Drinking Liberally

The Joker, out-of-touch & irrational,
brings further fear to a suffering society.

Dealing dread, finding power through force,
his ploy plays on the worst in people.

He is known for his aggressive temper,
...& for telling truly terrible jokes.

But a Dark Knight, imperfect-yet-inspiring,
swoops into a scene of greed & corruption
appealing to citizens' hope & better angels,
declining to kill, familiar with computers...
& raising record revenue from an energized public.

I mean, who would you rather have:
Joker McCain...or The Barack-Man?

Now...who will play Robin this time around?

Raise a glass to the citizens of our Gotham,
the fight ahead & the light in the distance
as you share a beer, cheer & idea
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

When Living Liberally went to Netroots Nation this year, we had, admittedly a bit of an ulterior motive. Sure we were excited about our third NN in a row, but we had an additional goal in mind: in the process of launching our Liberal Card project, we wanted to see how many NN attendees we could get to declare themselves proud, card-carrying liberals.

We expected a few in the bag for sure - like Baratunde Thurston and Liberal Card-holder Markos Moulitsas - but we didn't expect figures like Larry Lessig, Howard Dean, and...well, just watch it for yourself. (Also note that Bob Barr was willing to call himself a liberal - kinda.)

A full list of proud, card-carrying liberals after the jump.

The Iraqi Prime Minister calls for withdrawal,
joining the majority of US public opinion,
& yet our unpopular President stays the course
& manages to keep Congress tangled up too.

Despite unconstitutional domestic spying,
& amnesty for telecom's unlawful acts,
our disapproved Prez pushed for his FISA bill
...& Congress caved to his domestic agenda.

Though it's not a solution to our energy woes,
lowly-regarded W now wants off-shore drilling
...& Congress could get pressured to pump.

Bush just keeps throwing sucker punches...
& Congress is too lame to duck this lame duck.

You'd think Congress's 14% approval rating
would be low enough to duck this sucker...
let's hope they don't try to sink even lower.

Your spirits could drop, or come lift a glass
as you raise your ideas, frustrations & hopes
sharing a night, while you share a pitcher
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

At Living Liberally we are increasingly thinking of new ways to create a more sustainable environment here in New York as well as nationally.

America's obsession with cleaning supplies and air fresheners has become a full time job for advertising strategists who have been known in recent years to market products towards younger and younger consumers. There has been a large increase in commercial cleaning supplies since the 1950s which has caused a lack of information on the ingredients of the products that Americans are using in their homes and workplaces. These air fresheners normally include a combination of benzene, trichloroethylene (TCE), and formaldehyde. These chemicals have been shown to be hazardous to the environment as well as questionable in their safety for humans.

As we spend an increasing amount of time indoors, our breathing space suffers. Thanks to improvements in insulation in buildings there is very little room for these chemicals to escape. What results is a hazardous breathing environment for everyone.

Plants are a natural solution to this problem as well as an aesthetic one. They pull carbon out of the atmosphere bringing the best part of the outdoors home to those of us who a rely on the synthetic wood on our desks as the only part of nature that we touch. Some do a better job than others as these natural air purifiers. Some are also better for specific pollutants in the air depending on your workspace or home, it is best to look into certain plants specifically to see what suits your needs.

These are some of the many that are recommended for indoor spaces:

Aloe Vera
Aglaonema Modestum (Chinese Evergreen)
Chamaedorea Seifritzii (Bamboo Palm)
Chlorophytum Elatum (Green Spider Plant)
Chrysanthemum Morifolium (Pot Mum/Florists' Chrysanthemum)
Gerbera Jamesonii (African Daisy)
Hedera Helix (English Ivy)
Scindapsus Aureus (Golden Pothos)
Spathiphyllum Mauna Loa (Peace Lily)

At Living Liberally HQ we recently adopted a Peace Lily, not only because of its ability to release oxygen back into the atmosphere or the fact that its easy to take care of; it was also voted "desk plant of the year 2007" (not to mention the name had a certain appeal). We have dubbed our plant Leaf Wellington Haase, after a wonderful Health Care Fellow at the Century Foundation.

Street Prophets is an awesome blog. It's great to see so many religious progressives getting together to talk about issues of religion and politics, organize around them and most importantly, build community.

This community building is at the heart of what Living Liberally does. We believe that our political identity should be part of our regular lives. Too often politics is restricted to one day every four years, or to long, uninviting meetings in fluorescent-lit, linoleum-floored rooms.

Through our social networks and events, we promote this kind of social/political engagement.. These networks include over 260 Drinking Liberally, Laughing Liberally, Screening Liberally, Reading Liberally, and Eating Liberally chapters in all 50 states.

Through these happy hours, comedy shows, film screenings, book clubs and meals, we fulfill our key mission of bringing politics into places where we gather, socialize, learn, love and live. One of these places to which we have yet to reach out is the liberal religious community, one that, unfortunately, has found few spaces to gather and organize in person, in public, loud and proud.

For this reason we are developing a brand new Living Liberally network: Praying Liberally!

Like our other chapters, Praying Liberally chapters will have weekly, semi-monthly or monthly meetings of local liberals from a wide range of faiths including, as pastordan so excellently phrases it, "those whose deepest faith is in the conviction that there is no God." At these meetings, faithfully-minded liberals could talk politics, say a collective prayer for "the least of these" in our community, our country and our world, and build community to organize around our common causes.

Also like our other chapters, Praying Liberally chapters will receive a web site, chapter blog, listserv and other online organizing tools and support features from the Living Liberally national network.

Hosting a chapter is fun and EASY! All you have to do is decide on a time and location, anywhere from a local religious space to the neighborhood cafe, and send out a quick e-mail reminder before you meet - that's it. Overall, it's no more difficult than meeting with your spiritually progressive friends to hang out and talk politics.

If you're interested in being one of the first to start a Praying Liberally chapter or know someone who might be interested, email info@livingliberally.org.

It's time to find out what it means to Pray Liberally!

As we said in our last Saving People Liberally post, our two Lincoln, NE DL chapter leaders, Paul and Troy, just left the chapter for a month to help fight the California wild fires as volunteer Helicopter Flight Engineers. Paul sent me an update a couple days ago:

We made it here to CA fine. And are readying the aircraft to start dropping water today on the Northern Area fires.

Just so you know there are National Guard Aircrews from many other states here helping also, ND , NV, OR, WA, UT.

We are currently in Sacramento and working from here, but go where ever they need us, so our location may change as the fires are fought in different areas.

To say that this is the worst set of fires ever in CA would be a big understatement, the fire fighters here (CALFIRE) here readily say they have never seen this many fires or this many big fires ever.

This is why crews from all over are here helping, (including us), in addition to all the CA National Guard aircraft, and Navy, Marine and Air Force Helicopters helping out as well.

I don't know if we will get a chance to, but we will try and hook up with the local chapter of DL / LL where ever we are later these coming weeks.

Great to hear from you guys. We wish you the best of luck. Keep living liberally!

1. Matt Yglesias shows what John McCain's economic proposals can do for you... if you are a big oil company. He also liked Hancock. We did too, more on that later.

2. Salon covers Sebelius's VP prospects. A female Mike Bloomberg?

3. The bible belt really eats liberally.

4. Conservatives "Ready to Battle" McCain thus proving that the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.

5. Obama will accept the nomination in a 75,000 seat football stadium on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech". Chills. 'Twill be awesome.

6. Need another reason not to attack Iran?

7. Amy Goodman tackles Obama's centrism.

8. It seems that the Iraqi government may set a timetable for withdrawal.

9. Ever wondered why my.barackobama is so much like Facebook?

10. California and New York (in 2010) are requiring new cars to display a "Global Warming Score", showing how "green" the vehicle really is. Apparently this is so people can throw things at cars with low scores.

Talking Liberally Progressive Parley
by Seth Pearce, Living Liberally Blog

Part of Living Liberally's mission has been to promote engagement and collaboration among progressive organizations. To fulfill this goal we at Living Liberally have decided to feature interviews with people involved in different parts of the progressive movement. Hopefully, through these interviews, we can learn about what progressives are working on today, and get a little more in depth about what its like to be a part of the progressive movement.

Our first interviewee, Daniel Mintz, is in Research and Development at progressive powerhouse MoveOn.org Political Action. He currently lives in Brooklyn and every once in a while shows up at the Original Drinking Liberally. Enjoy!

Seth Pearce: So, what did your parents say when your organization was condemned by the US congress?
Daniel Mintz: I think, they, like a lot of people, were just blown away that with so many huge problems to tackle, the US Congress decided to spend so much time talking about a newspaper ad. Just like, whether you agreed or disagreed with the ad, what a manufactured controversy.

SP: What exactly do you do at MoveOn?
DM: Officially, I'm in charge of Research and Development, which is to say that I'm the R&D dept. (we're a pretty tiny shop). What that means in practice is that I get to have my hands in lots of cool stuff that we're trying out.

SP: Stuff John McCain would know how to use?
DM: Not so much.

SP: People think of MoveOn as this big shadowy progressive organization, running some kind of secret progressive world order- what are some specific things that MoveOn is working on right now?
DM: Ha. What are we working on right now?...Let's see...We're getting ready to run a massive get out the vote operation in the fall, hundreds of paid organizers working with tens of thousands of volunteers. We'll be essentially combining our 2004 program, Leave No Voter Behind, where people in swing states canvassed their neighbors, with our 2006 program, Call for Change, where MoveOn members across the country made more than 7 million calls to voters in key House and Senate races.

We're also working on FISA: Right now, we're asking thousands of MoveOn members to call their senators every day to tell them not to cave on the FISA "compromise".

And we're running a National Day of Action for an Oil-Free President at gas stations across the country in a few weeks. McCain is pretty darn tight with Big Oil. Many of the more than 100 lobbyists associated with his campaign are lobbyists for Big Oil. We wanted to highlight those ties and push for our next president to free himself and us of our dependence on foreign oil. So we're holding hundreds of gas station rallies where thousands of MoveOn members will show up at local gas stations to rally and call for a real, progressive solutions to the energy crisis.

Follow across the jump for more fresh Mintz.

Conventional wisdom says that Obama
caved on FISA & talked up faith-based programs
because he's appealing to "Independents."

Who knew independents oppose the Constitution?

Obama HAD to disavow Wes Clark's comments --
though Clark only questioned his experience as leader
& specifically honored his courage and will --
since "dishonoring" McCain would turn off independents.

Who knew independents are so ill-informed?

And McCain keeps saying he's a "maverick"
as he continues his "Straight Talk Express"
because these words appeal to independents.

Who knew independents liked slogans so much?!

If "independent" voters read only the spin,
& don't read the Constitution or the news,
maybe we shouldn't ask them to decide elections.

Or maybe "independent" really means something else.

And maybe "independent" candidates
who shy away from principled stands
aren't what we're looking for either.

It's time we take strong positions,
stop listening to the media's darling tales,
and Declare our Independence...from "Independents."

Celebrate the holiday in the most American way:
sharing an evening of spirited discussion
as you share a few pitchers of liberal libations
at your local progressive social club.

DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.

Happy 4th of July!

Drinking Liberally Shot of Truth
by Seth Pearce

Today, we here at Living Liberally are both extremely proud and slightly saddened. We're saddened because we are losing our two Lincoln, NE chapter leaders for the next month.

However, our sadness is quickly overcome by how proud we are of what Paul McFarland and Troy Johnson are doing for the next couple weeks.

Early this morning, Troy and Paul left for California, to serve as Helicopter Flight Engineers fighting the California wild fires. As Paul related us in an email last night, they're going as part of a group of trained Nebraskan aircrews eager to assist the Californian firefighters who are unfortunately running out of resources, dealing with all the fires out there.

As liberals, we know it is a proud day when we see our friends, who've talked about politics and the issues that face our country at their local Drinking Liberally chapter, turn their words into action. They put their daily lives aside and went all the way to California to help out their fellow Americans in need.

Sacrificing to help those who are suffering is key part of being a liberal, whether it means fighting wild fires like Troy and Paul, helping out good people like Darcy Burner when tragedy strikes, or voting for progressive candidates who will work for better healthcare for poor families, getting our troops out of Iraq and fighting global warming, (or else Troy an Paul will have to go out and do natural disaster rescue work every month).

Troy and Paul, you guys are true patriots and are most definitely Living Liberally.