Daniel J. Solove, Law Professor at George Washington University, debunks the "five Myths about Privacy".

Professor Solove's analysis of the myths surrounding the recent revelations  that NSA has been mining telephone and internet usage  brings a very sensible and reasoned  approach to the supposed conflict between security and constitutional protections.

His analysis is really must reading for citizens who want to understand the fullest implications of the NSA Surveillance program.

See the article in the SJ Mercury News, reprinted from the Washington Post:  http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_23456028/daniel-j-solove-five-myths-about-privacy

In my own opinion, the loss of privacy should be of utmost concern to every citizen, and I quite agree with the sage advice of Benjamin Franklin of many years ago.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

Al Gore unequivocal on NSA surveillance, that it violates the American way and our Constitution.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/al-gore-nsa-surveillance-violates-the-constitution-20130614

Former Vice President Al Gore, and probable winner of the 2000 presidential election, the supreme Court notwithstanding, speaks truth here on revelations of NSA surveillance, and recommends that President Obama and Congress amend the laws that permitted such surveillance, calling it a violation of our Constitution. 

What is there not to understand about our Constitution?

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

Hark, a passionate progressive patriot, takes Americans and President Obama to task over the trade of constitutional freedoms "safety"!!  We must take heed.  Magnify Pitts voice by sharing it.  You have nothing to lose but your freedom.  http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_23452354/leonard-pitts-jr-surrendering-our-civil-liberties?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com

I cry for the beloved country I once had and long to have it back!!  Nay, nothing less will do!!

Let us get our priorities right!!

Passionate Progressive Patriot!!

Karita Hummer

"We Have a Choice!" I vote Obama!

Why I choose Obama:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlpdXF_FRfg

The President's finale words are utterly inspiring, and is my reason for staying the Democrat I continue to be: inclusive for everyone.  When all boats rise, we all rise!  No-one gets left behind!

Karita Hummer

Footprints Guild

The Footprints Guild is newly constituted under the umbrella of FACTR.  www.factr.org.

Here are some of the artisan products that the Footprints Guild  exhbited and sold in its Miracle Shops, called "miracle" shops because of what the refugee and immigrant artisans endured to resettle in the United States.  It is part of our mission at FACTR, to ameliorate the pain of displacement and ensure the rootedness as newcomers to this soil, by helping them plant the seeds of creativity still within them as formerly nurtured in their homelands.  KH

Footprints Guild brings together artists from around the world and helps them in entrepreneurship on a community scale. The Guild exists for the benefit of the refugee and immigrant artisan and/or artist or vendor of such products who participate in the Guild. This microenterprise project allows the artists to present their work in the marketplace for self-sufficiency and realization.  Footprints showcases the diversity of the community, and enhances the cultural education of the region.  With Footprints you can experience a variety of world cultures in your own back yard.

Footrpints Guild/FACTR

 c/o Karita Hummer

1922 The Alameda, sTE 425

95126

(408) 993-8188

karitahummer@therapyplus.us

Designed to help refugee and immigrant artisans:

· Restore a sense of connection to homeland and to ameliorate loss and separation from family and homeland.

· Preserve cultural expression and meaning in their newly adopted country and a sense of continuity for themselves.

· Supplement income through skills they had honed in their countries of origin, restoring sense of competency and ability.

Designed to help refugee and immigrant artisans:

· Obtain recognition, understanding and welcoming from the larger community.

· Participate in and contribute to the life of the larger community and gain a greater comfort and sense of belonging in it

· Achieve solidarity, support, sense of commonality and encouragement from fellow refugee artisans from various cultures. 

Greatness could arrive on High Speed Rail: Silver Pen Award to Bruce McF for Great Writing and Ideas

http://www.progressiveblue.com/diary/6052/sunday-train-american-greatness-and-high-speed-rail

Bruce McF continues to write with utmost passion and conviction on how high speed rail could spell out greatness for America.

His has been a steady beacon of light on the subject and he deserves praise and recognition for his research and development of such an important theme to America's future.

How can we get the policy makers to listen up? If only we could!

How to deal with the right tilting Center: Empathy. Responsibility and Excellence

"George Lakoff, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley" (Common Dreams) still provides the kind of language and concepts for Progressive Persuasion.


It's just amazing that the same advice we needed in 2004, in the aftermath of the 2004 election, with all its anomalies and questionable results, and politics of distortion, we are now getting from George Lakoff, once again, in the aftermath of the Tea Party's influence on the last election and, perhaps even worse, that of the impact of Citizens United on our electoral process and rightward trending. See Common Dreams, "The “New Centrism” and Its Discontents"
by George Lakoff http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/25-0

To George Lakoff, of Rockridge Institute fame and author of "Don't Think of an Elephant", language does matter, and when Progressives package themselves as Conservatives they hand victory to the right. Heed, George Lakoff, we should!

"...progressives have to organize around a single morality, centered on empathy, both personal and social responsibility, and excellence - being the best person you can be, not just for your own sake, but for the sake of you family, community, and nation. All politics is moral; it is about the right things to do. Get your morality straight, learn to talk about it, then work on policy. It is patriotic to be progressive."

His advice is quite similar to that of the Network for Spiritual Progressives and Rabbi Michael Lerner (The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right ) See http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/

OK, so let's stay focused and never give up on ourselves, passionate progressive patriots that we are, as a counterweight to the rightward tilt in this country. Not to despair!! Focus on: empathy, both personal and social responsibility, and excellence Back to language and conceptual basics, under the tutelage of thinkers like George Lakoff and Rabbi Michael Lerner.