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Will the Tea Party take the heartland?

It was Tax Day in the Buckeye State, America's most consistent political barometer. A crowd of around 4000 protesters packed the Ohio Statehouse lawn. Is the self-proclaimed Tea Party movement a mere Republican Party-manufactured astro-turf organization or an authentic and autonomous grassroots populist crusade?

Well, they appear to be neither and both. The people are angry in the heartland and the thunder is almost all on the right.

There were the traditional April 15th anti-taxers and Libertarians and the usual rhetoric from the podium that we're being taxed to death. The "death tax" is emerging as a key issue in Ohio elections this year. Steve Stivers, Republican candidate for Congress in the 15th district has been hammering the issue hard in his race against Democratic Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy. Speakers at the podium solicited signatures for a petition drive to outlaw Ohio's "death tax" or, as the state calls it, estate tax.

Mind if I play through?

Peace activists extend an olive branch to the Tea Party to talk about war

On Tax Day, Tea Party members from around the country will descend on the nation’s capitol to “protest big government and support lower taxes, less government and more freedom.” CODEPINK, a women-led peace group advocating an end to war and militarism, will be sending some representatives to begin a dialogue. While we come from the opposite end of the political spectrum and don’t support the goals and tactics of the Tea Party, there is an area where we are seeking common ground, i.e. endless wars and militarism.

As Tea Partiers express their anger at out-of-control government spending and soaring deficits, we will ask them to take a hard look at what is, by far, the biggest sinkhole of our tax dollars: Pentagon spending. With the Obama administration proposing the largest military budget ever, topping $700 billion not including war supplementals, the U.S. government is now spending almost as much on the military as the rest of the world combined.

Perhaps the Tea Party and peace folks—unlikely allies—can agree that one way to shrink big government is to rein in military spending. Here are some questions to get the conversation going:

Chamomile, comfrey, coltsfoot, and...cannabis: (Or what's wrong with the current Ohio Medical Marijuana bill...)

Cannabis is an herb. It belongs to the same class of commonly used plants as Chamomile, Comfrey, and Coltsfoot, known as herbs, which have a long and distinguished history of industrial, medicinal, and recreational usage dating back to the earliest days of human history. To pretend that cannabis is somehow different than these other plants is to make a major mistake in both classification and characterization.

Under the food supplement guidelines set by Senator Orrin Hatch, (See the "Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA)." the above named herbs, (Chamomile, Comferey, and Coltsfoot) are essentially unregulated.

Aside from routine safety and commercial regulations insuring that the proffered items are...
A...Unadulterated,
B...Properly labeled and advertised for what they are,
C...Safely packaged, processed, transported, and stored,
D...Properly taxed at the point of sale according to the routine business laws already in place for commercial transactions, (and I am NOT referring here to the institution of any of the so-called "Sin Tax" taxes such as are routinely applied to Tobacco and or Alcohol.)...

Country Joe's

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When Country Joe and The Fish performed their famous satirical protest song "Fixin' To Die" during the 1960s, they influenced many people to oppose America's disastrous Vietnam War. Today, Barry "The Fish" Melton -- still a self-proclaimed "leftist" -- grimly predicts the U.S. is doomed to also lose its war in Afghanistan. "I don't think we should be involved in Afghanistan, I think it is a waste of time and energy," Melton said in an interview on Saturday (April 3) when he arrived in Bangkok on his first visit to Southeast Asia. "I've got to believe that whatever we are doing in Afghanistan will end up in failure, that it can't have an outcome that is particularly positive for anybody." When Melton and "Country" Joe MacDonald created the San Francisco-based band, one of their most catchy and powerful songs had a vaudeville-style chorus which mockingly taunted: "And it's one, two, three / What are we fighting for? / Don't ask me I don't give a damn / Next stop is Vietnam."

Gray-haired Melton now performs with other bands in California and Europe.

Our national epidemic of violence

James Gilligan published a book 13 years ago called "Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic," in which he diagnosed the root cause of violence as deep shame and humiliation, a desperate need for respect and status (and, fundamentally love and care) so intense that only killing (oneself and/or others) could ease the pain -- or, rather, the lack of feeling.  When a person becomes so ashamed of his needs (and of being ashamed), Gilligan writes, and when he sees no nonviolent solutions, and when he lacks the ability to feel love or guilt or fear, the result can be violence. 

The choice to engage in violence is not a rational one, and often involves magical thinking, as Gilligan explains by analyzing the meaning of crimes in which murderers have mutilated their victims' bodies or their own. 

Corporatocracy and its discontents

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has given out its 2010 Muzzle awards for those blocking freedom of speech, and the awards are all for particular petty instances of censorship. Stanley Fish muses in the New York Times about the conflict between valuing free speech and valuing democracy. What these two thoughtful, well-intended endeavors -- the awards and the op-ed -- seem to miss is that the greatest threat to free speech is the monopolization of speech by some vociferous defenders of free speech. The Supreme Court that ruled on "Citizens United vs. FEC" should not have gone without a Muzzle.

Losing Journalism

Are you worried about the future of local news? Many journalists have lost their jobs; too many issues are going unreported; and too few people are holding power accountable. If we lose our watchdog press, the damages will be severe. Join our call for better media now. The FCC has begun to take a hard look at the future of media, and we need to make sure they hear from as many people as possible. This is your chance to stand up for better media by signing our mass declaration to the FCC.

Everyone agrees that to sustain a vibrant democracy, we need well-funded and secure media that serve all people and communities. The question is how to get there -- and we have a plan. Here's how you can help us get it to the FCC.

First, we need you and everyone you know to sign this declaration calling for better media now.

Then, in the coming weeks, you can:

Flood the FCC's Web site with examples of the state of journalism in your area Help us send activists to every upcoming FCC hearing File official comments with the FCC about your own vision for better media

If Gov. Bob McDonnell were German

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