Moderate vs Progressive Democrats

Very broadly, I agree that if a Democrat tries to run as a "Republican-lite," they'll lose. I like the approach of Senator Doug Jones (D-AL), who was elected in a red state fluke election but has conducted himself as a real Democrat rather than by trying to please conservatives.

In the piece Seven Centrist Defeats, I was only around and paying attention from Mondale on, so I'll start with him. He had a good idea in promising to raise taxes. That sent the Reagan campaign into a tizzy. But Mondale had nothing to follow it up with. He had no ideas beyond that. There were no great, burning issues at the time when a challenger was trying to unseat an incumbent. That would have been a challenge at the best of times.

Yes, Dukakis tried to run as a "Reagan-lite" candidate and not as a Democrat. Plus which, he was up against a dirty trickster ("Willie Horton"). As the elder George Bush was so close to Reagan, he was essentially running as an incumbent.

I don't think anyone really doubted that Kerry would have been better on Iraq despite Kerry's stupid statement, but the Swift Boat Veterans really did him in. To their shame, the media allowed the group to dominate news coverage for the critical month of August, after which Kerry had permanently lost the veteran vote. And yes, again, by putting on the "I'm just as right-wing as the Republican incumbent is," that reduced progressive enthusiasm.

Vladimir Putin weakened Clinton and kept the contest close, plus which the Republican Party simply wasn't going to vote for a Democrat and even less for a woman. Clinton was ahead by a small, but steady margin right up until James Comey's last-minute intervention.

I completely support the Green New Deal and think much of the platform of Senator Sanders is very good. There's not much daylight between us on policy.

But very importantly, moderate Democrats did far better in their races in 2018 than progressive Democrats did. The popularity of AOC and The Squad has obscured this.

Moderate Democratic candidates were the big winners of swing congressional districts in the 2018 midterm elections, flipping most of the 28 key House districts from Republicans’ control and winning key gubernatorial races, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Illinois. Democrats’ net gain in the House was 26 seats.

Gun bill “fails” with 54 in favor and 46 against

There are two methods of fixing the Senate rules, there's the “Constitutional Option,” where the rules are changed at the beginning of the two-year session and then there's the “Nuclear Option,” where the rules are changed mid-session. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), opted for a really mild, watered-down Constitutional Option this last January in order to deal with the filibuster (Note: the filibuster is not in the Constitution and the first filibuster didn't occur until 1837). We saw today with a vote on an already weakened and watered-down gun safety bill that the Constitutional Option produced an insufficient safeguard against an out-of-control overuse of the filibuster, where a minority of the Senate opposes a measure supported by around 90% of the American people.

Wonkette replies to a disgruntled conservative with a scathing, NSFW (Not Safe For Work) commentary (The conservative whined and moaned about former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords “bullying” people), which expresses my mood about Harry Reid and the filibuster quite well.

Update: Excellent reaction by President Obama. Hear! Hear!

Jonathan Chait's case for Obama

I guess what really annoys me about the last paragraph in Jonathan Chait's “What the Left Doesn’t Understand About Obama” (Sep 2), is that the piece as a whole reminds me of how my brother-in-law described Colin Powell's 2003 speech at the UN, warning us all of Iraq's mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction. He told me that “Yeah, it was real convincing, provided of course, that you had no prior knowledge of the debate and had no knowledge of the issues. Other than that, yeah, it was really persuasive.”

Chait's final paragraph was:

Liberal critics of Obama, just like conservative critics of Republican presidents, generally want both maximal partisan conflict and maximal legislative achievement. In the real world, those two things are often at odds. Hence the allure of magical thinking.

This might be convincing if President Obama had truly “left everything on the road,” had he truly made a genuinely maximal effort to achieve the goals he said he was committed to. “Liberal critics” were very much aware that the legislative option of “reconciliation” was available for passing the Affordable Care Act in the Senate, meaning that it was completely unnecessary to have a supermajority of 60 Senators to bypass the Senate's filibuster rule (The House operated by plain old majority rule, so there was no need for any bypassing there). The filibuster is, by the way, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. Chait's statement:

Yes, Bush passed his tax cuts — by using a method called reconciliation, which can avoid a filibuster but can be used only on budget issues.

But that's a rather bizarre observation, considering that reconciliation was used after the Senate passed the Affordable Care Act, but before it went to the House for final passage of various fixes. It simply wasn't necessary for Obama and his people to permit the Blue Dog Democrats to act as though they had veto power over what went into, and what got thrown out of, the bill. Sure, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) was a terrible fellow for getting the public option deleted from the ACA, but Speaker Pelosi made it clear that, although she was in favor of re-introducing it “...the Obama administration [had] shown no interest in the public option over the past year.“


Yes, President George W. Bush conducted a PR campaign to gut Social Security and feed it to the sharks of Wall Street, but I paid pretty close attention to the 2004 campaign for Bush's re-election, but after that campaign and vote, the introduction of his plans concerning Social Security came as a complete surprise to me. Bush had successfully convinced America that Senator John Kerry (D-MA) couldn't be trusted to be our President, but that's pretty much all that the 2004 campaign was about. It was also clear that Bush wanted to continue the Iraq War and that Kerry was a bit less enthusiastic about that, but Social Security was simply never an issue in the campaign. So yes,

Bush did have one episode where he tried to force through a major domestic reform against a Senate filibuster: his crusade to privatize Social Security. Just as liberals urge Obama to do today, Bush barnstormed the country, pounding his message and pressuring Democrats, whom he cast as obstructionists. The result? Nada, beyond the collapse of Bush’s popularity.

But this episode says absolutely nothing about the filibuster and nothing about the ability of Presidents to force Congress to do as they urge it to do through PR campaigns. If Bush had a mandate, if he was describing reality by saying "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style." then yes, one could draw conclusions about how effective it is to barnstorm the country on a PR campaign. But a far better example would be Harry Truman's Whistle-Stop Tour, where he reminded the public what the Democratic Party stood for:

I'm asking you just to read history, to use your own judgment, and to decide whether you want to go forward with the Democratic Party or whether you want to turn the clock back to the horse and buggy days with such people that made up that "do-nothing" 80th Congress.

That Congress tried its level best to take all the rights away from labor. That Congress tried its level best to put the farmer back to 1932. That Congress tried its level best to put small business out of business. For what purpose? To help the big interests which they represented.

Note that Truman was successful precisely because he wasn't trying to ram through a deeply unpopular proposal. He was, instead, reminding people of what they already liked about the Democratic Party. Sorry Chait, but if Obama tours the country, advocating a jobs program, then I think Obama's job would be far more similar to Truman's tour than to Bush's.

Perhaps the oddest feature of the liberal indictment of Obama is its conclusion that Obama should have focused all his political capital on economic recovery. “He could likely have passed many small follow-up stimulative laws in 2009,” Jon Walker of the popular blog Firedoglake wrote last month. “Instead, he pivoted away from the economic crisis because he wrongly ignored those who warned the crisis was going to get worse.”

Nothing the slightest bit “odd” about it. Historically, a high unemployment rate has doomed presidential re-election chances. Getting Americans back to work was and remains a top-of-the-line political priority.

Rather than deploy every ounce of his leverage to force moderate Republicans, whose votes he needed, to swallow a larger stimulus than they wanted, Obama clearly husbanded some of his political capital.

Sorry, but I saw that in early 2009 and continue to see it today as an extremely poor strategic choice. That political capital did Obama no good whatsoever in passing the ACA and winning over “moderate” Republicans (Whose voting records tend to be indistinguishable from their more hard-line colleagues in any event) has been a complete bust. Obama saved his political capital for nothing.


But by far the most serious problem, as the economist Brad DeLong points out, was that Obama pivoted to deficit reduction far, far too early. Appointing the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commission (Progressives popularly refer to it as the “Catfood Commission” and it's second iteration, the “super committee” created by the debt-limit deal, as “Catfood Commission II”) was a true stinker of an idea that, among many other problems, made it politically impossible to ask Congress for another stimulus without the Obama Administration appearing to be a bunch of incompetents. This was an entirely unforced error that has severely hamstrung the Obama Administration, turned them away from their own best interests and aided and abetted their political opposition by making it appear that their favorite issue since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, deficit reduction, was more important than putting people back to work, addressing Global Warming or addressing Peak Oil. All three of these issues are many, many times more important than deficit reduction is, was or ever will be.


No, I disagree with Chait's title, I think the left understands Obama just fine. Obama's a moderate Republican. He's in the wrong party and his errors have probably made a second term impossible. He needs to disband Catfood Commission II and he needs to adopt a full-blown campaign to get Americans back to work. He needs to put deficit reduction on the far, far back burner until other priorities are addressed and are well on the way to being solved.

The Obama Administration should hang its head in shame

Shirley Sherrod, the USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, told a story from 24 years ago, the heavily-edited tape from that speech was shown and the Obama Administration acted like a bunch of hysterical children, firing Sherrod immediately. Did they get her side of the story first? They say they did, but that appears to an after-the-fact butt-covering excuse. The statement by Tom Vilsack, the US Secretary of Agriculture, said:

The controversy surrounding her comments would create situations where her decisions, rightly or wrongly, would be called into question making it difficult for her to bring jobs to Georgia.

But if her statements were completely fair and appropriate, and the statements were made at an NAACP Freedom Fund dinner, and somehow nobody there got the impression that there was anything controversial about them, then I dunno, but it seems to me that the Cabinet member, and most likely the President who backed up the decision, overreacted to a smear job.

A right-wing blogger, the Anchoress, suspected right off the bat that there was a lot more to the speech by Sherrod than the heavily-edited tape that was released by Andrew Breitbart was letting on:

Doesn't it seem like, after all of that sort of winking, "you and I know how they really are" racist crap wherein Sherrod-intentionally or not-indicts her own narrow focus, she was heading to a more edifying message? What did it open her eyes about? Was she about to say "I took him to one of his own, but it shouldn't have mattered about that; my job was to serve all the farmers who needed help."

Was she about to say, "I learned about myself and about how far we still have to go?" [all emphases in original]

At the same link, MMFA reviews Breitbart's frequent problems with the truth, which of course makes the Obama Administration look even worse. They apparently took the word of a known con man over that of one of their own employees. Speaking from my own experience, I was in the Navy for almost a decade. If I had been caught in an embarrassing posture like Sherrod was, the procedures for my supervisors to have followed would have been crystal clear. My immediate supervisor would have been called. My supervisor would have huddled with me. He/she and I would have gone up the chain of command and would have spoken to the Department Head or the Executive Officer. After that, various huddles would have been held, with people bringing their viewpoints to the Commanding Officer and would probably have resulted in a meeting of myself, my supervisor, my Department Head, the XO and the CO. The final decision would have been something that more or less everybody would have been satisfied was the right thing to do. If I had been right, the chain of command would have stood by me. Had I been wrong, they would have dumped me overboard. But this kind of hasty, panicked decision? This kind of unhinged hysteria?

Sherrod told CNN on Tuesday that she was told repeatedly to resign Monday afternoon after the clip surfaced. "They harassed me," she said. "I got three calls from the White House. At one point they asked me to pull over to the side of the road and do it because you are going to be on Glenn Beck tonight."

Seriously, the White House needs to hang its collective head in shame.

Update by Susan (DailyKos): And some rollback and apologies begin, according to Bloomberg:

The Obama administration apologized to a black USDA employee who was forced to resign after an edited video clip of her remarks suggested she acted with racial bias in dealing with a white farmer 24 years ago.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack acted without having all the information about the speech by Shirley Sherrod at an NAACP banquet in Georgia in March. Vilsack is trying to contact Sherrod to discuss whether she will return to the agency, he said.
“A disservice was done,” Gibbs said at a White House briefing. “The secretary will apologize for the actions that have taken place over the past 24 to 36 hours.”

"Disservice" is putting it mildly.
Update: Shirley Sherrod has accepted the apology.

Special election in Massachusetts lost

Well, Al Franken was sworn in as the Democrats' 60th Senator on the 7th of July 2009 and a bit less than 200 days later, on the 19th of January 2010, Democrats lost the special election held in Massachusetts in which the late Senator Ted Kennedy was replaced. As the fake-news comedian Jon Stewart put it, "the Democrats won't be able to pass health care reform with an 18-vote majority," a majority that George W. Bush NEVER had and remember, he could do whatever the %#@ he wanted to do!!!

Is this all bad news? Hmm, not necessarily. The Senate could give up the pipedream of getting things through with a filibuster-proof majority and could concentrate on using tactics like reconciliation and possibly modifying the filibuster rule (It's not in the Constitution, so it won't require a Constitutional amendment to remove or modify it) so that it would be a great deal tougher for the minority party to stop up progress and toss all sorts of obstacles in the way. It means that Democrats would no longer have the excuse of having to cater to minority Senators from small states like Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Max Baucus (D-MT) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). There's strong evidence that spending time and attention on these fringe players and specifically, that re-working the health care bill to meet their demands has crucially deflated the morale of the Democratic Party's progressive voter base.

Progressive bloggers in general didn't feel appreciated and most certainly weren't listened to. As the late Molly Ivins put it, quoting an old Texas saying "Ya dance with the one who brung ya." Obama and his people didn't spend any time "dancing" with progressives, they were too busy chasing "centrist" (Read: "fringe" i.e., off to the right of where the party's base voters are) votes to see to it that progressive voters felt that the Democratic Party was concerned about their priorities.

What do liberals/progressives have to show for our roughly 200 days of a filibuster-proof majority? Damn little. There's very little that we can put up on the wall to say "See? We accomplished that with our filibuster-proof majority!" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) admitted a few days ago that trying to get Senator Snowe to vote for the health care bill was a complete waste of time. Yeah, it would have been great to have had a least one Republican vote so that Democrats could claim a "bipartisan" victory, but

"As I look back it was a waste of time dealing with [Snowe]," Reid is quoted as saying

The House health care bill was voted out of its various committees right before the August recess and got their combined bill out by early November, but the final Senate committee didn't get its bill out until October and the Senate didn't get their combined bill out until late December. So the Senate was very significantly slower than the House and it made a great many more compromises, compromises which might significantly affect how well the final bill might work in practice. As progressives have pointed out, the public option, which was jettisoned to get Senator Lieberman's vote, is not just a "nice to have" feature, it's absolutely critical if the health care bill is to work.

"Our priority on the public option, the emphasis was not on 'public' - the emphasis was on 'option,' on something 'other than,'" [Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)] said. "The president said from the start, 'I believe that the public option is the best way to keep the insurance companies honest and increase competition. If you have a better idea, put it on the table ... So we will see what they have on the table."

Critics such as Dr. Quentin Young, of Physicians for a National Health Program, see a public insurance plan as having been sacrificed for conservative Democratic votes. "We are very dissatisfied with the way the end of stage negotiations are going," he said. "It seems to use from the very first day the administration has made concessions to the conservative wing who dominates the Senate."

Solution? Dump the provisions that the Senate's rogue, fringe (allegedly "centrist") Senators insisted on, restore the public option and dump the anti-abortion provisions. Make this bill something progressives can be proud of and ignore the beltway press when it squeals "You're not being bipartisan!" Just tell the press corps "No, we're not being bipartisan, we're seeing to the needs of the American people. That means we have to toss this idiotic bipartisanship fetish out the window and concentrate on producing good policy."

The House health care bill and reproductive choice

Huzzah! The House of Representative passed a reasonably decent health care bill. Now it's on to the Senate, where simply avoiding a filibuster is the major problem.

Major problem with the House's bill, though. Women and their reproductive choice got "thrown under the bus" so that the Democrats could get the bill passed. As Jane Hamsher explains (And yes, her language is a bit raw in this piece, but her anger is clearly justified), NARAL and Planned Parenthood were informed on July 1st that Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI) and his merry band of anti-abortionists wanted the health care bill to explicitly exclude coverage for reproductive choice. When the day came that the House could either pass the health care bill with the poison pill of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment or watch several months worth of work go down the drain, NARAL and PP had nothing in the works, nothing had been planned or positioned in advance, no money had been saved up, no lobbying had been done.

Well, will PP and NARAL at least "score the bill", i.e., will they make voting for the bill as it's currently written an offense sufficient to cause a Congressperson to be "downgraded" and denied reelection help?

Wel-l-l-l, er, um, no.

Is it a good idea for Democrats to toss aside the female, single, childless demographic?

No actually, that would be utterly suicidal. That would guarantee that Democrats would lose the 2010 midterms and that Obama would be a one-term President.

As to the plan of using all 60 Senators in the Democratic caucus to overcome a filibuster... Nuh-uh. Ain't gonna happen. The choices are stark. The Democrats can use the reconciliation process to get around the inevitable filibuster, or they can compromise the bill so much that it won't be worth passing. It'll be the Stupak problem all over again.

America can get a good health care bill, but we're coming down to the crunch time where we learn whether or not it will be a bill worth passing.

Very disturbing to see Van Jones retire under pressure

Van Jones has resigned as Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality, he claims that "opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me." Glenn Beck, who has very fortunately lost 57 advertisers due to his hysterical on-camera campaigns that have begun to enter very dangerous territory by using "analysis" that the fascists of mid-century Europe would have been comfortable with, has been the primary reason that Van Jones was under attack.

Thankfully, the Obama Administration does not appear to be giving way on the President's televised speech to schoolchildren scheduled for the first day of school, despite screeching and hollering by the right wing over it.

Then there was Michael Savage, the third most listened to radio host in America, who put it this way: "Hitler had the Hitler Youth, and Obama would like to have the Obama Youth."

Seems one of the "problems" that has caused the Obama Administration to pull back on defending Van Jones is that he also signed a "911Truth" statement.

Jones recently issued two apologies. One was for calling Republicans "assholes." The other was for signing a statement in 2004 supporting a call for further investigation of 911, which suggested that the Government might have had a role in the 911 attack. The original document can be found here, with Van Jones the 46th signatory (and this writer [Rob Kall of OpEd News] was the 47th.) Ironically, one of the most vocal "birthers, who question the validity of Obama's birth certificate, Phillip J. Berg, was also a signatory of the same statement, 8th on the list.

As there are significant numbers of American citizens who feel that there are numerous unanswered questions concerning 9/11 (A above-cited poll puts the percentage at 40%), this placed the Obama Administration in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of situation. On the one hand, they appear to be surrendering to a TV personality who really seems to have gone off the deep end, on the other hand, throwing a staffer under the bus at a time when people are questioning Obama's commitment to really pushing for a health care bill that will serve something other than wealthy financial interests makes the timing very poor.


Update: Jane Hamsher's view - The proprietress of the progressive website FireDogLake.com weighs in on the Van Jones case with a piece that urges liberals, progressives and leftists and their associated watchdog institutions to remain at an arm's distance from Democratic administrations.
Being too close to the Obama Administration has penned in those who need to maintain a skeptical view.
Oh, and she cites a poll that says that those members of the Democratic Party who believe 9/11 was an inside job constitute about 30% of the party as of 2007. Yes, Van Jones is in a minority, but it's a pretty big chunk of the party's base. The statement that Van Jones signed.

Inky piece on health care today

In a front-page piece today:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that government insurance was "not the essential element" of an overhaul, and that a Senate proposal to create nonprofit cooperatives could be an alternative way of creating new competition for insurance companies to drive down costs.

Erm, sorry, but no.

From a piece in FireDogLake:

1. "The cooperatives' potential to reduce overall premiums is limited because (1) they lack sufficient leverage as a result of their limited market share; (2) the cooperatives have not been able to produce administrative cost savings for insurers; or (3) their state laws and regulations already restrict to differing degrees the amount insurers can vary the premiums charged different groups purchasing the same health plan."
2. "There's a lot of GOP leadership in that above list [that oppose co-ops], but even more importantly, two out of the three Republican Senators negotiating themselves oppose co-ops. Senator Grassley is opposed and Senator Enzi is really opposed. "

Not only are co-ops a complete non-answer, neither Republicans nor conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats will use them as a basis for negotiations.

Obama is losing me on health care

Okay, so first the former Republican Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, goes onto her Facebook page (Signing up to Facebook is free, but link not available to non-Facebook members) on 7 August and delivers a completely insane rant about "Death Panels" (PolitiFact examines the charge and finds it to be completely without merit). Something to do with bureaucrats sitting at desks deciding on the basis of spreadsheet projections or somesuch whether a loved relative, whether a new-born child or a great-grandparent, should live or die. This talking point is actually not brand new. It actually goes back a few months. Okay, fine.

Then Palin doubles down on that obviously dishonest and thoroughly inaccurate point. In the meantime, other Republican spokespeople, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly join her. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) made a very similar point about how the health care bill would set a "ceiling" (Set of maximum benefits) on health care when, actually, the bill would set a "floor" (Set of minimum benefits). He claimed that the bill would "lead" to rationing, ignoring the fact that private insurance already enforces rationing. The complete and utter hypocrisy Republicans bring to the health care issue is just astounding. Again, fine, okay. All this is to be expected. No biggie.

Then Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) decides that Palin's "death panel" nonsense is serious and opines that

"There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley said. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Of course, getting counseling for how to handle end-of-life decisions should be done as far in advance as possible. Is that always practical? Is that something that people are prepared to discuss years before it's necessary? Not in all cases, obviously. There's absolutely zero evidence that anybody has ever been plotting to "pull the plug on grandma." That's nothing more than zany, unhinged scare talk.

But okay, fine. Grassley's a Republican and everyone knows that Republicans hate the American citizen and that the Finance Committee is dominated by Blue Dog Democrats who don't like the American citizen much better.

...it was a rebellion by the largely rural "blue dog" Democrats on Waxman's committee that held up the bill. Their complaint: The bill was too expensive and there wasn't enough money in it for their districts. And so they held things up, long enough to prevent a vote before the start of the August recess, wrecking President Obama's timetable.

The real problem started with Obama's reaction to Grassley's lunatic statement. Press secretary Robert Gibbs said that

the White House remained committed to working with Republicans to get health care reform passed.

to which the blogger Digby replied:

It's an unusual strategy. I've rarely found it to be very effective to try to negotiate in good faith with lunatic demagogues, but maybe it can work.

I certainly hope so, because if it doesn't somebody is going to have a reputation for being a weak little chump. And it isn't going to be Grassley.

Unfortunately, it appears that Palin's insane demagoguery might be having an effect. Or, more likely, people who were never serious about health care reform in the first place are complaining that their arms are being twisted. Very unfortunately, it's now looking like the Obama Administration will drop the Public Option entirely. Sorry, but a public option is absolutely necessary. I completely agree that Single Payer would be better, but there's simply no way that a health plan without at least the Public Option will work.

Juan Cole argues with President Bush

President Bush gave a speech on US-Mideast policy at the Sabas Forum on 5 December, Juan Cole then argued with much of what he said in that speech. In doing so, Cole reviewed and again called attention to many aspects of Bush's policies and explanations for those policies that have irked and annoyed liberals, lefties and progressives over the years.

Primarily, Bush annoys progressives by giving his listeners an entirely one-sided and very highly selective view on causes and events. He doesn't just speak as if wearing blinders, he speaks as if he were observing these things through a straw. As Cole observes, when speaking of various Middle Eastern "bad guys,"

A popular Shiite anti-Shah, anti-imperialist movement is no different from a small hyper-Sunni terrorist group?

According to Cole, Bush seeks to present the entire Islamic world as an:

undifferentiated terrain of seething irrational hostility

And I'm sorry, but Bush just plain flat-out lies in this paragraph:

"When Saddam’s regime fell, we refused to take the easy option and install a friendly strongman in his place."

Cole reviews the well-documented history of the Bush Administration's clear intention of installing Ahmed Chalabi as the Iraqi "friendly strongman" and continues with how the US tried again with Ayad Allawi. Both attempts failed because of Iraqi opposition. Neither attempt was unsuccessful because the US decided that such a thing would violate American ideals of democracy.

Even if we were to assume that Bush was being entirely honest and sincere in his desire to see democracy spread across major portions of the world, we'd still have a major problem with the way that Bush has chosen to go about it. The methods one chooses are important. Back during my college days, one of my professors got very excitable about the errors that people were making in interpreting a subject. Someone pointed out later that the professor had to realize that "He's not cutting down a forest, he's irrigating a desert." By the same logic, Bush and the neoconservatives around him seem to think that creating conditions for a democracy simply means getting rid of the local dictators. In reality, getting a democracy up and running means:

You need institutions like a well-trained legal and judicial establishment that can lay the groundwork for a rule of law. You need vital, independent unions and chambers of commerce. You need security. You need lots of things besides the Marines.

According to Cole, Saddam Hussein's Baath Party is the "bad guy" of today, but Bush's speech erases the history of how the Baath Party got into power back in the 1950s and 1960s with the enthusiastic backing of the US. Yes, it's entirely possible that "The Establishment" of the US regrets doing that and is now determined to right those old wrongs, but when their spokesperson ignores the history of US complicity in Mideast violence, there's no reason for anyone to have confidence that any new policies are being planned.

It's of course impossible to blame just Bush and his people for all this. Democrats haven't really tried to present an alternative view. I think that situation has changed a bit from years ago and the Democratic Party is more ideologically progressive than it was when Bush took office. The incoming presidency of Barack Obama is, I believe, a big improvement over Bush's presidency, but it's nowhere near enough for a lot of impatient critics, among whom I count lots of my buddies in the anti-war movement. The traditional media hasn't been presenting alternative views either, but again, the rise of the netroots with a more leftist perspective has ameliorated that problem somewhat. We're still not "there" and the press corps appears to still be unhealthily obsessed with Hillary Clinton and trivia in general, but I think we're making progress.

Open letter to Rep Schwartz

Honorable Representative Allyson Schwartz,

First of all, let me say that I'm extremely pleased to see your name among the "Nays" on Congress' Roll Call Vote 836 on S.1927, the bill that allows unlimited warrantless surveillance of American citizens with no meaningful oversight whatsoever. We're essentially now in a pre-FISA era, with the government able to spy on us at its leisure.
The WaPo's Dan Froomkin tells us a very sad tale of Democrats trusting in a Bush official to be non-partisan, high-minded and disinterested (i.e., willing to act without regard to the Republican Party's self-interest). I'm aghast and astonished to see that Democrats were expecting any such thing from any Bush loyalist. Regardless of how Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell performed in his job prior to this vote, Democrats should have known that nobody serving under this President could be trusted a single inch. McConnell's spokesperson claims that McConnell's arm was not twisted and that there was no back-room pressure applied to make him cooperate with Bush to bamboozle the Democrats. I believe the spokesperson. I see McConnell as enthusiastically and joyfully participating in a long-arranged plan to put one over on the hapless Democrats.
Why was FISA gutted? The progressive blogger Digby points out that the "existential threat" that stampeded the Democrats into cooperating with Bush & McConnell doesn't come from abroad, but from right here at home:
"It's coming from within, from a governing class of both parties who are creating a national security apparatus that is going to end up squeezing the lifeblood of liberty right out of this country --- all in the name of keeping us safe."
The blog Crooks & Liars relates the extremely depressing tale of where America appears to be headed. A group of "non-stop transit" passengers who never had the slightest intention of setting foot outside the gates of the airport where they were transferring from one flight to another, go through hours and hours of annoying and humiliating "processing." All of the passengers left with the determination never to enter US territory ever again.
I've reproduced the email conversation I had with my fellow PRAWN members because I'd like for you to inform your fellow Democrats in the House how very badly this vote has hurt them. It also shows that no, it's not at all impossible for Democrats to be "outflanked on the left." There is the Green Party to consider. I never saw a single Democratic button or banner or sign at an anti-war demonstration until about six months prior to the 2004 election and I don't remember seeing very many at the last big protest either. Standing up for Constitutional rights shouldn't be a left vs center issue. It should, if anything, be a far-right vs everybody issue.

Herewith, the conversation:

From:	Anne Ewing	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
		[This is spam]
To:	Anne Ewing
Subject:	Don't let Congress off the hook for letting Bush wiretap our phone calls
Date:	Aug 7, 2007 8:06 PM

Hi,

The Democratic-controlled Congress did the unthinkable on Saturday night: They gave President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales more unchecked power to wiretap Americans without a warrant. Yes, that's the same Attorney General who is currently mired in scandal and probably committed perjury on this very issue.

Enough is enough. We have to send a strong message to Congress that there is no trade-off between fundamental liberties and security. Preserving our Constitution is essential to our security--we can't lead on freedom around the world when we're actively undermining the rule of law at home.

I signed onto this petition demanding that Congress reverse this capitulation to Bush and the politics of fear. (I also suggested that I would not want to vote for anyone who voted for this disgraceful legislation.) Can you join me? Just click here:

http://pol.moveon.org/capitulation/?r_by=-1477991-qLFpLu&rc=mailto

Thanks!

Anne

Anne Ewing

---

Ignore this email address. For some reason I need to use this mac.com account in RI, but don;t intend to use it otherwise, and I receive verizon.net just fine.

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 8:54 PM
Attachments:	Nader for pres 08.jpg

The trouble is that MoveOn is just a Democrat front organization looking for your name and e-mail address so they can put you on their mailing list of potential activists. They said absolutely nothing when the Democrat controlled Congress voted to continue the war and nothing when Pelosi said "impeachment is off the table".

The Democrats know that they don't have to pay any attention to anything that comes from MoveOn because MoveOn will ultimately support them. If you want to protest what the Democrats have done, call voter services in your county and ask them to send you a voter's registration form and then change your voter's registration from Democrat Party to Green Party. That will send them a message they understand, otherwise they will simply say to you "what are you going to do, vote for a Republican".

Vive La Résistance,

John A. Murphy

"To live as if our choices make any real difference in the long run may be the act of a fool, but to live as if they do not, that is the act of a coward."

— Albert Camus

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	"John A. Murphy", prawn@lists.riseup.net
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 9:09 PM

Yeah, I notice that MoveOn pieces aren't often on this list serve, but I figured
this was an especially infuriating move by the Democrats.  I'm not really ready
to sign up for a third party quite yet.  I'd like to see some evidence that
it would accomplish more than trying to reform the Democrats. 
Rich

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	Rich, prawn@lists.riseup.net
Cc:	Camden County Green Party
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:21 PM
Attachments:	Nader 2008.jpg Clear Day Bkgrd.jpg

What kind of evidence do you need Rich? People have been trying to reform the Democratic Party since 1972. Back in 1972 they actually listened to us. They gave us an antiwar candidate in the person of George McGovern. As soon as George McGovern got the nomination, every one of the Democratic Party's corporate donors jumped ship. The Democrats at that point should have said, "look at how much power the corporations have, let's pass legislation doing away with the concept of 'corporate personhood' and make sure that we pass legislation to publicly fund all federal elections". But that's not what the Democratic Party said. What the Democratic Party said is that it would no longer listen to its constituencies but it would do whatever its corporate sponsors wanted it to do. That's why we have no universal single-payer health care, no tuition free education and that's why the Democrats have backed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to approve the Patriot Act and gave us Bill Clinton the most violent president in the 20th century who killed over one million innocent men, women and children in Iraq with bombs and sanctions.

If the Democratic Party simply had a problem with organization, it could be changed from within. The Democratic Party however is fatally flawed. Look what it has done to the labor movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement and now the antiwar movement!

I'm sick to death of hearing "why don't the Democrats... if only the Democrats... if the Democrats were smart..." if I hear one more Democrats say "don't the Democrats see they could win by going a different way"; I'm going to puke.

Stop fearing what will happen if you give up on the Democrats. Your fear of what will ensue if they wither away is really all they have left at this point. Stop pretending the system isn't broken. Unless you like sham democracy and one party politics, I mean.

Stop pretending the Democrat Party is interested in fixing itself or being fixed or changed. In other words stop trying to fix the Democrat Party -- because, according to the thinking of the "real" Democrats, the ones who own and operate the party, it isn't broken and it doesn't need to be changed. And please quit all the moaning about the "stupid Democrat leaders" blowing chances. The Democrat leaders are not stupid. But if you are still bedding down with them and expecting something to change, you do have every reason to wonder about yourself.

Vive La Résistance,

John A. Murphy

"To live as if our choices make any real difference in the long run may be the act of a fool, but to live as if they do not, that is the act of a coward."

— Albert Camus

From:	Monique Frugier	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:39 PM
Attachments:	unknown-3 KB unknown-25 KB Forwarded-Message

While it is true that MoveOn members are mainly Democrats, it does not mean that all members embrace MoveOn silence re: Impeachment. In fact one of my group: "Main Line Citizens for Impeachment" (most of our members are also MoveOn members) sent them a letter stating our position and that we wanted them to take a stand on this.

We had a conference call yesterday and MoveOn is calling for August to be a month to organize rallies all over the country, reach out in communities, organize rallies at our representatives' offices, and tell them that they will get the heat come next elections if they do not push for the end of the war in September.

Yes, it is true that nothing is being said re: Pelosi and the impeachment "off the table", but the way I see it is that while MoveOn is gathering many new members, I am also making many new personal connections and just got the names of 8 people interested in joining the group I moderate "Rapid Response Pa.", a group of letter-writers. And guess what? Among the 20 people present at our meeting yesterday, only one does not support impeachment.

One can be a MoveOn member and yet make her/his OWN voice heard.

Come the presidential elections, for me I do not see the need to change party in order to support my anti-war candidate and be part of the Résistence At the end, Green and/or Independent party will do what I will do. So what is the difference? That I will be accused of giving a vote to the Republican party?

Monique.

From:	larry petkov	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:49 PM

John;

I think Monique is using the correct strategy here to build the anti-war movement. We should put the pressure on the Democrats to come out for Impeachment and stop funding the war. We can back Dennis Kucinich who has the courage to stand up for these issues.

If the Democrats don't come around and try to ram Hillary down our throats(which I think they will), then we can talk about planning an independent run.

I think the Greens are too diffuse and marginal to really shake the Democratic establishment.

Let's hope another independent candidate will step forward like former Senator Mike Gravel to challenge.

But if noone does I would certainly vote for Nader rather than Hillary the Hawk!

The Greens hurt themselves badly in the 2004 election by not backing Nader 100 percent. Supporting Cobb was a disaster.

Larry

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:59 PM
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You must disassociate yourself from MoveOn just as you have disassociated yourself from the Democratic Party. MoveOn is just as bad as UFPJ which has surrendered the antiwar movement into the hands of the Democratic Party.

John Murphy

From:	David Kalkstein	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:03 PM
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You must disassociate yourself from MoveOn ...

Must we all do that, or are Monique and Rich the only ones who must do that?

Please let me know so i can proceed.

david

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:16 PM
Attachments:	nader living wage lg.jpg Clear Day Bkgrd.jpg

We must not back any Democratic candidate -- especially Dennis Kucinich. Dennis Kucinich is the Judas goat of the Democratic Party. It is people like him and John Conyers who keep the so-called progressive Democrats (which is like saying virgin prostitutes) from leaving the Democratic Party.

In 2004 the so-called antiwar Dennis Kucinich threw his support to John Kerry instead of the antiwar candidate Ralph Nader with whose positions he agreed entirely. He told his supporters than that it was not about the war it was all about party unity. Anything you see done by people like Kucinich is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. You don't fight Nazism by joining the SS. Neither do you fight the neoliberal, imperialist policies of the Democratic Party by being one of its members let alone one of its elected officials.

You don't build a strong antiwar movement by supporting the pro-war Democratic Party which maneuvered us into World War I, World War II, Korea and who gave us Lyndon Johnson -- remember good old Lyndon -- the guy who'd lied to us about the Gulf of Tonkin and then killed 3 million innocent men, women and children in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam? And don't forget our old friend Harry Truman who dropped nuclear weapons on the civilian populations of two Japanese cities just in order to send the old Soviet Union a message (not to end World War II sooner as your high school history textbook might have told you). The last thing you want to do in order to stop a war you support a Democrat. That's like becoming a prostitute in order to promote virginity!

John Murphy
Green Party Pennsylvania: Steering Committee
GNC: National Delegate

Candidate: Representative in Congress

District 16: Pennsylvania

VOTE PEACE: VOTE GREEN: VOTE NADER '08

From:	Monique Frugier	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:26 PM
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Speaking to a French who is old enough to speak about occupation and Résistence( having been born in North Africa in 1944, and whose father died defending his country), I will tell you that in order to be effective, changes do not happen in disassociation but

rather in speaking out and in actions.

Monique.

From:	David Kalkstein	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:31 PM
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We must not back any Democratic candidate --

Who is the "we" that must not back any Democrtic candidate? Is it just Rich, Larry and Monique, or is it required that all of PRAWN must not back any Democratic candidate?

I need to know, so I can behave according to the rules.

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 12:16 AM

1. I'd like to collect this conversation into a single blog post and forward the link to Rep Allyson Schwartz, who thankfully voted against S.1927, the bill that surrenders our Constitutional liberties to warrantless wiretapping. Please let me know if anyone objects. I'll put it all on http://www.prawnblog.blogspot.com/ sometime tomorrow.
2. Markos "Kos" Moulitsas of DailyKos reacted to Bill O'Reilly's charge that Kos intended to overthrow the government. Kos responded "Why would we do that? We have one third of it now and next election, we'll pick up another third." The point being that the "netroots" project has been far more successful than any previous attempt at changing our government. The other two big pushes, the Jesse Jackson and Ross Perot campaigns, were both personality-based campaigns that collapsed as soon as the personalities failed to keep the momentum going. Yeah, it's a long and rocky road ahead, but I just don't see any other way being anywhere near as successful as the "netroots" campaign has been.
Rich

From:	Monique Frugier	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 12:32 AM
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No objection from me.

Monique.

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 1:36 AM
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Then you are well aware of what happened in occupied France during the 1930s and 40s. The Weimar Republic essentially gave France two choices: they could accept the Vichy government (controlled by French Nazis) or have a government directly imposed upon them from Berlin.

Many French chose to collaborate with the Germans through the Vichy government. Other Frenchmen including Albert Camus, fully aware of the consequences of their actions, joined La Résistance. They realized that a Nazi was a Nazi whether he spoke French or German. There was no difference between French Nazis and German Nazis. Similarly today there is no significant difference between the corporate driven, imperialist war machine of the Republican Party and the corporate driven, imperialist war machine of the Democratic Party. You do not collaborate with the enemy. La Résistance saved the lives of countless Allied forces which ultimately liberated France, not from within but from without.

The real problem in the United States is the two-party system which of course is nothing more than a one party system. Noam Chomsky calls it "the corporate party", Cindy Sheehan calls it "the war party", Ralph Nader calls it "the duopoly". This system cannot be altered or changed from within; it can only be opposed and resisted from without.

You might also ask yourself what did Gandhi do in occupied India? The United States has been occupied by a political elite which is controlled by 1,300 corporations -- 57,000 people decide what happens in this nation. They do not care how many antiwar demonstrations in which you participate because they can be sure if they look in your wallet they'll find a credit card from Chase or Bank of America or some other financial institution which continues to fund the war parties.

The corporate war party must be resisted. Join the resistance; join the Greens not the collaborators.

Vive La Résistance,

John A. Murphy

"To live as if our choices make any real difference in the long run may be the act of a fool, but to live as if they do not, that is the act of a coward."

— Albert Camus

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 1:54 AM
Attachments:	democrats-scared.jpg Clear Day Bkgrd.jpg

The last thing you want to do is have any communication with the elected officials of an imperialist war party. what are you looking for - a pat on the head and a kick in the ass? That's all you'll get form them!

The Democrat Party is a reactionary, pro-war party. It is now and it has always been so. It has backed every war in the history of the United States since it came into existence. It is the proslavery party which has now destroyed the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the labor movement and most recently the antiwar movement. It is where social movements go to die.

Want to work for peace? Join the Greens! The Democrat Congress is worth less than 3 grams of bottled syphilitic whore spit.

John Murphy

Candidate: Representative in Congress
District 16: Pennsylvania

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	"John A. Murphy"
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 6:59 AM

John,
I'll certainly take your message under advisement.  BTW, the main point I intend
to make with my proposed post to Schwartz is going to be "Look at the mess
the Democrats have gotten themselves into!  See how much your fellow Democrats have
damaged themselves!"
The netroots don't just want a seat at the table of the Democratic Party, they
want to change the conversation so that we can turn it into an engine of social
change.  ALL of the new people elected in 2006 are in the anti-globalization camp,
f'rinstance. 
Rich

From:	Joseph Gauger	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 7:01 AM
Attachments:	message-footer.txt

If Kos says that "we have control" of Congress and will soon have the presidency, he is obviously not speaking as a member of the anti-war or progressive movements. As we've established, the Congress belongs to the Democratic wing of the Establishment. Despite all the rhetoric about changing direction and ethics reform, the Democratic leadership is well aware of how things are run in this country and have shown that they are quite comfortable with that arrangement.
The problem with organizing effective resistance to the Establishment is that the latter is skilled at coopting any burgeoning political movement. The essential power structure of American politics has remained intact through every supposed reform movement. Supporters of extensive, top-down reform are forced to continually reorganize as their groups go "mainstream". Groups like the Green Party, which are constructed so that corporate/Establishment influence is minimal, are denied access in other ways. But I agree that our best hope lies with them as opposed to Democratic candidates.

Joseph Gauger

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the
final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are
not clothed." -- Dwight Eisenhower

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 11:38 AM

Joseph,
You make some very good points, but allow me to present someone who speaks for the netroots (from http://www.horsesass.org/?p=3283 )


What’s the difference between a true netroots Democrat and an establishment Democrat? The willingness to criticize members of one’s own party when it really counts.
In her latest web ad WA-08 netroots “rock star” Darcy Burner not only sticks it to her Republican opponent Dave Reichert for handing warrantless wiretapping powers to President Bush, Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales… she also takes on the 41 Democratic House members who voted with him.

“When Republicans like Dave Reichert give George Bush everything he wants, that’s bad enough. But too many people in my own party aren’t listening either. The warrantless wiretapping bill won’t make us safer, but it will strip us of the rights so many of our families have fought to preserve, including mine.”

This race is about bringing new leadership to the House, not just padding the Democratic majority. No doubt Burner would like DCCC support and the money that comes with it, but anybody who thinks she’s taking her cues from the other Washington, just isn’t listening.

------------------------
Just plain battling Republicans isn't the point. We're also into reforming the Democrats. We're not satified with the Democratic Party as it is.
Rich

From:	larry petkov	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 10:56 AM
Attachments:	unknown-64 KB

Monique:

I like the way John conveniently ignores the candidacies of Eugene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern, and the huge anti-war movement in the Democratic Party in 1968 and 1972. There were plenty of anti-war Senators back then: Bayh, Proxmire, Church, Hughs, Gravel, Moorse, Gruening, etc.

Many people who lived through that period are certainly disgusted with the Democratic response today to the crisis. But to ignore splits in the Democratic Party on the war is foolish.

larry

From:	+Steve Bozzone	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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Cc:
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 11:52 AM
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To throw some thoughts in:

I have always believed that the pathos of "We don't work with them because _______" is contrary to building a popular movement. If there's something you don't like about an organization, work from the inside to change it. If we continue to remain exclusive and seperatist, we won't reach the masses. I really like what John Murphy has to say, but I agree with Monique. If a minority opinion isn't represented in an organization, then it won't have an opportunity to examine other viewpoints.

Beyond a blog post, it sounds like PRAWN could use a message board!

Best,

Steve

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 1:08 PM
Attachments:	play democrat.jpg unknown-63 KB

I didn't ignore those people -- the Democratic Party ignored the people. I went "clean for Gene" back in 1968. But they didn't give us gene McCarthy they gave us Hubert Humphrey the man who would continue the slaughter in Vietnam and as a result we got Richard Nixon! (In retrospect of course Richard Nixon was to the left of William Clinton.) But as I said in an earlier note which you apparently did not read, back in the Democratic Party still listened to us and indeed they gave us George McGovern in 1972. But as it is McGovern got the nomination every corporate donor left the Democratic Party and McGovern sank like a slug. That's when the Democratic Party made his decision to ignore its constituency and to do only the will of its corporate sponsors. To believe anything other at this point in time is either perverse, insane or rampant ignorance.

John Murphy

From:	Joseph	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 3:01 PM
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Weimar Republic ended before Nazis came to power.

Joe