My haircutter never votes

[jgraz]

She lives in SF, in Pelosi's district, and she hasn't voted in her life. She first told me this a couple of years ago and I was shocked. She has many friends who are politically active progressives and all of them have been after her for years to start paying attention and voting.

I asked her today if her friends were still bugging her about not voting. Her response? "Nah, they don't think it really makes a difference any more."

This is what the Democrats are creating. This is what we're going to be up against in 2008 if the Democrats continue to enable this criminal regime. People are starting to give up, which is exactly what will put the GOP back into power. :banghead:

[Mythsaje]

1. Print out and give her my open letter...

Seriously.

[jgraz]

6. Love to -- got a link?

[Mythsaje]

11. Sure...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1801368&mesg_id=1801368

[jgraz]

16. Nice letter...I fear it's a bit too sophisticated for her

Could you trim it down to like, 8 or 10 words? A couple of pictures might help, too. ;)

[Auggie]

2. My neighbors don't vote

And of course, they're the first and the loudest to complain about everything

[babylonsister]

3. But how does your hair look?

:yoiks:

[jgraz]

8. not bad...a little apathetic

[babylonsister]

10. LOL! nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. BINGO

and this is why I am almost betting the Dems will NOT keep the house, the senate or take the WH.

People feel betrayed, and these folks are doing the same thing they did back in 1988 and it was STOOOPID back then and it is STOOPID today

[VP505]

9. I sure hope your

wrong but....

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

5. She is a sheeple

As an American citizen, IMO voting is both a privilege and a responsibility.

Your stylist is letting BushCo do her thinking for her, and is by default a BushCo supporter. Take your business elsewhere.

[jgraz]

7. The point of the post is not about her

It's about her progressive friends, who are now telling her that voting really doesn't make a difference.

I live in Berkeley, and when I start hearing this over and over from SF and Berkeley liberals, I get very worried about the Dems' prospects.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

15. my comments apply to them too.

It's about giving up, not just against overwhelming odds, or an opponent who is too strong.

The progressive liberalism I originally embraced was scrappy, tenacious, and completely optimistic. Applied to our Constitution, it is a recipe for the America that we desire, which is also an America that the rest of the world needs (once again, IMO).

Those who throw in the towel may still talk the progressive talk, they may still be socially progressive, but as citizens they do not deserve to be counted among progressives. By definition, a progressive is constantly striving. Folks who say that "voting makes no difference" are defeatists who really want this to be true, feeding their own martyr complexes.

[jgraz]

17. Might be true, but it doesn't address the coming reality

If disgusted progressives stay home in 2008, how will calling them names help us?

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

26. It's fine to worry

but anxiety should be a motivator to do something--anything--to resist the coming reality that BushCo and their supporters desire. And name-calling? If somebody gives up and even refuses to recognize the opportunity for change, s/he deserves to be called defeatist, or dead weight, or an obstacle to progress.

"I'm protesting the System by not voting." Guess what? You're not part of the System any more. You are the ground beneath its crushing wheels, or worse, the fodder for its ravenous appetite.

[jgraz]

27. The solution is to push Congress to do their fucking jobs

If the Rethugs retake Congress or the White House in 2008, all the contemptuous names won't help one bit. The progressives who are engaged need to realize exactly what's at stake and turn up the heat on the Dems. Another $50B for this war and we risk losing all our gains from 2006.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

41. Agreed

I take great pride in some of the individual accomplishments of my state's representatives, but the congressional body as a whole disappoints no matter what its current incarnation.

Note post BushCo. speech: it's just gotten a lot harder for the right wingers to support their president in his misguided war.

Let's keep the pressure on.

[Warpy]

13. No, it's about discouragement

that has happened through the last 38 years of conservative rule by both parties. She knows damned full well that as long as conservatives control the government, NOTHING will change.

She's right.

This is why I keep trying to tell people that all the triangulation and wooing of moderates won't do squat, as it hasn't done enough in the last several election cycles to make a difference in creating a majority that the GOP can't steal.

The party has got to connect with its traditional working class base. The GOP is great at appealing to its base. The Democrats stopped trying to appeal to the party base by taking working class economic issues off the table in 1969, preferring to try to swing to the right in order to negate the effect of Nixon's southern strategy.

How's that working for you? How's it working for the country?

[Selatius]

19. Voting in Democratic leaders who lack vision isn't going to solve problems at all.

There's usually nothing wrong with voting in middle-of-the-road types into office who lack a comprehensive vision, but it tends to become a liability as far as working class interests go when the right controls power. You need transformational, visionary leadership at the helm, and we don't have that. If the Democratic Party wants to cast itself as the party of the New Deal, it's going to need a lot more than faded memories of FDR to win.

[eagler]

12. Unless something is done about the blackbox voting issue, it

probably does no good to vote. Another issue the dems are failing on. There is absolutely no excuse for this.

[TomInTib]

14. I have only voted once in my life.

For Clinton, first time around (actually, my vote was against GHWB, I had no idea who Bill Clinton was).

Now, I live in Marin County where pretty much everyone votes Dem and my vote (or lack thereof) truly has no impact.

Plus, in California, registering will get you jury duty. And I want no part of that business.

[jgraz]

18. a fair point, but you can always vote for a progressive third party

That's one of the nice things about living in NoCal. You can vote your conscience and never have to worry about handing the election to a Rethug.

[TomInTib]

22. Good point.

Hey, are you going to the All-American Blues and Barbeque Festival in San Rafael on Saturday?

[jgraz]

23. That sounds cool. I'll see how the weekend resolves.

I'll definitely ping you if we end up going.

[TomInTib]

24. It is one heck of an event.

And it is FREE (except for whatever you might consume).

I will PM you with my cell#.

[spanone]

20. unfortunately a LOT of people don't vote

[jgraz]

21. And why is that? I don't think it's productive to call them all sheep and write them off

If we had a true progressive populist who spoke to the real majority in this country, you'd see a lot more people at the polls. The "lesser of two evils" pitch is just so stale at this point.

[Selatius]

25. It's because the winner-take-all format disenfranchises half the population

Take presidential elections. In my state of Mississippi, Bush needs only 50 percent plus one more vote to capture all of the state's electoral vote. Every vote beyond that threshold is automatically irrelevant, such as my vote. There's more than a modicum of truth to the notion that my vote doesn't count. The only upshot is I could vote Green without having impacted the EC vote.

There is no stake for the people who don't belong to the majority. At least with systems that use proportional representation or mixed systems such as what Germany has, everybody is given a voice in Congress, a stake in Congress. We don't have that; we have winner-take-all.

[spanone]

28. here....

http://life.familyeducation.com/elections/politics-us/36258.html

[lonestarnot]

29. Holy crap. Light the damn fire.

[jpgray]

30. There are significant differences between the two parties. The media do not cover them

To me it's a side-effect of the obsessive image focus of campaign coverage--if all we have to talk about is earth tones and haircuts (note almost all negative image coverage focuses on Democrats), then there must not be any differences of substance, no? It's an understandable conclusion to draw if you're watching the news.

But if you're telling me there's no difference between the best Democrats and the worst Republicans, I'll feel absolutely free to disagree with you. How does someone like Kucinich "create" the idea that there is no difference? Or are you really talking about Democrats from conservative districts/states?

[jgraz]

32. What I'm saying is that more and more people are giving up

You and I know that there's a difference between the parties, but so far the results have been pretty damn similar. People are tuning out, and I suspect this is not just a trend in the Bay Area.

Think Cindy Sheehan's retirement letter times 20 million. This could be a very scary election cycle for us.

[jpgray]

33. No I totally agree. That's why I said it's understandable

To my mind there are plenty of good elements (and bad ones) in the party, and those good elements need a stronger spotlight. I'm really depressed that the Bill Clinton crew received so much credit for his victories, which were more due to his personal mastery of image politics than anything else, and now too many people continue to listen to their advice. And that advice didn't net Clinton the presidency. Which of course is why that crew failed so often to get Dems a strong foothold on a Congressional majority.

[kskiska]

31. I was at the hairdresser today

I brought a library book with me to read, "Supreme Discomfort - The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas." She asked what I was reading and picked up the book and asked who he was. I said, "Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice." She said, "I've never heard of him." End of discussion.

[sandnsea]

34. That's what Nader tells them

Believing it is just the rationalization they need to opt out altogether. It's what Obama means when he says cynicism is easier than fighting for change. Don't blame Democrats. Blame ALL the people who are lying about Democrats.

[jgraz]

35. Lying about Democrats? The truth is about as bad as it gets

Truth: Pelosi and Reid could have stopped the Iraq War funding without a veto-proof majority. But instead they let the bill come to a vote and then sent out fundraising letters asking for money to help them stop the war.

Truth: Pelosi changed the rules of the House to require a 2/3rds vote in order to pass the Democratic version of the FISA bill. After that went down to defeat, she let the terrible Rethug version come up for a simple majority vote and then voted against it. And, of course, she then sent out fundraising letters asking for money to help them fight Bush's abuse of the FISA law.

Truth: Pelosi is preventing Conyers from starting impeachment investigations and standing in the way of Congressional contempt charges against Rice, Miers and Rove.

Soon to be Truth: Pelosi and Reid will allow a vote to approve another $50B for Bush's war.


How can you look at that and argue that the Democrats represent real change?

[sandnsea]

36. Bush. Cheney. Get a clue. n/t

[jgraz]

37. Neither Bush, nor Cheney are running in 2008. We'll need a new boogeyman

And wouldn't it be better to ask people to vote FOR something than to vote AGAINST some scary alternative? That's why people will stay home in 2008. You and I may hold our noses and vote Democratic, but the Dems are not making a strong case to the apathetic majority out there.

It's pretty sad, actually. I saw so many new voters and new activists in 2006, and many of them are just turned off right now. You can't tell me that YOU'RE pleased with what the Dems have been doing, can you?

Being better than a Rethug is such a pathetically inadequate goal. People are tired of basing their votes on it.

[sandnsea]

38. we'll fix it without you

that's the sad truth of it.

the only time anything has changed in the last 6 years is when we focused on republicans. why is that so hard to see.

[jgraz]

39. Yeah, I really don't think you will

You aren't even able to separate the message from the messenger. I'm talking about reality with actual people and you're talking about campaign tactics.

Those tactics aren't going to work a second time. People came out to get rid of the Republicans in 2006, and now they're sorely disappointed. The only way to remedy that disappointment is to change the behavior of the Democrats. If they see how many supporters they're losing, they may discover a bit of spine.

[deutsey]

40. The Dems have to give people something to vote for and then deliver on it n/t