There is a story from many years ago about Amilcar Cabral, the leader of the liberation struggle in Guinea-Bissau that is still very relevant.  Cabral held a meeting with American militants while visiting the UN sometime in the early 70’s.  After listening for some time to the militants argue amongst themselves about the correct ‘line of march’ for liberation in the US, Cabral said "We must never forget that what people are fighting for is a better life for themselves and their families."  
We ‘progressives’ should remember that counsel.  

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has just released its new policy paper on China policy for progressives: A Global Imperative: A Progressive Approach to U.S.-China Relations in the 21st Century (full report in PDF). What does it call for? How progressive is it?

You can name the entire Congressional Delegation from your home state

You have a link to a page on your favorites talking about the Presidential race in 2020

I work for one of this country's largest employers.  Huffington Post was banned this week, ostensibly for its daily boobs and ass show.  Will DKOS be next?

The following letter, written July 30, appears in the current issue of The Nation. I am reprinting it in full and urge you to join those 22,500 people who, like me, have already signed it. A sampling of people who signed the letter early on is reprinted at the end of the text.

Faye Armitage is running for FL-07, against John Mica. She has been endorsed by the Florida Progressive Coalition and the Local, State and National PDA. Faye should be added to the Orange to Blue Candidates. How about helping her to get on that list?

Donate Now at ACT BLUE
We need to change Congress in addition to changing the White House. Florida is a very gerrymandered state and we need more Democrats representing us. This is the best chance we have to throw incumbants like John Mica out of office. Mica, like all Republicans, is not safe this year. FL-07 is an R+3 District. He can be beaten and Faye is the candidate to do it.

Nothing like getting incensed while reading realclearpolitics in the morning.  Our good friend, Pat Buchanan (Buch the Puke) wrote an op-ed today, entitled "The Catholic Case Against Barack," which reflects his views expressed on such shows as Hardball or Morning Joe.  Essentially, Buch boils down the Catholic vote to abortion and abortion only.  This is a sad misunderstanding of Catholic voting patterns and viewpoints.

Everyday we are hit with hundreds of thousands of various stimuli that if we had to attend to, we would either get nothing done or we would get so caught up in the molecular that we would fail to see the big picture even assuming we could function at this level of reality.

So we do many things, we habituate to our surroundings, we only notice things that are different then they should be, are out of place.

We develop ways to save time since we do not have time to examine every event in our life--to survive our day.

One of the tools we also use is to form perceptions of events we encounter. Often times these perceptions reflect reality as it is, other times they do not. But for us, these perceptions become reality. It does not matter if in the "real world" they are "real" but for us they are "real" and that is what counts. Why? Since these perceptions impact our behavior and what we do.

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I see the handwriting on the wall, so I've decided to chronicle the bumbling path towards defeat of the Democrats in the November presidential elections.  If nothing else, one of the main reasons we will lose, is because we don't "believe" in anything, and because of that, we lack the "courage" to act according to strong-held beliefs.

As we've seen, the GOP strategy of targeting the "low information voter", or what I call the "intellectual illiterate" is working like a charm.  It looks like Obama already lost his leads in the polls, and is now even with McCain.  Now their brilliant strategy focuses on the religious fanatic; an extremely important constituency of the GOP.

The fundamental flaw of the elite liberal intelligentsia is that its members believe that things make sense; that reason, logic, truth, analysis, and careful consideration of issues is the way the world works.  And nothing could be further from the truth.  Especially when it comes to politics.

Okay, I've pretty much given up on Barack at this point.  But this is getting just f***ing pathetic!

When Nancy "I don't have a clue" Pelosi seems more Progressive than the presumptive Dem candidate, then things are pretty bad in Barack-ville.

  As the netroots organizing over FISA showed, grassroots activism can be heard as we try to focus our country on issues and the future. Throughout this campaign, like many of you, that's been my personal interest--irrespective of the candidate. So, here's a new effort.

Oh no...not another vent diary.

Who do I think I am. Well, no one.

Will the media listen to me, a single user of DK? Especially someone who is in a minority of DK users in my political views?

No. But that's not why I write this.

When I first came here I really did not know what to expect.

But I have learned a lot from each and every one of you.

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Yesterday morning, Agxibel Barajas greeted me from the front page of our local paper, The Desert Sun.  Agxibel is the office manager and scheduler for Manuel Perez, the powerful progressive Democratic candidate for California's  80th Assembly District.  We're going to lose her in the fall when she heads to law school, and that's going to hurt.  She and Manuel go way back:

Six years ago, Agxibel Barajas was asked what she wanted to do with her life.

"Her response was: ‘I hope to be the first woman president of the United States,'" said Manuel Perez, who at the time was a field representative for Assembly candidate Joey Acuña.

Barajas had arrived at his office wanting to volunteer her services for Acuña's campaign.

Six years later, the Coachella native is featured in a documentary by "Mad, Hot Ballroom" writer Amy Sewell that attempts to get people talking about why the United States has yet to elect a female president.

Some of you here might know of me/my ideology, others not. In any event this diary has been a long time in formulation so I hope it makes some sense. People have been asking me for my thoughts on this topic and so I hope it does make some iota of sense.

I have given the issue a lot of thought.

What makes a conservative "different" from a "progressive" To me there is not one answer that could cover every and all situation since of course not all progressives nor are all conservatives the same. But I do think there might be an overarching theme, something that might cover the chasm of what separates the two groups.

Sure, some on the progressive side will say "Conservatives are evil, evil I tell you" that is how they differ from us... well those on the right will answer with "Progressives? They’re anti-American evil-doers" and be done with it. Case closed. Or is it? I do not think so. Even if everyone on one side thought everyone on the other was evil there has to be a reason for it.

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DailyKos is a wonderful national blog on the national stage discussing national policies and personalities.

That's cool and all but if you want to really affect things, do it on the local level.

Like that old saying says

think globally, act locally

Go all the way down, past the multitude of great state-wide blogs (like RI Future, for example).  

Get down into the cities and towns for this is where the rubber really hits the road.

My daughter was brought into the world this morning at 8:26am Japan Standard Time. It was a full day of rushing, managing, emoting, empathizing, and celebrating. My daughter was carefully and compassionately delivered here in northern Japan by the same team that delivered my son a year and a half ago.

This diary is about two things. First, it's about the hopes I have for my daughter on this special day. Second, it's a thank you to Japan for embracing social medicine and affording my family the opportunity to benefit from the prosperity of great nation.

From blue jersey mom in Brothers and Sisters tonight:

And a short prayer for an end of the diaries that pit one "generation" against another. We are going to need everyone's help to turn this country around.

I am so amazingly sick and tired of the generational warfare diaries here on Daily Kos.  Not only do I see no purpose to them, but I also feel that they feed into the Karl Rove-driven divide-everyone-into-categories and market to those categories meme that has reduced our country into Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, cat-owing Liberals vs. oh, whatever -- and encouraged us to fight amongst ourselves because of them.    I am not a category.  And neither are you.  And I refuse to fight other progressives on the basis of the year of their birth. How incredibly unproductive this sort of fight is.