Reply #23: agreed [View All]

[m berst]

Way back a year ago, some of us were trying to warn people in the party. We said that we need to take a very strong position and be alert and prepared for a smear campaign and for a stolen election. We warned about going the same old DLC route. We were shouted down and told to leave it all to the pros, that the stakes were too high this time for our "radical" ideas, and that we all needed to pull together behind the "most electable" candidate and accomplish "mission one - oust Bush!" and that we should refrain from criticizing until after the election.

We did all that. Thousands of us worked ourselves to death. Many gave their last dollar to the campaign on the solemn promise that we would not be abandoned.

How on earth did the party leadership not anticipate 8-10 hour lines to vote in African American and other Democratic districts? How on earth did the party leadership fail to protect its voters? What good is GOTV if people were not able to vote, or their votes did not count?

It is not whining, it is not disloyalty and it is not a little "disappointment" over not "winning" that people should be told to "get over" when we say these things, and it is an insult to characterize critics of the party in these humiliating and derogatory ways. We are not talking about losing the race for prom queen here. That would be something to "get over." People's lives are on the line. Our freedom is on the line. Our Constitution and our right to vote are on the line. The survival of the country is on the line.