• D-Day (who is now on someone’s “On Notice Board” — welcome to the club)
• Down With Tyranny

• Julia Rosen reminds us once again: Schwarzenegger can try to pretend he’s not a Bush Republican, but his campaign staff tells us different.
• The tension between who Schwarzenegger really is and who he pretends to be is catching up with him. Schwarzenegger is flip-floppy on steroids.
• It’s election time, so Schwarzenegger pretends to care about working people and the minimum wage. But even his pretending is half-hearted. He couldn’t be bothered to even shoot off one of his strongly worded protest letters to Congress when Schwarzenegger’s fellow Republicans tried to lower the wages of working Californians. (For someone who actually gives a damn about working people, see Fabian Nunez.)
• You would think that a man with ties to Enron could have done something about the California energy situation… Sorry, no.

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

• Progressive 11th’s CA-11 News Roundup.
• PomboWatch raises a good point: paying off Paid-For Pombo may seem like a half-decent short-term strategy for everyone except Big Oil, but it’s a bad call in the long term.
• Wes Clark has endorsed Jerry McNerney + a great LTE (click all the way through — it’s worth it).
• A group of Paid-For Pombo’s constituents-in-theory (actual people who live in CA-11) would like to get a meeting with him when he’s in town for the August recess. I suspect they’ll have far less luck than Paid-For’s industry backers real constituents.

Charlie Brown / 15% Doolittle / CA-04

• The spokesman for 15% Doolittle has got one of the highest Republican-buzzword to sentence ratios I think I’ve ever seen. But calling Charlie Brown what he thinks is names is no substitute for actual policy positions (or actual thought, for that matter).
• dengre at Daily Kos is making predictions about 15% Doolittle’s immediate future — dengre thinks it starts with “indict” and ends in “ment”. dengre also has some things to say about Paid-For Pombo.

Other Republican Paragons

• Carpetbagger Dan Lungren (CA-03) is dodging Bill Thurston (and the Bee’s coverage is pathetic).
• Bill Cavala on Richard Mountjoy: It is possible to be personally pleasant and a rabid extremist — don’t confuse the two things.

Propositions

• Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata challenges the recent Field Poll resulds on the Infrastructure Bonds.
• Tom Adams of the California League of Conservation Voters on Prop 90, the bait-and-switch proposition.

The Rest

• Jack Ryan at Berkeley Bubble is not yet divorcing his car, but is seeing a bicycle.
• Hard: Putting up enough canopies and having enough water for your field labor. Not hard: letting them die of heat exhaustion.
• What is one of the hallmarks of a Republican administration? Enriching private contractors at the expense of the citizens, who don’t get what they pay for. This time, it’s Schwarzenegger’s Department of Corrections medical services contracts.
• Divesting California assets from companies who do business in Sudan.
• Dunner makes a good point: California has 1 in 9 Americans living here, a population bigger than most countries, and the fake federalist Republicans are constantly trying to prevent us from doing the right thing by our people.
• Assembly Member Fran Pavley on the case for state action on global warming.

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-04, CA-11, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis, David Dreier, corruption, environment, immigration, minimum wage, reform. And now back to Mexico v. Argentina.

Governor’s Race

• Angelides steps up to actually, y’know, help and reward the Californians who serve in the National Guard. There’s a difference between honoring the military and honoring militarism. The first is the right thing to do, period. The second is dangerous.
• Randy Bayne on Schwarzenegger’s bogus campaign lifting of the name “Education Coalition” from a group that directly opposes Schwarzenegger’s any-time-but-election-year assaults on California’s schools.
• Julia at ABC notes that Schwarzenegger (election-year moderate) and the California Republican Party (full time extremists) are using pretty much identical TV advertising. No coordination there — just a happy coincidence. And Schwarzenegger would also like you you to know that he is not representative of the extremist California Republicans — when he’s running for office. 2005 was just a happy coincidence as well.