Downtown Portland, Oregon is typically pretty quiet on Sundays. Not this Sunday.

Thousands participated in the Portland Marathon‘s 40th annual race– including Multnomah County Commissioners Debra Kafoury, Loretta Smith, and Judy Shiprack.

Also taking to the streets were, of course, hundreds of Occupy Portland protesters. Initially, I was thoroughly skeptical of this Occupy Movement. I certainly empathize with the protesters’ frustrations and anger against a system that has become so radically unfair. However, the lack of coherent message and without any clear and specific action items being articulated by the protesters, this Occupy Movement seemed nothing more than a trendy exercise in civil unrest. The cathartic value in this exercise is understandable, but as a political organizer, the disorganization of Occupy’s message rendered the movement pointless from my perspective.

Yet, as this movement continues to persist and swell, Occupy is making an impact in American politics that I thought could not be possible. As public spaces across the nation continue to be claimed by Occupy protesters week after week, chatter has risen from the level of local news reports, to national news pundits, and now even among electeds and aspiring Republican presidential candidates.

Making known in this sort very public way, the frustrations felt by most of us who have been swindled out of the American Dream, is obviously a good thing. The big question is, though, “What are we actually going to do about it.” I do not thing the Occupy Movement yet has an answer to this, which is a huge let down.

Fortunately, I believe that the answer can be pretty easily found in the field guide to progressive organizing 101. This energy and passion of this movement needs to be translated from budding political cache into real political capital. The most obvious way to do so is through getting out the vote for candidates and legislation that dismantle the entrenched system that supports rampant corporate greed. More needs to be followed though.

Despite all criticism of the Occupy movement, it is undeniable that these protests around the country have been well organized. The organizers of this movement need to look inward to become apart of the formal political process by considering elected office. Tea Party activist and religious, right-wing radicals have done just this at the detriment to us all. True progressives must fight back to reclaim the helm of our government– majority does matter.

Fulsome tributes poured in for Charlie Wilson, who despite a playboy image became an influential player in the Cold War, funneling billions of dollars in weapons to the Afghan mujahideen through a secret CIA program.

His exploits became the subject of the 2007 movie adaptation of a book chronicling his efforts, starring Tom Hanks as Wilson and Julia Roberts as the Houston socialite Joanne Herring who helped him win support for the ambitious covert war.

“Charlie Wilson led a life that was oversized even by Hollywood’s standards,” said a statement from Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Wilson, dubbed by Texas newspapers as “Goodtime Charlie” because of his hard-partying, scandal-prone ways, succumbed to a heart attack at 12:16 pm, stated Yana Ogletree, a spokeswoman from the hospital.

As the head of the House of Representatives Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Wilson quietly oversaw vast funding increases for the CIA’s campaign against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, with Pakistan playing a prominent role.

But arming the Afghan fighters – seen as a triumph in Washington after the Soviets withdrew – turned out to have unintended consequences that have since haunted the United States.

Some of the Afghan warlords that Wilson championed and who received millions from the CIA are now viewed as dangerous Islamist extremists with ties to Al-Qaeda, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani.

“As the world now knows, his efforts and exploits helped repel an invader, liberate a people, and bring the Cold War to a close,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who worked with Wilson during his years at the CIA. “After the Soviets left, Charlie kept fighting for the Afghan people and warned against abandoning that traumatized country to its fate — a warning we should have heeded then, and should remember today.”

Even after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Wilson never expressed regret about arming the Afghan warriors.

“We were fighting the evil empire. It would have been like not supplying the Soviets against Hitler in World War II,” he told Time magazine in 2007. “Anyway, who the hell had ever heard of the Taliban then?”

The Central Intelligence Agency broke with tradition and eventually gave Wilson the Honored Colleague Award for his efforts in Afghanistan, the first civilian to receive the award.

Wilson”s scheme may never have succeeded without help from his trusted partner, rogue CIA officer Gus Avrakotos – played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film – a blue-collar son of Greek immigrants who resented his Ivy League educated leaders at the agency.

CBS journalist George Crile described the unlikely duo in his book that inspired the Hollywood hit, with the fitting subtitle, “The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times.”

The book recounts Wilson enduring a harrowing Justice Department investigation into allegations he had snorted cocaine in Las Vegas.

Prosecutors never filed charges, as one key witness could only recall Wilson partaking of cocaine in the Cayman Islands – outside the reach of US authorities.

Asked years later in an ABC television interview if the charges were true, Wilson joked: “Nobody knows the answer to that and I ain’t telling.”

Wilson is survived by his wife, Barbara, and a sister.

-Dawn.com

Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

1. Avalanches in Afghanistan, death toll near 200
2. Iran steamrolls U.S. led nuclear negotiations and moves forward with uranium enrichment
3. Economic turmoil brewing in European Union
4. Power up the Twitter Machine: protesters take to the streets marking the 31st anniversary of the Iranian Revolution
5. Ukraine heads back into the arms of Mother Russia
6. Sarkozy finally realizes ‘French national identity’ debate is racist and undemocratic
7. Israel continues unwelcomed intrusions into Lebanese airspace
8. Civil unrest in Sri Lanka over arrest of former army commander Fonseka
9. Major battle imminent as Islamist insurgents invade Somali capital
10. Polluted waters run deep in China (pictured above)

Image via Gather.com

One of the few benefits of a snow storm is that while trapped in the house, I’ve had plenty of time to catch up on some reading watch TV and surf the web guilt-free. Taking a break from a glutenous HGTV marathon, I stumbled across a radio talk show on a local cable access channel.

The host was young, bright, liberal, and seemed pretty reasonable– an antithesis to radio talk shows’ usual ranting loons like Limbaugh and Beck.

Directed by the talk show’s host, I googled his website and spent the remainder of Sunday night listening to past podcasts of this progressive talk show and watching re-runs of Property Virgins.

The show is Midweek Politics Radio with David Pakman, and I’m diggin it!

Like myself, Pakman leans left but is slightly conservative on some economic and foreign policy issues. The nationally syndicated show first aired back in 2005, is broadcast from Massachusetts and produced by Louis Motamedi.

I’m a regular reader of the blog War is Boring, and am really looking forward to the release of the War is Boring graphic novel this August. Illustrated by Matt Bors, the book is written and based on the experiences of freelance journalist David Axe.

Human Terrain the movie began as an investigation into a controversial US military program to embed social scientists in Iraq and Afghanistan that ends on a tragic note when an advisor to the film joins a Human Terrain Team and is killed by a roadside bomb. Directed by James Der Derian, Michael Udris, David Udris.

At this point, I’m only ten pages into the Defense Department’s comprehensive assessment of national security.  Nonetheless, I think its worth posting so more eyes can take a look at this document that will likely directly impact U.S. foreign policy.

So far, cyberspace security seems to be a central concern.

2010 QDR

Charlie LeDuff’s US Guys is absolutely enthralling. Echoing the voice of Hunter S. Thompson, LeDuff explores the colassal and often mythologized American man.

US Guys belongs on the list of 1,001 Rules for My Unborn Son and should be required reading for every thoughtful American man. Buy this book!

LeDuff’s preface alone is brilliant:

There are certain things and American man should know. And if he does not know them, he at least has been convinced that he should somehow know them, even if they are a detriment to him.

The American man has been taught that while it is better to avoid a fight, he should have been in a fight; that honor cannot always be defended with reason. He should never admit fear. He should strive to put the blade in his adversary’s chest, not his back. An American man should know how to load and fire a gun. He should know how to ride a horse, bet on a horse, bet on the stock market and bet on the cards. A good man should know a woman’s body and know how to please her. His woman, in turn, should never speak anything but well of him in public. An American man should have been raised in church, rejected the church and eventually found virtue in the church.

The American man should be educated. He should work. He should honor his debts and live within his means. He should be able to recite poetry and have bits of true philosphy at his fingertips/ He should be able to play an instrument and know how to hlep a rose grow. An American man should dress and speak his language well. He should be handy and mechanically inclined and yet his nails must be clean. A man should have children, and at some point his children should reject him. And in the course of his life, a man’s children should return and find virtue in him.

This is what an American man should be. Of course, no such man has ever existed and no man probably ever will. It may be that he prefers men. It may be that he was born weak-bodied. He may have been abandoned. He may be dull-witted. He may live in a trailer, or a ranch house, or a squat city apartment. Men crave dignity and fulfillment, and when they cannot attain those, the become unhappy, quarrelsome, small-minded, blowhards, overintellectuals, chauvinists, cowards, dopers, abstainers, aesthetes, racists, talk show know-it-alls and critics.

Some men are strong despite their shortcomings and are able to get on with the dreary business of living. This sort of man is at ease with the idea that in the great scheme of things, he means absolutely nothing.

And then there are the American men who, unable to grasp the Ideal, begin to call themselves a minority, a victim… they pine for those good old days that were never very good . They fall back on bromides and empty slogans; they demand action that they are not willing to take themselves. They are anxious and so they make excuses and tell lies. They criticize leadership because they can never lead. They take pills that give them feeling of enlargement but lack the abilities to sustain it. Still, these men are important. As they go, the world goes, and they are ensnared in a disorienting swirl of change.

They say that the American man is falling to pieces; that he is spooked, spiritually deadened, disassociated, infantilized. That’s just the television talking. There’s nothing wrong with us guys, except everything. But that’s the way it’s always been.

US Guys is published by The Penguin Press.