I feel their pain.

by Amanda Lang (23 articles, 14528 quicklinks, 442 diaries, 731 comments [17 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 1:27:45 PM

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By all means, democrats need to start showing their liberal stripes, quit lying about who they are.

by John wayne (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 29 comments) on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 3:20:14 PM

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It is time to stop playing the Republican light game. Surely it is obvious to anyone with half a brain that it has not been working. Most of us grass route Democrats can see this clearly. Those isolated tap dancers at the top need to wake up and smell the coffee. Bush’s poll numbers are falling through the floor yet most of the gutless wonders in the Senate are still running from Feingold’s censure resolution. It is the right time to push the current administration into the coffin, drive in the nails, and bury it….not to sit around worrying if it is really dead.

by TheMightyGorg (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments) on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 4:22:40 PM

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They way I show my displeasure with the Democratic Party is by voting Green. I got sick and tired of the Democratic Party ignoring me except when elections came around and they asked me for money. So it's payback time now. I ignore Democrats and I donate to and vote only for Green Party candidates. So now instead of just ignoring me, Democratic Party loyalists call me names and cuss me out. I consider that a big improvement. At least they're not ignoring me any more.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 6:59:40 PM

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I usually agree with everything you write, Rob, but I don't know that playing with Votes right now is the right thing to do. I am currently working on Ned lamont campaign, because Lieberman needs to go, but if he does not make it, I will surely vote for Lieberman than for a Repub. I find the way to express my discontent with Dem Leaders is to continually send them emails: info@dscc.org, and dccc@dccc.org, and put them attention Schumer or Emanual. I rail against their gutlessness and centrism. And I fax or email Reid, pelosi, Clinton, Kerry, etc directly with criticism . But I cannot see telling voters to show their discontent by splitting the vote. Sorry, but IMHO this is not the time for this. We Have to take back the house and Senate MORE than we need to tell the Dem leadership they need to shape up. that will come next.

by PamB (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 7:01:53 PM

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The one thing that every person frustrated with the limited menu choices of our political system should be working for in lieu of third-party candidates, is Instant Runoff Voting. This would make voting for a liberal running independently against a democrat in name only and a republican less risky, since the second-choice vote could go to preserve the seat at least in the hands of the lesser of the two major party evils. Each voter ranks the candidates, and the second-choice votes of those whose candidate draws the fewest are counted, until a clear winner emerges. Our Democracy needs it.

by Maturin42 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 8:41:48 PM

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Whenever I used to email, write, phone, or visit the office of my Democratic representative, I'd get a lengthy response explaining that they understood the problem, felt my pain, and really cared. Then they'd vote with the Republicans. That's what I mean by ignoring me. Not that they didn't respond, just that it didn't effect how they vote. IRV is part of the answer. But in the meantime I question anyone who says it is important to vote for Democrats or to take back Democratic control of Congress. Right now we have a "unitary Presidency" that ignores Congress the same way my Congressional representatives ignore me. The President signs their laws, but then does whatever he likes. Congress is irrelevant and has no power, so what's the point of taking it back? Say the Democrats get a majority in both houses and start impeachment proceedings. Bush then invokes national security and refuses to release any documents or to appear before Congress and answer questions. Who do they think he is, Bill Clinton? I vote Green as a protest vote and because my local Greens are good people. At the state and national levels, however, the Greens are just as corruptible as any other political party. Grassroots Democracy is one of the Green's Ten Key Values, but they define it wrong. It doesn't mean allowing more public input into decisions made at the state and national level, it means keeping all decision-making local and in the hands of the people effected. It doesn't matter how you vote. Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, and the other voting machine venders are the ones who count the votes, so they decide who wins. Since Bill Kristol of PNAC said on national TV that the Democrats will win in November, the fix is already in and the Democrats will win in November whether anyone votes for them or not. But he also said it would be the best thing that could happen for the Republicans, and I take that to mean that it would restore just enough public confidence in elections to let the Republicans steal the election again in 2008. So if you do decide to vote for a Democrat, maybe campaign for them, donate to them, and get out the vote for them, and they win, please don't get too excited about your victory, because it isn't a real victory, just a ploy to get you to think the system works, and you won't be able to replicate it in 2008 even if you work ten times as hard, donate ten times as much money, and get out ten times as many votes. If you don't yet know how this rigged game is played, please keep this in mind when 2008 rolls around and you'll be able to see for yourself.

by Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments) on Sunday, May 14, 2006 at 10:39:21 PM

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Sure I voted green in 2000… Unfortunately I had this whole attitude that there was not a difference between the parties. I was wrong! If six years of Bush are not enough to convince you otherwise then one has to wonder what planet you are on. If you want to make a difference with the Democratic Party get out and get involved. I did and I was a delegate at the recent California Democratic Party Convention. Here is the platform adopted at the convention. 2006 Platform It sure looks like a progressive platform to me. The two party system is far from ideal however giving votes to the pie in the sky Green party when you could actually be making a real difference in what we have now is just a waste of energy.

by TheMightyGorg (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments) on Monday, May 15, 2006 at 1:39:00 AM

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Whether or not you were ever a Green supporter is a matter for you and your conscience. Your tired rant, however, is a matter open to response and retort. You ,rather laughably, use as an excuse for supporting the GOP-Lite, the record of the last five years. Yet it is exactly this record that gives thinking people pause in their support for a Democratic Party that has sold out every one of us and worse, this nation as well. The party cannot even vote as a united party in the most elementary of constitutional violations and has supported Bush at every turn. If you were once a Green, and I seriously doubt that, then know full well that those of us who see clearly that there is no longer a two party system in this nation, simply one party in thought and deed, will never return to the fold of a party that has silenced all progressive thought within its ranks, turned a once proud liberal like Pelosi into a power mad stooge, stands for nothing other than a larger share of corporate monies and has lost us forever.

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Monday, May 15, 2006 at 7:31:36 AM

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You make a seriously false assumption that I support a Republican Lite agenda in the Democratic Party. I am in the Democratic Party along with many others I know working to make a real change. I was all for the formation of a real Green Party in 2000. I really thought it was worth getting the Green Party enough votes for matching federal funding and that if Bush won over Gore it was no big deal. I was wrong… many other were wrong… and it has been a costly mistake! Try and tell the relatives of the dead on all sides of the Iraq war that you were voting for a higher principle. Your claim that progressive thought has been silenced within the Democratic Party is also false. The California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus LINK is now the largest caucus in the California Democratic Party. Take a look at the above link and the link to the party platform I provided in my last post and try and spin that “silenced all progressive thought within its ranks” again. There is no doubt the Democratic Party is not where I would like it to be… however many of us decided to jump right in and try and change it instead of standing on the outside and whining about it. High on our list of goals is public funded / clean money elections. Until you take the money out of it politicians will be selling out to the highest bidder. click here When one wants to create change one needs to realistically look at what is the most effective way.

by TheMightyGorg (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments) on Monday, May 15, 2006 at 10:53:58 AM

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Everyone has them.....I will not stoop to debate your shortsighted political view, nor your continuation of the myth of a two party system. If you are so enmired in support of the Democratic Party as to be blind to their foibles and flaws, so be it. If you can turn your conscience off and vote for those responsible for the deaths in Iraq, and reread the record of those who voted for that invasion, as well as those who voted for the Homeland Security bill and every stinking other Bush agenda as well then debate with the blind and deaf is an exercise in futility. How you equate a Green vote with responsibility for the current political situation in this world is a topic between you and your mental health professional frankly and, considering the blatant sellout of your precious democrats over the last five years on every important issue I begin to think you are simply a DLC apologist. Once this nation was a colony of Great Britain, many who think like you could see no option or alternative. Thank goodness there were people of vision or we would still be a colony. Today those same people of vision see a political choice not wedded to corporate greed and need. They will never buy into your rather shallow condemnation of the future. These are the folks who will make a difference and you are simply in the way.

by ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments) on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at 7:38:00 AM

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Voting for the Green Party has accomplished what besides giving George W. Bush two terms in office? It really does not matter to you what I write for you already have your canned responses stuck in your well programmed head. From responses that have little to do with my original replies I do certainly get that your head and your rectum do somehow seem to frequently occupy the same space at the same time. You are obviously incapable of debate on the subject. And to throw the we would still be British line at me is a pure sign of desperation that I do find particularly amusing being as I do happen to be related to two signers of the Declaration of Independence. If one wants to get clean money / public funded elections passed just what party is going to stand the best chance the Democratic Party or the Green Party? Hello… wake up and smell the coffee…. It is the only way we are going to begin to dig ourselves out of this corporate run mess. Your dreaming and whining is just not going to do it.

by TheMightyGorg (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments) on Friday, May 19, 2006 at 2:02:30 AM

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