Whither progressives for election 2008?

[UdoKier]

Whither progressives for election 2008?

[Celeborn Skywalker]

1. My ideal ticket for 2008 would be Clark/Feingold. n/t

[Dhalgren]

2. I'm going to do my homework as best as I can

and support the most progressive, sensible candidate regardless of his/her party affiliation. And if I can't find one who fits the bill I'll write in Kucinich, just for the hell of it.

[davidwparker]

4. Same as me, but I'm writing in Dean. Because

to me, Dean means getting back to the base and away from Republican-lite. What the party does with Dean, even if it is DNC chair, will help me make the decision.

When I watched the Green convention on C-SPAN, my thought is that this is what the Dem party used to be about. I also like their ideas for voting reform. Instant run off voting for one. Means you could vote for Nader or Cobb or some other party and if that candidate doesn't get the most votes, your number two is tabulated.

No more voting the lesser of two evils and no more spoilers.

[melnjones]

3. Clark without question. nt

[FrenchieCat]

5. For me, it's Wes Clark....

Because he not only stands for what I believe....but he has consistently stood when others were sitting, risking his own career for his beliefs, and being willing to speak out on issues that are not "popular" is what I am talking about. Barbara Boxer is another that has demonstrated that this time too.

The fact that Wes Clark helped write the Amecius Brief supporting Affirmative Action in the U of Michigan case; wrote OP-eds, which appeared in Major publications in support of having all Democrats "condemm" the Confederate Flag; promoted Black officers consistently in great numbers during his 35 years of service as an officer; and did very vocally discuss the "stolen" 2000 election; was the only high ranking officer who made major noise about what was happening in Rwanda at the time that it was happening; and wrote extensively on subjects such as Aid relief and recently Darfur ..... are all powerful acts of combined consistency in support of the underdog on issues that affect them directly.

Wes Clark also encouraged Sy Hersch to publish the "torture" Abu Grahi photos (as Hersch explained in a Vanity Fair interview) and Richard Clarke to go public with his views on the failings of George Bush (Richard Clarke also publicly makes mention of his meeting with Wes, in which Wes counseled him to do it....even if the admin ended up smearing Richard Clarke....which Wes assured him they would).

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-07...
Out of time in Darfur By Wesley Clark and John Prendergast
For the past year, the international community has shamefully acquiesced to the crimes against humanity occurring daily in the Sudanese province of Darfur.

Jesse Jackson Sr. praises Clark's AIDS plan
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2003/12/3/182120/311
Bush approach to AIDS fight wastes time, money
December 2, 2003
BY JESSE JACKSON
As Printed in the Chicago SunTime
Democrats and many Republicans have called for a larger effort. Ironically, it took a general -- Gen. Wesley Clark -- to put forth a truly bold program. Clark would double Bush's commitment and build upon World Health Organization programs rather than spurn them.

He sees this as a centerpiece of what he calls a ''preventive engagement policy'' to make America a source of hope in the world. Perhaps it takes a general, knowing the scope and the limits of our military strength, to deal aggressively with a disease of mass destruction.

Waiting for the General
By Elizabeth Drew
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16795
Clark displeased the defense secretary, Bill Cohen, and General Hugh Shelton, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by arguing strenuously that—contrary to Clinton's decision— the option of using ground troops in Kosovo should remain open. But the problem seems to have gone further back. Some top military leaders objected to the idea of the US military fighting a war for humanitarian reasons. Clark had also favored military action against the genocide in Rwanda.

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001104.html
Clark was almost alone in pushing for a humanitarian intervention in Rwanda.

Pulitzer award winning Samantha Power for her book "A Problem from Hell" : America and the Age of Genocide
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006054164...
endorsed Wes Clark http://www.kiddingonthesquare.com/2003/12/redeeming_wes...
The following excerpts from Power’s book give the details. The narrative surrounding the quotes was written by another person commenting on the book. Note especially Power's last comment below on Clark's pariah status in Washington:

General Clark is one of the heroes of Samantha Power's book. She introduces him on the second page of her chapter on Rwanda and describes his distress on learning about the genocide there and not being able to contact anyone in the Pentagon who really knew anything about it and/or about the Hutu and Tutsi.

She writes, "He frantically telephoned around the Pentagon for insight into the ethnic dimension of events in Rwanda. Unfortunately, Rwanda had never been of more than marginal concern to Washington's most influential planners" (p. 330) .

He advocated multinational action of some kind to stop the genocide. "Lieutenant General Wesley Clark looked to the White House for leadership. 'The Pentagon is always going to be the last to want to intervene,' he says. 'It is up to the civilians to tell us they want to do something and we'll figure out how to do it.' But with no powerful personalities or high-ranking officials arguing forcefully for meaningful action, midlevel Pentagon officials held sway, vetoing or stalling on hesitant proposals put forward by midlevel State Department and NSC officials" (p. 373).

According to Power, General Clark was already passionate about humanitarian concerns, especially genocide, before his appointment as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe.

She details his efforts in behalf of the Dayton Peace Accords and his brilliant command of NATO forces in Kosovo. Her chapter on Kosovo ends, "The man who probably contributed more than any other individual to Milosvevic's battlefield defeat was General Wesley Clark. The NATO bombing campaign succeeded in removing brutal Serb police units from Kosovo, in ensuring the return on 1.3 million Kosovo Albanians, and in securing for Albanians the right of self-governance."

"Yet in Washington Clark was a pariah. In July 1999 he was curtly informed that he would be replaced as supreme allied commander for Europe. This forced his retirement and ended thirty-four years of distinguished service. Favoring humanitarian intervention had never been a great career move."


On this country's election system, Wes Clark said.....
.....we are far from the fundamental ideal of "one person, one vote."

In America, your vote is your voice. That's what our democracy was built on. And our nation can't move forward if we silence the voices of any of our citizens.

We all know what happened in the 2000 election, when the only vote that George W. Bush won was the one that took place in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court.

It was an election marred by broken voting machines, outdated technology, and hanging chads.

It was an election where blacks and other minorities were disproportionately turned away from the polls, purged from the voting rolls, and intimidated when they showed up to vote.

And in the end, when it came to counting up the votes, the ballots cast by African Americans and other minorities were disproportionately undercounted.

After what happened in Florida, there was a whole lot of hand-wringing, but no real change.

People called for investigations, for election reform, for a complete overhaul of the voting system in America.

What did they get?

No serious investigation.

No election reform.

Nothing but a congressional bill that fewer than half the states have enforced.

The result is that today, it's only one person one vote if you live in the right county.

And if you vote at the right machine.

And if your name happens to be on the rolls.

Well, last I checked, there was no "if" in the 15th Amendment. One person one vote isn't just a slogan -- it's the highest law of this land.

We shouldn't have to wait for another Florida to fully fund election reform. Congress should get to work and put their money where their mouth is. And states need to buckle down now, and demand stiff penalties for election officials who turn away registered voters or purge them from the rolls.

This is a very personal issue for me. I spent thirty-four years in the United States military defending this right - starting back in 1963, when I was a student at West Point. Back then, we were fighting to protect America from threats to our democracy abroad. And equally patriotic young people were fighting here on American soil to make sure we lived up to the ideals of that democracy. --Wes Clark

And Denounced the Confederate flag and called on all Dems to do so as well.....and he didn't do it in a nuanced way either(trying to have it both ways)....

"The Confederate flag flies in the face of our most deeply-held American values - diversity, equality and inclusion. I believe that the only flag we should fly is the one that brings us together - the stars and stripes - and that the Confederate flag should never, ever be flown on public buildings.

Democrats should all condemn the Confederate Flag."--Wes Clark
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/7166307...
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/politics/7732...
http://www.abcnews4.com/news/stories/1103/108751.html
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1507782

[robbedvoter]

6. RW already started campaigning against Clark - "out of the mainstream"

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/01/09/DavidJSanders/314109.html
Sen. Blanche Lincoln will be encouraged to run for governor; Wes Clark will be encouraged to run for governor; Sen. Mark Pryor will be encouraged to run for governor. Neither Lincoln nor Pryor will run; Clark will give it serious consideration, but will opt out when copies of a 2004 edition of The Advocate (a major homosexual magazine) with his image on the cover start showing up.

Judging from the last election, Clark's positions on gay and lesbian issues may put him out of the mainstream with even Arkansas' Democratic voters. With state Democrats trying to appear more conservative on social issues, Clark maybe a little too hot to handle."

[cruadin]

7. I voted for looking at the '06 elections to regain...

seats in both the House and Senate, only because I believe that is the first order of business. Whatever else we do as a party we must expend sufficient energy (and it has to be on a national scale) to nominate, support and elect candidates to take back the House and Senate.

As far as '08 goes, I would like to see Gen. Clark run.

*edit* <typo>

[dogman]

8. First things first.

But we have to look to '08 since everyone else is and we want to be there next time. Let's not be late again. I'm sure clark will be working for '06 too.

[Totally Committed]

9. Wes Clark all the way!

He will be an outstanding POTUS!

TC

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Gotta fix the system from the ground up first, like this...

[LuLu550]

11. Clark was the right person in 2004

so he's the right person in 2008