No, I am definitely not dissing Cindy Sheehan. I'm glad she's there and I'm glad she seems hell-bent on kicking butt. This is exactly what needs to be done. But I hope she leans heavily on the Democratic Party, not get involved with some third party and split the progressive vote once again.

As to what third parties have done lately:   Ross Perot split the conservative vote and cost George H. W. Bush the election. Clinton got in. Then Nader split the progressive vote, costing Gore the election, and George W. Bush got in. Do you seriously think that things would not have been any different if Gore had been elected?

I know perfectly well (as does anyone who takes the time to think about it) that the next president will be either a Democrat or a Republican. My particular view of the direction this country needs to go shares very little with the Republican Party. Historically, and in the (at least) lip-service of many Democratic candidates, the Democrats come closer to my view. And I know several Democratic elected officials from my area of the country whose views are very close to mine. Jim McDermott, the congressional representative from my legislative district, has been very outspoken about progressive values, was highly vocal from the very start in opposing Bush's invasion of Iraq, and has been a consistent pain in the ass to the Bush administration. As has Senator Patty Murray (delivered an impassioned speech in Congress against giving Bush war powers). And the junior Senator from my state, Maria Cantwell, has managed to get her act together, and is a strong voice for environmental issues in particular. So I'm pretty happy with my representation in Congress, and all three of them, along with Jay Inslee, another progressive representative from a nearby district, are Democrats.

So I know very well that this canard about there being no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is a crock! (Sorry, Little Hawk, but to a large degree, you don't know whereof you speak. Things here are nowhere near as hopeless as you seem to think.)

I am not a member of any political party. I do, however, go to the Democratic caucuses, and I know what I've been able to accomplish there by mouthing off a lot. I find that there are a lot of people who agree with me, but who are all too often intimidated by the number of more "cautious" Dems who think the way to win elections is to keep trying to get the party to lie down in the middle of the road and play "dead skunk." If someone speaks out, many others who feel the same way will find the courage to do so as well.

But if you just sit there at the computer, pissing and moaning on some web forum about the state of the world and how the Democrats are not doing things the way you think they should be done, and do nothing else about it, then nothing much is going to change, at least in any way you'll approve of.

If you're really concerned, get up off you butt and do something!

But inform yourself and do something intelligent. Bomb-throwers only aggravate the problem.

Don Firth

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.    —Margaret Mead