Another angle to look at this problem (Kerry!) :-(

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

I have seen numerous people questioning Kerry's integrity and numerous others trying to answer them; here is yet another way to look at this and cool it a bit on the heart-ache:

First, watch "Going Upriver" -- it is available both in DVD and online versions: I am personally willing to ship my DVD copy to anyone who will promise to keep it in perpetual motion :-)

You will learn a number of things from this single 2-hour exercise:

a) Kerry is extremely cautious -- he is not a fire-breathing rabble-rouser: as someone already said in another thread, he works from within to bring people to consensus; he tries this track as long as possible, and if it looks like he cannot contain the others from violence (physical or verbal) he quickly dissociates himself from the effort. Expecting him to change at 60 is rather unrealistic.

b) We can also learn things about movement politics: he joined the VVAW back when it was a ragtag group of unfocused but earnest young men and shaped them and the movement to be a powerful force, at least long enough to have a major impact on the nation's conscience. This could be a powerful lesson for us too -- I leave the exact analogy to your imaginations...

c) He *has* done his turn as a fighter for this country (both in and off the battlefield) -- a man cannot keep fighting the good fight all his life, especially certain debilitating ones such as those against entrenched power; it is now our turn to fight the good fight to get him in a position from which he still can do great good for the country. Plus, youth should be the ones who supply this regenerative power to a democracy, for many reasons: they are the ones who have the idealism, the stamina, the fire, stake in the future, the imagination and emotional intensity. So do not begrudge him this mulligan, it is the next generation's turn to make things a bit more perfect.

Second, think about how hard it is to keep perspective on people you run into practically every day -- it is very hard to believe that someone that you laugh with in the corridor could be demonic enough to rig an election; you may snicker at the naivete of that statement, but try to think of your colleagues and imagine the worst that they can do and you will see how hard this is. I think this is the problem with the Democrats in Congress/DC -- they are too close to both the thugs and the MSM members to see beyond their noses -- granted that this is not a particularly desirable trait in "leaders", but I'd rather have short-sighted naivete than the other side's "whatever-it-takes" leadership.

Third, for the most part, I dont think that anyone in the Democratic party actually follows what goes on in the internet in any systematic manner -- so they (the "leaders") are probably not even aware of all the egregious malfeasance of the thugs (other than the unbelievable crassness with which the thugs have run the Congress and the Exec branches themselves, but remember that most members of Congress have lived through fairly corrupt regimes all their lives and do not understand, lacking the distance, the depth of the current depravity). It is up to us educate them -- I wouldnt lay the blame for their lack of knowledge entirely on themselves, for it is probably nerve-wrackingly time-consuming dealing with these thugs on a day-to-day basis and limiting the damage.

My point in all of this two-fold:

1. Kerry should not be the focus of our energies -- good, bad or ugly. At this point, he is besides the point! (As many others have also said time and again.)

2. There is a whole world of loonies out in the real world that we all are dealing with; it would be nice to come here for regenerating our souls rather than to watch the proverbial (Democratic!) circular firing-squads -- this is a long, hard fight against three major forces: (a) (Re)Thugs, (b) MSM and (c) Democratic Leaders' myopia (induced in large part by the thugs' constant aggression necessitating Democratic push-back).

For all the three major ailments, I think the cure is education: show the thugs that their ways are eventually self-destructive; show the MSM that doing their real jobs could be fun too (as is being demonstrated by all the bloggers) and good for their bottomlines; show the Democratic leadership that things are much worse than their limited times, imaginations and social circles have led them to believe...

[politicasista]

1. I would have been glad to call him President Kerry

but I guess this isn't about him anymore. :cry:

[Old and In the Way]

2. Good post!

I share your sentiments. I'm not quite ready to believe Kerry walked away from the fight yet....we'll see how Ohio plays out over the next few weeks. Could still be some surprises in store...

[Prodemsouth]

3. If it looks like a defeatist elitist, acts like a defeatist elitist, it

just might be a..DEFEATIST ELITIST!

[whalerider55]

8. this one is just too cryptic for me.

explain it to me, please.
whalerider55

[Prodemsouth]

11. It means Kerry is from the don't win the Presidency wing of the Demo-

cratic Party. If you were serious about winning would you hire Bob Shrum. His weak response to the swift boat liars convinced many Americans he could not be trusted to protect them. If you are not going to defend yourself, people are not going to trust you to defend them. So people should not be surprised to find him really going after this vote fraud thing/issue.

[spooked911]

14. I think Kerry simply wanted to play clean

and didn't really see the urgency of the situation the same way we all did. He certainly didn't see the true evil in Bush and Cheney or he would have gone after them harder.

[Prodemsouth]

20. I disagree. Is he that stupid? He does not know what is going on around

or right in front of him. If that is the case thank God- he didn't make it - then we would never see a Dem President again. He would have been a disaster, not like a Bush disaster but still a disaster in his own way.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

22. You shouldnt have to constantly monitor your colleagues...

I think it is incredibly frustrating if one has to keep vigilant about malpractise from co-workers all the time -- may be the Dems' defense mechanism is to push back on the thugs as and when absolutely/maximally necessary, then get back to the business of governing.

(Dem philosophy and Thug outlooks are absolutely perfect for this scenario, if you think about it: they dont want to govern (they just want the money); Dems are actually interested in governance and good government, so inherently, their job is more time-consuming than the do-nothing thugs'!)

Thus, may be the Dems see the thugs as just nuisance value, kind of like criminals -- you know you are never going to eradicate them (human nature and all) and that you deal with it as best you can...ironic that this is exactly what Kerry was saying about terrorism :-(

[Prodemsouth]

27. Republicans have no agenda??!! Yes they want more than just the

money, you better believe it! Come on you are putting me on aren't you. "Republicans are just a nuisance" They control congress the white house and the court....and they consider them a "nuisance"? I really hope they do not think that way. No wonder we don't win. Sorry.. Did you work on one of The Democratic campaigns, Kerry's? That would explain a whole lot of stuff. I hate to be this way but it is late, I am tired, and more honest than usual. The Democrats: have you ever thought that they don't care or that they don't have the courage to challenge any of this stuff..I would rather believe that.. because the train of thought you are suggesting is scary,if you are serious.

[IndyOp]

17. You may be right -- still Kerry DID fight the swift boat liars and other

attacks bluntly and with force. The MSM did not cover him. So, now, conventional wisdom is that he didn't fight back, but it isn't true.

A couple years ago I had a journalism grad student who lived in my house for a semester. For a project she analyzed how the MSM treated Bush and Gore during the 2000 election. Across the country on local TV stations she found statistically significant differences in the amount of time Bush got on nightly TV and on the type of story and 'warmth of coverage'. Bush got more time, more pieces that showed him to be a 'regular guy', and more warmth no matter what he did. If Gore played with his kids and Bush played with the dog -- Bush got coverage. I never saw the bias so clearly as I did when I looked at her data.

:puke:

[Prodemsouth]

21. No the campaign, Mary Cahill, said she did not respond fast enough to

the swift boat liars.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

23. Why should it have been only up to the campaign?

Why werent other Dems in the media spotlight hitting out at the swiftie liars? Wouldnt that have been more effective than the campaign having to vouch for its' candidate's integrity?

[Prodemsouth]

28. Because they are HIS campaign- it is up to them to coordinate the

response. The Dem in congress don't want to mess up the campaign so it will not be off message. So it was up to Mary Cahill and Bob Shrum and KERRY, they could get the Dems in congress to help, they know politics and how it is supposed to work.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

44. The Dem campaign dynamic is different...

and they all know it (presumably!).

Look, just because the Rethugs seem to get marginally more votes right at this moment, does not mean that we should emulate them in every tactic -- in fact, a kind of mindless version is what the Dems are now practising and failing miserably.

It may be the thug tactic to coordinate strategy via KKKarl.

Why can't the Dems, when something as egregious as the assaults that were mounted on Gore and Kerry (clearly the more insidious one was on the latter) shows up, stand up and be counted? How hard is it to defend a "boy scout" (as Gore was called in the halls of congress!) and a genuine war/anti-war hero? I am normally capable of making excuses for the worst kind of behavior from people I trust overall, but this pass that the Dems took seems to me to be the most terrible sin of omission.

I am trying to see if we can go to a day when campaign tactics are not the ones that we all sit around and fault; when we have a good candidate, we should act like we have a good candidate. That the thugs package their worthless pieces is not reason enough for us to want to do the same.

My strict principle in life is (evolving to be!) that you never become that which you despise.

We cannot on the one hand say that the thugs walk lock-step sneeringly and then turn around and accuse the Dem candidate of not enforcing the same.

We do nominate great candidates, accidentally or not -- it is up to us to live up to that, pure and simple. You see injustice, you push back -- which is why I am laying this on the other Dems and not on Kerry or Gore. No coordination, no lock-step, just pure righteous indignation, when it is sorely warranted.

[Merlot]

4. Excellent Post!

I've never doubted JK's integrity, intellegence, or his ability to lead a fight. And the point is well taken that he may be to close to the system to see all the problems we see, although I'm sure he sees some of them. You've written what I've been trying to put into words:

"they are too close to both the thugs and the MSM members to see beyond their noses"

and

doubtful anyone in the Democratic party "actually follows what goes on in the internet in any systematic manner -- so they (the "leaders") are probably not even aware of all the egregious malfeasance of the thugs"

And I agree that education is our first weapon.

[puddycat]

5. I think Kerry is good man, but he lost me when he conceded so quickly

He should have stood back and waited at least a few days to investigate things.

[clydefrand]

6. A few days wouldn't have revealed much IMHO. It's taken

weeks to get the info that we read about every day on DU. What good would it have done to go for a few days and then concede? Maybe you would have felt better during that period, but at the end of it you would have felt let down and would have wanted him to stay on longer.

Challenges in courts are quite often long, drawn-out affairs. I know from personal experience. Very frustrating and stressful, believe me.

[puddycat]

15. well, then he should have waited for as long as it took.

I'm not happy with the speed of his concession, and I do believe in my heart it has something to do with his brotherhood in the Skull & Bones society. There is something extremely disquieting and nasty about that secret society--any society meant to promote & protect future power brokers and leaders, that would allow a drunken spoiled sociopathic frat boy (Bush) into its midst, raises my suspicions.

[saracat]

35. Oh, Puleeze! Not THAT again.

Anyone who thinks that can't be too familiar with fraternities. Bush is exactly the kind of person they draft."Promote and protect future power brokers"? These are, in fact, a bunch of spoiled, drunken ,rich party boys. They couldn't power broker their way out of a beer keg. Yes, they generally get influential jobs, but look at the families they come from. Of course they use their 'connections" .That is what people go to those schools to make! Otherwise what would be the point of anything? one of the reasons people register their kids in college from the moment of their birth is to get them those benefits. Sheesh! S and B has become the most overated Frat at Yale.

[anamandujano]

7. What made him think he was presidential material,

may I ask?

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

10. Astute mind, distress over the direction of the country

and a confidence that he can solve (!) the problems that we currently face. Additionally, a lifetime of quiet achievement, empathy for the people that he worked for, confidence in the ability of the people to see the stark contrasts between the two leading contenders for the office, a concern for and a commitment to the environment, identification of the critical issues facing the country and proposing plausible, effective solutions for them... you get the picture... plus, consider his opponent...

I do understand your unstated question, however, I reject its premise: this notion that one has to camaign to please the MSM enough to get positive coverage from them (thereby meriting the "good candidate" seal of approval) and only then one can consider oneself presidential material is a huge roadblock to getting good stewards in there, in my opinion.

[anamandujano]

41. How about being a leader?

What I said had nothing to do with the media. Anyone who thought any democrat candidate would get fair treatment is downright delusional.

A few words from him would help this situation significantly. Maybe he can learn something from Rossi.

If he somehow manages to get the nod again in 2008, the repukes won't have to bother to steal it again. They'll win outright.

[marcologico]

45. A few words from Kerry would be twisted into a noose a hung around his

neck by Murdoch and company. Kerry is conducting an investigation; he's done it before. He's not going out in a ball of media glory, as much as some might like him to, and the ultimate benficiaries will be you and me when he eventually takes office.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

47. What if...

Kerry really believed that there is not evidence right now or that with the country at war, that we shouldn't raise divisive, unprovable issues? Remember, he has always been a work from within kind of guy.

We cannot nominate people that we like because they are intelligent and therefore independent thinkers and then turn around and nail them for arriving at a different conclusion than ours.

Like it or not, on the face of it, Kerry does not want seem to go this route -- whatever the calculations were, I am confident in the candidate we nominated to believe that he has his reasons.

The fight right now for us is not to second guess him, he is practically irrelevant to what we are doing -- we see the evidence, we believe there was fraud and we are going about getting proof and momentum for that position.

Kerry's few words now are a question mark -- they may help the cause, on the other hand they may just as easily unleash the stupid media on us. It is a call too close for us to make.

So the best course is to keep at it, without getting diverted by our own candidate's judgement (dont get me wrong, an examination of his strategy is worth our time and thought, if we learn something from it) calls...

[marcologico]

12. If Kerry isn't presidential materia,l NOBODY is!

Just look at his record (the real one, with the war protests and CIA and BCCI Senate investigations, not the made-up Murdoch one). Kerry is the real deal, well worth fighting for.

[clydefrand]

42. Agree with you completely! If he isn't, no one is.

[marcologico]

46. Thank you!

:toast:

[IStriker]

58. Because he's been a "Presidential Wannabee" since...

he was a boy. In other words, "BLIND AMBITION."

[MasonJar]

9. I am not disappointed in John Kerry. He worked so very hard to

win and I am confident that he did. We are faced with a real evil axis here in America. I despise them for taking away our chance to have a President Gore, who is a patrician with a heart and a concern for people and the environment. And I am equally appalled that we were cheated out of a President Kerry. If you watch "Going Up River," you will see a man of such courage and such stature. He truly was preparing all his life to lead us out of this misery. America has lost the chance for possibly two of the greatest presidents in our short history. We have lost our balance. This country is going down; the fundies are leading and taking us with them.. I am no longer proud to be an American.

[puddycat]

18. I would have liked to seen him not ignore his own "Nam testimony

I believe that his anti-Vietnam testimony was his finest hour, an important step in ending that monsterous war. But in the end he relented, he has stepped back into the cozy, safe attitude of "support the troops", and that is exactly the attitude that prolonged the Vietnam war, and futher promoted the mythology of the warrior class in America. What we have now is a military that does service to the capitalist class.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

24. I agree...

I do think tho' that it is hard to retain that kind of fire in the belly, especially when you were not particularly a fire-brand to beginwith!

In this sense, Gore is a much better candidate for the office -- I still sense a passion to do right in him that is a positive force, unlike Kerry, who would probably do the right thing by most issues, but probably does not have the same passion for righting wrongs...

[spooked911]

13. Wow-- great post and excellent points!

:toast:

[ginnyinWI]

16. have to disagree about one of your points

I don't think the Dems in DC are blind to the evil amongst them, I think they are keenly aware. They are not going to lie down and take it in this next Congress. Bush is quacking like a lame duck already, and the republicans are going to split and fight amongst themselves for dominance, setting the scene up for a Dem resurgency. That's what I think.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

19. I will believe *that* when I see it...

:-)

To be fair though, they do fight the thugs valiantly sometimes (such as with a few of the most extreme judicial nominations, ANWR, child tax credit, rebate checks to everyone etc) -- but every one of them on policy.

They have to learn that pushing back against thug politics is also critical right about now, as is a united front in the MSM...

(My heart still aches when I think of what might have been, if when the swift boat liars launched at Kerry, Dems in the media had come out swinging on behalf of our candidate...I keep thinking that is all it would have taken to break the momentum those swiftie liars were handed by the thug media...)

[kerrygoddess]

29. Actually a lot did

There were a lot of Dems who did come out out swinging against the SB Liars, but the media made a bigger deal over the SB Liars and also warped a lot of what the JK defenders were saying.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

48. I think you are right,,,

but, I think this deserved a Sharpton-style no nonsense push back right into their faces.

Also, my point is also not that they do this one time; but that, every time, even now, when the stupid media bring the swiftie liars up, Dems should stop all other tracks, first establish that they were proven to be lying and only then proceed.

I do feel sorry for the Dems in that they need to do this, but this is the reality we are living in and I think they should gag in private at having to do this, but do it in public nevertheless -- because, unless we confront the bullies, they will keep doing it...

[kerrygoddess]

25. I Hear That!

I agree, there are Dems in DC who know exactly what is going on and they are working to expose it.

[Patsy Stone]

26. I BELIEVE

we have a winner! That is totally true. As you know I've said it a million times. There is no way they could not know. They are not blind, deaf and dumb.

There is a civil war coming in the Republican Party. The sane, moderate, fiscal conservative with a liberal leaning social policy vs. BushCons.

If I were a John McLaughlin-type Repug, I'd be pissed. In fact, McLaughlin wanted Kerry to win.

[politicasista]

30. It still won't stop Smirky from being coronated.

It's a shame, so many people here do NOT want Kerry to run again and WE were cheated out of seeing him as our president.:cry:

[kerrygoddess]

31. Just because

so many people here do not want to see Kerry does not mean he won't run again. His fundraisers are still backing him...

[ginnyinWI]

32. heck yeah!

we can write him in if neccessary! :hi:

[Patsy Stone]

36. I know

It kills me. But if fraud can actually be proven, well, all bets are off. Even if he does get coronated, it will show them to be what they are -- crooks and liars. When Will posted about the "smile" earlier I was crying right before I read it, it comes in fits and starts. Go light a candle.

[buddysmellgood]

33. Point C. is a load of crap. You don't run for president if you are not

prepared to fight. Mulligan? We're talking about democracy, not a day on the links. If he doesn't have the "fight" to stand up to this, then the only reason he deserves to be president is that fact that Bush is.
Remember all the "I've got your back." stuff he kept repeating. It seemed lame to me during the campaign. I thought, 'Is that really such a compelling story that one would repeat it over and over?'
But now it could really have some meaning. I think he knew what the pukes were going to pull. We all knew, we just didn't have the details. If Kerry doesn't stand up and make some noise about what went down, I will move to Boston and march in front of his house with dozens of faux knives sticking out of my back. Perhaps I should dress as Uncle Sam. Hmmm.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

49. I grant you...

that point (c) comes off a bit silly, considering he ran for President :-(

However, what I was really saying is that just because you think you would make a good President (due to your life experience/prep etc), does not mean that you believe that it is necessary/appropriate to wade through muck -- may be you believe you put yourself out there and people put you in office because they see in you what you think is required to conduct the office.

In other words, why is it only the candidate's fight? There are enough short-sighted people that ought to know better (given the two candidates) who still abstained from voting or voted third party, *in this election*.

People who did not vote for either Bush or Kerry are presumably well informed people, except that their judgements are highly questionable. Why should a candidate have to fight, in addition to everything else, willful self-flagellation such as that?

[buddysmellgood]

63. It's not the candidate's fight alone. But we are talking about leadership.

Yes we too have to fight. But leading the battle, rallying the troops and setting the course simply comes with the job of candidate.
I have to believe there is a method to the madness. It is not too great a stretch, given the deafening silence of the media and most Democratic leaders, that something is in the works. What worries me is that the plan might hinge on too many planets aligning. I'm afraid there is too much caution, that ultimately no one will stand down the tank and save our democracy because in the end, they just want to keep their position.
We can't lay all of this at the feet of our leaders. We as a people are all too fat, dumb and happy to upset the apple cart. We are not Ukraine. Perhaps we could be, but not without a free, bold and truth-seeking press.

[PATRICK]

51. He was as prepared to fight as anyone

and as easily snookered as ALL have been so far. His assessment of the election night situation was too late to be relevant. I think that equally worrisome to the hindsight critiques- which for many here and elsewhere were foresight or ongoing agony over the disadvantages the Dems believed they had to accept- is the ongoing dunderheaded leadership of the party still like a blinkered horse being led to the glue factory.

That makes this astute post rather polite as you rightly point out. It is genuinely frightening how the power and advocacy class blind themselves to simple realities even of the utmost personal concern. I feel real dismay that the wise and the good are not only so ineffective, but set in their ways and worldviews. Maybe because not enough pain and death has occurred and life looks modern and good? I hate to think so, but in a planet with more educated people living with a global perspective and the benefits of science than the rest of human history combined we have come to THIS in those who hold power and influence. Even the rare prophet or thinker seems to have slipped past the contemporary gene pool while good people learn to hate and are easily swindled by crooks.

But we are the majority- for there is Democrat born every minute.

[ClassWarrior]

34. Excellent post, but I think the...

..."proverbial (Democratic!) circular firing-squads" are apocryphal. They're another myth created by the RepubliCON lies-and-disruption machine. I mean, why on Earth would WE be more inclined to that kind of foolishness than THOSE neanderthals?? I think the kind of trolling that goes on here at DU is EXACTLY what's behind that myth.

NGU.

[The Judged]

38. It certainly seems to me as though Re-uglican trolls are paid to troll.

At my previous hangout <http://commongroundcommonsense.org> there are trolls like brossignol with 1,553 posts since 7-November 04 <http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/index.php?showuser=1617> and he <?> claims that he is a small business owner, yet he has nearly 16 hours a day to dispute everything that progressives discuss and to put forth allegedly "Moderate" opinions without links or evidence to back them up.

He also frequently calls on moderators to ban or punish other posters that are left of what he alleges is "Moderate" by pointing to their vocabulary toward him, while neglecting to acknowledge his own Re-uglican lexicon dialect toward them.

Upon revisiting the above site in order to make this post, I observed that this character has become a legal expert, started posting links to the law, and started creating threads as a result of being accused <by me amongst others, in the past> of being a disruptive bottom feeder who rises only to attack and attempt to dispel opinions and facts presented by others!

His English skills are excellent, and his logic is impeccable, but he constantly engages in semantics and half truths and disguises opinions as facts, while adhering to the Re-uglican goals of disrupting progressives and true moderates, in the historically correct sense, and spreading propaganda.

He actually seems like a paid FBI troll working in their cyber unit. IMO

Why did I bother to report all of this?

****It is these seemingly paid to lurk and destroy type trolls that have appeared on-line in forums such as the one described above, with no purpose other than to disrupt progressive discourse and to steer members toward their propaganda of choice.****

There are far worse than him in the other forum, like Dante who is just about the most prolific Re-uglican-in-sheeps-clothing forum member that I have ever encountered!

DU is moderated more equitably, IMO, for progressives and moderates, and this is why I love it here.

However, most of the trolls in here are very careful to take precautions to shape their propaganda in more slight ways and to acquire at least a few hundred posts before serving their Koolaid, which is of course to no avail, because it is obviously still Re-uglican diatribe and lexicon dialect no matter how they shape it.

sorry for going on and on here ... lol

[ClassWarrior]

62. From what I understand, some of the trolls are multiple people...

...hence the 16-hour-a-day (and more!) activity. Just something of which to be aware.

I just really detest the fact that the Radical RW has gotten away with crafting this sniveling, mewling image of us. And we need to fight back with our VALUES and STRENGTH front and center.

NGU.

[The Judged]

66. Check out this guy's claim to have a 185 IQ

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/index.php?showtopic=12958&view=findpost&p=121772

brossignol Dec 31 2004, 11:05 PM Post #25

Advanced Member

Group: Members
Posts: 1,642
Joined: 7-November 04
Member No.: 1,617
***************************************************
QUOTE(crward @ Dec 31 2004, 10:11 PM)
Let me know when you get a degree in math which I have. Then maybe I will listen to what you are saying.
***************************************************

I don't need a degree in math. A 185 IQ and the ability to double-check Stephen Hawking has always been enough for me (I dabble in astrophysics and quantum mechanics as a hobby).

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
END OF QUOTE
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

This character is just too much for one person who has a life to deal with!

Plus he has sidekicks and has orchestrated posts with them lol

If this character isn't a Re-uglican paid troll, then I don't believe they exist!

Lastly, ClassWarrior, it does seem as though "he" is actually "they."

They have arrived! The thought police! They "on the job" in our forums!

[NVMojo]

37. I voted for the right man ...then someone stole our votes away ....

[autorank]

39. This is a thoughtful post and well worth reading.

I don't agree with all of your points but we do need to stick with Kerry and, in turn, he needs to give us reasons pretty soon for us to stick with him. I'd love to see him hammer * on Social Security, Iraq, etc. If he does this, he will rally most people around here and make an even larger impact on history than he already has.

You point about the establishment Dems in congress communicating on a different wave-length is exceptional. That is a major part of the problem, along with the known palimony with their buddies across the hall.

As far as this being a place to regenerate your soul, this is about as good as it gets, which isn't bad. It's a public forum, people do vent here and in doing so, many work out their thinking and attitudes. I see it happen frequently. Don't take the emotionality and passion as a bad sign. It's generally well intended and works out. I had an ignore list once, dumped it, and guess what, those on the list show up and make a nice comment and I return with the same. Its done. Cool. Enjoy, good analysis.

[mahina]

40. Thanks for a great post.

I love your perpetual circulation idea...I have a couple of copies of Lakoff's DVD circulating. The key is to get it back and give it out again so it doesn't end up on someone's shelf. Trade you if you would like. Thanks again, very sound points.



Organizing for Social Change by Kim Bobo and the Midwestern Academy is a great resource!
And Sharp of course...aloha!

[lonestarnot]

43. Thoughtful, but what about power begets power. Tough to fight, but fight

we must. Leaders miopic? Put faith in no man...as a collective that will not be coopted, our strenght continues to grow.

[PATRICK]

50. Great post ...

since I am one of the ones who has been making those points. Unfortunately the context was always about Kerry's "plan" or the renewed distaste many non-Kerry Duers felt rising in their gorge onto the keyboard.

I have two points. One: that setting aside politeness, benefit of the doubt and all that crap it is easy as pie to see and predict the Bush horror(mostly, but don't we all cringe at the venal depths they surprise us with?). America may now be suffering from TWO major parties who don't know how to handle power. Two decades of being tricked and bullied has conditioned the elected Dems all too well as they settle into the diligent preservation of opposition, of bi-partisanship and values the country holds dear but has no idea how deeply betrayed they are. Second, it was agonizing and obvious that NO primary contender really got it. I don't mean the progressive litmus test. I mean the brutal crime organization and fascism redux of the Bushista coup. They can't say coup. We can. They can't oppose the absurd and obscene war in Iraq. We can. They can't bludgeon the carpet fraud to shake out all the dust in all the states and stop conceding ground to the BBV machines and tabulators.

You are most right about the need to educate the titled leadership(or may they be "temporary"). Luckily they are the very sorts of people prone to value real education. it is just that they simply don't get the priority of fighting the evils. They regard much of the fraud system as a nuisance, as confusion, or as something far less important than how perfect you can craft an issue statement to bring murmurs of approval from a pious focus group. If you could hold a mirror to these wise but unwise career veterans they would see perhaps what we do.
A bunch of Sunday school good citizens with apples for the teacher. if we could change their perspective a tad they would see the dark world they have let close in on everyone, would have much more intense foresight on the extreme damage that will be the result of their not FIGHTING the werewolves in wolves clothing.

I believe, from experience, that you are wrong enough about the other side being accessible to "education" as to cut them little slack in that area. They share the same blindness- with a bad will and a decided taste for the rewards of cutthroat fraud over democracy- that even those not currently engaged in obvious crimes(McCain?- there are so few) have eyes but they do not see.

Also, it isn't all about Kerry, who in this run for the presidency may have proven that- no- he didn't get the picture sufficiently either. Neither did Edwards for all his confrontational experience with the corporate sharks, not Clark who was certainly ready to be plain spoken confrontational against the crap, nor Dean who got things it seemed a bit too late and was sliced and diced for his awakening and his inexperience. Worse, the second tier of campaigning, the hardcore advisers, I am sorry to say, impressed me not in the slightest except they exalted this "not getting it" blindness to the max. Sure the Clinton people in their time took care of a distracted less ruthless Bush, but Clinton never got the danger the GOP posed until too late. I think he still doesn't largely get it. Clinton and his advisers if novices, would have been successfully robbed this time too.

What is "it"? I think you nail it correctly as perspective, the disjointed alienation that comes from the people not being led and the leaders off the beam- all mind-mushed by the national media forums. At many points what the exalted presidency does on the big picture level totally screws or elevates all local, all mundane and seemingly more concrete issues. Most of America does not get "it". Despite the freedom of outsiders with a free press or one at least given free rein to criticize others, I don't think even Bush's foreign enemies get "it" either, as they blunder about with a different set of misconceptions.

Looking into the mirror darkly, Bush shines negatively like a scary black hole with a happy smirk. His past and ALL his consistent actions make him and his criminal entourage a clear and present danger to the nation and world. I don't think the brutal cynics in the power elite or the CIA get "it" either. And by the way we shy away from the untouched splendor of the venal tyranny we cannot scratch, I think most of us don't want to get "it" either.

We should not spread the evils of the Bush administration in fighting our own, but in building up. A collective waking up that is so full of pain and anger that it is the necessity of words and actions that frightens us. And the utter shame to be American, human, intelligent, whatever- to have such bottom feeders easily holding sway over our inertia bound destinies.

Why pick on Kerry? Aren't we all fighting at the moment for simple relevance in a hijacked history?

And while we are talking about education, it is time to talk about the kind of "preaching" practiced by T.E. Lawrence against the Turkish Empire. How to set a fuse and blow up a train and loot it. The lifeblood arteries of the entrenched crime are the media machines, the fraud machines and the corporate sponsors. You can reduce that to two by removing the profitability of hate radio and major infotainment media in a series of efforts such as worked last year. The fraud, I believe can be handled in such a way as to locally reform and turn the populations at the same time to the simple desire for a true democratic choice. This seems eminently more effective than whatever the DNC and their consultants have been doing on the educational front and will go a long way to splashing cold water in their faces. Such cold water as the simple expedient of on line donations in busting the whiny myth that common Dems won't support the party enough or that liberal radio won't work or that the media is by and large fair to self-flagellating Dems.

If Bush can't make you focus on the black and white of the divide then nothing can and there will be no restoration of national myths, only wilder lies.

And when they are awake they should make some CMA(Corporate Donors Anonymous) pledge not to destroy themselves with capital dependency

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

52. Wow, beautiful post...

Will respond in more detail in a couple of hours.

But mostly, I think I am hearing myself talk in your words! But very beautifully stated...

[lonestarnot]

53. Excellent post!

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

55. Re not getting it.

Clinton I think does get it (it being the same that you elaborated on). However, the problem with Clinton is that having lived with very flawed people from childhood, all of whom he happened to love intensely, and having been himself a flawed human being, he has lost the ability to draw clear lines between flawed and evil -- we are all of us flawed; there is a difference between being flawed and putting a plan in motion to steal elections, not valuing voting, suppressing black votes and so on. Never mind the Iraq tragedy! That is where Clinton's life experiences hinder his comprehension. (He is also, in my opinion, fairly pedestrian, in the sense he is much more focused on the here and now; that famed laundry list that the thugs nailed against him was on the money, however, not in the sense in which they meant. This lack of a large framework stands in his way.)

He and Hillary did understand, way back when, about the vast right-wing conspiracy. But a lack of imagination brought on by their respective restricted childhoods, coupled with a healthy dose of narcissim, prevents them from removing themselves as the focus of the issue. The grand march that the thugs began goes back at least to Nixon: a deliberate march, having understood long ago that their policy prescriptions are not popular (in the populist sense), to package unscrupulous men into attractive (blech!) candidates capable of fooling enough people into voting for them.

Unique among the Dem leadership is Gore: he gets it, the way we do -- that these may be simply deeply flawed people unthinkingly spearheading our spiral into anti-democracy, but that there is an evilness to their spirits that makes them far more dangerous than the Dems' regard of them as nuisances. The Dems could coast so far brushing thuggery out of their way long enough to get what they wanted (or a watered semblance thereof!) only because the men who preceded the current corrupt crop were not dumb enough to overreach this far and this shamelessly with such dire consequences. If I could, I would simply make the Dems watch that soldier ask Rumsfeld that question over and over again until they do get it: that scene is so poetic an illustration of this crop's cruel brazenness, it is almost worth the price that we have paid getting there (dont flame me, I dont mean that), if only to show both sides of the aisle their short-sighted complacencies.

I understand what you are saying about educating the Rethugs -- however, I think that is valid commentary only on their leadership. For the vast majority of rank and file Republicans, I think a healthy lack of AM radio will be sufficient to rewire their brains into becoming receptive to reason.

More later...

[PATRICK]

64. Great reply

and good points all, but I'm off to work. Happy New Year!

Gore seemed to be getting it much like Dean(no wonder the final empathy).
That is one of the big reasons they both got slapped down so hard by their own party. That cognitive dissonance knee jerk by those afraid of admitting reality. And yes, you nailed the difference between the rough and tumble of flaws and the unfaceable horror of the extremists with the foot in the door then the boot on our head.

And it started before Nixon in a real way, a deeply dangerous trajectory of good into weakness and evil into power whose miserable apotheosis we are witnessing.

[Raksha]

68. Amazing post, Patrick--definitely a keeper!

This especially bears repeating:

"Why pick on Kerry? Aren't we all fighting at the moment for simple relevance in a hijacked history?"

YES, absolutely! I think you nailed it with that one.

[madison2000]

54. Great post and great responses too

I think John Kerry is a great man who would be a great president and would put forward some real ideas about how to solve the problems we face at home and in the world. Flawed campaign, yes, but a clean campaign.

We have been cheated out of good presidents twice because of a corrupt system that we must fix to move forward in this country. Even though we knew it in 2000, not enough was done or we would not be facing it still.

Not to blame Gore, or Kerry, or the Senators... the Rethugs are evil loonies. The prescriptions for the major ailments have been laid out for us and we need to keep making noise until the truth is heard, understood, and acted upon.

[The Judged]

56. 57,000,000 allowed to agree with you on Election Day. How many weren't?

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

57. Most bad people...

have a cunning that enables them to survive (Translated: if they wanted to, they could have suppressed/flipped the 57 million too -- how many people would be saying "no fraud -- paranoia" then?)

[Time for change]

59. Excellent post

Great ideas, we should give a lot more thought to these issues -- be more tolerant of others' inability to see some of the things that we see.

The only part of your post that I disagree with is the last paragraph. I don't think that education alone is effective when fighting against evil.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

60. What else, besides education, though?

Remember, as Clinton says, we can't jail/kill all the bad eggs...

In the end, only an educated (in the broader, most egalitarian sense of the word) populace will lead to a stable/vibrant democracy...

[Time for change]

61. Evil people are leading this effort

Do you think that people like Rove, Bush, Cheney, etc. can be educated to become honest, law abiding citizens? I don't think so.

What I think needs to be done is to expose this thing and have our legal system deal with the pertetrators in an appropriate manner -- that is punitive, not educational.

[PATRICK]

65. Truth first

That is why I even would like truth trials even before punishment and at least justice before punishment. There is no earthly retriibution for the degree and number of crimes committed to date.

[Imagevision]

67. For Kerry to do this right he must plat chess master!

Rove is pretty strong in inventing whatever it takes "scenario's to win -- you don't beat these guys fair and square.

Imagine for a moment, Jan 6th, Kerry is in Iraq...and the Ohio electoral count gets challendged?... Slick move for openers!