By July 8 we will all be on board, just like we have been before.

[madfloridian]

We will be in acceptance mode again. We will understand why the telecommunications companies had to be immunized from lawsuits. It will all make sense, and we will be okay with it.

Soon the drums will start beating for attacking Iran. Many in our party are either silent, or already on board for firmer actions against that country. Just like it was before Iraq..the drum beating by the media and the silence by those who should not silent on such a dangerous move.

We pretty much accepted that those who voted to invade Iraq were misled not complicit. We don't like the deaths and the torture, but there is really nothing we can do...so we go into acceptance mode.

It is like the calls about CAFTA and NAFTA and other trade deals with other countries. They simply push them through anyway. Done deals. Too late to stop it, they tell us.

The bankruptcy bill, that was another. I remember when the House Blue Dog Democrats and the House New Dems wrote separate letters to Denny Hastert, begging him to bring the bill to a vote. They were anxious to bring it about. No need to go into the harmful parts of the bill, really doesn't matter anyway. It's done.

Today, a few minutes ago, I deleted a post of mine that was covering what the Third Way and DLC/PPI were urging about voting for the FISA bill.

I decided it just was not worth it. It is just assumed that because I have been posting about FISA and my disdain for it....that I was attacking Obama. That's how minds work here. I could tell you we sent another $100 to Obama through Howard Dean's letter to us yesterday. No one ever believed we supported Kerry financially either, because I often said he should stand up more forcefully.

SO this is not a post about FISA...it is a post about inevitability, about acceptance, about the many kinds of loyalty there are to be had.

It is the inevitability that our party will care more about pleasing the far right than about pleasing their base. There will be few speaking out differently than the nominee. It will just not be done.

Then after we find out that Bob Barr was right...that a government who takes away the privacy of a man will control him completely....we won't have to worry. The deed will be done.

And we will accept it because we have to do so.

[woolldog]

1. The focus on this one issue

simply isn't productive. That's all. Pressure him once he's in office.

[madfloridian]

2. This post is NOT focusing on FISA. Dear God....please read what I wrote!!!!

.

[woolldog]

19. You used the word FISA how many times in your post that had nothing

to do with FISA?

This post is NOT about a pink elephant.

[madfloridian]

21. OMG....this "don't criticize Obama" "don't criticize FISA" is overwrought.

What is wrong with people here now?

You are being picky and petty and just ridiculous. I have had enough of that crap here for pointing out a bad dangerous bill.

I am updating my list...because I am sick of the "get on board" crap when our party is selling us out again.

[geiger]

135. try to even compliment anyone here lately, and they take it the wrong way,

but I wish PEOPLE, if they are going to bother to reply, at least READ what the person has to say first. Madfloridian is not here to waste anybody's time. I wish half the people who think they have something to say would do half the research she does.

And, BTW, my post is not just about being mad, it's about madness.

[madfloridian]

22. Good by....not taking any more crap.

[woolldog]

23. LOL. Now who's the one who can't tolerate dissent?

:hi:

[Cronopio]

88. That was beautiful, the way you made questioning the status quo look like intolerance of dissent.

Very artful. But will it look so good when *your* line is crossed and the same tactic is used against you?

Don't let it bug you until it happens.

[woolldog]

89. No. I'm speaking of her/him putting me on ignore b/c I criticized his/her's

obsession with this issue. I think that's just as intolerant, if not moreso, than the intolerance madfloridian is complaining of.

[Cronopio]

91. So, drawing a line == intolerance. You're getting more clever and artful all the time.

Pretty soon you'll get to 2 + 2 = 5, and then the fun will really begin.

Should madfloridian's intolerance of your intolerance of madfloridian's intolerance of Obama's intolerance of people who obsess over his support of the revised FISA be tolerated?

Should the cost of questioning Obama be that one should never put anyone on ignore on DU, so that one can never be called intolerant?

As you've clearly read Lakoff (or read the Cliff's notes), I'm sure you know how immensely gratifying playing with word definitions can be. You've just got to be more clever at the Republican's game than the Republicans, right?

[madfloridian]

95. Gee...

I am beginning to wish I could SEE that post but I can't...yours is great though.

[Jakes Progress]

101. They've all been to Room 101.

They are not just saying they see five fingers, they really see five fingers.

It is complete. They are cured. Now on the war with Oceana, or was that Eurasia. Oh, well. They'll tell us when they want to.

[woolldog]

126. I like your style.

:pals:

[QueenOfCalifornia]

106. Since she has you on ignore

I think you need to read her op again. You are so anxious to not look at what we have tried to point out and tell us to stfu and get on board. Get him elected and stfu. It's like some kind of wild bear mauling -

This is more than just a bowing down to the neocons - it is a character issue. Stand for something and keep standing for it.

I believe keeping our constitution in tact is important. I do not think voting for a FAR-right-wing, anti American, neocon led bill is constructive to anyone. People stand up for their principals are those who are held in high regard.

Do you have a shred of respect for David Sirota? Here are his thoughts:
"American voters tend to reward politicians who take clear stands," said David Sirota, a former Democratic aide on Capitol Hill and author of the new populist-themed book "The Uprising." "When Obama takes these mushy positions, it could speak to a character issue. Voters that don't pay a lot of attention look at one thing: 'Does the guy believe in something?' They may be saying the guy is afraid of his own shadow."

[Two Americas]

25. both are false

The post is not about "focusing on one issue" - and we always focus on one issue, as it is current and of interest - nor was it about Obama.

"Pressure him once he is in office" is exactly what madfloridian is talking about with the Dems in Congress.

He is in office, by the way, no? He is getting a lot less criticism here than Pelosi and Reid, out of deference to the needs of the presidential campaign.

The following is from Lincoln's Speech at New Haven in 1860. He asks the question of those who were insisting that he and others stop "agitating" over slavery - what will satisfy them? It reminds me of the calls here for people to stop "hurting the candidate." What would satisfy them that we are not hurting the candidate, and have no intention to hurt the candidate, but must continue to speak out on principle and about what we see as wrong.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: we must not only let them alone, but we must, somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches, we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them, Alike unavailing to convince them is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly -- done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated -- we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that Slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State Constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected of all taint of opposition to Slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. So long as we call Slavery wrong, whenever a slave runs away they will overlook the obvious fact that he ran because he was oppressed, and declare he was stolen off. Whenever a master cuts his slaves with the lash, and they cry out under it, he will overlook the obvious fact that the negroes cry out because they are hurt, and insist that they were put up to it by some rascally abolitionist.

I am quite aware that they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most of them would probably say to us, "Let us alone, do nothing to us, and say what you please about Slavery." But we do let them alone -- have never disturbed them -- so that, after all, it is what we say, which dissatisfies them. They will continue to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying.

Must the whole atmosphere in the party be disinfected of all taint of opposition, before some here will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us?

[woolldog]

28. To answer your question, yes.

"Must the whole atmosphere in the party be disinfected of all taint of opposition?"

Yes. Until Obama is in office, yes.

This post is NOT about a pink elephant.

[Two Americas]

33. that is honest

Then madfloridian is right.

[Cronopio]

90. Belief in pink elephants and Trojan Horses is for children.

Neither exist, no matter how much you don't talk/post about them.

[comradebillyboy]

93. love that totalitarian point of view. what makes you think he will be

more open to dissent once in office? I would expect just the opposite to be the case.

[Jakes Progress]

102. You are kidding, right?

No one is that thick.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

110. You are stretching

into being perceived as insane if you keep it up with the pink elephant.

What part of "he changed direction and is voting with the neocons" do you not understand?????

There is no pink elephant. There is reality. A pink elephant represents a hallucination. I am not hallucinating a big assed flip-flop on a MAJOR issue. I ask myself, "What is he going to do to make himself more appealing to the neocons next? Stay in Iraq for 100 more years? Vote to torture? Privatize social security? Invade Iran? Drill for Oil off the coast where I live? the list goes on and on

I voted for Obama because he promised CHANGE. He made me a promise damn it. He said he would filibuster any attempt to pass that POS bill. Now? Well.... Hillary is gone, no opposition and so he will go back on a promise and vote with the neocon, freepers who are laughing like drunken assholes at Obama right now. Go to their dumbassed web site and read about him being a spineless over achiever.

It is more of a tactical mistake to placate the neocons and freeze out his base. Me. I fucking voted for the guy in our primary. I do have a say about what I see as a genuinely stupid, political move.

I WILL VOTE FOR HIM BUT THIS PISSES ME OFF TO THE END OF THE EARTH. The fence sitters who hate being spied on by our government? They will go 3rd party.

PINK ELEPHANT MY ASS.

[madfloridian]

3. Acceptance is a good thing.

When you have no control, it is best to accept.

When the voices who yell not to criticize are louder than the voices of conscience and concern....then it is easier to just accept more quickly.

[Psyop Samurai]

13. "Louder", I have discovered, is not always greater in number...

...nor does it have the most staying power.

But get a good bandwagon going on a really combustible straw man, and it can be ferocious.
______

Wish I knew what to say, madflo...

Acceptance is a good thing, once you have lost...,

but I am not good at it, and there is much left to lose.

[madfloridian]

4. Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran/

This is the next big thing. Just saying that because we will accept it.

[hokies4ever]

7. A result of our unflappable alliance with Israel

Whatever they want, our politicians have given them. Israel is a firm believer in preemptive war, so unless we want to go down that road, the next President is going to have to stand up to Israel.

[Saturday]

5. Well said. *crying emoticon* nt

[Political Heretic]

6. FISA vote is wrong *AND* Obama should be elected president.

A person can hold those two concepts in their head at the same time.

I don't have to stop saying the FISA vote is wrong just because Obama should be elected President. And I don't have to stop saying Obama should be elected President just because the FISA vote is wrong.

[tekisui]

8. Why the date July 8th?

Is that when the FISA vote is? Or what will we learn that "justifies" FISA bill?

And, I agree, an Iranian attack is coming, and by the time it does, it will be accepted, expected and supported by the M$M, and in turn, the ignorant masses.

I hope everyone is ready for $15/gallon gas.

[madfloridian]

9. The date of the vote, I hear.

Yes.

[mopinko]

10. i don't know the answer mad.

we are between a rock and a hard place right now, and it is pretty upsetting. especially when we know that that rock was placed right there to push our buttons. what is the way around responding to this button pushing? we do feel that we should not give an inch here. but we also do not want to be the ones piling on.
barack is the best candidate of our lifetime. but, there is so much built up rage. it is so easy for them to pull something out of their asses, and get us riled.
i just keep thinking about the whole immigration debate, which you know was intended to split the left, and sure the hell did. and in the end what did we get? nothing. the issue was manufactured to push our buttons. period. we bit on it big time.
we need to find another way, mad. this is clearly not working. our raw emotions will win us nothing. what to do? i wish i knew. but i sure know what we should not be doing. and that is putting this entire mess on barack's shoulders. it is not his to bear. it is all of ours. we the people. i think we need to keep our eyes on the prize here, and get the man elected. when he has the power, then he can bear the burden. i do not think he will shirk his responsibilities. i am convinced that he knows the magnitude of the problem. he is our best chance to do SOMETHING. we have to be mindful of blowing it. not silent, but mindful.
those of us that know things have a terrible burden. let us concentrate on the man that is strong enough to carry something so horrible.
peace

[madfloridian]

18. There is no answer.

That is why you don't know it. Because there is no answer but acceptance mode.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

112. My answer is

I voted for change. Voting along with the neocon agenda is not change.

It scares me. Scares me a lot that Obama would go back on his word and vote with the neocons.

[bertman]

94. First of all, this issue was not something that was fabricated to "push our buttons".

This issue became an issue because it is an attempt by the President of the United States to negate the power of our elected representatives to oversee how domestic intelligence is conducted. This is an issue that directly affects every man, woman and child in this country in a big way given our current Executive's disregard for the finer points of the Constitution.

We would not be in this "hard place" if the Democrats in Congress had stood up to Bush and the telecoms by voting against the immunity.

Why is it that so many of us Dems frame everything as if we are VICTIMS OF SOMEONE ELSE'S PLOTS OR PLANS when this and most of our other problems with the current administration are directly attributable to the piss-poor leadership of our Senate Majority Leader and House Speaker? IT'S THE DEMOCRATS' OWN FAULT THAT WE ARE IN THIS FUCKED UP MESS. THEY COULD HAVE STOPPED IT.

Those of us who are so upset about the FISA/telecom immunity bill are NOT PUTTING THIS ON OBAMA'S SHOULDERS. We are putting it on the shoulders of all of the Congressmen and Senators who voted for this abomination of a bill. Senator Obama is not only A SENATOR, BUT ALSO THE LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. He's our standard bearer and as such we should expect him to stand first and foremost for the constitutional rights of all Americans--not for political expediency in an election year. If it's too much to ask of the Democratic Party Presidential candidate to stand for our rights, then our party is in a very bad way.

It is sheer insanity to say that we Dems are hurting the party by trying to force our party leadership to ACT LIKE DEMOCRATS INSTEAD OF ACTING LIKE FASCIST REPUBLICANS. These folks have shown that THEY CANNOT BE TRUSTED. I don't want Obama to fall in line with them--NOW OR EVER.

If Barack Obama REALLY WANTS TO GAIN THE SUPPORT OF AMERICANS OF ALL PARTIES he will change his mind and stand against this bill. The people of the United States give our Congressional reps a 13% approval rating. Doesn't that tell us anything?

[Jakes Progress]

104. That was always the solution I was looking for.

We keep being exhorted to jump on the bus and support our guy regardless of where the bus was going.

What about the elected Democrats? Shouldn't they support the candidate? Shouldn't they have to give a little? We're supposed to stifle and salute obediently but we're not the employees, they are. I was hoping that maybe they would gather round the nominee and maybe give up a little of their filthy corporation money by supporting Obama. But no. Our candidate gets led around like (fill in your own blank) by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. I had hoped that he had the power of leadership necessary to bring these errant small party members back in line. Instead, he gets told what to do.

Why should we have to get in line behind Obama is they don't. They are the ones who asked for the job. We gave it to them and now they are thumbing their nose at us. They are costing us the election.

Here if we criticize we get called republicans. But these faux Democrats are the ones supporting amnesty for george and supporting all the republican bills. Their actions are what will cost us the election. Since they never met a republican bill they don't vote for, maybe they do want mccain to win. Maybe they are the ones we should be kicking out.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

114. Excellent points

I am happy you came along because I am very tired of being told that to support someone, I can not point out a major PROBLEM.

[BuyingThyme]

11. Great post, MadFloridian.

I wish it weren't.

[rug]

12. On the other hand, we are all now free to arm ourselves.

[GoldieAZ49]

15. and that is starting to sound like a very good idea.

when they come for me they will meet resistance.

[GoldieAZ49]

14. Political Loyalty is a one way street

It is no longer the candidate to the people they represent, it is the people to the candidate owed because of party affiliation.

They say one thing, then do another, and tell we the people we have no choice, get along and go along.

I don't know when we stopped having a representative government, it is just become so very obvious.


Political Loyalty is a one way street regardless of the party, they are blending into one.

[Kdillard]

16. Nobody is saying to accept anything .

I do see people saying right now the focus should be on getting Obama elected and not nitpicking him to death over something he very well can't do much about. Also that the focus should be on attacking McCain. Once Obama is elected then we can start screaming about what he does or does not do about things like the FISa bill but until then it is counterproductive. First things first and one step at a time. The way things are going with Iran makes it even more critical that Obama is elected and we don't get ourselves divided or lose sight of the fact that John McCain would have us bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.

[madfloridian]

17. You are wrong. The mindset here is to hush.

.

[Jakes Progress]

107. Wrong. Everything is about accepting.

if you don't, you are labeled not worthy of being on DU. I've been told that Skinner was going to kick me out any minute for saying that the fourth amendment is not the kind of thing you play games with.

The whole problem is that he should stand up for something. If he can't do anything about it because his party won't follow him, that says a lot about what's wrong with the party and a lot about what it will be like once he is in office. He would appeal to voters more if he were offering an opposition to the republicans rather than trying to be just like them. He will lose the stay home voters, the ones he drew by the thousands to rallies, if they no longer see any difference in his stance and the republican. That was why they stayed home in the first place. Obama told them he was going to be different, that it was worth going to vote because he was going to be different. Now his is not being different. Millions of vote lost, not votes to mccain. Just lost.

[Two Americas]

139. the effect is the same

Of course no one actually says that people should shut up - that wouldn't work because too many people would see that for what it is and reject it.

Instead, what we see are witch hunts and personal attacks, disrupted and locked down threads, insinuations and distractions. The purpose of all of that is so that the mass of DUers, those
"in the middle" - do not hear one particular point of view clearly and consistently, so that the whole herd can be driven away from certain topics and so that it is very difficult to concentrate and analyze things and share our observations. It is much easier to create an uproar and to prevent anything constructive from happening then it is to build dialog and apply critical thinking skills. Those who are happy, or complacent, about the way things are do not need to win any arguments or persuade anyone of anything, they merely need to make sure that no alternatives can be considered in depth or calmly discussed.

[NYC_SKP]

20. Third Way and DLC/PPI, for dummies, like me.

madfloridian and many others here are far more knowledgeable than I on certain matters.
I had to look it up to confirm my suspicions.

For those few, like me, who need more context:

"The core principles of the "third way movement" are set forth in the DLC/PPI's 1996 publication, The New Progressive Declaration: A Political Philosophy for the Information Age. As the New Democrats explain, the enduring progressive values must be adapted to the information age, which translates into policy recommendations that are very close to policies articulated by the administration of George W. Bush: uncompromising support for free market and free trade economics, a strong military with a global presence, an end to the politics of entitlement, rejection of affirmative action, and an embrace of competitive enterprise while at the same time rejecting a key role for government in development policy."

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1534.html

:hi:

[madfloridian]

24. The assimilation will be easier this time around.

This place never demanded such fealty to Dean or Kerry or anyone else in 03 and 04.

So, the party leaders will know it, and they will push things through accordingly.

I count 3 posts on front page from people I respect and the intent is to hush us from pointing out the dangers.

That's pretty damn quick this time around.

[CTyankee]

26. You know, I think DUers are very desperate to have a win this time.

There is a feeling, which I myself share, that our country simply cannot survive another Republican president.

That said, I would point to Obama's statement about essentially revisiting the FISA issue after he is elected. I know that is not satisfactory to you and I have uneasy feelings myself about having hands getting onto power in the first place. You have wise fears and I am not unmindful of them.

So I guess this gets down to what is known as the "lesser of two evils" in your situation. Many people here don't see Obama as any part of "evil" of course and they are reacting to your reaction against the hope they have invested in Obama. It is discouraging to them.


I want you to know that I am not upset that you have posted your fears. I'm not there with you as I have more faith in Obama. Why? Because there is a choice to be made and I have thought a great deal about Barack Obama, based on the totality of what I have heard from him and what he has written in one of his books. I can't do any more than that.

You're in a difficult place just now. I just wanted you to know I acknowledge that.

[madfloridian]

27. I am not talking about Obama. The bill has already passed.

It passed the house, and already there was a cloture vote in the Senate.

It is done.

They did not have to bring it to a vote at all.

[CTyankee]

29. I don't know if your last statement is accurate. In a perfect world such things

should not happen. Remember, tho, that Saul Alinsky counseled activists about "accepting the world as it is, not as you would like it to be." So if Alinsky was saying this to antiwar activists back in the Vietnam days, I think it warrants a little more appreciation for his realistic view. We have to keep our eyes on the prize even as we raise our voices to be heard...

[madfloridian]

30. So you think we HAD to bring FISA up for a vote?

The only reason I see is to make us look tough on terror.

[CTyankee]

133. Aperfect example of the "world as it is" as Alinsky would say.

He doesn't mean you don't take action. You do (obviously, since he wrote this in his book "Rules for Radicals"). But wishing for the right set of circumstances and ideal worlds gets us nowhere. You are doing the right thing to criticize and raise your voice and rally people to your side.

[Jakes Progress]

108. FISA could be left alone.

It should be. The best thing we could have happen is to have the senate just sit on it. Either way he votes on it will bite him. If you're going to be tarred for going either way, I would wish that my candidate would do the right thing.

[Two Americas]

34. yes

They get their signals from us. If we applaud every conservative or cautious step they take, they get the message.

Some say "pressure them after they get in office." Why would they once on office do the opposite of what we supported before they are elected? It is a representative democracy. If we say "do whatever it takes to get into office and stay in office, that is all we ask" then that is what they will do.

It did happen faster then ever this time, didn't it? That means we will have an even more compromising party once they get into office, if that is possible.

[madfloridian]

35. Thanks for your posts in this thread. I appreciate them.

:hi:

Yes, they do take their cues from us.

[Two Americas]

43. you have been an inspiration to all of us for a long time

I deeply appreciate all of the great work you do for us. I am happy to contribute to your effort in small ways whenever I can.

[madfloridian]

44. Well, I am changing my ways. I am SO on board with no criticism

of Democrats ever ever.

I learn the hard way.

[unapatriciated]

57. unfortunately it's the wrong lesson they are teaching

and so we are doomed to repeating our history lesson over and over again. Doomed to be a world of oppressors and oppressed until man becomes extinct.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU5gA6IcIpk

[Runcible Spoon]

72. seconded...hugs to you both

and special thanks to keeping your cool where I cannot! :hug:

[Two Americas]

140. hey farce

It is so stressful and so hard to keep an even temperament. I have to wonder how many there are reading here who agree with us but who just do not have the stomach for posting and taking the abuse?

Thanks for all you do and for the kind words, and hugs back to you.

:hug:

[crankychatter]

31. you posted intelligently about FISA - I never assumed you were "attacking Obama"

IN fact, I was grateful for an assessment of the matter I could trust.

it IS a fact that many who were yarfing about FISA, were attacking Obama from the heels up and all over town, on that, along with numerous other issues... most of them, contrived, misrepresented and hyperbolic.

Um, Mad, I respect you. But how is it we're going down the primrose path to an attack on Iran and a police state, by supporting the candidate?

That sure seems to be what you're implying there. If so, I'd be quite disappointed. I always enjoy your take on matters.

[madfloridian]

32. I don't think I said that. I do think the Dems will go along with Iran

Just like they did Iraq.

I do think Obama will have to make a choice, and it will have to be to be strong on terror.

I hope I am wrong.

But all the things we fought so hard for, all our passionate pushes to stand up for issues that mattered....never really mattered because the decisions were already made.

I think it is wrong for people at a Democratic forum to post thread after thread urging silence on things that matter.

[Eyes_wide_ open]

50. I could not agree more

"I think it is wrong for people at a Democratic forum to post thread after thread urging silence on things that matter."

and so very, very sad because if they are successful, they will have sealed their own fate ... never seeing that by using the tactics of the enemy, even if we win we will have gained nothing.

Doesn't anybody here remember that the madman in the White House used the very same rhetoric to rally a nation blinded by fear to silence the dissenters to a war that nobody but a few neocon and vengeful mob wanted?

Unity is a wonderful thing, and necessary if we are going to win. But we do not have to accept the shrubbery's definition of unity. Unity, to me, means working together towards a common goal. We don't have to agree on every little point of method and procedure. We do not need to be silent about what we think needs to be done to reach that goal. I do not accept the neocon mantra "if you aren't for us you are against us".

Some things Obama has done recently have caused me some concern as they have many here. If we can't talk about those concerns among ourselves, how in the hell do you think we're going to convince anyone not already on the team that they should join us?

Yes there has been some over the top bashing that needs to stop, it really is counter-productive. But you're never going to stop that with equally over the top rants of STFU and take it either, and it is just as counter-productive. How about we spend all this time we're wasting fighting with each other to do something that actually helps move us towards our goal?

Admin can take care of disrupters. Time spent arguing with them is just time lost. Labeling everyone that expresses a different view on any given subject than our candidate as a disrupter ... or disloyal ... or purist ... or progressive ... or whatever ... may win you a battle, but cost you the war. You really don't want to chase everyone away that doesn't agree 100% away do you? That's definitely a losing strategy.

In the words of MLK
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

[madfloridian]

51. They are successful with me. This is my last post here critical of Dems.

I am going to put it in my journal and then not post about Democrats anymore.

It is not worth what I went through here tonight.

[madfloridian]

52. Dupe post

.

[madfloridian]

37. I meant we have to speak up on things like that. Even if we fail.

I can tell which side is winning at DU.

The side that is in control here now is the shut and wait until after November no matter what the Democrats do.

I have trouble with that.

We donate freely to Obama and the party. But when did it become okay to tell people to hush?

[dmr]

60. Well, I don't want you to shut up

I don't see how anyone could take issue with your original post here, Mad.

I haven't been on DU but for a few minutes the past few days so I'm not really sure what has and not been said here.

If there are people purposely telling others to halt their critical thinking skills then, they just have to be ignored, no matter how loud and often they complain.

I'm certainly not going to fall into the trap the Republicans formated for their party. Total allegiance. No way. No how.

I can certainly vote a Democrat into office and still disagree on a few issues with that politician. And anyone who wants me to shut up can go pound sand. The Democratic Party that I've known for decades would never expect that destructive behavior.

I'm not sure what direction the current batch of DUers are trying to take this forum. This place is always evolving - except - DU has never accepted blind faith. If this is the trend today, it won't last. We have witnessed and suffered from those who placed their blind faith behind the GOP close to 30 years now, with the extreme being nearly the last 8 years of devastating Republican cronyism.

Personally, I would have liked to have read the post you originally wanted to post. Your posts are always honest, and accurate. DU has always been about the truth, no matter how bad it hurts sometimes.

Don't shut up, MadFloridian, or I'll be the MadMichigander at ya!

[bvar22]

36. K&R

2009 will be a year of disappointment for those expecting REAL change.
We will see as much CHANGE as we saw in 2006.



"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[Lugnut]

75. I'm afraid so.

It sure is looking that way.

[mdmc]

84. We want hope, not change

Thanks for the wellstone quote:toast:

[Jakes Progress]

109. Please make the quote and picture

you used here to make an OP. Put it on GD or GDP.

This is the core of what we need to be talking about. Otherwise, the party is dead.

[SwampG8r]

38. as a fellow floridian

i have never taken anything you have said as anything but support for obama
if people are calling you out dont let it get you
just brush it off

grr i cant find the obama brushing it off photo

[madfloridian]

39. No, I know when it is time to quit. Others can do it or not.

I was just called a motherfucker for posting about it and having an attitude.

Iran is next. Who will speak up then.

[SwampG8r]

40. ironically FISA is a response to Iranian policies in the 70s

i think i read today
be funny if we use it to jump iran again with it
funny sad i mean not funny haha

[iconicgnom]

71. Nothing to do with Iran. Everything to do with trying to curb abuse of political power. From wiki

"History
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act resulted from extensive investigations by Senate Committees into the legality of domestic intelligence activities. These investigations were led separately by Sam Ervin and Frank Church in 1978 as a response to President Nixon’s usage of federal resources to spy on political and activist groups, which violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.<7> The act was created to provide Judicial and congressional oversight of the government's covert surveillance activities of foreign entities and individuals in the United States, while maintaining the secrecy needed to protect national security. It allowed warrantless surveillance within the United States for up to one year unless the "surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party". If a United States person is involved, judicial authorization was required within 72 hours after surveillance begins."

And in my opinion it's a very very dangerous act already, as is -- and in the interest of democratic freedom movement should be toward restricting the secret nature of the court, by e.g. putting a timelimit after which there's full disclosure of what was done in its name, disclosure on a par with normal surveillance laws, so there can be a timely and full public review. Only that way would the public, the voters who rule in a free democracy, have the info needed to tweak these powers so as to prevent further abuses and ensure the public's protection both from within and without. After all, this accords with the purpose of these FISA laws in the first place -- the laws weren't enacted in a fear-based rush during a time of real or imagined emergency, they were enacted on review, after a period of objective appraisal.

As it is right now, I hear that even Congress doesn't know what's going on in these regards and because of this the executive branch is able to lie and prevaricate in a demagogic message of fear and uncertainty so as to rush through and enact legislation that ever further erodes and eliminates civil liberties that have been taken for granted for centuries.

madfloridian, Glenn Greenwald and others are totally correct, that this bill didn't need to come up for a vote at this time, and shouldn't have come up for a vote at this time, and pushing it through in these circumstances was terribly terribly wrong.

[madfloridian]

83. Thanks. I hope someone will post Greenwald's stuff here at DU now...

because I am backing off.

[Jakes Progress]

111. This is one of the problems.

All of the cheerboys screaming for unity don't have any idea what they are talking about. They don't know what FISA is. They don't know how the new bill alter it. They don't know what the 4th amendment is or means. They are playing celebrity football. Rah rah. Our team is best. We don't know why, it just is. The combination of ignorance and complacency is a powerful soporific to progressive action.

[Divine Discontent]

55. googled shoulder obama, just for ya!

[Occam Bandage]

41. Yes, I can sure see how shielding telecoms from civil suits is exactly the same as war with Iran.

Exactly.

[madfloridian]

42. Is that all you got from the last 8 years of caving?

You won, I told you. Please back off. I won't post anything anymore remotely critical of any Democrat.

Pat yourself on the back.

[Occam Bandage]

46. I also got a great Cave-In '07 T-shirt, too.

[Jakes Progress]

113. See post 111 for a description of what is wrong

with this post.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

45. but no one is going to accept a draft

not this time. Bush can forget his drum at the ranch we are not invading anymore countries for the time being!

[Two Americas]

47. private armies

Private armies is one way to get around the draft, and there is another that has been falling into place quietly. Over 900,000 people have been rounded up and detained right under our noses. Already some have been given the choice - join the military and you will become a citizen, otherwise out you go. Since these ongoing warrant-less round-ups are all secret, and people are held incommunicado and denied attorneys or any contact with the world, we don't really know what is happening fully. We do know that many citizens and legal aliens who happen to be brown have been rounded up. We do know that there has been a lot of abuse and coercion of detainees. We do know that they are completely helpless in the hands of the authorities, and there is no oversight. We do know that at least some have been offered citizenship if they will go into the armed forces.

But everything is OK, really it is, if only we critics and dissidents would STFU and stop "being negative" and "whining" and "bitching" and "discouraging people."

Madfloridian is right in seeing that these things are all tied together, whether it seems logical that they should be or not. Each battle represents another piece of the right wing game plan, and failing to see the overall pattern, and failing to fight them aggressively on all fronts is to be complicit, even if unwittingly. When we do finally see exactly how all of the pieces fit together, it may then be too late.

[balantz]

58. Please link TA

I was unaware of some of this info.

[Two Americas]

61. hey balantz

Didn't see you slip in here and post, sorry.

Good opportunity to post the transcript of the speech Senator Menendez recently made on the Senate floor.

IMMIGRATION RAIDS AND DETENTIONS: SEN. MENENDEZ MAKES MAJOR SPEECH ON SENATE FLOOR

U.S. citizens and permanent residents have been swept up in raids and detentions as fears among Hispanic, other minority communities rise

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

WASHINGTON – This afternoon, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) took to the floor of the Senate to deliver a major speech on immigration raids and detentions. He cited the numerous incidences of American citizens and legal permanent residents of Hispanic or other minority descent getting swept up in raids and the fear this has engendered in minority communities. Senator Menendez, who is the Senate sponsor of legislation to ensure basic medical care for detainees, also announced that he will be introducing legislation to prevent the unlawful detention of American citizens and permanent residents.

“The legitimate desire to get control over our borders has too often turned into a witch-hunt against Hispanic Americans and other people of color,” said Senator Menendez. American citizens “are targeted because of their race, targeted because of their color--denied every fundamental right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Common sense repeatedly loses out to hysteria, and agents of intolerance repeatedly jump over the legal protections to which every single American is entitled.”

Senator Menendez mentioned several reported instances of the illegal detention or harassment of U.S. citizens and permanent residents of Hispanic descent. "Each of us in this country has to think, 'What if that happened to me? Why couldn’t that happen to me? What would happen to my children if I were taken away?'"

“We can never lose sight of the fact that everyone who immigrates to this country, whether they are documented or not, is a human being. A detention should never amount to a death sentence.”

“Before we accuse someone of being undocumented, there’s one other document we should inspect first: it’s called the Constitution of the United States. It’s time for immigration and law enforcement on all levels to rededicate themselves to respecting the rights the Constitution guarantees.”

Full text of Senator Menendez’s remarks, as prepared for delivery:

M. President,

Our deepest obligation as United States Senators and as representatives of the American people is to make sure our nation’s founding promises are being kept.

With a few strokes of Thomas Jefferson’s pen, we were told that life and liberty would be unalienable rights, that a chance to seek happiness would be something to which we were all entitled.

Our rights grew over time—and over time we grew out of restrictions on who was entitled to those rights. African Americans threw down the chains of slavery. Women marched to the polls. People came from all over the world to become full members of our society, because of the promise that our country held and the guarantees that our government made.

But when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement –also known as ICE –conducted raids in Texas not long ago, one 19-year-old U.S. citizen who was dragged from her home while she was still in her pajamas wasn’t thinking about that history.

An 18-year-old U.S. citizen who was shackled at his ankles, handcuffed at his wrists and tied at his waist wasn’t thinking about that history.

They were thinking to themselves, “My God, what’s happening to me? What’s going to happen to my family?”

When ICE agents banged on the door of a U.S. citizen named Arturo Flores, and pushed their way into his house in Clifton, New Jersey without showing a warrant; and when agents in North Bergen, New Jersey stormed into the house of a legal immigrant named Maria Argueta, in the middle of the night, and held her without cause, taking her away from her family for 36 hours—those loud knocks on the door quickly woke these law-abiding individuals up from their American dreams.

Hearing these examples, some people may say, “Well, this is what happens when people enter this country without going through the proper channels.” I hear it all the time because it is the mantra of people who defend ICE’s raids.

But these aren’t undocumented immigrants getting pulled from their homes in the dead of night. They are US citizens who are targeted because of their race, targeted because of their color. Denied every fundamental right guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Our fellow citizens may not have been surprised that they were yanked from their homes. They might have known that their immigration status wasn’t even necessarily relevant.

They might have heard stories about friends who were U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, but who were seized in immigration raids, detained, and in some cases, deported. I’m talking about U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

They may have known that their accent, their name, the color of their skin, the place where they lived would have put them at risk. They may have known that—regardless of what our politicians and historians say—fundamental Constitutional rights still might not apply to them, in today’s America.

We’ve been hearing these stories for too long. It’s time they were told on the Senate floor, because together we need to face a blunt reality: our legitimate desire to get control over our borders has too often turned into a witch-hunt against Hispanic Americans and other people of color.

Common sense repeatedly loses out to hysteria, and agents of intolerance repeatedly jump over the legal protections to which every single American is entitled.

I’m going to tell just a few stories today, but there are plenty of others like them.

Last year, a 30-year-old mentally impaired man named Pedro Guzman, who was born and raised in Southern California, was arrested on misdemeanor charges and scheduled to be released—he’s a U.S. citizen, but somehow, his accent, his name and the color of his skin must have convinced immigration authorities otherwise. So instead of returning him to his home, they decided to deport him to Mexico.

Even after immigration authorities realized their horrible mistake, they made no significant effort to correct it. Pedro attempted several times to cross the border home to the United States, and was repeatedly turned away. He was forced to wander the streets of Tijuana, eating out of trash cans to survive—a U.S. citizen.

His mother Maria was worried beyond belief, and took off time from her job to search for Pedro. Finally, three full months after he’d been illegally deported, Pedro found his way home. When he came back, his mother said, after so much trauma, only half of her son had returned.

Each of us in this country has to think, What if that happened to me? Why couldn’t that happen to me? What would happen to my children if I were taken away?

The authorities harass U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent in other ways.

Last fall, under the cover of darkness, a dozen immigration agents stormed into the Long Island home of Peggy Delrosa-Delgado, a U.S. citizen and a mother of three.

They pushed through her 17-year-old son, herded her children into the living room, and one of them drew a gun on a family friend staying in the house. This was the second time they had done this, supposedly looking for someone named Miguel who had never lived there.

Another U.S. citizen named Gladis was at her home one day when eighteen vehicles drove into her front yard, and twenty agents jumped out.

Agents banged on the door and threatened to throw gas inside the house if they didn’t let them in. While the children in the house ran and hid in the bedroom, the agents broke down the door.

One of the agents grabbed Gladis and attempted to handcuff her.

Gladis said she could prove her citizenship, and gave them her social security card. After interrogating Gladis and her family for twenty more minutes, the agents left as fast as they came—
they had no warrant, no probable cause, no reason for their actions besides suspicion about someone’s name, their accent, and the color of their skin.

And there’s one more detail I should mention: Gladis was six months pregnant at the time.

Each of us in this country has to think, What if that happened to me? Why couldn’t that happen to me? What would happen to my children if I were taken away?

M. President, very shortly I’ll be introducing legislation to prevent the unlawful detention of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

But the problem with our detention system is even larger. Beyond the U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are unlawfully detained, there are people who have come to the U.S. fleeing persecution, people who have committed no crime, but find themselves trapped and squeezed between the gears of the U.S. immigration system.

The Washington Post has recently run a disturbing series on the catastrophic state of our detention system. I encourage all of my colleagues to read it, and I ask Unanimous Consent to enter the articles into the record.

The whole series is staggering, revealing deficiencies in our detention system that most of us couldn’t dream up in our worst nightmares. The Washington Post has forced us, as a nation, to look in the mirror, and I for one am appalled by what I see.

We, the United States of America, the greatest democracy in the entire world, have been injecting people with heavy doses of drugs in order to deport them or just to move them around the system with more ease.

Immigration officials drug people going through U.S. facilities, and they drug people who are about to be deported. They drug some people so heavily that when they get off the plane they collapse on the tarmac, or they have to be rolled off the plane in a wheelchair.

They don’t only drug people to make it easier to kick them out. One story that stood out in both the Washington Post and a segment on 60 Minutes was that of a woman named Amina Mudey. Last year, Amina fled from Somalia to the U.S. to seek asylum after she was tortured and her family was killed before her eyes.

When she arrived at JFK airport, she was shackled, thrown in a van and driven to a windowless converted warehouse in New Jersey. Immigration authorities didn’t so much as find an interpreter.

Instead, they decided to lock her up, decided she was insane without even talking to her, and decided to inject her full of a drug to treat a disease she didn’t have. The side effects were awful. Her tongue swelled so much she couldn’t close her mouth. She drooled and vomited uncontrollably, and began to lactate.

When she complained, they upped the dose. She thought to herself, “maybe I’m going to die in here.”

Finally, five months after she was detained, she won her asylum case in court and was released from the detention center. Without the perseverance of her lawyer, Amina would never have emerged from her drug-induced state. She would never have found the asylum she so desperately needed.

This case sheds light on another grim reality: medical treatment at our detention facilities is atrocious. Over-medication is far from the only problem. Life threatening lack of care is also a serious problem. Take the heartbreaking story of Francisco Castaneda. Francisco entered one of our detention facilities battling cancer – although he didn’t know it.
All he knew is that he had significant lesions on his reproductive organs.

Offsite officials who never examined Francisco repeatedly denied him the biopsy he so desperately needed. After 11 long months in custody, Francisco argued for and eventually obtained a temporary release so he could pay for his own biopsy. Life-threatening cancerous tumors were found.

Despite amputation of the affected area and several rounds of chemotherapy, Francisco died of cancer at the age of 36.

A federal judge recently noted that this case appears to present, quote, “one of the most, if not the most, egregious Eighth Amendment violations the Court has ever encountered.”

The United States of America essentially killed Francisco Castaneda by denying him the medical care he so desperately needed. Why? Because he had entered this country without the proper documentation, at the age of 10, with his mother, fleeing civil war in El Salvador—a war the US had helped to fund, a war which sent thousands of refugees like him to our country.

He was denied care because he tried to make a better life for himself and his family. These are hardly offenses that warrant death. We cannot, in good conscience, allow these conditions to continue. That’s why I’ve joined together with my colleagues, Senators Kennedy, Durbin, Akaka and Lieberman, to introduce the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act.

First, the bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to establish procedures for delivering basic health care to all immigration detainees in custody.

It requires DHS to give people in custody access to any medications they urgently need, both during detention and during any transfers.

Currently, a bureaucrat in an office can overrule a medical professional who is actually on site and seeing a detainee. This bill ensures that treatment decisions are made by the professionals who actually see the patients.

And finally, the bill would require DHS to report all detainee deaths to the Office of Inspector General and Congress.

We can never lose sight of the fact that everyone who immigrates to this country, whether they are documented or not, is a human being. A detention should never amount to a death sentence. This kind of action to ensure humane treatment and prevent unnecessary deaths at these facilities is long overdue.

Let’s not forget that many in immigration detention are there for minor violations, many because of administrative errors, or pending legitimate asylum cases.

At some point, this becomes more than a legal issue – it becomes a human rights issue, and it is our job to do all we can to secure our country while protecting the dignity of all human beings.

If we fail to do so, not only do we blemish ourselves, but we lose the moral high ground to be a beacon of democracy and a leader in human rights around the world.

M. President, it is astounding to me that human beings could be treated as badly as some are being treated on our soil.

When innocent people are drugged, tranquilized and treated like animals,

When agents attempt to handcuff a pregnant United States citizen, break down the door to her home, and terrify her children and her family;

When an agency of the federal government deports its own citizen;

When all of this is going on, each of us in America has to think, What if that were my family? What if that happened to us? Doesn’t my U.S. citizenship, whether by birth or naturalization, protect me from this kind of abuse?

Some officials have claimed that these incidents are rare. Some of suggested that this is acceptable collateral damage in pursuit of undocumented aliens. They should tell that to Pedro, Gladis, Amina and everyone else, and all the families who have had to watch this happen. No matter how widespread this pattern of abuse turns out to be, one thing is clear: it isn't rare enough.

There’s only one way to prevent that kind of abuse: it should be a universal policy, that before we accuse someone of being undocumented, there’s one other document we should inspect first: it’s called the Constitution of the United States.

It’s time for immigration and law enforcement on all levels to rededicate themselves to respecting the rights the Constitution guarantees.

That means respecting the need for probable cause and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, the right to Due Process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, the full benefits of citizenship and Equal Protection for anyone born or naturalized in this country guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment—and the entire range of rights and protections our Constitution grants.

This is going to take real leadership, at every level of our justice system, from the Attorney General, to the Secretary of Homeland Security on down.

That’s the only way that those who by birth or naturalization have a legitimate right to pursue the American Dream, won’t have to watch as their lives turn into an un-American nightmare.

M. President,

This issue might not be the legislative business of this chamber right now, but it is always our moral business.

It’s always our moral business to defend the most fundamental principle on which our nation was founded: that all of us are created equal.

Stopping illegal detentions of Americans based on their race is about more than properly enforcing the law. Above all, it’s about respecting people who may be different from us, but who share the same birthright.

As Martin Luther King said, “We may have come on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.”

If we’re worried about what to throw off the boat, it should be our oldest enemy: fear.

Once that’s gone, we can resume our course on the currents of freedom, and let our sails be filled with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you M. President, I yield the floor.

[balantz]

73. This is not good.

We are in deep doo-doo!

[Two Americas]

103. how it ties in

Here is how this ties in with madfloridian's post.

Imagine...

Imagine if we stood with the immigrants (and people of color who are citizens, since the government makes little or no distinction on this) and fought back along side them.

If we stood with the immigrants, the right wingers would be finished, would have no response and would be revealed as racists and authoritarians and would lose the support of most Americans.

More importantly than that, we would suddenly see that the Democratic politicians had "grown a spine" as the activists like to say. They are already far to the left of us on this, and the general public is to the left of the politicians. But with virtually NO activist support, virtually NO white liberals standing with people of color, the politicians - politicians in a representative democracy, not lords and princes making decrees - are severely handicapped.

We do not have their backs, we are pushing them to the right. We see that right here everyday. A handful of people in the liberal and party activist community WANT the party to move to the right, to be the party of upscale enlightened intellectuals, and the rest of us are allowing them to drive us all to the right, and thereby strand the politicians and force them to move to the right as well.

The politicians can not get to far ahead of the public, and the public cannot get ahead of the activists and intellectuals. We move to the left - and almost ALL of us most definitely would if we were not continually terrorized with fear campaigns and witch hunts, by a handful among us, to move to the right or at least shut up about leftist ideas - and the public moves to the left and the politicians move to the left. That is how politics works. That is wat the right wingers are successfully doing.

Instead, we are cowards and we blame others. We say the politicians "have no spine" and that the people are "stupid idiots." We never look in the mirror. We sigh and say "oh well the public is pretty conservative, probably all a bunch of stupid racist assholes, and the politicians won't take us by our little hands and lead us to progressive wonderland, so what can we dooooooooo?"

What the government is doing to people of color here is entirely consistent with what the government is doing to the people of Iraq. It is the same battle. It is not a battle against "the war" - there is no real war, just an ongoing relentless war by the wealthy and powerful few against the working people here and abroad.

The reality of "the war" in Iraq, the every day reality for people, is a police state of repression and abuse. That is happening here every bit as much as it is happening there, maybe more so.

We are at fault for this unfolding nightmare of barbarism and inhumanity. If we refuse to stand behind the politicians when they stand against the police state, fail to have their back when they take stands or try to move to the left, we are binding their hands and turning the country over to the tyrants.

The battle is won or lost in the discussion, in the information flow, and we are blocking that information flow. We are moving the country to the right and toward authoritarianism with our caution and moderation, and by doing the dirty work of the right wingers by suppressing the critics and dissidents among us and taking the legs out from under any serious movement to stop this nightmare.

The Democratic party politicians are not missing a spine, they are missing legs, because we are cutting their legs out from under them by silencing and suppressing all left wing voices and critics and dissidents within the party.

[balantz]

117. You are absolutely right.

This is terrible what is happening to humanity.

We MUST stand together.

These kind of things cannot be allowed to continue.

When the people are abused by tyranny we are ALL abused!

[Two Americas]

122. all pieces to the puzzle

Why people are unable to put this puzzle together in their minds is mysterious to me.

Each of these things - Homeland Security, FISA, immigrant round ups, detention centers, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, the Military Commissions act, the corruption, the politicization of the federal bureaucracy, the private mercenary armies - isn't it obvious that these are all part of an aggressive and concerted effort to put together a militarized police state?

These are not all separate issues, they are all tied together. We are crippled by our insistence on keeping them separate. ACLU is against this, Code Pink is against that, madfloridian opposes another thing we think - "we all have our pet issues" blah the f-ing blah and "you can't always get what you want" and "we need to compromise on this" and "eyes on the prize people" and all of the rest of the bullshit.

And then people say the administration is inept or incompetent. How blind can people be? Incompetent at WHAT??? They have done more damage to this country in less time and with virtually NO resistance than I ever could have imagined possible. They intended to do exactly what they have done - they aren't "making mistakes." They are GENIUSES to pull this off. The only alternative explanation, if people do not want to see the administration as brilliant, can only be that WE are so stupid, so blind, so cowardly, so confused and delusional that we are making it easy for them regardless of whether or not they are competent. Us - not the sheeple, not the fundies, no the knuckle-draggers, not the "low information voters," not the DLC, not Pelosi, not Obama - us. We are the ones preventing people from putting the pieces together on this and understanding it, and we are the ones paralyzing any resistance and blocking any efforts at organizing the people to fight back against this very dire and immediate threat.

[balantz]

124. I'm with you.

It all fits together. No part or issue is separate.

Police state, police world. We must not continue to roll over and let them divide us. We must use calm intelligence and help to open each-others eyes...before it is too late!

[Two Americas]

62. immigrants in the military

Immigrants in the US Armed Forces

By Jeanne Batalova, PhD
Migration Policy Institute

May 2008

According to data from the Department of Defense, more than 65,000 immigrants (non-US citizens and naturalized citizens) were serving on active duty in the US Armed Forces as of February 2008. Since September 2001, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has naturalized more than 37,250 foreign-born members of the US Armed Forces and granted posthumous citizenship to 111 service members.

http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?ID=683#11

<snip>

A July 2002 executive order made noncitizen members of the armed forces eligible for expedited US citizenship.

Section 329 of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes the president to issue executive orders specifying periods of conflict during which foreign-born members of the US military are eligible for immediate US citizenship. In a July 2002 executive order, President Bush specified that such a period of hostilities began after September 11, 2001, and that foreign-born, noncitizen military personnel serving on or after that date were thus eligible for expedited citizenship. During times of peace, noncitizen armed forces members may obtain citizenship after a one-year waiting period.

Expedited Naturalization Executive Order
Executive Order Expedited Naturalization of Aliens and Noncitizen Nationals Serving in An Active-Duty Status During the War on Terrorism

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 329 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1440) (the "Act"), and solely in order to provide expedited naturalization for aliens and noncitizen nationals serving in an active-duty status in the Armed Forces of the United States during the period of the war against terrorists of global reach, it is hereby ordered as follows:

For the purpose of determining qualification for the exception from the usual requirements for naturalization, I designate as a period in which the Armed Forces of the United States were engaged in armed conflict with a hostile foreign force the period beginning on September 11, 2001. Such period will be deemed to terminate on a date designated by future Executive Order. Those persons serving honorably in active-duty status in the Armed Forces of the United States, during the period beginning on September 11, 2001, and terminating on the date to be so designated, are eligible for naturalization in accordance with the statutory exception to the naturalization requirements, as provided in section 329 of the Act. Nothing contained in this order is intended to affect, nor does it affect, any other power, right, or obligation of the United States, its agencies, officers, employees, or any other person under Federal law or the law of nations.

GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
July 3, 2002.


Source -

Bush, George W. 2002. Executive Order. "Expedited Naturalization Executive Order." July 3
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/07/20020703-24.html

[Two Americas]

63. medical neglect

System of Neglect

As Tighter Immigration Policies Strain Federal Agencies, The Detainees in Their Care Often Pay a Heavy Cost

by Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein | Washington Post Staff Writers
May 11, 2008

The medical neglect they endure is part of the hidden human cost of increasingly strict policies in the post-Sept. 11 United States and a lack of preparation for the impact of those policies. The detainees have less access to lawyers than convicted murderers in maximum-security prisons and some have fewer comforts than al-Qaeda terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

...

The most vulnerable detainees, the physically sick and the mentally ill, are sometimes denied the proper treatment to which they are entitled by law and regulation. They are locked in a world of slow care, poor care and no care, with panic and coverups among employees watching it happen, according to a Post investigation.

The investigation found a hidden world of flawed medical judgments, faulty administrative practices, neglectful guards, ill-trained technicians, sloppy record-keeping, lost medical files and dangerous staff shortages. It is also a world increasingly run by high-priced private contractors. There is evidence that infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and chicken pox, are spreading inside the centers.

Medical spending has not kept pace with the growth in population. Since 2001, the number of detainees over the course of each year has more than tripled to 311,000, according to ICE and the Government Accountability Office. Meanwhile, spending for the DIHS and outside care has not quite doubled, ICE figures show. ICE's conflicting population and budget numbers make the trends difficult to determine.

...

Nurses who work on the front lines see the problems up close. "Dogs get better care in the dog pound," said Catherine Rouse, a contract nurse at an Arizona detention center who quit after two months last year because she saw what she regarded as "scary medicine" in the prison: patients taken off medications they needed and nurses doing tasks they were not qualified to do. "You don't treat people like that. There has to be some kind of moral fiber," Rouse said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/immigration/cwc_d1p1.html

[14thColony]

125. Holy Crap!

I went to the WaPo story you linked.

Did you read the comments? Pages and pages of utter hate. These people would happily kill children for no other reason than having the wrong skin tone. Replace 'illegal immigrants' with 'Jews' and I imagine the same letters to the editor were written to the Sueddeutscher Zeitung circa 1938.

America teeters at the brink. I don't see how imposition of an out-in-the-open "suspend the Constitution" police state can be far off now.

[Two Americas]

127. worse here and now

By many measurements, it is worse here and now although I will get attacked for saying that. We are not supposed to talk about historical precedents until we can look back with the benefit of hindsight, as we do when we discuss the rise of the right wing authoritarian and fascist governments in Europe in the 30's, after it will be far too late. Then I suppose people will say "huh. How about that? I guess the alarmists were right after all."

We look at episodes from history such as the notorious Kristal Nacht raids and arrests with horror, yet that pales by comparison with what is going on here today, in many significant ways, and in Iraq and in the various detention centers. This is just going by what we do know is happening, which I can promise you is only a fraction of what is actually happening. We have the most secretive government ever in American history, and tyrants don't keep secrets unless there are things they are doing that they do not want us to know about.

The same debates that went on in many countries in Europe in the 30's are going on right here on this board every day, with the same arguments, the same apathy and ignorance, the same stubborn refusal to look the truth square in the face, the same denials, the same short-sightedness and the same attempts to discredit, marginalize and dismiss critics as alarmists. We have far more evidence today that justifies being alarmed than people in Europe did in the 30's. Far more. That does not mean that the situations are identical - although who is waiting for that to happen and what difference would that make? - and of course we cannot know with certainty that the results will be the same - but in the 30's people had no way to know with certainty what would happen either until it was far too late.

[Two Americas]

64. abuse of minors in detention

Immigrant Youth Sue San Antonio Facility Over Abuse

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Eight immigrant youth have filed a lawsuit against Cornell Companies, numerous employees of the Abraxas Hector Garza Treatment Center, federal officials, and San Antonio police over numerous violations to their constitutional rights while held at the treatment facility.

According to TRLA attorney Susan Watson, who is among several attorneys to face difficulties in meeting with the men, “These young men were being routinely abused and their cries for help were ignored by the very people who are supposed to care for them. Not only did facility and federal officials engage in or condone the beatings, they tried to prevent the outside world from hearing the boys’ cries for help.”

Cornell Companies, whose headquarters are in Houston, operates more than 80 corrections facilities across the United States. The Office of Refugee Resettlement contracts with companies like Cornell to care for immigrant children while their immigration cases are pending. In the past, Cornell Companies has faced allegations of abuse, drug use, and inhumane living conditions.

http://trla.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/immigrant-youth-sue-san-antonio-facility-over-abuse/

[Two Americas]

65. children imprisoned

Child Detainees Battle an Unforgiving System Alone

By Maya Schenwar, TruthOut.org. Posted June 27, 2008.

Children who enter the US parentless may undergo a series of harsh trials before they ever reach the courtroom to seek asylum.

Undocumented children entering the US alone must confront barriers that extend far beyond the border. If apprehended, they're met with a sometimes-brutal detention period, followed by a trial under a legal system that treats them the same as apprehended adults, according to children's rights advocates and recent reports by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's Office (OIG) and the Government Accountability Office.

OIG estimates that more than 10,000 unaccompanied and undocumented children will be detained this year, not counting children who are immediately deported upon contact with Homeland Security. Most travel from Mexico or Central America. Kids migrate alone for some of the same reasons that adults do: to reunite with family or to escape persecution. Many have experienced child-specific threats, like assault by youth gangs and recruitment for special roles in organized crime, according to Sarnata Reynolds, director of the Refugee Program at Amnesty International USA. A smaller percentage, driven by devastating poverty, come to find work.

Children apprehended at the border are taken to Border Patrol stations, frequently remaining in concrete cell blocks for days on end and sometimes being transferred repeatedly to different stations before being handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to Michelle Brane, director of the Detention and Asylum Program at the Women's Commission, who has extensively investigated the treatment of unaccompanied children. Children are then placed in more permanent facilities to wait for their court dates.

According to a June report by the Government Accountability Office, child detainees are not immune to the neglect suffered by their adult counterparts, widely publicized earlier this month. The report cites the example of the Cowlitz County Juvenile Detention Center in Washington State, where, despite federal mandates, "no medical screening was performed at admission and first aid kits were not available, as required." The facility also ignored requirements to maintain minors' medical records on site.

For the most part, however, the facilities' violations are kept from the public eye - and the eye of the federal government doesn't see much of them either, according to a recent OIG report noting that "interviews with Department of Unaccompanied Children's Services central office officials indicate that little oversight of facilities occurs." Federal officials aren't required to meet with children when they visit the facilities, so direct feedback is next to nonexistent.

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/89679/?ses=92bac81540ddb83d37a3f7b50c69b74c

[Two Americas]

66. the Pentagon and immigrants

Immigrants Could End up Fighting War in Iraq
by Rodolfo F. Acuña

As war drags on, overzealous military recruiters are turning to Latinos for long-term solutions to the Pentagon's problems.

Of the 60,000 immigrants in the U.S. military, about half are non-U.S. citizens. More than 6,000 Marines are non-U.S. citizens, with the largest group -- 1,452 -- from Mexico. At least five Mexican-born soldiers have been killed in Iraq and several other Latinos have died, too.

Desperate economic situations in Mexico have left many young people prey to military recruiters. The rumors abound that if immigrants volunteer for U.S. military service, they will get automatic eligibility for U.S. citizenship. Recruiters have even crossed over into Mexico to look for young people who may have U.S. residency papers, according to a recent article in The Independent.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0919-08.htm

A Way Out of the Shadows for Immigrants?
U.S. Says: Become Cannon Fodder

The “Dream Act”

The difficulties in recruiting enough new soldiers into their military has led the U.S. rulers to expand their recruitment among oppressed people—even those who are in the U.S. “illegally.” One track the government is pursuing is to revive a provision of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill (CIRB), which failed to pass the Senate in June 2007. The provision, the so-called “Dream Act” (or Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), is mostly known for its offer to open up a path to legalization, and maybe even citizenship status, to undocumented immigrants who attend college and earn a two-year degree or finish two years toward a bachelors degree.

But there is a lesser known part of the Dream Act—it offers the same possibility for legalization for undocumented immigrants who join the armed forces for at least two years and who have been living in the U.S. for at least six years prior to that. This legislation has now been attached to the defense bill in the Congress, which will be voted on soon. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, a co-sponsor of the amendment, said it was appropriate to attach the Dream Act to the defense bill because this would “address a very serious recruitment crisis that faces our military.”

On Sunday, October 14, the Chicago Tribune published an editorial entitled “A recruiter’s dream,” which says: “Serve in the military; get a leg up on citizenship.” This same editorial says: “The Army Times reports that military leaders in charge of recruiting and personnel policy called the measure ‘very appealing.’”

In June, Durbin said, “It turns out that many in the Department of Defense believe, as I do, that the Dream Act is an important part of making certain we have talented young men and women ready to serve in our military.” The Dream Act has broad bipartisan support in Congress.

...

According to the Pentagon, there are now 35,000 non-citizens in the U.S. military, and about 8,000 join each year to try to take this promised path to citizenship. The government estimates that if the Dream Act were to be passed, there would be about 750,000 undocumented youth eligible to be recruited. (The Boston Globe, June 16, 2007)

...

On October 19, 2006, the Washington Post published an article by Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who proposed such a plan. They wrote: “Despite growing anti-Americanism, U.S. citizenship is still one of the world’s most precious commodities, so there should be no shortage of volunteers. Since proficiency in English would presumably be important for those joining the armed forces, we might focus on South Asia, anglophone Africa, and parts of Latin America, Europe and East Asia (the Philippines would be a natural recruiting ground) where English is common as a second language. These regions have more than 2 billion people, tens of millions of whom reach military age each year.”

http://revcom.us/a/106/Immigrant-dream-en.html


Noncitizen soldiers: the quandaries of foreign-born troops
By Patrik Jonsson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

RALEIGH, N.C. –

Stuck in the Iraqi desert, fighting a war for a country not yet his, US Army Sgt. Leopoldo Escartin and other troops at Camp Dogwood hung a bit of home outside their desert-tan tent: the tricolor Mexican flag.

Making up about 7 percent of America's active fighting force, immigrants with green cards - Mexicans the largest group among them - are risking their lives not just for advancement within the Army, but for a leg up on the road to US citizenship. As America celebrated its 229th year of independence this weekend, immigrants offered their own breed of patriotic sacrifice, and their numbers are rising even as the Army has struggled to meet recruiting goals.

...

Recognizing the growing importance of immigrants in an Army that has struggled to meet its recruiting goals, the government is hastening citizenship for those who serve in the Armed Forces long term. There were 28,000 immigrant soldiers five years ago; that number has climbed to 39,000 today, not counting the thousands of foreign contractors hired since 9/11. So far, 59 immigrant casualties have been granted posthumous citizenship - and a new rule allows their families to use the deceased as a sponsor for their own residency papers. Even illegal immigrants who enter the forces under false pretenses have a chance at legal residency if they see combat.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0705/p01s03-usmi.html

[Two Americas]

67. for-profit detention industry

Slave Labor in Private Prisons
By JOHN ROSS

The privatization of the detention side of the prison-industrial complex has been expanding exponentially since the new millennium kicked in - in the past six years, eight out of 16 federal immigration detention facilities have fallen into private hands. Moreover, 57% of all so-called "illegal aliens" are now housed in county jails far away from the border, about a fifth of which are administered by the privatizers.

...

For the privatizers, managing the detention centers requires minimal investment compared to criminal incarceration facilities ­ the no-frills lock-ups do not require legally mandated recreation, educational, or law library components that must be made available to common criminals. Although the U.S. prison population ­ 1.5 million inmates ­ remains the most voluminous on Planet Earth, incarceration rates are slowing to a little over 1%a year increase while the detention side is running 21% annual growth.

As the detention market balloons so do the fortunes of the corrections titans ­ CCA's detention facilities turned a $95 million profit last year and its stock is up to $53 a share according to this morning's Wall Street Journal. Similarly, GEO stock has boomed 68% in the past year. "The detention market should grow by $200 to $250,000 in the next two years" figured Patrick Swindle of Avondale LLC in an instructive July 27th New York Times business page piece. "What's great is that this industry promises steadily growing profits," offered an upbeat Anton High of Jefferies & Company brokers (ibid.)

The detention market needs tough enforcement laws to fly and the corrections industry contracts high-powered Washington lobbyists to grease the wheels of Congress, prison activists like Kansas-based Frank Smith contend ­ although Smith says the bucks are hard to track. Reluctant to advertise how they profit on the migrants' misery, the big guns sneak in under the radar, masquerading as PACs to bulk up the war chests of such immigration hawks as San Diego's Duncan Hunter, Colorado's Tom Tancredo, and the venerable Sensenbrenner.

...

The criminalization of undocumented workers presents a cornucopia of opportunities for private industry.

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross11022006.html

[Two Americas]

68. The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Report

Over Raided - Under Seige

excerpts-

The criminalization of immigrant workers reached new heights with two turning points,
setting the stage for an aggressive attack on immigrants by the Department of
Homeland Security. First, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the notorious
Sensenbrenner bill (HR 4437) on December 16, 2005. This bill made it a felony to be
undocumented and to assist, hire, minister to, or provide services to the undocumented.13
In reaction to the Sensenbrenner bill, immigrant communities and allies organized
unprecedented mass mobilizations to reject HR 4437 and call for socially just immigration
reform.

As the size and frequency of the mobilizations grew, the Department of Homeland Security
began unleashing a series of highly publicized ICE raids. In April 2006, ICE carried out
wide-scale immigration raids against workers at IFCO Systems plants in forty locations
across eight states that led to the deportation of over 1,100 people.

...

Then on December 12, 2006, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
carried out the “Swift” raids, one of the largest immigration sweeps in history, clamping
down on immigrant workers in meatpacking plants across six states. The Swift factories
came to a standstill as some 12,000 Swift plant workers were rounded up, detained and
questioned about their status on site. Despite this massive use of force, ICE charged only
65 workers, mostly on felony charges of identity theft and fraud for using false social security
numbers. The United Food and CommercialWorkers Union, which represents five of the six
sites raided, has filed a lawsuit against ICE to protect Fourth Amendment rights and stop
the U.S. government “from illegally arresting and detaining workers, including U.S. citizens
and legal residents while at their workplace.”

In FY 2006, these ICE raids and other immigration enforcement operations led to the
deportation of 221,664 undocumented immigrants, a 20 percent increase from the previous
year.16 Despite protests from civil and human rights leaders, this modus operandi only
continued in 2007. The stepped up raids strategy and corresponding increase in detentions,
deportations and policing is at the center of Operation Endgame, a ten-year campaign laid
out by the DHS in 2003 to track down and deport all immigrants, documented and
undocumented, who can be deported.

...

One of the alarming shifts in immigration control has been the privatization of immigrant
detention centers, both in the construction and operation of its facilities. Currently, ICE runs
eight detention facilities known as Service Processing Centers and relies on state and local
jails and federal prisons for additional bed space. Despite access to these facilities, ICE’s
increased detention figures have led to contracts with the nation’s largest private prison
operators to run eight additional detention facilities.

Part of this lucrative business is the construction of detention centers. In February 2006,
the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $385 million contract for constructing immigration
detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been
criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its services in Iraq (e.g. cooking, construction,
power generation and fuel transportation).

As the apparent drive for profit has led detention facility managers to cut corners, conditions
inside these facilities raise grave concerns. In 2006, the Office of the Inspector General
conducted an audit of five detention facilities used by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE). The federal government audit found multiple instances of noncompliance
with detention standards related to health care, environmental health and safety,
general conditions of confinement, and the reporting of abuse.

...

As stepped-up enforcement increases the need for personnel, training, technology and
transportation, border enforcement is turning private security firms into lucrative businesses.
Blackwater USA, the private security firm that came under fire after its employees killed 17
civilians in Iraq in September 2007, is positioning itself for involvement in U.S. border
security. The company has unveiled plans to construct a major complex for training activeduty
military and law enforcement officials just eight miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
While contracts for U.S. war efforts overseas may no longer be a growth industry for the
company, Blackwater executives see dollar signs in training and the potential deployment
of private guards to patrol U.S. borders.

...

In an attempt to broaden its enforcement reach, the Department of Homeland Security
has turned to local law enforcement agencies for assistance. Critics say involving local
police in immigration enforcement leads to less cooperation from immigrants in solving
crimes and heightens the risk of racial profiling. Despite these concerns, DHS encourages
local law enforcement agents to help identify “foreign-born criminals and immigration
violators who pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Immigration-police collaboration has been driven by the explosive growth of local, county
and state governments advocating for policies, ordinances and other laws to curtail or
altogether prohibit public services to immigrants. Official government stances reinforce new
and different forms of collaboration with immigration law enforcement in services and safety,
undermining community safety and stability. In addition, under cover of official practices,
policies, and laws, hate groups use immigration concerns as a pretext to foment racist views
and scapegoat immigrants.

...

The Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network (HURRICANE) has
documented consistent patterns of abuse and human rights violations by the U.S.
government, local, county and state governments, employers and private citizen groups.
The escalation of raids, detentions and deportations, worker exploitation, an increasingly
militarized border, and mounting collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement
agencies have wreaked havoc on immigrant and refugee communities.



Link to the PDF file of this comprehensive and compelling report -

http://www.nnirr.org/resources/docs/UnderSiege_web.pdf

[balantz]

74. After looking at one of your links here

I see that either I haven't been paying enough attention or this isn't being broadcast enough.

Probably both.

These things are grave serious and we need to bring them to light and discuss them.

Thanks for the links.

[Two Americas]

100. the truth

You and I can speak the truth with one another. Were this happening to whites everyone would know about it and there would have long since been terrific outrage and social upheaval, with mass protests, resistance and strikes until this was stopped.

The pattern we have seen with ICE is that they will do a "show" raid once in a while and tip off the media. The meat packing plant raids, for example. They are carefully chosen for propaganda purposes. Most of the raids have been on small farms and have gone unreported by the media, and are out of sight out of mind for the public. Family farms are under siege and have been for a few years now. Another part of the pattern is that plants are singled out where union organizing is going on.

The immigrants were organizing and staging massive protest marches, but for the most part failed to get any attention and sympathy from the white community, sadly including Democrats and liberals. ICE responded to the protests by escalating harassment with more raids, worse treatment and more detentions, effectively breaking the back of the movement once it was clear that the immigrants were on their own and would not get white support.

On another thread I made the statement that many of the Democratic party politicians had told me off the record that they would move to the left on many issues if the activist community had their backs. I received scathing ridicule for that. Yet right here we have an issue where many Democratic politicians are far ahead of the activist community, speaking out on behalf of the immigrants, and the liberal activist community is nowhere to be found on the issue. They are too busy being "against the war" - when there is no war - and "speaking truth to power" and fail to see that for everyday working people of color here life is not much different than it is for everyday Iraqi working people over there.

[balantz]

119. Not sure what you mean that there is no war, except that truly it is an illegal occupation.

Of course the murder and imperialism going on over there IS an important issue and we regular folk of any color here are more aligned with the regular folk over there than with the elite who are calling the shots.

Wherever there is abuse of human rights is where we should find alliance, and where our elected reps. should support US. And I will of course include the immigrants as well as the people of Iraq and anywhere else where there is suffering from tyranny as being a part of US, the people of the world under tyrannical rule.

As long as our Constitution is being held hostage we must be awake to the fact that we are ultimately no better off than those who are currently being mistreated.

[Two Americas]

120. clarification

If there is a "war" over there, then there is one here as well. The same things are happening, the same players are involved, and the impact and effect on the people is the same. The only difference is that the Iraqis are resisting a little more than we are. Not that it would take much to do that.

Wars feature two opposing military organizations sponsored by states with both populations and governments fully engaged in a life and death struggle for national survival. The administration wants us to imagine, or believe that this is the case in Iraq - "we are at war." But who is the enemy? No less an immigrant here than a resister there, no less a brown person here then a brown person there. What are the tactics used against the supposed enemy? The same here as there - break down doors, round people up, ignore all standards of law and decency, terrorize and detain people. What is the purpose of this? In both cases, corporate interests are served and any and all resistance by the everyday people is brutally crushed.

[balantz]

123. I'm with you TA. I understand who is US and who is THEM.

And what you say is correct. The corporate elite are at war with US.

What they don't want is what could defeat them, despite all of their weapons and evilry, US together in unison demanding our rights.

The two biggest obstacles that I see are the Democratic party selling us out, and the complacent citizenry here who have accepted things as they have become and fail to see the danger of that stance. Everything is in our hands, the American people. The world is waiting for us to make our demands upon our government. We cannot identify with the image of "good slave citizens" that is being given to us to bear. We must regain our true image of citizens of Constitutional Freedom.

We must demand that our Congress represents us, but first we must be clear about who is US and who is THEM.

If we don't come together and demand our rights then we are lost, and all is lost.

[Two Americas]

128. words will beat them

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

It is words and ideas that the rulers most fear, and it is with words and ideas that we are failing.

That is why the battle here over what can and cannot be said is a life and death issue.

There is nothing that the right wing puts more time, effort and resources into than controlling the national discussion, controlling the media, controlling the words. They know that words are the most dangerous things to their plans. They know where the battle lines are and what the battle is about. Do we?

[balantz]

131. Freedom vs. Tyranny

What our Constitution stands for.

By remaining silent we are letting them change those sacred words.

[Two Americas]

129. one more thing my friend

I want to make sure we are on the same page as I can't tell for sure from your response.

I am not talking theory here. I am also not talking political ideology - "how things look given that I am a ...(fill in the blank.)" The result of doing that is paralysis in the face of great and immediate danger.

I am not talking about the Illuminati or the Free Masons, or any other secret conspiracy by some other-worldly elite, the "powers that be" or the "New World Order" or whatever other comic book scenario that conspiracy theorists imagine. The result of doing that is paralysis in the face of great and immediate danger.

I am not talking about some esoteric metaphysical analysis of how things secretly work, trying to "look behind the curtain" or "see through the matrix" to achieve personal enlightenment about "how things really are" or something. The result of doing that is paralysis in the face of great and immediate danger.

I am not talking about "chimpy" nor merely about the Republicans, and certainly not about the people from the general public who vote Republican. The result of doing that is paralysis in the face of great and immediate danger.

I am talking about what is actually happening.

I say this, because again and again I hear people say "oh yeah, I can really see what you mean! Just amazing isn't it?" and then either sit on their ass, smugly complacent that now they "know" what is "happening," unlike those other stupid inferior un-evolved people around them, or else come up with absurdly inadequate remedies in response - "yeah! That is why we need to elect so and so!!"

[balantz]

134. Agreed

That is one place we let our words fail us.

Whether or not there is truth to any of the esoteric, or any of the philosophies, or anything "abstract", none of that in the end is what is important.

That is all in the realm of books and ideas. They may be useful, but they are dead to us when it comes time to act.

That is all endless blabber, and we fall into dangerous still waters when we think we have a handle on the details of what's going on. When we stay in the comfort zone of a false emotional security of "knowing what's going on" then we are not sharp. The sharks are very cunning and will use all of our smugness, all of our false arrogance against us. We fall by our clinging to abstractions and our sense of pride. Then we sit back and flip another channel and there they get us again.

We have to find humility. We have to be open to what is at stake for ALL of us.

The words that we need are very simple: Freedom vs. Tyranny!

There are no details we need get lost in, it is all in our face reality, right here, right now. That is where our battle lies. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!

Do we know what's going on here? Are we prepared to rally together without succumbing to the divisions they manipulate us with?

The facts are simple, Freedom vs. Tyranny!

We have to let our "leaders" know what we want, and we can't give up now.

I have experienced watching them be swayed by our phone calls, letters, emails. Even though our protests are not in the media, they know what we are crying for. We can't stop now.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

130. perhaps our congressmen don't see the urgency?

[Two Americas]

136. conspiracy of silence

They don't experience the urgency because they are so insulated - was it Senator Clinton who did not know how to pump her own gas? - and the activist community is also dominated by people who are relatively insulated from the horrors, educated, professional and in the upper 10% or so in household income, so they would be the last to directly experience this. But often, even those who are experiencing this first hand cannot accept what they are seeing, and try to "not know" what they do know, mostly because they identify with one of those insulated groups or have placed their faith in them.

I do not blame the politicians as much as others here do, nor do I look to them for solutions as many others here do. The politicians do not know the reality we face, and if we do not tell them they have no way of knowing. We cannot really blame them for being in denial when so many of us are, and when we are the only alternative voice there is.

[balantz]

137. But is it fair to blame them for selling out to the corporations and financiers? n/t

[Two Americas]

141. maybe

Who is really on our side among the politicians and who is not? Hard to tell now, because we have no "side."

If a Congressional staffer or campaign staffer read DU, and believe me they do, they would think "there is no consensus for taking on the right wingers strongly, even among the most aware and politically active." They would get the message that they should be careful, go slow, make small changes, compromise, focus on playing it safe and getting elected, etc. Wouldn't they?

How can we expect our representatives to listen to us when we are not saying anything intelligible? When there are more people trying to represent THEM than there are demanding that they represent us? When whatever cautious and moderate thing they tentatively throw out, we reply "yep. That's it. Good enough. You are so wise. We trust you. We will support you no matter what. Whatever you say."

[balantz]

142. We really need to challenge them

and challenge ourselves to turn this shitaree around. Things are really going to hell.

[madfloridian]

48. Just to clarify....this is my last post about FISA or criticizing Democrats

Just to let you know.

Silencing works as it makes those who speak out look bad.

[madfloridian]

49. Someone else may want to post about Sy Hersh.

This is in the videos.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x152816

Looks like Iran coming sooner than we thought.

[DFW]

53. Iran is my Rubicon

If we attack Iran before they prove by testing a nuclear bomb that they
have one and credibly show that they intend to use it, then I am flat out
opposed to ANY member of Congress who gives their vote to approve such an
action, or refuses to move to remove from office any executive who launches
such an action without Congressional approval.

Wes Clark has spoken out publicly and forcefully against such an action, and
he has the military experience to explain point by point why it would be a
complete disaster. I expect Cheneybush to ignore him. I expect every Democrat
in a position to do something about it to listen.

[Divine Discontent]

54. "a govt that takes away the privacy of a man will control him completely"

damn... that is fiercely accurate! great comments mad... sorry to say I agree that's how it seems... we just apparently will bend over like PillPopper says we do... I guess that's what certain people want...



Great Obama Items!
www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[balantz]

56. We have no choice but to accept it when they stick it to us again and again.

Next it will be "Here, now accept this. We knew you would."

[RNdaSilva]

59. I think that I'll boost this thread...

once a week until the first of November. Or until...

Couldn't agree more.

80% of Americans believe that our country is heading in the wrong direction...but many are willing to accept a status quo, "because they have to do so." But they don't. But they do. "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"

Still hoping for HOPE.

[madfloridian]

76. When our own Democratic forum is silent....then I do worry.

:hi:

[RTBerry]

69. Mad, remember acceptance goes with compassion.

So here you are: you see what's coming, what's happening; and there's nothing you can do about it. People are going to march right along the path to destruction and bring suffering to others... and themselves in the process. They truly cannot see what they're doing, blinded by their beliefs.

Socrates and Jesus had to practice acceptance as well, so you're in pretty good company.

[Zodiak]

151. But Socrates and Jesus were killed by the political powers of their time

So their acceptance didn't help them any, did it?

[kohodog]

70. And our Dear Leader will put our feeble protests down the memory hole.

It seems to me we are already living in a police state and the unitary executive will do as he/she pleases. Bush has ushered into an era where the President is above the law. Are there any politicians who will turn that back? Don't they like having an Ace in their pocket? It will take more than the spineless characters currently in Congress to bring back the rule of law.

[The Political Jerk]

77. The Slippery Slope is Fun! Weeeeee!

-The Political Jerk

[barack the house]

78. The difference this election is some are terrified that we may lose this, critique is fine but if we

can have more promotion of the candidate than put downs that would be even better.

[madfloridian]

79. YES, we will. I mean...I will criticize no longer. Do you want that in blood?

[barack the house]

80. That would perfectly adequate but only if you have run out of ink. =)

[madfloridian]

81. Cute....silence is golden.

Isn't it a nice warm fuzzy feeling?

[Cronopio]

92. Why not the critique, if we end up voting for Obama in the end?

Do you believe that the flaky, weak-minded majority of the American electorate (which I claim is the real fear among the Obama "keep your feckin' questions about him to yourself!" crowd) will be convinced by a false show of unquestioning support from progressives?

Sorry to have to tell you this, but the weak-minded majority only listen to the biggest megaphone, and we don't have that megaphone. All we've got is a regard for the truth, and the purposes of the truth are always served by honest questions and honest answers.

Hasn't 8 years of the Bush administration convinced you that even the best, most elaborate, and most expensive cover-ups still only have a very limited shelf life?

[mdmc]

82. Go Democrats!

:woohoo:

[ms liberty]

85. K&R n/t

[Straight Shooter]

86. Martin Luther King: "Silence is betrayal."

To what degree of atrocity must an issue arise before it is acceptable to speak against it? Since when do we bide our time when our civil liberties hang in the balance?

I do not believe anything will change in the FISA bill should Obama become president. I think he will find that it suits his purposes just fine to leave everything intact. After all, he will need the complete cooperation of the telecom companies to fight terrorism, and they damn sure aren't going to cooperate to the fullest extent if they're burdened with lawsuits.

Domestic spying is now ingrained into the anti-terrorism fabric. Obama will never take a chance on appearing weak on terror. Should any attack occur during his first term, then it's adios to a second term, needless to mention a rupture in his legacy. Repubs can get away with such things. Dems cannot.

That's just the way it is, isn't it? Ain't America grand.

[redqueen]

87. "And we will accept it because we have to do so. "

Exactly. So really... what's the fuckin problem here?

[Danger Mouse]

96. I think we should move on.

[madfloridian]

97. I did. I said I would not post anything else bad about Democrats.

I posted in this thread and others.

I will be a good little Democrat from now on.

[Danger Mouse]

98. I've never tried to say we shouldn't criticize Obama.

However, I do feel that focusing on one screw up of his for too long gets unproductive.

[dailykoff]

99. Don't go changin' MF!

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

105. k&r

[saracat]

115. Great post MF. I just cannot believe that on a Democratic Board

I am seeing the dismantling of constitutional rights referred to as "nitpicking" , and small mistake" or misstep and that Democrats are being advised to overlook it and "Move On". One would think after Bush our eyes would remain open and now more than ever we would have learned to "question everything".

No candidate is now or will EVER be more important than the constitution.And yet, that is the point that those who say that criticism of the actions of a candidate need to "wait" until he is elected are making. It is very sad indeed that there are those who think our constitution is disposable or a document to shredded according to political expediency. I thought it was only Republicans who thought that way.

[Skittles]

150. oh I saw it coming during the primaries

it sickened me then and it sickens me more now

[Bluenorthwest]

116. With you on this one

I never believe in silence to help out the status quo. It is servile and Unamerican, and I've spent the last year saying so!
In terms of discussion here, frankly if it is to be a praise-athon, there is no need for the site at all.
I'd also like to say I heard our nominee speak today and he spoke constantly about the value of dissent, clearly spoken and loudly made dissent. I do wonder if his bully backers ever listen to what he says. He's not asking us to shut up, they are. And the pep squade here is self annointed and self proclaimed, they do not speak for Senator Obama or his campaign. Which explains in part why Obama calls for one thing, and they demand the other.
Myself I will go with the nominee and dissent like mad. Let the fanclub steam all they want. They've been steaming for months anyway. It is what they do. They are here shouting people down because they don't know how to make a case for Obama's position, and also because they are without a clear path now that they can not lean on bashing Hillary and have only Obama to talk about. Weak political activists are bad political activists.

[dana_b]

118. so true and so sad. n/t

[SidneyCarton]

121. Mad, have you truly lost hope?

No, I don't mean "hope" as in the empty totem of a Presidential campaign, or "hope" the sneering epithet hurled at that campaign by cynics. I mean actual hope, that things could get better, that tomorrow may yet be better than today, that our future is something other than a gigantic steaming pile. References to 1984 are well and good, and certainly Orwell seems to apply in the present disasters that befall us, but he is also counterproductive. The reasoning is simple, if you truly believe that tomorrow will be worse than today, then you give up. I don't think you've given up, I just think that you have seen too much of the crap and hypocrisy that our current political system has to offer.

I know we're in a mess, I think however that this can still be the year that we get out of it. I do not think the Dems will cave on Iran. But we will see, and when that time comes (if it does) I will also have to consider my loyalties.

Peace be with you friend, may you regain your faith.

[Two Americas]

138. agreed

I certainly do not want madfloridian to give up, but I have watched her persevere month after month through horrific abuse and ridicule and indifference.

The rest of us need to share the load more.

[SidneyCarton]

147. True enough,

If anything, I think Mad has been burned greatly by both the hypocrisy she has seen in politics and the brutal and ongoing bloodletting we have here. Ms. Floridian may be many things, but she is no more a Concern Troll than I am a two-headed transsexual bartender. (With apologies to two-headed people, transgendered individuals, and bartenders, or any combination of the three.)

[maryf]

148. kick nt

[Catherina]

132. No Mad. We won't all be on board. The same ones who foresaw and fought

prior to Iraq are the same ones foressing and fighting now.

Don't give up. We need your voice.

[iconicgnom]

145. As we need yours.

I expect that madfloridian is regrouping, as are we all.

I'm not pessimistic. In fact, I've never been more optimistic about not just US politics, but world politics - in this new age of global economy and global "war". I'm not pessimistic because of this: there's an emerging global awareness of a global ecology, and this is emerging at the same time as a global internet is being born - and this voice is proving to be both powerful and progressive.

Maybe I have a more "global" take on the matter because I'm Canadian. I'm part of the US economy and US wars only at a removed point, at the point where my voice, my vote, doesn't count for electing McCain or Obama.

[Catherina]

149. That was very kind. Thank you iconicgnom

:hi:

I'm not pessismistic either because people angry and tired of being lied to all over the First World are uniting to fight injustice. The very fact that so many people are still probing and focusing on issues is reassuring.

[balantz]

143. I'm sure it gets hard to take the swipes and neglects madfloridian.

But what you have been doing is very valuable. I think I have seen you even get more to the core of the problems lately. When we see what our representatives are doing to us, and then so many here seem to just let it slide by, it is discouraging. Keep your head up and don't take it personally. It isn't anyone's to bear alone, we are in this together, or not at all, because together is the only course that will work.

[RNdaSilva]

144. Did you catch Keith Olbermann's Special Comment tonight?

I for one agree.

Keith will more than likely still be supporting Obama, but...

[Damian the LHP]

146. All guns inward!

Ready? Fire!