ha, +1

hi folks – sorry to distract but some may have noticed we’re undergoing some unfortunate site issues at the moment. we’ve been working on it and i just wanted to let folks know we are, apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we figure it out. you can email me at brian@firedoglake.com as always if you need anything.

hah!

maybe he overslept

Not a bad idea. Maybe I’ll start to pull notes together on that although I think sometimes it’s kind of hard to quantify a campaign’s impact on an issue because of all the externalities, but I think it still might be a worthwhile study for us all.

Personally, I’m interested in the role played by establishment groups like MoveOn and DFA, who provide cover for the elite and entrench their power while distracting and misleading the rest of ‘their movement.’ Our solutions might mean jack if they are allowed to continue unscathed, confusing and misleading the public into doing bad when they think they’re doing good. Kind of what I was getting at in my MoveOn piece a while back: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2013/02/21/its-time-for-moveon-to-move-and-stop-blocking-change/

i’ve always thought that we could really use a truth commission, sort of like El Salvador or Guatemala. until we confront our own national myths and lies with facts, raising consciousness about our history and where we’re headed, i think we will be unable to build enough popular consensus / solidarity to create an effective movement that can tackle such deeply systemic criminality.

I’m not sure I completely agree with you, but perhaps this is a conversation for another thread. I don’t want to take attention away from helping John. Happy to debate this with you, though – it’s something I think about a lot and am always interested to hear what others think.

You can check your email though – you would have received a “Thank you for signing” if you had already.

Unfortunately there’s no way for you to search and see if you’ve signed. But if you sign twice it will not duplicate your name or mess up our numbers or anything. The system handles duplicates itself.

thanks OFG I agree; what i said was poorly worded. I was just speaking about FDL petitions for campaigns like this one, where the number is clearly too low to make an impact all by itself. ok i’ll shut up now – thanks everyone for your support and think good thoughts for John!

From Zach’s last paragraph:

Delivering a petition with thousands of names directly to President Obama’s chief of staff will send a powerful message that Kiriakou’s imprisonment is unconscionable. However, we also realize this may be a small first step and no matter what happens, we will not stop fighting for Kiriakou’s pardon. In the coming months, we will write letters, run ads, launch phone calls, and continue to fight for fair justice in this case.

Schneiderman’s real job is to be a poster boy and nothing more. Don’t doubt this is stamped with WH seal of approval. I think it speaks volumes to how the adminsitration wants to be perceived on wall street prosecution — that it’s cleaning house by ditching demarco and celebrating ‘progressive’ schneiderman. Whole thing is one big ass-covering, though, to be honest.

just emailed you for more info – thanks for the heads up!

Thanks Zach — looking forward to delivering this.

Schneiderman should really talk about hurting families — where’s our hero’s commission that was supposed to restore law and order to the land? he should be fired, too.

Nobody here is endorsing Brennan for the job. Nobody here is suggesting that Brennan deserves confirmation even if the memos are released. Our point is that the intelligence committees at bare minimum have the right to know about this program, and if they are expected to confirm brennan they have every right to demand them as they already have been, and folks should know about Obama’s latest backroom dealings on principle. Yes the program should be stopped, memos or no memos, and yes Brennan is an evil man who should not be confirmed for any place in government. I agree. Seems to me it would be harder to stop him and/or the program without the memos in-hand than with them, though.

Please let me be clear: this isn’t about Brennan. This is about another opportunity to possibly expose information on the drone program.

thanks so much as always, bearman. so far we have logged 377 phone calls to the DOJ.