BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Nerd
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 09:01 PM

"the only constituency that continues to accuse Nader or any other third party/independent candidates of being spoilers, are the Democratic party and it's hysteria mongering sycophants"

This is easy for GUEST to claim, because anyone who makes this complaint and is not a democrat is simply defined by GUEST as a hysteria mongering sycophant. All it says is "I define the the people who do this as hysteria mongering sycophants, therefore the only people who do it are hysteria mongering sycophants."

Well, what if we define the people who DON'T call Nader a spoiler "Head up their ass dimwits?" Then I can truthfully, and just as meaningfully, say "the only people who don't call Nader a spoiler are head up their ass dimwits!"

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 06:06 PM

I've been to the New York Times website Frank, and can find no mention of any article that proves Nader took money from Swift Boat Vets, just an article that says Democratic party operatives are accusing him of accepting funding from them, and other Republican sources, which Nader has consistently denied.

Now, if a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush/Republicans, then what was a vote for Jesse Ventura? It is widely known that Jesse Ventura split votes off from both the Democrats and Republicans to win the Minnesota governor's race. But the more significant thing he did to win the election was to bring in voters that hadn't been voting to put him over the top.

PBS has been the only network that has dealt with independent and third party candidates. In it's most recent program on the topic, Crashing the Parties 2004, Jesse Ventura said several intersting things. First, about Nader, he absolutely dismisses the charge that Nader was a "spoiler" in 2000. As Jesse pointed out, Al Gore would be president today if he had won either his own home state, or the home state of Bill Clinton. In other interviews, Jesse has also pointed out that the only constituency that continues to accuse Nader or any other third party/independent candidates of being spoilers, are the Democratic party and it's hysteria mongering sycophants.

Jesse also pointed out that all any candidate has to do to win an election these days, is to pull in roughly 1/3 of the regular voters, and 20% of non-voters, to slide to an easy victory. He questions why neither the Democrats or Republicans seem to be able to do this.

The problem with believing that Kerry is a genuine alternative to the status quo despite him being part and parcel of the status quo the Chomskys, et al keep claiming they are fighting to defend by ousting Bush, is that most people who will vote for Kerry will also have convinced themselves of his goodness as a candidate AND as a president, despite their own beliefs to the contrary during the primaries. Already people in Mudcat who opposed Kerry back in the primaries, are showing signs of this sort of muddled thinking. Why do people do this? Because when you rationalize and justify voting for one of the bad guys by saying what a good guy he is, there is a psychological disconnect in most people.

My belief is that most people who have turned their backs on Nader this time who supported him last time, is that they are making a hard turn to the right politically, and that they will likely never return to the progressive values they once professed to hold. Which, of course, turned out to be fashionable empty rhetoric.

There are battle lines being drawn. But most of the Greens and progressives who are going along with the appease the Democrats strategy, will never be on the front lines of the battle again. That will be left to the younger generation they have betrayed, who will soon be tearing it up in the streets again like they did in Seattle.

It is the future generations the appeasers have sold out with their Anybody But Bush rationalizations. Our young people won't forget this betrayal of progressive values by their elders, I assure you.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 06:06 PM

I got a flu shot, and so did anyone who might possibly need one here. But that's England for you.
..............

Change in Putin? Not in the way he's behaving. He's still one of the world's leading masters of terror. He just doesn't do his killing on prime time television.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 22 Oct 04 - 03:42 PM

Bush thinks he is on a mission from God to wipe out the terrorists.
Kerry thinks that terrorism is a nuisance and a legal matter
Nader want to pull all troops immediately and negotiate with them.

Given the three positions, I can live with Door # 1.

PS: Have you noticed the change in Putin since the children massacre in Russia?   Now all he talks about is terrorism and confronting it. I hope we don't have to go through another massacre in the USA to remind us about terrorism.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 09:30 PM

Cheney got a flu shot BOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Hillary got a flu shot YAYYYYYYYYY
Clinton got a flu shot YAYYYYYYYYY


Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 07:57 PM

Re: Noam Chomsky

How about--Noam Chomsky, in contrast to you, courageous Ghost (you're no "Guest") is showing powers of logic you sadly lack.


We go back to the old house-on-fire analogy. First put out the fire, then discuss renovations.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 07:22 PM

The article M Ted refers to is well worth reading. In fact, I finally bit the bullet and registered with the NY Times so I could read the whole thing. It's painless, and you don't have to give any more information about yourself than you do when you register at Mudcat.

A couple of the most telling—and scary—paragraphs in the story:

         In the summer of 2002, after I [Ron Suskind] had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
         The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
         Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community? Many of the other elected officials in Washington, it would seem. A group of Democratic and Republican members of Congress were called in to discuss Iraq sometime before the October 2002 vote authorizing Bush to move forward. A Republican senator recently told Time Magazine that the president walked in and said: ''Look, I want your vote. I'm not going to debate it with you.'' When one of the senators began to ask a question, Bush snapped, ''Look, I'm not going to debate it with you.''

I'm in the process of reading a fairly hefty book entitled The Closing of the Western Mind: the Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman. It deals with how the mingling of early Christianity and neo-Platonism—combined with the Roman emperor Constantine's becoming a Christian and thereby lending the power of the state and the force of law to religious dogma—suppressed the advance of earlier faltering but promising steps in Greek scientific thought (per Aristotle: observe, experiment, and think, the method of people such as Aristarchus, Achimedes, Heraclides, and Hippocrates) and precipitated the Dark Ages in Europe (which did not happen in the Middle East. The Dark Ages finally ended with the importation of "new" knowledge by returning crusaders and the rediscovery of Aristotle, eventually leading to the Renaissance and the rebirth of scientific discovery (this is my oversimplification, but it is essentially true).

Those same dynamics of mysticism and praying and looking inward for the truth rather than looking outward for evidence are at work among some of the nation's leaders. This accounts for their simply dismissing what is obvious to much of the rest of the world.

"If the policy is not supported by the facts, change the facts."

Can we afford four more years of this? I think not.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Oct 04 - 06:00 PM

Most disconcerting is that Bush seems to feel that he has been ordained by God to run the country--Check out the first couple paragraphs of this article from the New York Times Magazine--I'd post a link, but it won't work, because you have to register for the Times before you can access it--

Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND

Published: October 17, 2004

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .


''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis...."

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 02:11 PM

As Garrison Keillor so elegantly recommends, if you like Nader, wear his clothes, his perfume or whatever

Am I alone in thinking, "huh?"

(But I agree with Frank in general)

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 12:50 PM

Guest,

I want to set the record straight. I am for the Million Men March on Washington. I support the raising of the minimum wage. I am on the side of the American worker. I agree with some of the ideas of Nader and Jesse Jackson whether or not I like them personally. (I'm still smarting over the "Hymietown" slur.)

Here's the bottom line. If Bush gets into office on November 4th, 2004, it will not make any difference what Nader, Jesse, you or I think. Why? Because we will see the rise of a new kind of fascism in the U.S. with a Crusader in charge of each branch of our government. He has threatened to put his heel on Kerry's throat. Shouldn't that tell you something? He also has made some interesting Freudian slips in his speeches.

1. That he will stand up for terror.
2. That he favors a draft.
3.   Sept. 4th, 2001 was a significant date for him. Could it be possibly that 9-11 was planned and he knew about it while reading "My Pet Goat"?

It may be that his slips reveal the truth more than any statement he makes on the stump.

As Garrison Keillor so elegantly recommends, if you like Nader, wear his clothes, his perfume or whatever but when you get into the voting booth, please do the right thing for our country and oust the Terminator Crusader who wants to make the Mid-East his "Sudatenland".

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 06:35 PM

Tell Ralph Nader to Send Back the Dirty Swift Boat Money!
Five major donors who have given $13,500 to the right-wing, discredited Republican group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have also given Ralph Nader's presidential campaign $8,000.


http://www.thenaderfactor.com/petition9/

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 05:08 PM

Looking at this map and the poll figures behind them, it seems pretty obvious that anyone living in those states which are shown as dark red or dark blue could happily vote for anyone they like, in the knowledge that this can't make any difference to the result one way or another.

And that's the rationale behind vote swapping - because you can cast that vote for someone you wouldn't normally vote for, on behalf of someone in a marginal state where that vote might make a difference. All it needs is mutual trust, which of course is quite a tall order. But I know people I'd trust in a similar situation, and I'm sure most people do.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 04:50 PM

Honored GUEST has, on a number of occasions, accused me of being brainwashed or being incapable of thinking "outside the box." First of all, I am not a member of any political party, nor have I ever been. And second, it's a bit difficult to brainwash someone who has followed this business as closely as I have over the past several decades. Because I am not a member of any political party, that does not mean that I don't have a political philosophy. I do. It is what most people would call "liberal" or "progressive" (despite the fact that some people regard those terms as swear words).

I have studied up thoroughly on the candidates—all the candidates—and in the light of my political philosophy and in the light of political reality, I have made my decision. My first choice was Dennis Kucinich, and I voted for him in my precinct caucus. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to make it, I favored Howard Dean. When the thing finally shook out, Kerry was the front-runner. I'm quite sure that if either Kucinich or Dean had become the front-runner, GUEST would be turning his/her vitriol on them.

I will be voting for John Kerry.

This does not mean that I am completely smitten with him. Far from it. But considering the apparent political philosophy of George W. Bush (if, indeed, he has a cohesive political philosophy, but his advisors, e.g., Cheney, Rove, Rice et al certainly do), along with his litany of bad decisions, mistakes, deceptions, and downright impeachable offenses (all far worse that Clinton's little peccadillo, which affected neither the nation nor the world, and resulted in the death of no one), another four years of the Bush administration is simply unacceptable.

There is ample justification for the "anybody but Bush" position.

And anyone who knows anything at all about Kerry—beyond the usual Republican and third-party rhetoric—know that he will be a far more competent president in all areas domestic and foreign than Bush. [By the way, did anyone watch Frontline last week?] And in any case, even if he turns out to be as bad as GUEST tries to make him out to be, he can't possibly be worse than what Bush has been—and if Bush actually gets elected this time, he will undoubtedly regard that as a mandate. If you have the courage, think about that for a while!

Too many people (including former supporters) are angry with Ralph Nader for playing the spoiler yet again, and no one can realistically believe that David Cobb will be elected when very few people have ever even heard of him—and the same goes for Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party and Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party, only even more so. No one in his right mind doubts that when the smoke clears and the blood gets mopped up after November 2nd, either John Kerry or George W. Bush will be president-elect of the United States.

Like it or not, the art (or is it "mud-wrestle?") of politics demands compromise. Always has; always will. Sometimes the only reasonable choice is to vote for a front-running candidate you are not particularly enamored with, but who a) has a realistic chance of winning; and b) reflects your political philosophy better than the other front-running candidate. One can refuse to compromise, vote for a candidate who is closer to one's political philosophy than either of the front-runners (even though one reflects it better than the other), and then, while the real bad guy gets elected and the whole world goes down the tubes, sit back and feel smug and self-righteous about one's "uncompromising integrity." But that's small beer. At best, that accomplishes nothing. At worst, it's totally selfish and self-defeating.

Also, like it or not, this is primarily a two-party system. Anyone who seriously believes that there is going to be a great popular movement in which the people will rise up and put either Nader or Cobb into office this election probably also believes in the Great Pumpkin. Not that it can't happen sometime. But when such things are in the offing, they invariably give some indication, and there is certainly no indication that anything like that will occur this time around.

If one is seriously interested in altering the political system in this country, there are two ways to go about it: one is outlined HERE; the other is to join or start a movement to institute Instant Runoff Voting. It wouldn't hurt to do both.

The anger that GUEST exhibits toward those who disagree with him/her reminds me very much of some of the more militant pacifists I met during the Sixties. If you didn't accept every last tenet of non-violence that they espoused, they would be perfectly willing to take you out in the alley and beat the crap out of you.

And speaking of crap, wait 'til after November 2nd. Then we'll see who's full of shit around here.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 01:18 PM

"Where is your proof that Nader took $8,000 from Swift Boat Veterans, FranK?"

Article in the New York Times.

"Telling someone they are full of shit weakens arguments for your generation, maybe, but certainly it doesn't for younger generations."

A generational gap is rely a specious argument. Not all "younger generation" people fall into lock-step and agree.

There are "fringe" groups that do more destruction than good. There were the Weathermen in the Sixties for example. They can be recognized by their
name-calling, violent solutions to social problems and their blind adherence to ideological leaders. Fortunately, they are not represented by any "younger generation".

If you have been following the Kerry stump speeches you would find that he does mention the "working class" as well as the "middle class". The emphasis he gives to the middle class is because it is deteriorating as the dispararity between rich and poor grows. At one time in our history, the working class was the middle class.

As for the Million Worker March and Jesse Jackson, I don't know why or if he didn't endorse it but it may be that he did. There is no proof that he didn't.

Nader is not going to win the presidential election. W (God forbid) might.
In short a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 12:53 PM

You may come from widely different political positions

But I wouldn't be too sure about that. It's very easy to put on a front on the Internet, and easier still when, as a nameless GUEST, you don't have to be too careful about letting the mask slip.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Wolfgang
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 10:04 AM

You know what McGrath? You don't know jack shit about American politics and electoral realities, but that doesn't stop you from spouting off in these threads as if you were a fount of political wisdom. (17 Oct 04 - 12:32 PM)

I 'love' it. When 17 Oct 04 - 12:32 PM feels (s)he's losing an argument on the level of content (s)he's either declaring that the opposition is full of shit or that they don't know shit. Your xenophobic tendencies, 17 Oct 04 - 12:32 PM, and your display of jingoistic feeling of superiority is just as unpalatable as the same stuff from U(ncle)S(am). You may come from widely different political positions, but you are much closer to each other in other respects than you would like to admit.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 01:07 AM

Anonymous guest:

An anonymous guest accusing a non Republican of being full of Republican shit is full of shit.

Now, being so full of shit tell us

Who is Klor de Alva?

Who is George Sorros?

Who is Harold Ickes?

Who is John Sperling?

Who supports Edwards' campaign?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: michaelr
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:07 PM

Blah blah blah

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:58 PM

Spoken like an old hippy, who knows a bit about how to argue with political opponents. And an awful lot of movement people I've worked alongside never managed to learn that. Maybe if they had, we wouldn't be in quite this situation after all these years.

The only time you ever set out to annoy an opponent is when you have some reason to think that this will put them off their balance, and that this will help you. For eample, it might push them over the line, so that they lash out. That clearly doesn't arise in a forum like this, so it's a waste of words.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:52 PM

Well, you are dead wrong on #2. The millions who demonstrated against the Iraq war around the world weren't organized. They responded to the issue, and their feet followed. There truly was no global recruitment campaign that organized the demonstrators in advance, beyond the same organizing that gets done for all major demos. That is what is meant by "mass movement". No one organizes those. They just reach critical mass, like they did when the no-nukes movement stopped nuclear power in it's tracks in the wake of Three Mile Island.

The big difference? The issue, and how strongly millions of people feel about it.

Compromise is not critical to extending political power. There are so many movements throughout history which have proved that, from taxation without representation, to slavery, to women's suffrage, to ending apartheid, etc etc.

You don't compromise on the big stuff, and when you are trying to force the issue, you don't either.

Compromise in conventional governmental politics is merely a buzzword, and really only meaningful in a legislative context. Politics encompasses much, much more than that. When agitation and forcing issues to a higher place on politicians and governments' agendas from outside the system is the goal, you never compromise.

I agree that coalition building is good for the process. But you have to remember, coalition building is also what corporations and their lobbyists do.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: M.Ted
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:30 PM

GUEST/NaderRaider and friends--

I have a lot of trouble with these statements:

>And oddly, they never talk about how the Democratic steamroller for Kerry has crushed the life out >of the movements for change

>The movements for true social, economic, and political change that had surged and grown >dramatically in the wake of the Bush/Cheney election theft of 2000, have now effectively been >destroyed by the liberal pimps and sell-outs for Kerry and the DLC.

for the simple reason that I don't see how any real political movement could be so easily destroyed--

I don't have much disagreement with "progressive" issues (unless you count Nader), but I think that 'progressives" like GUEST don't really understand how to work in the political system-

First--when you act anonymously, you are a non-entity, even to people who agree with what you might have to say--people follow people, not abstract ideas--

Second--issues don't create political power--organization creates political power--you can use an issue to rally the troops, but you have to have recruit and organize the troops first--

Third--Compromise is critical to extending political power, because all political power comes from building coalitions--and you can't consolidate without reconciling differences--

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:28 PM

Spoken like a true old man who is completely out of touch there, McGrath.

What's this, the Sunday school marm standard of rip roaring political argument? Chastising for use of curse words? Give me a break. You guys must really be desperate.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:06 PM

You too are full of shit Old Guy. Full of Republican shit.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:06 PM

Mouthing off against an opponent does bugger all to convince that opponent, no matter what generation they are. It never did.

Much better to save it for the occasional situations where it can be useful enough, for example as a way of generating group solidarity.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:03 PM

Frank:

Who is Klor de Alva? A. A billionaire from Brazil who is trying to influence the Colorada election.

Who is George Sorros? A. A billionaire who said that he would give up all of his money if he could guarantee a loss for Bush.

Who supports Edwards' campaign? A. More than half comes from lawyers, lawyers' families and employees.

Who is full of shit?

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:54 PM

Where is your proof that Nader took $8,000 from Swift Boat Veterans, FranK?

Answer: you don't have any. You are falling victim to the urban legends the left has circulating, especially on the Internet, about this election. Another urban legend of this sort: that Bush had a device under his jacket in debate #2, and Karl Rove was feeding him his lines through an earpiece.

Telling someone they are full of shit weakens arguments for your generation, maybe, but certainly it doesn't for younger generations. Also, labeling people who have disagreed with you strongly as "fringe" is also a tactic that most people see through also. Trying to demonize the opposition with statements like you make in your last paragraph--people are wise to that too.

Kerry has repeatedly said he is working for the middle class. Here it is straight from his website. Middle class, Frank. Not the poor, not the working poor, not the working class.

Did he endorse yesterday's Million Worker March, which had the backing of Rev Jesse Jackson, Martin Luther King III, etc? No he did not. And he made sure the AFL-CIO, who is supporting him, along with many of the other internationals, didn't support it either.

Nader, however, did.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 01:28 PM

Guest,

Nader has taken $8,000 from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth which he hasn't returned. These are the smear group that is headed by John O'Neil and financed by members of the RNC and billionaires like T. Boone Pickens. This is the group that is illegally airing the "Stolen Honor" smear-umentary on John Kerry for Sinclair. That shows you something about Nader's integrity.

Kerry has said conclusively in his campaign speeches and in the debates that he is in support of the Middle and the Working class in this country. Edwards has been specific about this as well. Kerry is being supported by many labor unions.

The problem is that when you tell a guy that he's full of shit, it weakens your argument. It's a problem the fringe Left has had for a long time and makes them vulnerable to a kind of weakness. You can't yell down those who you disagree with and expect to win anything. Decent language is the only way
to a reasonable dialogue unless Naderites have dispensed with dialogue and just enjoy yelling.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,US
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 02:03 AM

I suppose all you union members are the ones whining about jobs leaving the US and blaming it on Bush when unions and lawyers are the ones running the jobs away.

All that marching shit just wears out your shoes faster and supports those off shore shoe makers.

Uncle Sam

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 03:19 PM

BTW, here is MY union's response to the AFL-CIO's decision to help the Kerry/DLC Democrat's attempts to crush our movment, BTW.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:39 PM

You are full of shit Frank, and mouthing the propaganda of the Anybody But Bush Democratic Leadership Council camp, about supposed Republican funding and signature gathering for Nader. How about we talk about the anti-democratic initimdation campaign the Democrats have waged against Nader? The Democratic party's lawsuits to keep Nader off the ballot in 20 states? The knocks on the doors in the middle of the night of signature gatherers for Nader, threatening them with legal action if they "illegally" accept a voter registration from someone who isn't eligible to vote?

You are completely out of step with the times. The groups that are coalescing together on the left are leaving your generation's fractured tendencies behind, and uniting under a new unified banner. We aren't the lame ass AFL-CIO angry white men anymore.

We are united as never before against war, racism, exploitation, and in defense of civil liberties and civil and human rights. We aren't beholden to corporate power or corporate unions like the AFL-CIO, which has actively campaigned to stop today's Million Worker March.

Why the attempt to stop union members from participating in today's march? Simple: the Kerry campaign told them to oppose it. We know damn well whose side Senator John Kerry is on, and it most certainly isn't the workers, especially the unorganized working poor of this country. John Kerry has said it over and over and over again: he is working for the middle class, not the working class and the poor.

We know which side our bread is buttered on, thank you very much.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:31 PM

Was that GUEST response to my last post actually from the same person as the other GUEST posts? If so, my gut feelings that there's something dodgy about this "progressive" are very much strengthened. That kneejerk xenophobia sounded sincere, and it's a tone that's pretty characteristic of...
................................

Quite a lot of American voters will be getting letters from people in this country, I believe, mostly from non-celebrities. The Guardian is pushing the idea quite hard - Letters to Clark County. I am inclined to think it's probably not a great idea, because people can get touchy about that kind of thing. (If I was sending a letter to a total stranger in that way, I'd be very tempted to urge the person I was writing to back Bush, in the expectation that this might make them think twice about doing so.)

However the point is, in a very real sense the man elected in November isn't just the US President, but also the nearest approach to the President of Earth. God help us. It's no wonder that people outside the USA get concerned about what's going to happen. It's our future that's likely to be screwed up as well.

I imagine it must have felt a bit like this for people living out in the Roman Empire watching the in-crowd in Rome and its environs sorting out who was to be Emperor. The Romans generally got it wrong too, and they sure did squabble about it...

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Frank
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:20 PM

There is a speculation that Nader is been unduly influenced by Fred Newman's cult political group, New Alliance for America from which he receives financial support. He also receives money from the RNC.

Nader is simply not presidential material and a vote for him is a vote for four more reckless and unprincipled, irresponsible shenanigans in the White House.

The Left really needs to rethink and reframe it's position. It has a history of factionalism, rancor, and reaction. Not all Lefties agree and often vehemently disagree. In the meantime, the Wrong-wing is walking all over us because they are in lockstep. Many are the advocates of a demented so-called president who offers religious Crusades instead of sound policy. The Left can't fight that with Nader regardless of all the chest pounding and rage they offer.

First, get this religious fanatic out of office before he starts a scorched-earth policy in the Middle East to bring about his delusional Rapture. That's the only reason Bush supports Israel. That's why Karl Rove is whistling "Onward Christian Soldiers". It's not about the "facts" or "policies" anymore folks. It's about religous fascism taking over our country. Nader would do well to speak to that.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Fishpicker
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:06 PM

Little Hawk,


"Resident vermin", Great! I hope you will allow me to add that one to my repertoire without having to send you a royalty check.

                        FP

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,US
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 02:00 PM

Excuse me it was not Steven Hawking but Richard Dawkins.

Do you Limeys need any advice? OK then Fuck off and mind your own business.

Uncle Sam

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 01:51 PM

Selling toothpaste and selling a candidate is a very similar process in the prevailing $y$tem... :-)

Did you know that swishing some salty water around in your mouth after brushing your teeth in the evening will go farther to protect them than the expensive commercially sold products will? It will not protect you, however, against a 2-party corporate dictatorship that masquerades as a democracy.

Did you know that shaving foam is a totally useless product? Try using a little lathered shampoo instead. It works great, and the razor doesn't get plugged up with sticky gunk from it either. Way cheaper than shaving foam, and works better be cleaning off oils from your skin and the razor.

Another totally useless product: drinking straws. Pointless.

Another totally useless product: Electric can opener. Ridiculous. People who think they need one should buy a machine to yawn and sneeze for them too, I suppose.

Here's another tip: Fresh human urine kills athlete's foot fungus totally dead. Use your own in the shower, then shower it off and wash it down the drain. Costs nothing, unlike the expensive anti-fungal creams and other remedies you are encouraged to buy at the drugstore.

A pity that one can't achieve the same clean sweep of resident vermin and parasites by peeing on the political $y$tem, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 01:11 PM

Guest US, I would no more listen to an English celebrity than I would a Hollywood celebrity regarding how to vote. This whole "celebrity endorsement" game is appallingly undemocratic, and just another demonstration of the corporate marketing tactics being used to sell candidates. Celebrities should stick to selling toothpaste.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 01:07 PM

Oops, I should have said "Greens ARE NOT ready to be a mainstream party." My bad.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 01:05 PM

If I can get even one Bush voter to stay home, I'd be successful.

Politics, especially in this climate, is not for the polite or the squeamish. Which is why, after flirting with voting for Cobb, I decided against it, for the same reason why Nader refused to run as a Green Party candidate this year: the Greens are ready to be a mainstream party. They keep waffling on running a presidential candidate of their own, and even when they do run their own candidate, they waffle and say "but it's OK if you vote Democratic instead."

It is NOT ok to build a party with that spineless sort of waffling. More than anything, Greens, like liberal Democrats, want everyone to like them.

IMO, I and the electorate don't need to personally like the candidates we vote for, but we do need to know they have a strong enough spine to stand strong and tough against special interest pressures, pressures from fellow politicans and lobbyists, and have a strong, clear vision with a strategy for working to realize that vision, for the citizens of the nation and the world.

Politics is a rough and tumble business, especially for honest people like Nader. But I can't think of any politician who has been stronger and tougher than he has over the years, accomplishing a tremendous amount of positive stuff, pushing legislation through a completely hostile (to him & his issues) Congress, executive branch, and judicial branch. Nader is exactly the kind of leader I would love to have in the White House, because he knows how to take the career politicians and lobbyists to task to get the job done.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,US
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 12:57 PM

I hear US voters are geting letters from "prominent" English men such as Steven Hawking.

Englishmen: Fuck off and mind your own business.

Uncle Sam

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 12:46 PM

Guest-

It sounds like you DO know jack shit about American politics. In fact, I'm convinced you're full of it. Keep on spewing it out. You may even discourage some Bush supporters from voting.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 12:32 PM

You know what McGrath? You don't know jack shit about American politics and electoral realities, but that doesn't stop you from spouting off in these threads as if you were a fount of political wisdom. You ain't. You are naive, blissfully and stubbornly ignorant of facts, trends, history, and tactics which work in the US, rather than your merry olde England.

The ludicrous suggestion that voter trading can even be organized, much less should be, is an excellent example of your bizarre form of "strategic" thinking.

You don't know what the hell you are talking about. You don't live in the US, have no experience doing political and/or electoral organizing and strategizing here, so why not just shut the fuck up and stay out of it?

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 12:27 PM

Except when it actually is part of a Bush dirty tricks campaign, this kind of squabble is just silly.

The sensible thing to do is organise voter trading, maximising the anti-Bush vote where it is effective, and in the process maximising the Nader and Green vote in other places.

Here's the "VotePair" site. (Though, for Mudcatters over in the States who are inclined to try this, I'd have thought doing it via PMs with Mudcatters you trust to keep their word might make more sense, since trust is the essential feature in this kind of arrangement.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 12:17 PM

Except when it actually is part of a Bush dirty tricks campaign, this kind of squabble is just silly.

The sensible thing to do is organise voter trading, maximising the anti-Bush vote where it is effective, and in the process maximising the Nader and Green vote in other places.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST,Old Guy
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 10:48 AM

A leaked page from the Kerry Edwards Democratic Election Colorado Election Day Manual, November 2004:
http://www.drudgereport.com/dnc.jpg
"If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a pre-emptive strike (particularly suited to states in which there techniques have been tried in the past).
• Issue a press release
    i. Reviewing Republican Tactic used in the past in your area or state
    ii. Quoting party/minority/civil rights leadership as denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting
• Prime Minority leadership to discuss the issue in the media; provide talking points
• Place stories in which minority leadership expresses concern about the threat of intimidation tactics
• Warn local newspapers not to accept advertising that is not properly disclaimed or that contains false warnings about voting requirements and/or about what will happen at the polls

In other words plant a seed if discontent in the minds of minoritys to make them think the Republicans are trying to take away their right to vote. Cause anger against Republicans if none exists.

If you think these tactics are acceptable, replace the word Republican with Democrat, replace Kerry Edwards with G W Bush, reread the page and see if it still acceptable.

Old Guy

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 10:44 AM

Of course you applaud candidates that say "vote for the other guy, not me". That is because the fear people have of standing up to the Bush/Cheney camp is so strong, that they have lost track of their spines.

And if you think John Kerry has a spine he will use to stand up to the plutocracy, you are seriously deluded. He will represent the interests of the plutocracy, NOT the citizens of the US of A and the world.

I am advocating EVERYONE vote. I just refuse to advocate that EVERYONE vote for Kerry. I don't see Kerry as the messiah that the Anybody But Bush camp keeps proclaiming him to be. I see widespread evidence of a deep and wide reactionary voting pattern amongst people who will vote for Bush or Kerry, because that way they don't need to think about what a Bush presidency or Kerry presidency will mean.

Bush and Kerry are both the products being sold by the two corporate parties, which are just like Disney and Viacom. The duopoly candidates are two corporate entities competing for market share, and selling different brands of the same product.

And I, along with millions of other true progessives, am not buying what they are selling.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 10:14 AM

I suspect the chief motivation of our agent provocateur "guest" is to discourage progressive minded folks from voting at all. It's a pretty simple strategy.

You know I'll feel a whole lot better protesting Kerry's actions in the White House for the next 4 years than having to deal with the consequences of Bush getting re-elected.

And I applaud the national Green Party candidates who advocate voting for Kerry in states where the Presidental race appears close.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 10:08 AM

Hitler's rise to power was facilitated by the fact that the Liberals and the Socialists and the Communists were battling it out in the streets and the press. There are times when trying to block a Popular Front is a serious mistake. (And no I'm not identifying Bushism with Hitlerism - that's merely an illustrative analogy.)

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 09:40 AM

The movements of millions for political change WERE facing in the right direction before they were crushed by the Democrats and the Kerry/Edwards campaign, McGrath. That is why the arguments that we can protest and dissent after the election are so specious.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Peace
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 10:22 PM

Political commentary using imagery, metaphors and personification. I love it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Choking on Progressives for Kerry'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 06:04 PM

As far as I'm concerned, Bush and Kerry are two rotten teeth in the mouth of the same world-devouring dragon. The Democrats and Republicans are the left and right sides of its ravening jaws. I prefer the left side a wee bit, but that's not saying much, cos you get chewed up and swallowed all the same.