Well said, Mr Drenkow, but --

Let's get real.  What we have to do now is make sure President McCain has a veto-proof Congress.

by F T (Ted) Cloak Jr (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments) on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 3:21:44 PM
 

But Progressives ARE Divided and with GOOD Reason

Here's why:

A growing group of people consider themselves UNACCOUNTABLE.

Now with S 1959 - the homegrown terrorist act - in the Senate RIGHT NOW - people with this way of thinking are using the LABEL of TERRORIST to further avoid accountability.

Now, they WANT to call you a TERRORIST- classify you as an "Enemy Combatant" strip you of your rights, money and ANY MEANS to hold them accountable.

If you think you have a BETTER example of corruption where the media is in blackout, corporations and other organizations are in direct collusion with the government, congress - BOTH Democrats and Republicans - are selling out the American people (404 voted for the House version of this bill - HR 1955), the bill does MORE DAMAGE to ALL OF US then the Patriot Act AND the the issue is EASILY verifiable by those people in the "public mind", let us know.

To ignore this single most important issue of accountability will be to the detriment of the Democratic party AND the Republican party. The time for Apathy is OVER.

You either seek accountability or you do not. It is that simple. The time has come to EXPOSE those people who think of themselves ABOVE the rule of law.

by AdvocacyCorporation (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2 comments) on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 4:10:25 PM
 

Why should I vote for a democrat?

Last week, in North Carolina, the District Attorney's office and a partisan judge did their absolute best to seal the coffin of the Green Party in NC, and damaged the Libertarian Party in the process. Despite 3 days of testimony, in which the judge heard only two depositions and an argument from the state, despite 3 days of testimony from expert witnesses that clearly bolstered  our case against NC's ballot access, despite the state's own witnesseses in deposition calling the ballot access laws of NC unfair and overly prohibitive, the North Carolina un-Democratic Party leadership got a decision from the judge which cited the state's language word for word. I know, and everybody around this case knows, that a Democratic governor and a Democratic attorney general, at the behest of the Democratic leaders of the legislature, decided that the Green Party was too dangerous to their political hegemony, and must be kept from participation in the "Democratic" process.

So, any Democratic progressive that comes to me and tells me that I absolutely must vote for the un-Democratic Party candidate (as every Green as been told every year since the first organized Green national campaign), had damn well better be able to explain to me why the un-Democratic Party deserves my vote, and it had better be an argument that does not boil down to the "lesser of two evils." Because from my perspective,  I have a really hard time seeing which evil is lesser. Republicans at least make no secret of their twisted psychosis and the legal sewage that emanates from it. Democrats spray lots of sweet, progressive sounding talk around, but underneath it the stench of the effluent is unmistakeable.

by Wayne Turner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 38 comments) on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 8:05:37 PM
 

Being Realistic

Politics is very interesting to follow because it is so important to all of us how well our country is run.  Unfortunately, it is also an aspect of our culture that operates with as much honor as mud wrestling.  If there are any rules, they do not seem to be enforced or even acknowledged, the battles usually play out without any consideration of fair play. 

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat you probably feel that your own ox has been gorred  unfairly and you probably feel this way most of the time.  If you belong to a third party you probably always feel this way.  However, that is just the way the game is played.  In fact with respect to third parties that is the way the game is designed.  Our electoral system is not designed to work when there are more than two parties.  Again, that is just the way it is. 

Does it have to be this way?  Not at all, there are other voting system what permit third parties.  Instant runoff voting, for example would be such a system as would a parliamentary system.  However, just pretending we have such a system and simply voting for a minority party will not work, and it is likely to help elect the one candidate you like the least.  That is just the way it is, at least now.   

I urge you to use your vote in November to choose between the two candidates that have any chance of winning.  The purpose of the general election is not self-expression (use this web site for that purpose).  The purpose of the general election  is to choose a President as well as other officials.  Please think of your vote in that context.  

by PrMaine (8 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 284 comments) on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 8:53:58 AM
 

More of the same

I also am a Green and I detest the Democratic Party for what it does to restrict ballot line access. They rant and rave over vote caging and voter elimination and vote changing by the Republicans, but they have their own system for controlling our vote. They fight tooth and nail to restrict ballot access. Some adherents of democracy.

As to voting realistically, well, we have done that for a number of years and what do we have to show for it? The country is sinking into the sunset under the weight of the Republirat Party as a result of locating the lesser of the two evils..

Many of us fell for the reform line the Democrats put out in 2006 and consequently voted for a Democrat. And did we get the impeachment talked about by DP candidates? No. Did we get a defundng of the Iraq War? No. Did we get a time line for withdrawal? No. Did we see the return of Habeas corpus? No. Did we see an end to the Military Tribunals? No. Did we see any serious Congressional investigations on anything? No. 

Given all the above and more, just what have we received as a benefit of voting for the Democrat? Not much and damned little that is positive.

Vote realistically? A sure way to the pit of doom. Vote your beliefs, vote your conscience, vote for your countryman, vote for your country itself. Don't vote for someone just to be 'realistic' because they are likely to win. We have 'won' with a series of 'losers' in the last 30 years.Time for a change.

We need to remember, neither of the major parties 'owns' our votes, we are not obligated to vote for their candidates, especially when there are so many well qualified folks out there who are not of the 'majors'.

I recommend you not throw your vote away on a candidate who does not support your beliefs, who does not have the experience, capacity or philosophical base to govern democratically or one who is so beholden to moneyed interests, or corporations, that they do nothing for the average taxpayer and voter.

We  are confronted with candidates who we find are corporate -supported in the extreme. These candidates will, I think, like those of 2006, claim a progressive heritage when and where useful to them, then after the oath is administered, we may well find they hold opposite beliefs. It is my understanding that recently in Md. a candidate ran as progressive, won the primary and then displayed their true colors.

Not good. 

So, while I will never vote for a member of the Republican wing of the Republican Party, it will also be a cold day you know where before I vote for a member of the Democratic wing of the Republican Party. 

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 274 comments) on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 12:34:23 PM
 

Vote for the lesser of two evils...

... for the only alternative is to vote for the worse of two evils.

By this I do NOT in any way mean to imply the Obama is evil, other than, for the sake of argument, trying to take what seems to be your dangerous point of view.

I do think that your approach, if taken by too many people, will lead this country to even greater disaster, perhaps another eight years of a Bush clone like McCain.

by PrMaine (8 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 284 comments) on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 1:37:27 PM
 

Here we go again

Vote for my guy or the future will be grim.

So says PRMaine.

The reality is that we could improve things considerably if we all voted for the best candidate, not by party.

You are bound and determined to disenfranchise those of us who do not believe in your Democrats. We have a right to run our own candidates and to even --gasp--vote for them in the general election if we so choose. You do not seem to understand that many of us view a Democratic victory as almost as bad as a Republican win.

Hope this clears it up a bit. 

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 274 comments) on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 6:58:39 PM
 

Getting Back to Reality

The reality is that we could improve things considerably if we all voted for the best candidate, not by party. ...You do not seem to understand that many of us view a Democratic victory as almost as bad as a Republican win.

Sadly, I do not really understand your strange reality.

Why would it be better to elect a Republican who, by your own evaluation is even worse than the Democratic candidate? You prefer having the inferior candidate so that you can have the joy of having voted for the candidate of your dreams but who is a candidate with no realistic chance of winning?

Taken to the extreme, perhaps each of us should write in our own names or perhaps a relative or best friend. We would all feel good about our vote, but would this be best for the country? Voting should not be about feeling good - it should be about electing a president.

by PrMaine (8 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 284 comments) on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 8:14:33 PM
 

I am sorry

That you just do not understand. It is about making the country better, and that means not electing D's or R's anymore. Perhaps you do not understand just how far the Democrats have allowed themselves to fall, or how far away from democracy the country has traveled with Dem complicity in Republican money schemes and power grabs. The hands of the DP leadership are not clean.

It is not an issue in that I said Democrats were marginally better, it is an issue in that I see the Democrats doing tremendous damage also.

We all have the right to vote. And that right extends, theoretically, if it were not for people who demand we all vote for their person, to voting for whomever we so desire.

I prefer to vote for the best, not for the best we can do under the circumstances... 

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 274 comments) on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 8:21:39 AM
 

They don't even care about vote caging

HI, Jack

 I think if the Dems cared about vote caging, purging, electronic fraud, etc, they would be challenging these laws in courts. They aren't. It was the Greens who sued in Ohio in 2004 over the clear Republican election fraud that went on there, not the Dems. They won a recount, but the Dems didn't back them up, and the recount was never actually carried out.

I think the core of the Democratic Party doesn't care whether a Republican or a Democrat wins. The Blue Dogs have control of the Party leadership, not the progressives. They're going to vote Republican on any progressive issue, which means that even if the Democrats had a veto-proof majority in both houses, they aren't getting anything out that the Blue Dogs don't like.

by Wayne Turner (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 38 comments) on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 1:53:51 PM
 

Agreement

Hi Wayne

I agree with your comments. The DLC has so poisoned the Democratic well that the party is no longer really a single entity or even viable politically. I think it will see a significant number of  folks choosing to vote elsewhere. Already, disappointed Clinton supporters are setting up web sites supporting McCain for crying out loud. Just how Democratic are her supporters if they can tumble from her to McCain?

One has to wonder how long the DP will ever survive as a major party.

The Republicans are going down the tubes as well, and like the DP, it was by their own hand.

Good riddance, I say.

Wish the judge had been a little more honest for you all, or the Democrats a little more democratic.

And they wonder why we do not support them? 

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 274 comments) on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 7:04:53 PM