JRE Buzz (14)

Greetings BW readers. We have a little buzz to share this evening.

First, an e-mail from JRE yesterday:

Dear Benny,
I want to invite you to visit the One America Book Club. This month, we're reading and discussing Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by President Jimmy Carter. I had the pleasure of discussing this remarkable book with President Carter, and you can listen to our conversation here. (photo credit: TO, OAC, via Flickr)

Our country's history is full of examples of how books sparked political organizing and massive social change. Think about how Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin provided a compelling -- and widely discussed -- argument against slavery. Or how Rachel Carson's Silent Spring started a national debate about pesticides and gave birth to the environmental movement. That's why book clubs can be so powerful.

In Our Endangered Values, President Carter draws upon his life experience as a president and as a Nobel Peace Prize winner to reflect on what's gone wrong over the past six years. President Carter and I agree that the current administration has made a radical break from the basic values that past presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, embraced as core governing principles -- equality, opportunity and justice. They've been replaced with a rigid fundamentalism, disregard for the truth, contempt for people that disagree, and abandonment of basic human rights.

President Carter is an amazing person, and I was excited to have the opportunity to talk with him.

I hope you will pick up a copy of President Carter's book and join in our blog and discussion for the rest of July. And if you'd like to make a book recommendation for the One America Book Club, we'd love to hear from you.


Your friend,

John


Yep, JRE and Jimmy Carter's co-podcast/bookcast is out. It's great! The wisdom of Carter will be his legacy. It was like watching a mentor give sanguine views to a potential mentee. But rather than writing a summary, go here to read Iddybud's fab digest on the OAC blog and here to see Mbair's post on My DD, the granddaddy of progressive blogs.

Another plug from the PSoTD blog here..

"John Edwards recorded a podcast with President Jimmy Carter that's well worth listening to...

Here's a morsel from Carter:

"To improve our country's reputation as the only superpower on earth: I think that everyone in the world should look to Washington and say there is a mighty nation that believes in peace, not pre-emptive war. That tries to address the inevitable conflicts that exist among people and within nations and between nations by using our tremendous and unchallengable military and economic power for peace."

That is a foreign policy statement that Americans can get behind - short, easy to understand and something we can be proud of as a long-term vision."

Agreed. High five to them both.

K, I admit I haven't read Carter's latest book, but it's on my list, I promise. Maybe by the elections...but keep rockin' Jimmy. JRE must have felt so honored to exchange ideas with a Nobel Peace Prize winner, something I don't think our current president will ever acheive in his lifetime.


And..

The Gallup Poll has an interesting headline (as Montana Maven pointed out today on the Kos)
--
Four in 10 Republicans Would Not Find McCain an "Acceptable" Nominee; Clinton, Edwards, Gore most acceptable possible Democratic nominees.

From their posting, the summary:

"Most Democrats would find John Edwards, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Al Gore -- and, to a lesser extent -- John Kerry to be acceptable presidential nominees for their party in 2008. Roughly 7 in 10 Republicans rate Rudy Giuliani and Secretary of State Condoleezza as acceptable 2008 presidential nominees. While a majority of Republicans view John McCain as acceptable, a substantial proportion (41%) does not."

This is what National Journal's Hotline/blogmeter had to say about it first:

"Who are these numbers good for? Edwards, Clinton and Gore, but especially Edwards. The guy has a much lower name recognition than either Gore or Clinton, yet higher acceptable ratings. "

What do we mean " lower name recognition"? A former senator and VP candidate who has been working tirelessly by holding rallies, speeches about poverty that's been C-SPAN, and is in the local newspapers more often as a result has lower name recognition, with potential voters?

Alas the blogger concludes: "It still blows my mind that more people don't take him[Edwards] seriously in 2008. He could really run the table--and I say that as a supporter of someone else."

Well, I am a JRE supporter, I take him seriously--thus I agree JRE could run the table.

This just in...

JRE to Speak at "Wake Up Walmart" event for SEIU in Pittsburgh on August 4th. Hat-tip to ZeitgeistRover at OAC. Marc Canter, are you reading this? What southern politican would take Wal-Mart on?

Bush's Poverty Talk Is Now All but Silent (Washington Post)

Well, we know he hasn't done a spittin' thing since September, and invoked a little of it today at the NAACP. Yeah, heck of a job, Georgie.

Here's what John Edwards had to say about W's record, and I quote from WaPO:

"The Bush administration has shown a total lack of leadership on this issue," said former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, who has made a new war on poverty his signature issue as he travels the country in preparation for an expected 2008 presidential bid. "He has consistently opposed ideas that would help lift people out of poverty."

Edwards has called for tax credits for first-time home buyers and to help low-income workers establish savings accounts; expanded opportunities for college; and the creation of 1 million temporary government-subsidized jobs. Bush has hurt the poor, he said, with his long-standing opposition to increasing the minimum wage and expanding the earned income tax credit, which supplements the income of low-wage workers with a refundable tax credit.

And Tony Snow admits in this same that Bush's policy is about prosperity. Yep, it sure is for his vice-president and corporate buddies, but not overall for Americans who are impoverish or on the edge of losing their homes due to the bad donut of prescription bills.

Edwards seems to be only one who gets it that when we lift up the poor to middle class, it strengthens the middle class, and it strengthens us all.

Another poll on the Kos today. They try to stay in touch with the bloggers. No worries for JRE at present as blogger Copper noted:

I wouldn't care if he was a Democrat or Republican, I vote for the Man not the Party. John Edwards seems to be a man of Intergrity, Honesty, and a plan to change this Country. In my option if he stands fast and doesn't waiver, and holds onto that Integrity , then He would make a fine outstanding President. But He Must Remember NEVER to sway with the Wind but to KEEP His commitment to the People and serve us and Not Money or Politics..I Believe in Him....

Amen.

And..

The biggest buzz this week has been the announcement of One America using Move Digital to distribute videos and bigger files into torrents. A torrent is a mobile stream, meaning from what I can tell, the company can compress the big files and make them mobile. BitTorrent is the name of the software that makes this possible, and it is a pay as you go system. I'm not certain what market they are targeting to buy this, but I presume it's the media. To read more about this innovation, go to Techcrunch's article. What I do know it is sort of like Napster for very small streams--peer to peer file sharing--of video files, but at less bandwith--which means the user doesn't need to spend hours downloading--or uploading either. Even IT guru Lawrence Lessig lauds JRE for this move.

Link to JRE's MoveDigital site.

Speaking of other spaces, JRE and Elizabeth have profiles on MySpace.com--and it turns out they have been there awhile. At OAC's invitation, I decided to join. You can find me at http://www.myspace.com/bennyzumalt

And as always, you can get the best JRE News Round-up at OAC.


Update, July 21:

Chicago Tribune published an LA Times article entitled,"Campaign '08 Preview: Podcasting Politicians". Yep, JRE is mentioned, but I wish the author would have said JRE was the first! Here's the snip:

"In the latest creative wrinkle, politicians are podcasting — White House hopefuls Gen. Wesley K. Clark, John Edwards and Sen. Bill Frist are among those regularly offering their downloadable ruminations — and turning up on Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and other photo- and video-sharing Internet sites."

More buzz l8tr..

Tags: John Edwards, Jimmy Carter, One America Committee, bookcast, National Journal, Hotline, My DD, MySpace, SEIU, BitTorrent, Movie Digital, podcasting, streaming media mobile, JRE