The Fair Food Program goes to Washington
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Friday, February 02, 2018
The Fair Food Program goes to Washington
FCNL -- Call your congressperson now!
[MAPA nuclear disarmament] FCNL -- Call your congressperson now!
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Dear Activist,
Here’s the terrifying truth: The president who called for making our nuclear arsenal “so strong and so powerful” in the State of the Union has the power to launch a nuclear strike on North Korea – without provocation, without congressional influence, and without warning.
Congress must stop the president from starting (or threatening) a “preventive” war of choice, with or without nuclear weapons. New legislation would block the president from starting war with North Korea without congressional consent – our best chance to avoid a catastrophic war.
All of us should condemn the Kim regime’s terrible treatment of the North Korean people and its dangerous drive for more and more nuclear weaponry. But I’m deeply concerned that the president is now building the rationale for a disastrous preventive military attack on North Korea that his White House advisers are seriously discussing as an option. Congress must stop this march to war—not sleepwalk in its ranks.
But this is about more than North Korea. This is about who we are as a nation and how we keep our country safe. Our nation already spends far more on military force than any other nation on earth, yet at home too much of our infrastructure crumbles and rusts, and too many among us lack basic shelter and food for three meals a day. Our union is strongest when we invest in our people, not the Pentagon.
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Net Neutrality Can Survive in Massachusetts
Net Neutrality Can Survive in Massachusetts
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For Frederick Douglass On His 200th Birthday -In Honor Of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday- Now He Belongs To The Ages- Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Abraham Lincoln- “Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius"- A Book Review
In Honor Of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday- Now He Belongs To The Ages- Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Abraham Lincoln- “Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius"- A Book Review
Book Review
Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon &Schuster, New York, 2005
One would think as we celebrate, and rightly so, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday that everything that needs to be said about the man has been written, and written in profusion and to exhaustion. I believe that fact is essentially true, although that has not stopped all and sundry from taking a shot at reformulating, or “uncovering” the “real” Lincoln as the fairly recent attempts to win Lincoln for the “Homintern” (the English poet W.H. Auden’s term, not mine) on the question of his sexual preferences indicates. That said, after reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals it is apparent that there are reformulations and there are reformulations. Here Ms. Goodwin has gathered much material that I have seen in other sources and tells a very interesting and detailed politically-etched story about the way that Abraham Lincoln was able to use his sharply-honed skills to weld together a presidential cabinet that, with few defections and fewer resignations, ran the Unionist side in the American Civil War. For those already familiar with battles, military victories and personalities, and grand strategies this is a very good inside look at the mechanics of how the Union victory was won. If that fight was a close thing at times it was not Lincoln’s lack of ability to stay the course and to push the fight forward that was to blame.
As I mentioned above most of the material used here, including many of the humorous (1860s humorous) anecdotes and parables that Lincoln was famous for, have seen the light of day in other sources, especially in poet and fellow Illinoisan Carl Sandburg’s old time multi-volume study. Where Ms. Goodwin shines is on the information about the fight for the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s and in chronicling Lincoln’s almost compulsive desire from early on to mark his name in the stars. The struggle to create that new party, and the sketches of the men that were drawn to it, including Lincoln, out of the divergent political tendencies that were coming apart in the tradition Whig and Northern Democratic parties as a result of the pressures of the slavery question represented some of the most interesting parts of the book. The mix and matches of personalities and divergent political backgrounds that came together and formed its core, men like William Seward, Montgomery Blair, and Simon Chase joined by Unionist Democrats and Whigs like Edwin Stanton and Edward Bates, were those that Lincoln had to work with in order to form a coalition, a popular front if you like, that held together under his authority to get the necessary job done.
There has been some recent controversy over the question of Lincoln’s racial views and whether he was, personally, a racist or not. While that question is more germane than the once concerning his sexual preferences I believe that Ms. Goodwin has put paid to that question by her narrative. Clearly Lincoln, as he entered the presidency, had the typical racial views of his times, his white man’s times, no question. In that sense Seward, and more so, Chase held more “advanced” views and were more comfortable with working with blacks. The beauty of Lincoln, as a kicking and screaming late covert to “high” abolitionist positions is that he was able to transcend his own personal views.
In that sense Ms. Goodwin, however, may have underestimated the influence that the “team” had on Lincoln’s racial views, as they meshed together to turn what started as a straight up, although still historically important, struggle for the Union to the more important struggle to break slavery as a reputable modern form of servitude. The ups and downs of that struggle to focus the fight on abolition form the core of this book. If you are not familiar, beyond the general high school or college history books, on the subject of the American Civil War and you are not desperate to know, in detail, every battle, skirmish, and mere looking mean at each other across every picket line, or every military commander, drunk or sober, or much about what was happening politically on the Confederate side once the war started this book is for you. And if you want to have a well written political narrative of the hows and whys of Lincoln’s growing political authority during the Civil War and understand why War Minister Stanton’s statement after his assassination “now he belongs to the ages” rings true you had better read this one.
Book Review
Team Of Rivals: Abraham Lincoln's Political Genius, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon &Schuster, New York, 2005
One would think as we celebrate, and rightly so, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday that everything that needs to be said about the man has been written, and written in profusion and to exhaustion. I believe that fact is essentially true, although that has not stopped all and sundry from taking a shot at reformulating, or “uncovering” the “real” Lincoln as the fairly recent attempts to win Lincoln for the “Homintern” (the English poet W.H. Auden’s term, not mine) on the question of his sexual preferences indicates. That said, after reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team Of Rivals it is apparent that there are reformulations and there are reformulations. Here Ms. Goodwin has gathered much material that I have seen in other sources and tells a very interesting and detailed politically-etched story about the way that Abraham Lincoln was able to use his sharply-honed skills to weld together a presidential cabinet that, with few defections and fewer resignations, ran the Unionist side in the American Civil War. For those already familiar with battles, military victories and personalities, and grand strategies this is a very good inside look at the mechanics of how the Union victory was won. If that fight was a close thing at times it was not Lincoln’s lack of ability to stay the course and to push the fight forward that was to blame.
As I mentioned above most of the material used here, including many of the humorous (1860s humorous) anecdotes and parables that Lincoln was famous for, have seen the light of day in other sources, especially in poet and fellow Illinoisan Carl Sandburg’s old time multi-volume study. Where Ms. Goodwin shines is on the information about the fight for the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s and in chronicling Lincoln’s almost compulsive desire from early on to mark his name in the stars. The struggle to create that new party, and the sketches of the men that were drawn to it, including Lincoln, out of the divergent political tendencies that were coming apart in the tradition Whig and Northern Democratic parties as a result of the pressures of the slavery question represented some of the most interesting parts of the book. The mix and matches of personalities and divergent political backgrounds that came together and formed its core, men like William Seward, Montgomery Blair, and Simon Chase joined by Unionist Democrats and Whigs like Edwin Stanton and Edward Bates, were those that Lincoln had to work with in order to form a coalition, a popular front if you like, that held together under his authority to get the necessary job done.
There has been some recent controversy over the question of Lincoln’s racial views and whether he was, personally, a racist or not. While that question is more germane than the once concerning his sexual preferences I believe that Ms. Goodwin has put paid to that question by her narrative. Clearly Lincoln, as he entered the presidency, had the typical racial views of his times, his white man’s times, no question. In that sense Seward, and more so, Chase held more “advanced” views and were more comfortable with working with blacks. The beauty of Lincoln, as a kicking and screaming late covert to “high” abolitionist positions is that he was able to transcend his own personal views.
In that sense Ms. Goodwin, however, may have underestimated the influence that the “team” had on Lincoln’s racial views, as they meshed together to turn what started as a straight up, although still historically important, struggle for the Union to the more important struggle to break slavery as a reputable modern form of servitude. The ups and downs of that struggle to focus the fight on abolition form the core of this book. If you are not familiar, beyond the general high school or college history books, on the subject of the American Civil War and you are not desperate to know, in detail, every battle, skirmish, and mere looking mean at each other across every picket line, or every military commander, drunk or sober, or much about what was happening politically on the Confederate side once the war started this book is for you. And if you want to have a well written political narrative of the hows and whys of Lincoln’s growing political authority during the Civil War and understand why War Minister Stanton’s statement after his assassination “now he belongs to the ages” rings true you had better read this one.
Saturday - Venezuela: Updates from the Streets When: Saturday, February 3, 2018, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm Where: encuentro 5 • 9A Hamilton Place • Boston
Saturday - Venezuela: Updates from the Streets
When: Saturday, February 3, 2018, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Where: encuentro 5 • 9A Hamilton Place • Boston
VENEZUELA
Propaganda and revolution, imperial force and mass struggle, Venezuela is a contested nation. Cutting through sensational headlines, this community briefing features a first hand report, an update on an innovative agricultural solidarity program, and organizing for a Boston delegation to the elections later this year. Join us for this lively conversation!
- Chair - Padma Balasubramanian
- Update - Jorge Marin
- Seeds - Omar Sierra
- Delegation - Jose Aleman
SPONSORS: Boston Democratic Socialists of America, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Massachusetts Global Action, United for Justice with Peace, Venezuela Solidarity Committee.
Contact vensol2016@gmail.com and sandra@encuentro5.net for more information.
Upcoming Events:
| Film screening: Roadmap to Apartheid | Saturday, February 3, 2018 - 3:00pm | Cambridge Friends Meeting | Cambridge | |
| Ilan Pappe: Zionism and the Creation of the Biggest Prison on Earth | Saturday, March 10, 2018 - 7:00pm | Cambridge Friends Meeting | Cambridge |
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