Moral Values (a few words before walking the plank)

[Plaid Adder]

I've seen a lot of stuff on these boards the past couple days arguing that me and the rest of the GBLT folks need to be thrown overboard to save the ship. You know what, my partner and I worked harder for John Kerry than we ever have for any other candidate in our entire lives. You can throw me overboard if you want, but anyone who tries to touch my partner better kill me first. She worked so hard for so long out there in Milwaukee and in the end they got Wisconsin. She is not your problem. I am not your problem. And before you start setting up the gangplank, maybe you better go down to the hold and see what's going on with that leak. Because if you're taking on water fast enough, you're going to sink no matter what you throw over.

There are two things that went wrong here, in my opinion. One is that we all hoped that the problems with the voting process that were obvious from the 2000 election would somehow not matter in 2004. In fact, they have gotten worse, and they mattered very much. I trusted Kerry to understand that and that if there were credible evidence of fraud he would lead the fight to get it investigated. He didn't; he won't. Well, people, until we get electronic voting machines out of this process it doesn't matter a damn who we run in 2008. The Republican will win, because the Republicans control the voting machines. Plus, we essentially allow the media to call the election; and we all know who controls the media. If we want a shot at 2008 or even 2006 we have to forget the national races and start working at the state, county, precinct, and ward level to get people like Blackwell and Jeb's goons out of those offices and put in people who will return integrity to the process. It's not glamorous work but it needs to be done and it need not be linked to party. Surely on the issue of preserving democracy in this country you could get cooperation across party lines and from outside the parties too.

THe second is that the right is still pounding home their moral values, but we have become afraid to champion ours.

I voted based on moral values too. Mine are just different.

Compassion is a moral value. Commitment to human rights is a moral value. The sanctity of human life--*the lives of the born, the lives of non-Americans--is a moral value. Equality is a moral value. Justice is a moral value. Peace is a moral value.

Kerry made the argument against the war--from a policy standpoint. He made the argument against Bush's economic policies--because they hurt the middle class. He attacked Bush not for having killed 100,000 people in Iraq who didn't have to die but for having gone about the war in a stupid and dangerous way. All those things were true. They were part of the pragmatic case against Bush. The moral case against Bush was not made because they were afraid to make it.

While my partner was out there calling strangers in Wisconsin trying to get them to vote for Kerry, she talked to one woman who said she was undecided but leaning Bush. She gave her all the talking points about the economy. The woman said, "But I'm a Christian, and we're not supposed to vote just based on self-interest, and I'm against abortion..." My partner started to talk about the poor, but then she realized there was nothing she could say. Kerry didn't talk about the poor. He talked about getting more for the middle class. That was what he thought was going to win it for him.

Someone has to speak for the poor. Someone has to speak for the dead. Someone has to speak for the detainees in Guantanamo and the victims of Abu Ghraib. Someone has to speak for the scapegoats, the vulnerable, the people who go to the wall so that the corporations can maximize their profits. Someone has to stand up for the *other* moral values, the ones that have to do with money and power and justice and not just with sex and reproduction.

I have been saying for years that this is what the Democratic party needs to do. I have, at this moment, zero faith that that will happen. I am bracing myself for the news that the party is going to cut us loose entirely. The Democratic Party has already abandoned the poor; they will soon abandon us; next it will be choice; after that, labor; and finally, when they have cut loose everything that was losing them 1% of the vote, they will be exactly like the Republicans, and they will STILL lose because they do not control the media and the voting machines and because they are blue instead of red.

If change comes to this country it will not come from the top down. That's what I've learned since Tuesday. It will have to come from the bottom up and it will take more than four years.

Y'all can run whoever you want for 2008. Run Zell Miller for all I care. I'm done with presidential politics. I'm going to find or start an organization dedicated to putting people into state and county offices who we can trust to safeguard the voting process. And I will find or start a party ready to speak for the people who have been cut out of the process bit by bit ever since the 1960s. And I will find or start an organization ready to make the argument that ruling the world is costing this country too much.

The Plaid Adder

On Edit: I just read Skinner's statement about this and I want to thank the admins for taking a stand on this. I wish I were that confident about the party leadership.

[Plaid Adder]

1. I'll kick it if no one else will. n/t

[Wat_Tyler]

2. I'll kick it.

I'm taking a stand with my gay brothers and sisters. So will many.

[Maat]

37. Yep, me too!

n/t

[NanBo]

3. I'm standing tall

with you--all the way.

[ezekiel333]

4. I completely agree with you

It is time for a ground floor up movement.

[no name no slogan]

5. RIght on all counts, as usual

You've put into words exactly how I have been feeling. Yes, I know we have to appeal to the middle class, but I don't think I ever heard a word about "the poor" from K/E. I seldom heard "working class", for that matter, either.

And you've definately nailed it on Iraq, too. Kerry NEVER talked about it being a morally wrong war (his statement about still deciding to go to war even though there were no WMDs was a HUGE mistake). All he talked about was doing a better job of running dubya's war. His committment to getting our troops out of there STILL left some over there in 2008.

We NEED to stand up for our values of peace, justice, cooperation, fairness, opportunity and liberty. Unless we do, we'll keep losing.

[Donkeyboy75]

6. I'm with you, and against the Neville Chamberlain DUers.

[Mandate My Ass]

7. I too was troubled by Kerry's ommissions

of the most vulnerable and victimized which you articulated above.

My hopes were that once he fulfilled his promise to fight for every vote to be counted, he could and would speak more freely about those topics as POTUS, begin investigations and go about righting the wrongs.

His casual abandonment of everyone who fought so hard for so long against such odds is incredibly demoralizing. In my bleaker moments, the speed with which he conceded, along with his exhortation that we embrace Bush and his agenda, leads me to suspect this entire race was merely stagecraft and the closeness of the results was an embarrassing and unexpected predicament that had to be glossed over and dismissed post haste. The rush to legitimize this obviously flawed election is more appalling than anything Bush and company has done to date or will do in the next four years.

Any party that abandons gay rights or women's rights to win votes will never count me as one of its members.

[Goldmund]

12. Mega Dittos, Monica

"Any party that abandons gay rights or women's rights to win votes will never count me as one of its members."

Me three.

[IrateCitizen]

8. You've got me, Plaid Adder

I'm sick to death of any talk about who we're going to run in 2008. Who the fuck cares? It's just like what Richard Viguerie said to Bill Moyers on last week's NOW:

"When I get up in the morning, I think, 'What 5 or 6 things can I do today to help advance the conservative cause?' Liberals see politics as an electoral sprint that comes around every few years."

We'd better start thinking and acting along the lines of, "What can I do today to help advance the progressive cause?" Because if we don't, we'll find ourselves consigned to the trash-heap of political history, along with the Whigs.

[AmandaRuth]

34. ding ding ding

Evangelicals go to church every Sunday and prayer meeting every Wednesday. EVERY Wednesday. They may do church stuff on Sunday, but Wednesday nights are devoted to planning.

and thanks to plaid adder for truth as always.

[Goldmund]

9. Right on

The Dems are complicit in framing the "values" argument in typical Republican binary fashion: you're with us or against us; good vs. evil; you either have Values(TM) or you don't. And since the Republicans do, the Democrats don't. And Kerry, as Gore, as, for that matter, Clinton, did nothing to be champions of liberal values -- they simply tried to avoid offending too many bigots and hoping that those liberally inclined would be smart enough to recognize who the lesser of two evils is. And recognize they did, if they bothered to tune in; but they did not get turned on, and many dropped out -- to paraphrase Timothy Leary.

[RBHam]

10. You are right about this...

It sickened me to see these weak kneed Democratic homophopes out themselves so eagerly on this board.

After all, THEY aren't gay. Right? Hey, they'll still get their tax cut. And if they shut up and don't dare to question the massive voter fraud that occurred in this election, maybe the Rethugs will be nice to them and give them a window seat when it's their turn to take the cattle car to the re-education camp.

Fucking assholes. Let them vote Republican, the Rapturists eagerly await their souls.

I heard Bush saying that he sees a great day for America ahead - he means the Rapture is coming. He also said that he will work hard to make that day happen.

Plaid Adder, I know you've read many of my threads since 9-11 warning of exactly this scenario. How the Bush regime would use terrorism and fear to gain total control of the government. How they use Black Ops domestically and abroad to psychologically control the citizenry. You are now seeing the fruits of their efforts.

The msuhroom cloud is coming. Bush needs an excuse to re-instate the draft. And you can bet your ass that it won't be a red state that will serve as the needed sacrifice for the "Lord's Day Of Terror..."

Make plans to leave soon, before they send those soldiers just recently returned from Europe and the Far East to secure the borders. Not to keep terrorists out. But to keep you in.

Oh, never mind. I'm just a whacko conspiracy theorist and am not to be taken seriously. ;-)

[evilqueen]

53. On the contrary, I take you very seriously.

The problem is much larger and more scary than many people can even imagine.

It was only late last night that I finally figured out what the underlying philosophical underpinnings of the NeoConservative Agenda really are. Google for Leo Strauss. Heh.

[geek tragedy]

11. I agree completely. There is no victory to be had in being Republicans.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Funny how my Christ directs me to vote so differently from fundagelicals

-----------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[Voltaire]

14. I'm gonna kick this

I don't know Plaid Adder personally but through this board I have grown to love her and her partner like my sister. My wife and I have MANY GLBT friends, hell I would say the majority of our friends are gay. I would personally SMITE anyone who would consider jettisoning ANYONE in the wake of this catastrophe that has befallen us. Its the machines. Its always been the machines. It always will be the machines and we must work through our pain and dejection to change that. I am still sick to my stomach and I am madder than a wet hen about this week. I have to always remind myself of the phrase "don't be in no ways tired." We have lost a huge battle. We dare not lose the war.

Peace, Vigilance and Solidarity to ALL!

Voltaire

[msanthrope]

15. I will not abandon you. Civil rights are non-negotiables.

Straight, not narrow.

[stevedeshazer]

16. I will never desert my gay friends

Never. If the Democrats do, I'm no longer a Democrat.

That's my final answer.

[Beacho]

17. Don't walk anywhere, Plaid

or at least make room for me to walk with you. Because if throwing overboard my lesbian brother and sisters is the price to rule, then I don't want it.


You, and the rest of GBLT community are not the villains here, the ones who exploited you for their own means are the ones who bear the guilt. These bastards used you to achieve their ends, like they used african americans to gain electoral advantage in the sixties and early seventies.

Step away from the plank, Plaid. Maybe we'll have to find a life boat instead, but I will work night and day to keep the democratic party inclusive.

Your friend

Chris

[Beacho]

18. double post (eom)

[Missy Vixen]

19. My husband and I will walk that plank with you

I would rather lose every Presidential election than turn my back on the civil rights of all Americans.

I share your values. I will not abandon them. I will not align myself with a party that would even consider "cutting loose" a group of people because they're supposedly not "politically expedient".

Julie

[ajmstpete]

48. As always you make our case with elegance and class.

Much more tasteful than my classy comeback of ASSHOLE!

[Kammer]

20. Respect

God, Plaid Adder, I so respect your point of view and enjoy your posts, you are and have been during the campaign an inspiration to me.

Approxmately 120 million people voted in this election. Both candidates received more votes than any other man in any other election ever. It wasn't a matter of we didn't turn out, it was a matter of they have more voters than we do.

If I could snap my fingers and give gays all the civil rights you so richly deserve I would do it in a heart beat. Unfortunately, I cannot.

During a time of needless war, crushing deficits, a shrinking stock market, increasing health costs, etc., a more people voted based on what they consider to be the morals/values issue than any other single issue.

A majority said yes to Bush's approach.

I despise that, I can't believe it, I am shocked by it, it feels like a nightmare. But it is not, it is reality.

Politics is a hard, cold business where to the victor goes the spoils.

No one wants to throw gays overboard to save the ship. We just don't want gays to lose rights they have struggled so hard to gain.

If we don't give up on the idea of Gay marriage for now, if we don't give up on the idea of gun control, if we don't give up on the idea of partial birth abortion, tax funded abortions, parental notification before minors can receive abortions, I forsee the following:

Of course already the Repugs control all 3 branches of government. I forsee in 2006 or 2008 they receive a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. I forsee 2,3,4 Scalia clones being appointed to the Court.

When this happens because we refuse to give up just enough ground to swing 2-3% of those voting for Bush our way the Republicans will pass new sodomy laws, and begin prosecuting and imprisoning gays, or pass laws that gays cannot teach our children. They will outlaw all abortions and imprison those who perform them or even have them. We will still not have gun control, and the NRA will have an office in the White House.

Furthermore, there goes all hope of clean air, helping the poor, health insurance, good jobs, etc, all those issues that affect us all.

And the Scalia court will rule it is all constitutional.

We will be powerless to stop them because they have the support of the majority.

This is what I fear will happen if we don't change our tactics to regain support from a majority of voters.

It is a numbers game and we have to play to win...

[RBHam]

22. "to regain support from a majority of voters"

The election was stolen, get it? The MAJORITY of people did vote for progressive values. They had their votes changed, purged or ignored.

www.blackboxvoting.org

Please wake up.

[Mandate My Ass]

29. Wow, advice from someone who has *nothing* to lose

and everything to gain from sacrificing others. Bravo.

[Kammer]

36. I have a lot to lose

as do we all...

Clean Air
My daughter's future
Health Insurance
Maintaining a good Job

We are in this together, some have more to lose than others. None of us will come out of this unscathed if we allow the Repugs to control everything. That is exactly why we must play the game to win.

[Mandate My Ass]

38. Your daughter has much more to lose

and it seems if it's up to you, she'll lose her fundamental right to reproductive choice, among other things. That is, of course, if she has the more "moral" sexual orientation.

[Kammer]

40. Yes she does

My daughter is too young for me to know her sexual orientation.

If she is gay, I fear for her future in the United States. I can see the Republican controlled country branding her a criminal and immoral. If I lived in fantasyland, I would wave my magic wand and give her the right of gay marriage.

However, I live in the real world where the facists are knocking on my door. I choose to fight the battles I can win and return another day to fight and demand more when I have greater strength.

If we, as a party, continue to demand all or nothing, we will continue to get nothing; and worse, lose what we have now.

I will support and fight for whomever my party nominates, for I recognize the true enemy and they are vicious and strong.

[Mandate My Ass]

44. The fascists are knocking at your door

You're rolling out the welcome mat and ennabling them. Do you seriously think by giving up the gays you'll be saving you and yours? Fascists don't stop after one minority group has been eliminated, they keep collecting scalps until all the ideologically impure are wiped out.

[mbee]

21. You got it - fairness for all people is why Clinton was so

popular in my view. I do think election fraud was the deciding factor in the election though. Kerry did win so your partner's efforts really worked.

[bloom]

23. well said...eom

[kori]

24. I would hope Democrats are better than that.

I frankly have not read much recently here. I guess I am still in shock. I would hope that in defeat we have not suggested throwing out parts of the party. I do think Republicans used phobia's of all kinds to energize their base. Including this red herring of stopping gay marriage. I think we did a poor job of articulating our position. Well hell, come to think of it I do not even know "our" position but I know mine.

I do believe many evangelicals and other conservative religious members find gay partners a "problem" they must legislate away. Same with abortion and we must save those frozen embryos. But never ever did I think we should abandon these causes or the people they effect.

Stay and fight we need all members of this coalition.

[billyskank]

25. Bump

<thinking that this place would be far worse off sans Plaidder...>

[lukasahero]

26. Sorry I haven't responded to this issue earlier

I will never abandon my gay friends (and those gay friends I haven't met yet). Your moral values are my moral values, too.

"First they came for the Jews...", right?

PA, your words here have inspired me and many others. Your work and that of your partner will not go unappreciated by many of us. Thank you so much for fighting. It's our turn now to fight back for you.

[lukasahero]

27. darn dupe - ignore

[wabeewoman]

28. It would be much easier to

take over the democratic party than to start a new one. Besides the democratic party roots are what we want. There is lots of second guessing going on at DU and I certainly don't know the answer. Maybe Kerry has a strategy or maybe he threw in the towel. The repugs and media were successful in painting Kerry as weak in the minds of many. I heard that statement from school kids (echoing their parents) and couldn't grasp how people could believe that. And they were able to play on people's fears. Frankly I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe where up is down and a significant number of people simply don't reason. I just wish one of those homophobs could explain to me exactly how gay rights and gay marriage is going to hurt me. I'm rambling I know but its like the whole country has gone looney tunes. Mel Gibson is on TV pointing to a dish of cells and saying these are people.

[theHandpuppet]

30. Beautifully stated!

Thank you.

[ibegurpard]

31. Plaid Adder you are SOOOO right.

:thumbsup:

[jpatti]

32. Amen.

[newyawker99]

35. Hi jpatti!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[lapislzi]

33. There will be no plank-slithering for the Plaid Adder

We need your voice now more than ever. We ARE the Big Tent party. Our task is to expose the sham values of the other side.

It's not about "winning." It's about electing the right people. I would pillory any candidate, Democratic, Republican, Green, whatever, who shows him/herself to be a bigot. Wrong is wrong is wrong.

Don't defect. Work with us. Please.

[Maat]

39. I will not abandon my principles just to elect a candidate!

I'm a proud member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. I stand tall. There might come a time when this member of the progressive wing of the Democratic party votes for a centrist candidate, but there's certain things that candidate will have to publicly support, and one is fundamental right!

If they don't, they are not my candidate (one I can vote for). I'm not interested in winning an election at all costs.

The right to marry is a fundamental right, for all Americans.

[lapislzi]

42. Of course not, no, never

We need to build a coalition, not abandon our principles.

What issues are the deal breakers? Think it over.

[lawladyprof]

41. I thought the mistake was the ads

I thought that they ought to tell compelling and human stories people could identify with. I remembered the anti-health care ads the Republicans used. People could identify with them because they told a little story. I told the Kerry ads were too superficial. They should have shown an actual person (actor OK) who had lost his job and then been in an automobile accident and was about to lose his home. About an actual Iraqi whose child or mother had died Baghdad. And they shouldn't have been the person talking to us but more slice of life. I think we have to fight emotion with emotion. Going back to the gay and lesbian issue. I saw an article months ago about a gay man who was killed in an automobile accident (other guy's fault) whose loving partner of many years couldn't bring a wrongful death action. You can substitute an kind of corporate malfeasance here.

I would have put gay marriage aside for another day and concentrated on civil union benefits plus religious ceremonies as a substitute, albeit an unsatisfactory one, while I gradually concentrated on humanizing gays and lesbians (as folks who just want to combine their Tupperware collections and bake tuna casseroles, a person who hasn't gotten hired, somebody's nephew picking out his straight aunts Christmas present) to larger and larger chunks of the population--emphasizing what we share as human beings instead of what distinguishes us (sexual practices).

As I see it, we have allowed the right to frame the issue as different sexual practices instead of our common humanity. Instead, gays and lesbians got marriage in no states and lost civil union-type partner benefits in several. Flame away (but not too hard I am still really low).

[UdoKier]

43. Yes to everything you said.

I believe the only thing that needs to change is strategy and packaging.

[lcooksey]

45. Check out Democracy for America

Howard Dean's organization. I know he's familiar with the black box voting (BBV) problem -- he appeared on television with Bev Harris while she demonstrated the security flaws in Diebold's software. And DFA is recruiting progressive candidates at all levels to run all across the country.

[foreigncorrespondent]

46. GREAT Post PA...

...you always manage to say exactly what it is I want to, or have said.

If you do start a political party that will speak up for the people left behind let me know. :)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. Pardon the expression, but mega-dittos!

:thumbsup:

I'm fed up with all these people who can talk about nothing but who to run in 2008. We need to get the voting machines out and win places for a lot of terrific left-of-center types at all levels of government and in the Dem party hierarchy in 2006.

Anyone who thinks differently really doesn't know that much about how the system works.

[Walt Starr]

49. "Gay Rights" is simply an issue that CANNOT be jettisoned

Simply put, jettison gay rights and you have just jettisoned about half of the base. I am a heteroseuxal white man in his forties. I support gay rights because it is the right thing to do, not because I benefit from it nor even because I have family members who are gay. I support gay rights because it's the moral thing to do.

What we have to do is frame the debate in such a way as Joe Sixpack also understands, it's the right thing to do. Because honestly, if the rights of homosexuals are denied because they are homosexuals, then the rights of Joe Sixpack can be denied just as easily because Joe Sixpack does not fit into some mold of normality as set by a majority of the people.

Reframe the debate, don't jettison the issue. Some issues are easily jettisoned, like gun control. Basic human rights can NEVER be removed from our stances.

[Booster]

50. Again, I have posted this so many times I am really sick of

reading it myself, but why doesn't someone write a bill that gives gays equal rights under the law without using the word "married". It seems to be the word that both sides, gay and straight, are hung up on. How could any conservative right-winger give a shit about what rights gays have if they didn't call it a marriage? It's not money out of their pocket and I'm positive it's not mentioned in the Bible. Gays need to get over the word also; they can tell their family and friends they are married; who would care? Plaid, every time I see one of your posts I open it up no matter what the subject is. You are a gifted writer; a logical thinker, which is sorely missing in this country, and you are certainly most welcome in my party. I, too, am gay but much, much older. Sometimes, gays have an "in your face" attitude, which scares the shit out of straight people, like the parades they have here in West Hollywood. Hell, they even embarrass me. Let's face facts, folks; none of us have equal rights and probably never will because we're not rich. Would you consider that I have the same rights as O.J. and Koby Bryant? I think not. Compromise is what's needed in these situations and all the yelling and screaming everybody does will get us nowhere. Don't you dare leave DU, Plaid, or if you do let me know where you went.

[Booster]

51. Adding to my post. Does it bother anyone else that when a

very popular poster has a long thread going and as soon as you post, it dies a thousand deaths. Can't tell you how many times this happens to me. ha Just wondered if it happens to anyone else.

[SmokingJacket]

52. If the party leadership doesn't stand by you, fuckem.

But dammit, we're sunk without you. WE'RE SUNK.

If we're not the party of inclusiveness and human fuckin rights, we ain't got SHIT.

What would we be then... the "latte lovin repubs"?

Please, Plaidder, please give everyone a day or two or three (but not much more) to come to their frickin senses and see what this is all about.

I understand oh so well about your disillusionment with the party, but if we break into pieces, it will be worse. I really think so.

Let everyone get over their freakout. This has been a hard week.

Ditching gays, our tenuous ties to the poor, women, anyone will only make us less and less relevant.

[bread_and_roses]

54. Thank you and yes, yes, yes (n/t)

[ulysses]

55. count me in, Adder.

and finally, when they have cut loose everything that was losing them 1% of the vote, they will be exactly like the Republicans, and they will STILL lose because they do not control the media and the voting machines and because they are blue instead of red.

YES.

[bread_and_roses]

56. Kicking for late risers (n/t)

[Bertha Venation]

57. Right on, Plaidder.

I've no energy to write much today but thank you for this. Thank your partner for working her ass off in WI. :hugs: to you both. Let us know when you find or start that organization, and we'll be there with you.

The Mrs. Venations