RFK Jr. did not single-handedly clean up the Hudson. He had lots of help from Pete Seeger.

He is however as Doug says, a intelligent and thoughtful speaker. He is also a wonderful environmental advocate as well as calling it exactly right about corporatocracy and it's takeover of the government.

He seems different than his father. He is much more concerned with grass roots politics and this is the way for us liberals to go.

We can rebuild the Democratic Party from the bottom up. We have to remember that we can't do the smear tactics that are leveled against us by some Republicans. We have to remember that most of the Clinton bashing was done by people who had lots of skeletons in their own personal closets such as Gingrich, and many of the hippo-Christians. When someone smears you,
it's important to see who they are and chances are they are projecting their guilt on others.

Working on the grass roots to get Democratically elected county commissioners, people on the school boards, local races in your community and lots of letters to the editor of every newspaper. We have a Democratic governor in Montana and Washington now. This is the first step to reclaim America.

An independent party was tried in the late forties by Henry Wallace which served a good purpose but had no real traction in the ensuing election. I think that Democrats have got to holler at the DLC and the DNC and let them know they don't represent our base. Dean as DNC chairman could send that message.
If they get the message we can win.

So far, I don't personally see anyone with the charisma of Clinton to lead us. Clinton wasn't perfect for those of us on the left but he did a lot more than what's happening now. We needed to energize our base and we did hold his feet to the fire by opposing the WTO and NAFTA abuses. Clinton was really more of a true Conservative rather than a mainstream Democrat in my opinion. He had the good attributes of Conservatism in that he managed the Federal Budget and did what Gingrich said he wanted to do. There are no true Conservatives left in the Bush Administration.

The worst thing we can do is get so angry that everyone gets turned off and alienated. At the same time we can stand up for what we believe and not compromise.

Frank