Amos, I'm not calling all Kerry supporters brownshirts. Just the Kerry supporters who are acting like brownshirts with their bullying and intimidation tactics.

Like you, for instance.

Why is it that those of us who actually ARE making solid, reasonable arguments for NOT supporting the status quo are being snidely dismissed as "idealistic" as if that were a dirty word?

If none of the above is the truly the best choice for you, then why isn't that the choice you are making?

Refusing to vote may well be EXACTLY how we end up changing the system. No one has a crystal ball that foretells the future of the US, so why does the Kerry faction keep vehemently insisting they voting for Kerry is the one and only, true, right way to vote if you have the nation and world's best interests, now and in the future, in mind?

A vote for Kerry is a vote for Citigroup, UBS Financial Services, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. A vote for Nader is a vote for the future, and for the fight AGAINST the candidates bankrolled by Citigroup, UBS Financial Services, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Jack, you dismissed this fact with a cavalier "those corporations are just hedging their bets".

Well, duh! As are you, with your blind, uncritical, deluded support of the corporate candidate of your choice.

Kerry and Bush are the corporate candidate. It doesn't matter who wins, and it doesn't matter who loses the horserace. Either way, global corporate capitalists will be in the White House and in control of Congress.

Because Kerry and Bush supporters put them there. Not Nader voters, or Green voters, or Libertarian voters or Reform Party voters. Kerry and Bush voters. You are voting to maintain the status quo. And in this day and age, you couldn't waste your vote more than that.

Unless of course, the status quo is just the way you like it. Which is what I've decided about the Brownshirts for Kerry. They really DO support that corporate puppet, the same way the Brownshirts for Bush support their corporate puppet. The Don Firths and Jack the Sailors of this world aren't progressives OR liberals. They are conservative, my party right or wrong, have a little want a little more Republicrats.

They don't give a shit about Iraq, about health care reform, about the working poor, just like their candidate doesn't. Just like Kerry will say anything to get elected, the Brownshirts for Kerry will say anything to get Kerry elected.

They are peas in a pod, and I don't think they'll be on my side of the fence when the revolution finally does commence. Which most certainly won't be this election year.