Site has moved

I meant to post this earlier, but stuff kept happening. I had a hard time getting people to sign up via WordPress, so this site has moved to Blogger.

The url www.independentbloggers.org will take you there.

The Confidence Graveyard

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Surprise- A Religion Cartoon

howdy and a tip of the bush kangaroo tail

hi everyone, we are the editors of the blog skippy the bush kangaroo, and are pleased as a platypus to be a part of the independent bloggers’ alliance.

if this were a perfect world, and it’s not, the iba would be a force as influencial and as recognizable as the other big box blogs, who shall remain markos and duncan nameless. but with some luck and work and due diligence (oh, wait, that’s another blog) it is our hope that the iba will become a compendium of the better writers, more diverse thinkers, and more interesting pundits of the left side of blogtopia and yes, we coined that phrase!

we hope that it’s obvious from the get-go that the independent bloggers’ alliance will not merely be a copy of the big box blogs, in that differing opinions are not only welcome, but an actual requirement to join the club. the last thing we want here is a cult of personality. because as one of skippy’s interns recently remarked, markos moulitsas is a brilliant blogger in the same way that tom sawyer was a brilliant fence painter.

it is our fevered opinion that difference is the oil that greases democracy’s gears, and conformity is the fuel that feeds fascism’s fiat. we don’t know what lubricates the libertarians’ landrover, and we don’t care.

The Meaning of a "Black Value System"

This is related to my post about A Black Theology of Liberation from yesterday. In addition to the overview link I posted, I had also looked at a PDF that went into detail about what is meant by a Black Value System. This part stood out to me, and I think I heard it echoed when listening to Barack Obama speaking at an event in Selma commemorating the voting rights march that took place there 42 years ago.

Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”

Classic methodology on control of captives teaches that captors must keep the captive ignorant educationally, but trained sufficiently well to serve the system. Also, the captors must be able to identify the “talented tenth” of those subjugated, especially those who show promise of providing the kind of leadership that might threaten the captor’s control.

Those so identified as separated from the rest of the people by:

Killing them off directly, and/or fostering a social system that encourages them to kill off one another.

Placing them in concentration camps, and/or structuring an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.

Seducing them into a socioeconomic class system which while training them to earn more dollars, hypnotizes them into believing they are better than others and teaches them to think in terms of “we” and “they” instead of “us”.

So, while it is permissible to chase “middle-incomeness” with all our might, we must avoid the third separation method-the psychological entrapment of Black “middleclassness”: If we avoid the snare, we will also diminish our “voluntary” contributions to methods A and B. And more importantly, Black people no longer will be deprived of their birthright, the leadership, resourcefulness, and example of their own talented persons.

Anyway, I thought that excerpt was worthy of some reflection. In yesterday’s post, I linked to the lively exchange between Sean Hannity and Barack Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, about whether Trinity United Church of Christ espoused a “radical separatist” agenda. What I failed to mention at the time is that I do “get” why many White people are uncomfortable with the wording Hannity referred to from the church’s web site–commitment to the Black family, the Black community, etc. Hannity asked, wouldn’t it sound racist if you substituted the word White–if there was a church that openly stated it was all about supporting and strengthening the White community.

And I can’t judge him for asking that. I’ve wondered the same thing in the past. Wright responded that churches have been that way for ages–White by default. White is “generic” to many of us, so we don’t even use the word as a descriptor when we are describing a new person we met, for example. But that’s not an easy concept to “get”. It’s going to take some serious thoughtful discussion among people of good will. Which means, and this is just a guess, it will likely be taking place somewhere other than Sean Hannity’s television program.

The United States of Creationism

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Tags: Creationism, Intelligent Design, Global Warming, science, research, cartoon, political cartoon, comics, satire

Biblical Family Law

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Tags: Bible, Biblical law, bigamy, incest, gay marriage, homosexuality, sacrifice, Solomon, Lot Jepthah

Breaking News: Nobody in Iraq Cares …

(Thanks so much for the invitation. It’s an interesting concept, and if it becomes a home, rather than just a link-back for dKos mojo, it could really be GREAT!) And now, on with the show …

Coming soon: complete sentences

I had hoped to have a real post written up by now, but a work project is starting sooner than I expected. And it would be nice if we didn’t have to wait for all the planets in *my* world to align properly before we can have some content on this blog that is non-meta. So I’m going to post, in no particular order, some thoughts and hopes for this blog:

Genuinely a “voice of the netroots” where we can post or crosspost about the issues we feel passionate about.

“Raise all boats”–really. Mutual linking.

Crossposting encouraged, but not of flame wars.

No one person or blog is perceived as the *leader* (the right wing likes to smear these leaders and thus the movement they represent. Would like to be more robust than that.)

Democratic, in the sense of avoiding the “media consolidation” phenomenon.
In content, Democratic, liberal, progressive, Green, independent–not aligned with one party or candidate, but addressing issues of importance to the “little people” (especially “the least, the last, and the lost” that are sometimes deemed inconvenient to discuss by the powers that be)

Hold all politicians/candidates accountable.

I’ve started on a list of tags or categories, which will appear in sidebar on the right. Right now all you see are “uncategorized” and “meta”, but as people write posts about different topics, those categories will appear as well. That way, when this blog hopefully does have lots of front page posts, readers will have the option of going directly to the topics they are interested in, rather than scrolling through everything.

Some topics I came up with, off the top of my head, are 2008, anti-war, current events, Democrats, election integrity, environment, global warming, healthcare, immigration, and terrorism. I’m sure I’m missing some obvious ones, but that’s a start, at least. We can add new categories as we go.

But first I need contributors (who are willing to sign up for a WordPress account if they don’t have one already, because there’s where this blog is being built.)

Introduction

Thank you to skippy for posting in the wider blogosphere about the proposed alliance between BlogPAC and two of the larger Ohio blogs. Jerid at Buckeye State Blog wrote, in part:

Turning Blogpac’s offer down because of a poor relationship we’ve held in the past with big boxes could be detrimental to the concept of this project, and could be a disservice to our democratic candidates. But then again, accepting could give the impression that we’re lumped in with all the shenanigans that happen outside of our ’sphere. What’s worse…it could give the impression that we’ve lost our independence.

I was thinking that we need to create something that people can get hooked into, that will allow them to be part of a wider network, but still keep their independence. Also, I have long been disappointed that, for a large number of candidates and elected officials, posting (or having a staff member post) one one widely read Democratic political blog is what constitutes their outreach to the netroots. And I’ve wanted to find a way to start encouraging them to crosspost beyond that one blog–but then, where do we ask them to post? And if they pick one group blog over another, will that lead to additional hard feelings?

But if there were a central place, that was not “owned” by any one blogger or group, maybe that would take one obstacle out of the way.

Anyway, I’m not big on organizing. And, rather than talking a lot about the idea, it’s easier for me to try to show what I mean, and go from there. So, this is what I’ve got so far. I tossed together the header myself just to have something to show. But, if there really is a wider interest in this sort of thing, I can ask my husband Demetrius, who has done some grassroots graphics in the past, to put together a logo/banner.

And, obviously, I would add a lot more links to the blogroll, and add new bloggers as you express the interest. But, in a nutshell, I’m imagining that this could be a place that bloggers could crosspost the stories they would like to share with a wider audience. I think it would end up addressing a really broad range of topics, but the use of tags/categories should help keep it from getting too unwieldy. It would most certainly not be a place for bashing other blog, but the opportunity to be part of a larger interconnected *community* of individuals commited to helping bring about positive change in this country.