Progress Still Possible: Citizen, Indy Week

Why are they converging on Raleigh ... and when?

Bob Geary — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:38:00 -0400

Answer: Climate Convergence on Raleigh is coming next weekend, April 20-21. It's a major coming-together of the growing network of people and groups working on climate change and related issues (e.g., fracking) in North Carolina.…

Conscience, Raleigh: Protesters highlight Gitmo prisoners still in hell though "cleared"

Bob Geary — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:54:49 -0400

Jule Shanklin, Peggy Misch and Christina Cowger (in the picture below, from right to left) were part of the anti-Gitmo protest contingent at the federal building on New Bern Avenue in Raleigh today. Did you know that 80-some prisoners at Guantanamo have been "cleared for release" — i.e., they've never been charged with anything, because there's no evidence they were ever more than in the wrong place at the wrong time in the "War on Terror" — yet they continue to be held more than a decade later.…

A Good Friday note: Resurrection will "Save Our State" (plus two upcoming events in Raleigh)

Bob Geary — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:51:00 -0400

First up, there's a strategy meeting set for 6 p.m. next Tuesday, April 2 at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh — 1801 Hillsborough St. If you are among those outraged by what's going on in the General Assembly these days, and especially with the new voter-suppression legislation — this will be the NAACP and allied social justice groups and individuals coming together to make some plans.

Then, the following Tuesday, April 9, is a day for mass lobbying at the General Assembly.…

Wealth inequality in America: Take 6:23, see why it's a crisis

Bob Geary — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:08:30 -0500

The middle-class. The American Dream.…

In referendum, 77% of UNC-CH students call on university to divest from coal.

Bob Geary — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:54:22 -0500

UNC-Chapel Hill students are part of a national movement to put college and university endowments where their values should be when it comes to climate change. In short, get their money out of coal and fossil-fuel stocks and send a message to the investment world that it's wrong to finance companies whose products threaten to wreck the planet.…

Can you handle the truth? Ex-U.S. prosecutor at Gitmo speaking out Thursday, Friday at a college near you.

Bob Geary — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Col. Morris (Moe) Davis was chief U.S. prosecutor for military trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba until he quit in protest over orders to allow so-called evidence gained via enhanced interrogation techniques, the methods formerly known as torture.

Davis will be speaking at UNC and Duke during the day on Thursday (tomorrow), at Johnston County Community College Thursday evening, and on Friday, noon, at N.C. State.…

Remembering Olivia Engel, 6, and finding resolve after Newtown

Bob Geary — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:44:00 -0500

Don’t lose this feeling. This mix of tears and resolve—don’t get over it; don’t set it aside.…

Obama: You guys .. are the source of my hope and my strength and my inspiration

Bob Geary — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 14:34:32 -0500

Obama thanking his campaign staff in Chicago and talking about his adult beginnings — and theirs.

I put off watching this until I could sit down and appreciate it.…

Message of 2012: Moderation, in DC and in Raleigh

Bob Geary — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:13:00 -0500

Obama a decisive winner, though the popular vote is close. Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin head a cast of new Democrats in the U.S. Senate, which stays Democratic by 55-45.…

Election predictions? Mine are as follows —

Bob Geary — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:59:00 -0500

Obama gets 51 percent of the popular vote nationally, net of what the Republicans can suppress or disqualify. He carries North Carolina and Florida by a hair.…

From Alternet: A must-read on white men of the South

Bob Geary — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:54:27 -0500

Today's must-read by Lynn Parramore, once (and still) of Raleigh, urges her fellow progressives to get past the redneck stereotype in their heads about the southern white male. If they do, they'll realize:

What liberals and progressives don’t seem to understand is that you don’t counter a myth with a pile of facts and statistics.…
[ Read more ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

GOP out to suppress the Ohio vote — as in 2004.

Bob Geary — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:33:49 -0400

Last week I wrote in the Indy about early voting as an antidote to Republican efforts to obstruct the voting process.

I mentioned the Republican Party's post-1965 history of "ballot security" campaigns to discourage minority voters, as in Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004. if space permitted, I'd have gone back to my first experience with voter suppression, which was Tony Imperiale and his armed Italian-American Republicans "guarding' the polls in Newark, New Jersey in the 1970s.…

Early Voting II: Lessons from her great-grandmother

Bob Geary — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:25:00 -0400

A post-script to my Early Voting post yesterday. When I arrived at the Talley Center (N.C. State), I was greeted by a pair of Democratic poll workers: Stephanie Eriksen Goslen, who's been in the Indy before, including as part of the Code Pink contingent honored in our 2005 Citizen Awards, and Stephanie's grandmother, Pota Vallas.…

Early Voting "stars" — and starts — today: Especially handy for college students

Bob Geary — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:20:00 -0400

I followed my own advice and voted today. In the Indy, I focused on the wisdom of early voting 1) to be sure you do vote; 2) to help get that bandwagon moving to the polls; and 3) to deal early with any challenges, obstacles or fear tactics that may be coming your way — especially in minority communities — in an effort to keep you from voting.…

I guess this is funny. Wasn't funny last night ...

Bob Geary — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:36:00 -0400

Found near the scene of last night's mugging in Denver:

Somebody_sdebatenotes.pdf

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Presidential debate grades — Obama: INC. Romney: DQ.

Bob Geary — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 23:04:47 -0400

I have to say I got very little out of that mess. The moderator let Romney run all over the so-called time limits early, while Obama listened and tried to stay cool.…

Public service: "Empowering people to work for themselves"

Bob Geary — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:20:42 -0400

This will take less than 3 minutes of your time, and it will lift your spirits about politics. (h/t BlueNC)

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

On being called a liar by the Pope/Civitas team

Bob Geary — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:32:12 -0400

Let me see if I can manage the right level of umbrage about this. On the one hand, do they have so little to do over at the Pope Empire that they have to make up a story about me?…

Art Pope and the future of education in North Carolina

Bob Geary — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:58:05 -0400

First off, I want to 'fess up for that headline. I wrote something the other day and pitched it on Facebook with the word denouement in the header.…

Case closed: Two years later, remaining Buen Pastor defendants free of deportation threat

Bob Geary — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:48:37 -0400

It was Easter weekend in 2010 when members of a small Hispanic church, Iglesia Buen Pastor, while returning from a religious exercise in Texas, were pulled over by federal agents in Louisiana for looking suspiciously like they might be immigrants — undocumented immigrants, even. Those with no children were deported immediately.…

Democrats in Charlotte: From their hearts.

Bob Geary — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:51:39 -0400

I'm back in Raleigh and collecting my thoughts about the Democratic National Convention for an Indy story next week. My logistics in Charlotte were tricky and didn't leave time for blogging after Monday morning.…

Who built it? Workers built it. A Labor Day message from Charlotte.

Bob Geary — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 12:00:51 -0400

The Democratic National Convention doesn't kick off officially until tomorrow. But the all-but-official start day is today, Labor Day, as thousands of delegates, media types, activists and interested citizens pour into Charlotte.…

Indy sold!! But wait, what about me?

Bob Geary — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:25:49 -0400

It's a rule of old-school journalism that you are never the story. I'm going to violate it today to say that when the Indy is sold, my role will be changing.…

All-in? Money is speech, the Supreme Court says, and politics is a no-limit game. So, place your bets.

Bob Geary — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:01:00 -0400

The town hall meeting in Raleigh Monday evening was informative and polite. All of the more than 100 people who packed into Quail Ridge Books & Music were able to express themselves on a topic of high public significance.…

Romney endorses national health care system with price controls

Bob Geary — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:50:34 -0400

Price controls? I thought the Republican term for that was death panels?

Still, at the risk of seeming to ask for intellectual coherence from politicians who'll say anything to get elected and have no principles whatsoever, I submit this story from the Los Angeles Times about Mitt Romney's admiration for the way Israel handles health care:

Romney praised Israel for spending just 8% of its gross domestic product on healthcare while still remaining a "pretty healthy nation."

"We spend 18% of our GDP on healthcare," he said of the U.S. "Ten percentage points more.…
[ Read more ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]