BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!

Subject: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 10:24 AM

Warriors for Warriors! Past Warriors for Future Warriors! More Special Forces! More Weapons!

Elect St Kerry the Military Hero!

Hawk! Hawk!

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Nerd
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 10:30 AM

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Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 10:35 AM

So you watched Kerry's speech too, eh Nerd?

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Nerd
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:03 AM

It's you that put me to sleep, GUEST. Good one, though.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 12:14 PM

Guest, take a chill pill...

A

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 01:28 PM

Go genuflect at yer DNC altar, Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: saulgoldie
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 01:44 PM

Amos,
"Guest" has been posting on several threads, all with only one note. I suggest not responding might be in order. At least, s/he should acquire an identity before we give him/her the time of day, anymore. IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 01:56 PM

Well saul, since you obviously aren't going to reply to me, let me ask this as a rhetorical question, for anyone who might wish to respond.

Why is that because I have a dissenting opinion which differs from the dominant pro-Kerry opinion being expressed here, that it is me who is posting with only the single note, but those who keep expressing the mindless "Vote Kerry No Matter What" opinion are not?

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 02:01 PM

GFYM--

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 02:33 PM

I hereby dissent with GUEST.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 02:45 PM

Those of us who want to vote out the Bush administration no matter what don't need to be sold on the Dem nominee. For all their flaws, the party of Jefferson & Jackson, FDR and JFK, can count on us. If our effort is to succeed, a lot of folks with differnt viewpoints must also be convinced to come along. Hence the "moderate" slant of the recent convention.

Also, John Kerry *IS* a decorated war hero, but he's also a guy who came back from 'Nam to take up the cause of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Just the kind of guy to unify apparently opposing points of view, but he couldn't do it in 1970; not enough people had the imagination to understand such a position at the time. In fact, it's still difficult to reconcile ideals of patriotism/nationalism vs common-sensible restraints on military action -- but it's certainly about time to do so.

While the US certainly should never have unilaterally attacked Iraq, it's impossible now to turn back the clock and cause it never to have happened. The only alternative is to figure out a way to get other nations involved in the "peacekeeping" holding action while gradually withdrawing. Spokespeople of both parties are currently setting forth this proposal -- but who has a better chance of persuading the rest of the world to come along? Not the idiot who alienated all our allies while getting into this mess!

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Once Famous
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 02:57 PM

Guest, you should at least identify yourself.

I've been dissenting and telling some here to go take a dump on their politics for a while. They know who the post is coming from and it has far greater impact.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 03:05 PM

Martin,

Good to hear from you, you bloody Republican. (If I were in the States I'd be a Democrat.) However, as always, you are a voice of reason in these troubled times.

I'd like to hear from anyone about the good things Bush has done for the United States. We all have our views on Iraq, 9/11, Diebold, Halliburton, etc. Let's talk jobs and social programs; let's talk about his approach to medical care in the US. Let's talk about the positives.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 03:05 PM

You think so, huh Martin? Then I wonder why so many Kerry Catters are still going at it after a 100+ posts over in the Censorship thread?

I think I'm having a pretty good impact remaining anonymous, but thanks for the advice. I'd never heard that suggestion before.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 03:07 PM

Hey, GUEST. How's it hangin'?

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 03:58 PM

Some excerpts from:

The Kerry Mandate: Strong and Wrong
by Jonathan Schell

Military courage in war is honored; civil courage in opposing a disastrous war is not honored. Even thirty years later, it cannot be mentioned by a former President who himself opposed the Vietnam War. The political rule, as Clinton once put it in one of the few pithy things he has ever said, "We [Democrats] have got to be strong.... When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right."

And now the United States is engaged in a war fully as wrong as the one in Vietnam. The boiling core of American politics today is the war in Iraq and all its horrors: the continuing air strikes on populated cities; the dogs loosed by American guards on naked, bound Iraqi prisoners; the kidnappings and the beheadings; the American casualties nearing a thousand; the 10,000 or more Iraqi casualties; the occupation hidden behind the mask of an entirely fictitious Iraqi "sovereignty"; the growing scrapheap of discredited justifications for the war. But little of that is mentioned these days by the Democrats. The great majority of Democratic voters, according to polls, ardently oppose the war, yet by embracing the candidacy of John Kerry, who voted for the Congressional resolution authorizing the war and now wants to increase the number of American troops in Iraq, the party has made what appears to be a tactical decision to hide its faith.

The strong and wrong position won out in the Democratic Party when its voters chose Kerry over Howard Dean in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. An antiwar party rallied around a prowar candidate. The result has been one of the most peculiar political atmospheres within a party in recent memory. The Democrats are united but have concealed the cause that unites them. The party champions free speech that it does not practice. As a Dennis Kucinich delegate at the convention said to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, "Peace" is "off-message."

What of the antiwar sentiment that is still in truth at the heart of most Democrats' anger? The political class as a whole has proved incapable of taking responsibility for the future of the nation, and the education of the American public has been left to those without hope of office.

And it's not too early to worry about the dangers posed by the Democrats' strategy. In the first place, they have staked their future and the country's on a political calculation, but it may be wrong. By suffocating their own passion, they may lose the energy that has brought them this far. They have confronted Bush's policy of denial with a politics of avoidance. Bush is adamant in error; they are feeble in dedication to truth. If strong and wrong is really the winning formula, Bush may be the public's choice.

But the course, as retired Gen. Anthony Zinni has commented, may take the country over Niagara Falls. Then Kerry may wish that he and his admirers at this year's convention had thought to place a higher value on his service to his country when he opposed the Vietnam War.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 05:11 PM

I'd like to hear from anyone about the good things Bush has done for the United States. We all have our views on Iraq, 9/11, Diebold, Halliburton, etc. Let's talk jobs and social programs; let's talk about his approach to medical care in the US. Let's talk about the positives.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 05:26 PM

You do keep trying, don't you brucie? Hell, nobody is falling for it. Everyone knows I'm not for Bush already. Opposing Kerry doesn't make someone for Bush. Only moronic, brainwashed, foaming at the mouth Republican hating "Anybody But Bush" Democrats think like that.

I've seen the light and gone Green.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Once Famous
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 05:31 PM

Actually, Brucie I am neither Democrat or republicam, but an Independent, right in the middle of middle America, making a good living with a fine family and enjoying life in America.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Nerd
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 09:03 PM

Nice try rebutting MG, GUEST. But you forgot to mention that you made over 40 of those 100+ posts in the other thread yourself. That's a return rate of less than two responses per posting from you, and some of yours were pretty long screeds that you had to work at quite a bit.

Martin Gibson makes a far greater impact on our world with far less effort. You should take some advice from a smarter catter.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 09:18 PM

Nadar in '04.....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Nerd
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 09:23 PM

HI Bobert. I've been wondering where you've been on the political threads. So you've decided to support Nader?

Sigh, say it ain't so!

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 09:30 PM

Yeah, Nerd... I took the week off, rented a cabin way back in the moutains of Wes Ginny wid no TV and no radio reception...

Now, you know what I think of Bush so it's hard but, hey, it's tough votin' fir a Repubocrat no matter how crooked the Bush fraternity is. I'm just not hearing anything new from Kerry other than he can kill folks better than Bush... Somehow, that ain't real appealing to me...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Pogo
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 10:25 PM

actually going from that last bit of the title I thought that Guest was trying to hawk a loogie or sumpin' and this was some sort of potty-humor thread.

Then I came in and found it had to do with politics. Upps. My mistake!

So...me and my facetious comments will be going now to one of the foods thread to extol the virtues of okry and fatback {O) Have fun...

*pwing!*

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Peace
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:08 PM

GUEST: You may find this hard to believe, but the question was a serious one directed at everyone who posts. I think it's a piss prro reason to vote for someone ya don't like just because they ain't the other person ya don't like. So, I respect Bobert's intention to vote for Nader. Most folks are aware that Bush is a horse's south end, but even the people who did vote for him--and will again--seem not to want to address what I wrote. It's a harmless question. What's the big deal about giving an answer? So, please understand it was not specifically aimed at you.

Yo, Marty muh man!

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:20 PM

Bobert,

Forget the nice thing I said about you in the other thread. In W. Va. you hid out and failed to be in a position where Kerry's practical logic might be heard--might get through to you. Nader ain't the way to go to start to get the big job done.

Everyone else:

Please, keep in mind that unity is in such short supply in the Democratic party that, when it does show up, we Democrats cannot recognize it--we distrust it. Then we fabricate disunity so we can feel warm and comfortable with the fragmented status quo we have always known. (Sort of like the abused spouse always going back for more.) That is all Nader represents from where I sit---that same kind of sick status quo that has spelled practical defeat for every good cause since and including the Spanish Civil War. Yeah, but we had all the fucking good/best songs, didn't We???   We can live on those instead of health care and a decent life for the poor, the infirm, the mentally ill and the elderly.


I'm pretty sick of people who can't see that political and social fragmentation is no way to win any election --- let alone one that will be as close as this one----ONCE AGAIN. It is no way to clean out the non-elected malignancy that this current American administration is. Bush is counting on anyone whose social ego, like a psychotic voice in their ear, insists they cast their votes for Nader.

ART THIEME

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:29 PM

Okay, Art... You've won me over... I'm going to write *you* in instead of voting for Nadar... Now whadda ya say? Hunh?

BTW, sorry to read that yer feeling poorly... Maybe a little tonic 'ill help ya...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:30 PM

MG,

Your self description of yourself, in 'middle America', is one that Al Capone could've written about himself.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Big Mick
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:42 PM

And proof of that, Art, is the money and volunteers that the Republican machine is pouring into the effort to get Nader on the ballot. In Michigan most of the signatures by huge proportions were Republicans.

Oh .... and your comment about the effect of such protest votes is spot on. That is what I have been trying to tell this ivory tower lunatic. She doesn't have to see the faces or feel the desperation as the safety net is dismantled. I remember being young and idealistic. Then a war, 3 kids, and union organizing hit me and knocked some real world experience into me. It is about leadership. And one should be careful where they lead folks. That is what Nader, in his megalomania, can't see. But hell, it isn't him that won't have health insurance. It's not him trying to raise kids as a single parent on $9.00 an hour. It's not him making the choice between food and prescriptions to stay alive.

And you are dead on about the unity piece. When I started working for Democratic causes, we understood that we were a party of disparate interests. The only way to be successful was to create coalitions. Otherwise the monied interests would eat us alive. But we allowed one segment of the party to get so strong that we lost that ability. We fell into the old purity of thought trap ...... again. Next thing you know, the people that determine elections, Mr. and Mrs. Middle America, felt that they couldn't relate to us anymore. And we end up with Ronald Raygun, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr.

Is Kerry perfect? Nope. Do I have some problems with him? Yep. Can we work with him? Yep. Will he be more responsive to the people? Yep. Does he feel like he knows what God needs done? Nope.

Good enough for me.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: MAG
Date: 30 Jul 04 - 11:49 PM

As one who voted for Nader last time around as best representing my positions, I am NOT going to do it again.

Bush is just fascist enough that there is clear daylight between him and the capitalist democrats.

I can't believe I am wasting my breath on a political thread, started by a blowhard anonymous guest.

If the social-democrats and the communists hadn't been so busy fighting with each other in Germany back in the 30's, they could have defeated Hitler. They outnumbered the brownshirts.


"We'll just USE hitler to get rid of the commies ..."

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Nerd
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 12:57 AM

Well, Bobert, do keep an open mind and keep thinking right up to election day...I know you will. I can respect your position, but I'm still throwing my lot in with Kerry. In fact, outside of the military rhetoric (which you know he's just laying on cause the handlers are telling him to) I like him more now than before, and I like Edwards too.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 09:06 AM

Nerd,

In spite of some folks opinion 'round here, I do have an open mind. Nadar is not a slam dunk fir me. Like so many other Green ie friends of mine, we're purdy pissed off at Bush and his folks. We're just pissed off (sans the pirdy...) with the Dems, especially since making woof-woof war noises the centerpiece of their platform...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 10:36 AM

Hey Bobert! Glad to hear you did the sensible thing and took off during Demo National Crash Test Week and spent it in a more natural surrounding far from TV!!! Take my word for this Bobert--ya didn't miss anything but (as The Daily Show put it) the Demo party product launch.

I did watch a couple of things from the convention (the big 3 speeches: Clinton, Edwards, and Kerry) with my rabble rousing radical friends (most of them Greens), but mostly we just turned the sound down when it became obvious there wasn't anything we hadn't already been screamed at with a million times, so...

We did manage to get a helluva deal on some new organic wines at $8.00 on sale that was mighty tasty, so the crashin' the party party worked out really well. One thing I can definitely say about my Green friends--they have the best food and drinks at their soirees!

Anyway, don't know if you've gotten around to reading my posts yet, but... As you, know, we've been lobbied hard around here not to vote for Nader. See how polite I am?

Well. The pressure my Green friends put on me this week has gotten to me. After the sad and pathetic Demo National Crash Test Week with all the folks we know who went to Boston being penned up in the Free Speech Zone, I've decided not to vote for Nader.

I'm voting Green instead. The Republicans and Democrats have pretty much whupped Nader's ass with the Republican party petition signers and the Democratic Leadership Council lawyers suing to keep Nader off the ballot in every state. Doesn't seem to make any sense now that the Republicans and Democrats have destroyed every last vestige of democracy on that front.

Of course, the very important fact that the Democratic party is also suing to keep the Greens off the ballot in every state, for every office at every level, has me even more pissed off than I am at them for what they are doing to Nader. But hey--the Greens keep winning the battle with the lawyers and getting on the ballot. Gotta love justice when it actually works!

Not only can I not bring myself to vote for the party that uses these brownshirt tactics, but my Green friends have made much sense this week. Here in Minnesota, we don't have any major national congressional races going on this year. For us, the big elections will be 2006 and 2008 when we can hopefully get that skunk Coleman out. But 2006 is our next big election, so my MN Green buddies reminded me of how important it will be for us to get 5% this year for David Cobb, so we can have matching funds again for 2006 when it will REALLY matter. The way we (me and my Green friends) see it is there is no reason to lose our minds and vote for a Republicrat war hawk, just because we hate Bush, when we have a perfectly good candidate of our own to support and party building to do.

Now, these Anybody But Bushers have what a lot of progressives are starting to describe as a kind of progressive amnesia. In other words, they can't seem to remember that they are against big money fat cat party apparatchiks, against the war, against free trade that sends their jobs overseas, etc etc when it comes near election time. They seem to get cold feet, and begin to fear that their neighbors won't like them anymore if they get TOO progressive and don't vote for one of the two brands they keep seeing advertised on their TV.

They keep saying things like "Kerry is the best US senator on the environment!" Well, you know, I noticed that too. Problem is, that isn't much of a claim to fame among us environmental terrorist types! I guess maybe they figure that Kerry must be better than the Greens or Nader on the environment, so a vote for them can only be a PROTEST vote, and not a real vote for the candidate we think is best for the job. Personally, I think Nader or Cobb would be MUCH better presidents than Kerry or Bush. Buy hey, I guess that makes me a Nazi. At least, it does according to the people around Mudcat.

Personally, I've never cast a protest vote in my life. And as far as I can tell, none of the Anybody But Bush people I know who are hellbent on voting for Kerry, since they don't like or really want their candidate for president, are the ones wasting THEIR votes with a protest vote. But of course, that isn't what their neighbors and family and friends and especially THEIR TV is telling them, so they keep insisting that me voting Nader or Cobb is throwing my vote away.

Go figure.

So, I'm voting the Green ticket all the way this year, just like I did in 2000. Well, I voted for Mondale in 2002 to try and keep weasel dick Coleman out. My daughter, who voted for the first time in 2002, sobbed her eyes out and voted for Wellstone, which just broke my heart. Then, when I heard Mondale speak to the young Wellstone supporters who had campaigned so hard for him in his concession speech--well, I felt like I'd lost my own mother.

I don't know how supporting the people who abandoned us in 2002 and treated the Wellstones and us so viciously by silently wathcing while the Republican valkyries swooped down out of the rafters at the Wellstone memorial and then set their Limbaugh attack dogs on us in the days after...well. Would you want to vote for people like that?

Those are the kinds of folks who are working for John Kerry, IMO. The kinds of folks who hated Paul Wellstone and everything he stood for. They were relieved when he died, and happy to let the jackals do the dirty work they didn't have the guts to do while Wellstone was alive, which was to rip the progressives apart in October 2002.

I won't be forgetting that anytime soon. I won't be forgetting that the Demo party locked up it's progressives and dissenters in a cage to keep them off the Test Crash Convention floor this year.

Nope, I think I know who the brownshirts in American politics are, and I'm not voting for them no matter how much I hate Dubya.

I am voting for my future, my kids and my grandkids future, and I'm voting Green. It makes me feel happy and proud and calm, just like I did when Nader jumped in the race. The Demos and Repubs pretty much did to the Nader folks this year what they did to the Wellstone folks in 2002. I can take a hint: the Demo Republicrats don't want me and people like me at their party.

So I'll party Green.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 03:12 PM

probably shouldn't post this but I'm doing it as a Guest to keep some anonymity. My ox is getting gored here and these realities are pretty depressing. We spent everything we had in the bank for health care for the two of us. This included having health insurance but out-of-pocket spending for what wasn't covered did us in. Then we couldn't afford the health insurance--so that's gone. Public Aid is the last resort because they pay for medications and other extremely expensive procedures ONLY if we stay poor enough. Both are disabled now and not in a position to earn much. If we could earn anything more than the minimum allowed, what is called our "spend-down" amount would go so high that for every dollar earned we'd need to pay out that much. The same goes for anything friends give to us. So, where is the incentive? On top of all this, even if we could earn enough cash, we could not buy health insurance because of all our Pre-Existing Conditions.   This system is worse than any mere Catch 22. It is a sentence into perpetual poverty just to be able to have government health insurance.-----If a politician tells me they might change things, they will get my vote. The odds that the new guy will get that job done are at least better than buying a lottery ticket. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:18 PM

You know, I would agree with you 1000% guest 3:12, if I really thought Kerry was going to fix the system once and for all with a major overhaul. But that doesn't seem to be what his plan entails. It really is just a bandaid approach that he is talking about. Whether his plan would help the situation or exacerbate it, I have no way of knowing. The medical system nowadays is byzantine, I don't think it can be reformed. It needs to scrapped, and a whole new system put in it's place.

But you do have my empathy. The thing that has bankrupted you, also bankrupted my mom, who is now in a nursing home on Medical Assistance to get the coverage and treatment she needs. I know all about the spend downs, etc. My mom didn't own a home or have any assets, so she went down the economic chute pretty quickly when she got started having health problems.

My mother in law has cancer for the third time in 15 years, and is 85 and otherwise healthy. Even though she has supplemental insurance to help pay for some of her drugs, there are two very expensive drugs that she can't get coverage for. It looks like she will lose the house that has been in the family for three generations, just to get the necessary care and drugs she needs to survive. Because she has the house as an asset, she doesn't qualify for energy assistance, etc. because between the house, her pension, and SS, she is worth too much on paper, despite being poor.

I would vote for Kerry if I thought he really would fix the system. But we saw what happened with the Clinton plan. That is why Kerry's plan is much more modest than that one was.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:51 PM

GUEST 4:18 PM: Is your mother-in-law in the US? If so, you should get her to check out the Medicare pharmacy cards...they are far from a complete answer, but there is a chance that they will cover those two expensive medications. I don't know about the energy assistance thing...that sounds local...but many programs in the States, like SSI, don't count the value of a home in computing income and assets.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 05:02 PM

She has one art, but thanks for the suggestion. It has helped for most her medications, but these two are on the experimental drug list that isn't paid for by Medicare.

It isn't just those two medications that are the problem, though. Although she is still walking and getting around now, we don't know think she'll be able to keep getting up and down the stairs for bathing, laundry, etc. for much longer. She won't pay out of pocket the co-pays required for her to get a home health aide, because she is saving money for the winter's heating costs, and she won't pay for the remodeling she needs to stay on the main floor because her taxes keep going up...

Anyone who has dealt with elderly parents in these straights knows what I'm talking about. The system is so bad, it makes our parents do these crazy, irrational things because they are so afraid of losing control over everything. It is heartbreaking. Not to mention sickening. The horror stories I have about my mother's descent into poverty and going into a nursing home--the ways single, elderly women are being treated...when I've got time, in another year or so, I plan to do some documentary work on it with friends and colleagues I have that work in the radio and video biz. Too many of our elderly are living in circumstances that rival living conditions in some third world countries.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Peace
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 05:07 PM

If that.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 05:47 PM

Of interest to your Green friends and yourself Guest, this analysis from the From the Wilderness website.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:50 AM

Serious question, Guest: How will you & your mother be better off with Bush in power for another four years?

The election will go to either Bush or Kerry. Really, it will.

I live in Idaho; it's going to go for Bush and my vote will not count for anything. I'm thinking of voting for Kucinich, or, hell, Eugene Debs, but it's most likely going to be just a gesture. If it does any good, it'll be several elections down the road, and I'm not going to last for very many.

If you're in a state where there's a real contest, better think about the next four years. There's a time (& place) for long-term thinking, and a time (& place) for short-term. Turn, turn as they say.

That is a serious question up there at the top.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 10:50 AM

Clint, I am in agreement with my Republican father about the presidency and it's effects on our personal lives: there isn't any.

It is the national and Congresses and local government that pass the legislation that effects our lives. The governors effect our lives to a lesser extent than the legislative branches. The executive branches have veto power, but rarely use it in comparison to the number of bills passed every year.

So in answer to your question, how will we be better off with Bush in power: we won't be any better or worse off with either of them as president.

The office of the president effects foreign relations, the military, national policy for Cabinet level agencies, and has the right to propose a budget to Congress (which is never passed in the form it is presented). So the problems Americans are facing from the health care crisis can only happen if both the federal executive AND legislative branches make sweeping changes in policy. Kerry is not proposing to do that, and neither is Bush.

As a working class person, I haven't noticed that I'm doing any worse financially under Bush than I was doing under Clinton. The cost of gas hurts, and the cost of increasing co-pays and out of pocket medical expenses was happening under Clinton too. When we had health insurance that is. Our coverage has been spotty because of lay offs.

Amos, if elections get suspended, it won't really matter if I was for Nader or Kerry now will it? Actually, that scare tactic won't work on me, as I've been living with the knowledge that it is entirely possible for an American president to declare martial law and suspend elections since Nixon was in office. So this isn't news to me, or newsworthy. I consider it more fear mongering by the cable news channels and the Democratic Leadership Council.

The military was used against US citizens on US soil decades ago, Amos: at Wounded Knee, by Richard Nixon. You see, this is the problem with most Americans. They don't know jack shit about our true history. They just know the official history, the history told to them by television. So all the TV and political party fear mongering works on people like you Amos. But it doesn't work on me. I don't happen to believe that Dubya is worse than Nixon was or Reagan was, and they were two of the worst presidents, along with LBJ and Republicrat Bill Clinton, that I've seen in my lifetime.

Positive legislation was still passed under those presidents I list above, despite them being awful presidents. My mother's awful state of affairs is something that I believe the Clinton presidency, with it's failure to pass health care reform and moving quickly hard to the right as a result of it by beating up on the welfare system instead, has done more damage to the working poor and poor of this country than Bush has. The one two punch of Reagan/Clinton right wing of our government under those two presidents devastated the poor and working poor of this country.

Edwards said in his speech that "finishing welfare reform" was a part of the Kerry/Edwards platform. The Kerry health care platform may or may not bring relief to me. It can't make any difference to my mother at this point. The nursing home takes all the money she gets every month, and leaves her $63.00. The very best thing that government could do to help my mother would be to adequately pay nursing assistants. They aren't going to do that because both the Republicans and Democrats are absolutely hostile to the needs of the working poor in this country.

And by the way Clint, I also already know that the election will either go to Bush or Kerry. If in Idaho you are able to cast a vote for the Green Party candidate, your vote will not be wasted. If enough people vote for the Green Party candidate, the Greens in your state could get matching funds for the next election, and possibly get Greens elected to your state and local governments. THAT is where politicians have the most impact anyway. So please consider that before you decide your vote won't count.

Also, just because you won't be around when the way you voted in this election starts to bring about true social and economic reforms at home and in our foreign policy abroad, please also remember you are always casting a vote for future generations, and not just for yourself. Jaded and cynical as many people are about voting, I'm not one of them. I do still consider it one of my duties of citizenship, along with jury duty (every bit as important as voting), and community service (which I believe should be required of all citizens capable of doing it).

It is because I take my duty seriously that I will not be voting for either of the major party candidates. I believe our only hope is to break the stranglehold the corporate dominated two party electoral system has nationally and locally. The Greens are doing pretty well locally, and so I'm casting my vote in the presidential race in a way where it will make a difference to the most progressive party here at home, as well as send a message to the elitist national leadership of the Democratic party that is totally isolated and insulated from the party base and is working against the party's best interests.

I consider myself a very well informed voter. I'm not wasting my vote, or casting a protest vote. I'm making my vote count where it matters most.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 11:33 AM

re: history of military on US soil

What about the 1920's? Does "Bonus Marches" ring any bells?

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 04:09 PM

Yeh, that remark about me not being around a few elections down the road was a dumb thing to say.

I think I quoted myself out of context. Creeping senility. My grandchildren are going to be around, and i won't be here to help, and I worry about what I'm leaving them.

I would like to be sure America will still be around when I'm not. This is of course an overstatement, but once you elect Hitler there's no use planning several elections ahead. Bush and his merry men have already done more damage to the country than Osama. Or McVeigh, though he doesn't seem to be considered a real terrorist.

Last election I thought it was ok if Nader was a spoiler; that if we got the lesser of two clowns as president it would get somebody's attention. But the lesser clown has done more damage than I would have believed. I see in this morning's paper he has twenty appointments ready to make while congress is in recess.

If you're anemic you need better diet & pills; if you're hemorraging you need a tourniqet & a transfusion. You won't be around for the nutritional treatment.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 04:26 PM

Well Clint, I don't agree that the Bush administration has done more damage to the US than the terrorist attacks by bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh. I think that is a pretty over the top statement, and upon reflection, I hope you decide you are just spouting a bit more hyperbole to make a point about the damage Bush has done BECAUSE he took advantage of our wounding in the wake of 9/11.

But so have the Democrats. It is very clear to me that the Democratic Leadership Council/Democratic party elite is using hatred for Bush, Inc. to destroy the progressive left wing of the party once and for all, and go after those who have left the party to build a progressive movement coalition (ie, Nader, the Greens, and the more progressive libertarians) and do as much damage to them this year as possible. They are doing that to innoculate themselves from any organized resistance to them and their right wing agenda AFTER Kerry wins.

Democratic party lawyers aren't just working in every state to keep Nader off the ballot. They are also working to keep every Green Party candidate at every level off the ballot, wherever they are running.

The progressive movement in the US is better organized and more unified and has more forward momentum than it has had since the 19th century. Which is precisely why the attacks on progressives both inside and outside the Democratic party are so vociferous.

You, of all people Clint, I would think have seen that by now. Both the Kerry/Democratic Leadership Council Democrats and the Limbaugh/Bush administration Republicans are working together to destroy the left, and get all opposition to their global domination from the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada obliterated.

Once they have us pacified and silenced, they will take on Russia, the EU, and China. If you think things are bad now, just wait til we pull out OUR nukes again and start using them to pacify resistance around the globe back to the stone age, with total global impunity.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Nerd
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 08:17 PM

GUEST,

one area that we all probably care about is folk music. Under Clinton, the chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Humanities AND the National Endowment for the Arts were both held by folklorists whose primary interest was folk music [blues in the case of Bill Ferris, old-time country in the case of Bill Ivey]. This led to increased funding across the country for folk music-related events, publications, recordings, etc. That has dried up considerably under Bush, who has appointed typical "high art" advocates to these positions, to the point where many of us who work in the folk arts have been worried about our jobs.

If he could, Bush and his neo-con buddies would eliminate the endowments entirely. This means that under him, a greater amount of time is spent by artists and others who work in the arts in advocating for arts funding, applying for funds, etc, etc., and less time is spent producing and presenting art.

That is just ONE way in which the president really does affect our lives.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 09:42 PM

Different ways of damage, Guest. The terrorists have killed people and destroyed property in a moment of drama.

Bush et al are digging into the foundations of the Constitution, trashing the environment, and doing their best to send us back socially to the days before FDR. (Don't know how far back; at least to Hoover's administration, in some ways to King John Lackland's)

You know the list. Indefinite imprisonment at the desire of the President, allowing mining companies to gouge off mountaintops to fill in valleys and smother streams-- on and on. As you say these are things he did by taking advantage of our wounding. They are things the terrorists couldn't have done by themselves.

It won't take long for the lack of restrictions on corporations and the environmental damage alone will kill more people than 911.

And he's going to be a miserable king to live under.

Bush's damage is less dramatic, but deeper, if he has his way. And he's put a long-lasting hurt on the country already.

Gotta go. I seem to have caught a virus of some kind. And none of this is intended to mean I think Kerry is our savior; he's just less of an immediate threat.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 04 - 11:46 AM

There is no question in most peoples' minds that for Bush to lose would be a whole lot better than Bush winning. In most peoples' minds, this election is about one thing: a thumbs up/thumbs down mandate on Bush.

According to polls done last week of the convention delegates (I've seen numbers vary from 80-90%), the overwhelming majority of them came to the convention to push for an anti-war position on the platform, but were forced to acquiesce to Kerry's pro-war platform. So, ninety percent of the party's rank-and-file have to compromise their position on the war to comply with the 10 percent ruling elite who were supporters of the war, instead of the party taking a stand based on the majority sentiment. There will be no further debate amongst Democrats on this issue. The Democratic party is now officially a pro-war party.

It is also true that the position Kerry and the Democratic Leadership Council have chosen to take on the Iraqi occupation and the perpetual war on terrorism, is ripping the progressive left, not to mention what was once the most powerful anti-war movement ever seen on the planet, totally asunder by forcing this "Anybody But Bush" strategy upon the US left, and the Democratic party is leading the charge to destroy the peace movement.

Despite the fact that the benefits to Kerry of aggressive left support seem so minuscule (if they are even positive) as to make it politically inefficient for people well left of Kerry to move their attention away from long term priority activities toward his campaign, the vast majority of the progressive left have abandoned work on their own issues and agenda, and allowed themselves to get sucked into the election hyperbole and hysteria of the Anybody But Bush machinations of the right wing Democrats.

I certainly agree with the opinions I am FINALLY starting to read in the left press this week, that it may even be electoral suicidal to put aside the long term work of the progressive movements since the deciding factor in the election will likely be elites' perceptions of the probability that Bush can function without disastrous movement and international response and derivative destabilization. Leftists setting aside our antiwar and other activities will diminish rather than increase elite fears. Instead of boosting Kerry we need to provide visible signs that militant opposition is growing.

That, to me, is the challenge we are faced with now. The peace movement can't allow itself to remain silent until after the elections, just to appease the Anybody But Bush faction, in hopes that maybe they won't be demonized on November 3rd the Democratic party right wing, the way Nader and the Greens were in 2000.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: M.Ted
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 02:47 PM

The progressive left in this country, like it or not, has little or no political weight--this results in a "Tinkerbell" mindset, to the effect that if you don't loudly shout "I believe, I believe, I believe" then the little, flittering glimmer of leftist joy and hope will instantly fade away and die--

Ironically, this gives the generally progressive population the impression that the "progressive left" are uncompromising lock-step ideologues who are too inflexible to be taken seriously--This also means that politicians who actually share progressive leftist visions are careful to avoid saying or doing anything that would connect them with the "progressive left"--

America can be only be moved to the left exactly the same way that it was move to the right--by rhetorically embracing the "American Dream" and then quietly shifting policy--

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 02:54 PM

There is a difference between the progressive left as the vanguard of the movements for social change, and the progressive mainstream, which follows them along eventually.

The no-nukes movement is a classic example of this. The anti-nuclear energy movement had been making great strides prior to TMI. Now, there hasn't been any new nuclear energy facilities brought online (except those few that were in the pipeline at the time of TMI) since the accident.

Civil rights movement, lesbian and gay rights movement, etc same thing.

I'm not too worried about being part of the vanguard of the progressive left. It's where I've spent my adult life. It is silly to suggest that because the vanguard is behaving like the vanguard, that we are lock-step ideologues. We aren't professional politicians, is all, so we don't compromise nearly as much as they do. If there wasn't a vanguard to hold the mainstream's feet to the fire, nothing would ever change. Sort of like it's been since 1980.

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: M.Ted
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 04:07 PM

What a joke! Did you even read what I wrote? NO!! Just reply with the same old idiot babble! You may think you are the vanguard, but you are the guys who wandered off into the woods--You never listen, because you think you have all the answers, and you just talk to yourselves--

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Big Mick
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 05:36 PM

M. Ted, you have it right. Both in your position, and your observation on GUEST.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: All Unity! No Dissent! Hawk! Hawk!
From: Nerd
Date: 03 Aug 04 - 11:54 PM

GUEST,

The vanguard of the civil rights movement included Joe Lieberman.

The vanguard of the Anti Viet Nam movement included John Kerry.

They accomplished as much as "progressive leftists" as you are ever likely to. The thing is, they decided they could also have an impact in the Senate.

Your continued attempts to demonize people like them as middle class sheep are not only irritating but also hypocritical and ungrateful.