Well, it looks like two of my favorite peer-level politics organizations are making a run at financial independence. This is a great thing, as one of the major lessons I've learned over the years is that the Revolution cannot progress on an allowance from daddy.

I'll write a real blog about this for Future Majority at some point soon, but for now here are some links if you want to get on the bandwaggon:

First there's Chris and Matt from MyDD, who provide some of the most diligent, honest, insightful and inspiring political blogging around, and who I sort of think of as comrades. I just sent them $50.

Then, a bit more ambitious, Living Liberally, an organization which has build real social capital all over the nation, is turning pro and running as an LLC. I like the enterprising angle, and will be giving them money as soon as I figure out how deep I'm in hock to the IRS and what I can affort.

If you feel moved, you can give as well. I'll also post a link to my piece on FM explaining why this matters whenever I get around to writing it.

I loves me some Battlestar Galactica. Julia and I watched the last two episodes of this the third season and they did not disappoint.

My three favorite things about the show are:

• Its embrace of the ability of science-fiction as a form to explore topics -- philosophical, moral, existential -- which are too abstract and heady for conventional drama.
• Its specific implementation of the above vis-a-vis issues of politics and governance.
• Its unrepentant postmodernism.

That and it's got a cast that looks good and can act. Not an easy thing to put together.

The show is at its finest when all three of the above are working in synergy. For instance, the opening of this season which re-purposed and inverted the conventional political language of the war in Iraq. Similarly, they managed to work in "serving at the pleasure of the president" in the last episode. That's some foresight.

My one quibble with the finale was that they made the Bob Dylan reference so damn obvious. There was a more subtle nod earlier, which I got and appreciated, but it sort of took the fun out of it when they made it all in-your-face.

Anyway, I'm glad that Zephyr bugged me about this enough to start watching it back in the dark days of December 2004. It's been a pleasure ever since.

UPDATE: Even moreso, what Justin says:

And at that time, a number of collaborators seemed paranoid when they were nervous about infiltrators...we were asked a number of times how we would deal with agents provocateur. I'm happy to say that we didn't give in to that type of fear in our planning...but it's odd to realize that in our photos and videos from that week, there are probably a few faces we never saw again, once they returned to NYPD HQ.

In addition to feeling like our privacy was invaded and our loyalty questioned by this senseless spying, I also smile a little...our movement has such a level of transparency, what did these police spies think they were going to find that we weren't already advertising over every list-serve and blog that would have us?

This is a really important point vis-a-vis my Vanguard thoughts below. To the extent that there is organizing going on which has credibly "revolutionary" potential (sorry, the wanna-be Maoists aren't that), it's being done with an unprecedented degree of transparency. This is actually a major difference vs. most power-organizing schools of thought of the past, and beyond just being novel, may actually represent a major step forward in our capabilities to undermine, subvert, collapse or control entrenched and malign power-structures. Here's hoping.

What Mike says:

It wouldn't surprise me to find MFA, myself, or people I know in those files. Sometimes thinking about where we're at as a country can get a little abstract... this article today hit me a lot harder than a blog or article about the latest administration scandal ever could.

I just think it's a great new nickname for Dick Cheney: Blood Clot!. From everything2:

"Blood Clot" is the most virulent insult in Jamaican Patois English. It is similar to 'fuck' in usage, but does not change form for different parts of speech. Blood Clot has entered the slang lexicon in other dialects of English through the Rastafarian sub-culture.

It can be an noun, as in "Shut up, blood clot," or, more commonly, an adjective, as in "The blood clot government is cracking down on the growing of the herb."

I got this idea from a comment in this Rolling Stone blog post about the distant potential of a Bush Impeachment (600+ days and counting): "As for Cheney becoming prez… C’mon bloodclot!!! make your move!!!"

The Bush administration much have some kind of wardrum 808 going, with DJ Dick Cheney on the wheels of steel.

The political calculus is slick. Everyone "supports the troops," whatever that means. It gets standing ovations from the full house. If the warmongers can successfully create the perception that Iranian arms are being used to kill the troops, they can then make the case that those who oppose bombarding Iran aren't "supporting the troops."

The kool kids call this casus belli.

It's garbage, but so was last time. JMM says "it's a distraction" like this wasn't also true before. I worry that they'll still do it. Bombing is a lower bar to clear than invading -- though it would still almost certainly have terrible consequences. These people are, if anything, worse than Nixon, who did bomb Cambodia (next door to Vietnam) without really asking or telling anyone in Congress.

I don't know what I'd do if this happened.

Freepress is pretty cool, but not that cool. Meaning they have a nice mission, but aren't any smarter than the Sierra Club (enjoy your global climate change). Anyway, this is clever and important, but i had to hack it out of their site to put it on mine, which I shouldn't have had to do, and the only "action" is just listbuilding.

Hint to freepress: embrace viral message distro and give activists more to do than fork over their personal information.

Love,
-Outlandish Josh

I disagree with most of my friends. I think the Health Care plan John Edwards proposed yesterday is a massive dud, and I'm very disappointed.

Here's Candidate Edwards looking and sounding pretty good on the issue:

But here's a summary of his plan, which also remarkably light on specifics and isn't available as HTML (wtf?):

• Require businesses and other employers to either cover their employees or help finance their health insurance.
• Make insurance affordable by creating new tax credits, expanding Medicaid and SCHIP, reforming insurance laws, and taking innovative steps to contain health care costs.
• Create regional Health Markets purchasing pools to ensure that every American has a way to purchase an affordable, high-quality health plan, increase choices among insurance plans, and cut costs for businesses offering insurance.
• Once these steps have been taken, require all American residents to get insurance.

Emphasis all mine, but notice the difference? Candidate Edwards says the word "insurance" exactly once: to attack a sick and parasitic industry which combines the worst aspects of Socialist Bureaucracy and Capitalist Profiteering, and is rightly loathed by virtually all Americans.

His plan, on the other hand, is all about making insurance affordable and creating new markets and choices for insurance. Oh, and also tax credits for insurance too.

This is a huge mistake, for a couple reasons.

Interesting stuff from Johnny Sunshine.

I very much like the message of "doing stuff is better than waiting," and I suspect we're going to see a lot more of this internet-enabled "candidates getting up close and personal with individuals" over the next year. I'll be neat to watch this unfold. Kudos to Camp Edwards for an innovative campaign tactic that, whaddyaknow, actually does some good in the world too.

Adding: they seem to be the most intent of all the major campaigns on emulating the Dean model. DeanCorps (which this is clearly a copy of) was a pretty successful program in 2003-04. The major difference is that the Dean campaign didn't generate it from the top, but you have to start somewhere. It will be intriguing to see if the Edwards campaign is able to stimulate independent activism (probably can do), and then whether or not they'll be able to nurture, develop and scale it (much harder).

Fanboyism is a menace. It must be resisted.

I'm particularly interested in quashing political fanboyism (such as members of the press seem to have for John McCain), especially during the primary season.

UPDATE: in light of Wes's slogan, perhaps I should adjust my tactics, and just choke 'em out.