Cross-posted from Docudharma

I've been struggling with my feelings about the Democratic Convention.

But I've decided to stop struggling.

There will be always a contradiction between my heart and my head when it comes to politics.

Over at the Kenneth Cole Awearness Blog, there's a post by Liza Sabater, founder of culturekitchen and The Daily Gotham.

subtitle:  The Strange Summer of 2003

I perform strange experiments here in New York City.

In the late 90's I looked around to see if any women were wearing shoes of a color other than black, white, brown or red.

See, Manhattan has its own sense of style, and it really is wonderful to people watch in various neighborhoods.  In Midtown you can see the working woman look and a little farther uptown you see the rich ladies in their rich clothes.  And in the Village, it was one original outfit after another, usually black.

As a matter of fact, a disproportionate number of women in Manhattan wore black, it was considered the Metropolitan style.  Even in summer.

So when I first performed my experiment, I literally didn't see one pair of colored shoes worn by Manhattan women other than the ones I listed above.

Of course, it wasn't a very scientific experiment, but I really did look at hundreds of women.  I got sort of obsessed by it.

We learned from Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas in his devastating essay (posted by Duke in its entirety at Sanctuary), that there were horrible travesties of both the law and justice itself in how the Postville, Iowa raid was executed.

As Dr. Camayd-Freixas said, speaking of his conversation with one of the immigration judges who had no choice but to rule as a rubber-stamp for the ICE:

As a citizen, I want our judges to administer justice, not a federal agency.

Yet that is exactly what happened.  A federal agency administered "justice" and the defense attorneys and judges were helpless to change anything.  As a result, an entire town was ripped apart, economic devastation ensued, and as we now see (h/t woc phd by way of symsess' great roundups at Sanctuary), the human rights abuses continue:

I'm a wan member of the Democratic base.  Wan, because I am politically starving, which leads to low energy, among other things.

So I hear there was a conversation about faith with a popular Christian preacher and both Presidential candidates attended.

I have nothing against conversations about faith, I'm not scared of such a conversation, nor do I have scorn for it.

On the other hand, I have no political use for it either.  I think after almost eight years of the criminal Mr. Bush we all know that one can speak a whole lot about faith, but actions speak louder than words.

New moon is coming up, Friday, August 1.

Which has nothing to do with anything.

I just have to fill up this space so I can post my poem after the flip.

It's a poem about hippies.

The third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is coming up next month.

Today Dolly has been upgraded to a Category 2 hurricane.  And again there are worries about levees:

Coastal officials worried Tuesday that Tropical Storm Dolly may bring so much rain that flooding could break through the levees holding back the Rio Grande.

Some stories don’t ever seem to change.

I don't know how to write about this, but I'm going to try anyway.

I've been following the discussion on immigration for over a year, and there are a lot of complexities to it and a lot of back story.

But this story is so terrible that I don't think you need to know all the details of the law or intricacies of how we got to where we are in the United States as far as our broken immigration policies are concerned.

This story is about an essay written by Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, a certified Spanish interpreter for federal courts, who was present at the ICE raid in Postville, Iowa.

I found out about this essay in a circuitous way.  I first read the entire essay at The Sanctuary where Duke had it up in its entirety.  Immediately after reading it, I rebooted the essay and found he had removed it ... turns out Dr. Camayd-Freixas had asked him to refrain from posting it after finding that the New York Times was going to do a front page story on it.  Duke and other pro-migrant bloggers complied.  Now that the story has been published, the essay is once again up at The Sanctuary.

Thinking about some of my favorite unsung heroes of rhythm & blues -- unsung because they were black and their biggest hits were either restricted to race records in the early 50s (until Alan Freed broke down those walls and introduced young white kids to the real deal) or were covered by white musicians who made all the money off the tunes, or they died young, like Jackie Wilson and Little Willie John.

Maybe some of these can't be strictly called r&b, but whatever they are, they're some great American music.

Gotta start with Mr. Excitement, Jackie Wilson, "Lonely Teardrops":

Just a ramble for a Thursday night.

Friday, end of wageslave work week draws nigh, and we are having beautiful warm weather here in New York City, makes a person kind of dizzy.

So I thought I'd speak of the difference between force and power.

Why not?

See, I think that the Bush misAdministration never had their own power.  Whatever power they had was always stolen.  They are crooks, after all.

I've always had a hard time with this day.  I've always had a hard time with the military, understanding my own feelings about those who, with the power of government behind them, put guns in the hands of young men and women and teach them how to kill.

Here we are in the 21st Century, and we are still doing this, putting weapons in the hands of young men and women, sending them out to kill human beings.

We hear the usual sayings, "they chose to serve," "to protect and defend," "those who died are heros," all those things.

I wonder what Americans really want when it comes to protecting and defending.

Memorial Day has become in our modern world a day to remember those who died for the sake of protecting and defending our country.

I see the names, I read the IGTNT diaries here at Daily Kos, showing the pictures of those killed in war, showing their families and friends, telling of their lives, their interests, dreams, ambitions.

Protect and defend.

They chose to serve

Over at Standing Firm you can read the terrible story of how our federal government is dealing with the problems of immigration -- by coming into small towns and raiding them, tearing families apart, and terrorizing an entire community.

On Monday, May 12, federal immigration authorities raided the Agriprocessors, Inc. meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. This massive raid led to the arrest of more than 300 workers and quickly threw this small town of less than 3,000 people into chaos.

Throughout the last week family members have been desperate to get information about their loved ones, children are staying away from school for fear of leaving their homes, attorneys have been attempting with limited success to gain access to workers being detained by federal authorities, and the entire town faces an uncertain future. Fears are growing that the detained workers will soon be shipped across the country to be prepared for deportation without being able to speak with attorneys or family members.

It's late, after midnight, and I am going into speculative territory here about John McCain.

There's something bugging me about him.  Yes, I know the press treats him as they do all Republicans -- with even a little added approval because he knows how to play them.  The press loves the whole "maverick" conceit, keeps them from having to think about who he really is and analyze what he says and does from a rational point of view.

But the more I think about who John McCain is, the more I come up with a blank, a disconnect I find disturbing.

Once again I am going to shamelessly indulge myself here at Daily Kos.  There will be no links or fine intellectual analysis.  I'm still a little too punch drunk to meet the high standards of the premier political blog in the land, or at least one that gets a very high number of hits.

Yes, one of the few forlorn members of the battered Democratic base once again wishes to say a few words.

You see, I am too punch drunk to pull punches any more.  What the hell.

Oh man, during the Reagan reign we had a Dem majority that had been in power for a few decades, fat and complacent even as it had some stars and characters and movers and shakers.

The party itself, not so fresh.

And then we had Clinton going one way and the party going another after 12 years of demoralizing one-two punches to our body politic by the very same folks who would, eight years later, gain even more power and cause even more suffering.  Not opposite directions, mind you ... just different ones, kind of reeling still from the chore of cleaning up after those pigs.

And now we are nearing the time of another Presidential election  And our party is reeling in the ring, down but not out.

I remember reading a story in the New York Times magazine, in October of 2004 about terrorism and John Kerry's view on it.

Kerry had a far different view of what should be done to counter terrorism:

But when you listen carefully to what Bush and Kerry say, it becomes clear that the differences between them are more profound than the matter of who can be more effective in achieving the same ends. Bush casts the war on terror as a vast struggle that is likely to go on indefinitely, or at least as long as radical Islam commands fealty in regions of the world.

I know there are a lot of folks here who have little sympathy for the struggles of undocumented workers in the United States.

I’ve heard all the arguments, the fears, the anger, and the confusion.

This diary is not intended to address any of that.  Whatever you feel about folks coming in to the United States illegally is something I will argue about at another time, in another diary.

Right now we have legislation pending written to treat immigration as a local law enforcement problem.

There have been a number of excellent posts by McJoan and KagroX, among others, over the FISA battle.  We’ve all been on the crazy ride of elation/outrage, seeing our Democratic representatives capitulate over and over again to the corrupt and criminal crew currently occupying the White House, as well as their Republican henchmen in Congress.

Frankly, it’s about time for me to step off that merry-go-round.

We speak of reforming the Democratic party, and I’m very much in favor of that.  Get rid of the Blue Dogs, change the way we finance political campaigns, make the party more responsive to the people. All worthy goals.

I’d like to look back for a moment, look back at America immediately after September 11, 2001.

(This is the third diary in a 24-hour fundraiser for Gilda Reed, Democratic Candidate for Katrina-Burdened LA-01.)

GILDA REED WILL NOT ABANDON US

Livingston.  Vitter.  Jindal.   When it comes to Louisiana's First District, none of them stuck it out.  There's no stability to be had when an entire community of American citizens is used as a political stepping stone.  Gilda Reed will not abandon anyone, ever.  Imagine that.

As for the Republicans running for LA-01 today, we can see from the Times-Picayune, the new crop of candidates are just as interested in "seat-hopping" as the old:

As Bobby Jindal drops his title of U.S. representative in favor of Louisiana governor today, voters will begin posing a number of questions to the candidates who hope to succeed him in Congress. Among them:

-- What qualifications do you have to be my voice in Washington?
-- What is your position on the war in Afghanistan and Iraq?
-- How can you bring home the bacon?