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 New Orleans The fireworks starting going off during the last minute of play. It was clear. The impossible was now possible. Hell had frozen over. Snow was certain for July. The Saints had won the Super Bowl!
Driving down the streets in the neighborhoods was hard. There was too much dancing in the streets. Second lines had broken out on Franklin Avenue, on St. Claude, and god knows what was happening in the Quarters.
Horns were honking everywhere. Who dats were in the air. Beer cans raised in salutes.
This was better than Mardi Gras. Too many tourists then.
This was a down home celebration for a broken back city that was ready to cheer and say, “We’re back at ya!”
Who dat gonna beat da Saints? Nobody in 2010!
We’re marching in!
 New Orleans The first year of the Saints I was on one of my listless tours of college life. I was on a streak with a couple of buddies in which the daily highlights were playing pool and watching the 8 PM movie of the night, and of course arguing about the Vietnam War. Rooting for the hapless Saints in their first year was a painful, but pleasant diversion. I was so proud of the fact that my newly claimed “hometown” of New Orleans had a big league, NFL team, that I carried the weight and scorn with pride. Finally on the last game of the season to shut them all up, I made my first and only lifetime bet on a football game, plopping a buck down for the Saints against all comers. Luckily for my broke ass there weren’t many willing to even bother and in one of life’s miracles, the Saints actually won their first game in the very twilight of that season, and I retained and replenished my lone soldier and retired that army.
Continue Reading Who Dat, My Way, and John Denver
 New Orleans When I get really depressed and imagine that somehow the Republicans could come surging back in the White House and the Capitol, because of the inability of the Democrats to really produce, I am reminded that despite their efforts to hijack the Tea Party movement and other initiatives, they still fundamentally don’t get the crises being faced by American families throughout the recession or the roots of their anger. Case in point seems to be the way the elephant people in their lumbering way are now putting themselves outside of the ranks of any support for banking reform, which if anything is the one point in which there is virtual 100% in the country.
There can be quibbling and confusion around the role of the new, proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, but the real truth is that agency is nothing more than a straw man for financial institution lobbyist to subvert and destroy reform legislation. How can anyone believe that when you have a half-dozen financial cop agencies looking at different parts of the suspect, it’s easy to miss the mark. When it had to do with the inability to coordinate around security, we finally “got it.” What’s different about the need to coordinate when trying to stay even with, much less rein in, outfits worth more than $100 billion and moving gazillions through their accounts ever year?
Continue Reading Rolling Back Bank Reform
 New Orleans What’s a guy to do? Can’t make people happy for sure! My conservative comrades in the blogosphere are dividing sharply on the positions I have taken on James O’Keefe III and he and his rightwing dunderkind and their telephone bungle up at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office. I have pretty much come down on the side that argues the guy is a self-aggrandizing hustler (not a pimp) who believes that all means justify any ends that put him in the center of the camera and story. I’ve also sided with several of the august Senators, including Republicans from Nebraska and elsewhere in the heartland who have said his credibility is shot and maybe, heaven forbid, we should even take a look at what he had the chippie did on the ACORN sting.
O’Keefe’s employer, Andrew Brietbart and www.biggoverment.com had one of their fair haired boys, Kyle Olson, write a piece whose headline was “Sorry Wade, James O’Keefe’s Actions Don’t Excuse ACORN.” Olson probably feels he has the right to do a “Wade” shout out, because he and I are old comrades. He had been on Glenn Beck helping promote my book, Citizen Wealth, claiming he had an exclusive “interview” with me at the Octavia Book Store book signing. Dressed in short pants, he and a buddy claimed that they were health care bloggers from Michigan, and wanted to get some video from me for their blog about health care reform. The highlights of the “interview,” which consisted of Fox viewers watching me talk while signing Citizen Wealth last summer were there question about whether SEIU was working for healthcare reform and my “admission” that yes, by gum, they were (no, duh?!?) and them asking about ACORN and Health Care for America Now (HCAN), where I said I didn’t work for ACORN and asked Marie Hurt, the Louisiana director their question, and she answered in the background. Olson and O’Keefe come from the same “school” of “journalism,” Olson is just better looking. The rest of his piece was a rehash of whatever few remaining charges are still outstanding against ACORN back to the 2008 election and the highly documented partisan charges by the Republicans against the organization at that time.
Continue Reading O’Keefe Pro and Con
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Upcoming Citizen Wealth Events
Monday, February 8th Hampshire College, Amherst, Mass 1-4 pm
Tuesday, February 9th, Brown University 12-1:30 PM.
Wednesday, February 10th, Organizing Workers Globally, Harvard Trade Union Program 9-11 AM Cambridge, Mass
Wednesday Febuary 10th, Lafayette College easton PA. 730pm-930 on Building Citizen Action.
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New Orleans The fireworks starting going off during the last minute of play. It was clear. The impossible was now possible. Hell had frozen over. Snow was certain for July. The Saints had won the Super Bowl!
