Just my opinion of what I see ....

[Highway61]

Let me start out by saying that I was a true product of the 60's. When we all wanted change, we made it happen. We made our voices heard by organizing, meeting, marching, protesting against aggression and inequality and through our music (Oh, that wonderful music).
It's 2007 and here we are. Have we have lost those skills to truly unite along the way? I believe to a degree we have. Oh, there is still a lot of us out there, but the numbers and quality in which we do so have diminished considerably.

When I first came to DU I was hoping to get some of that back, I guess. We are in such dire straits in this country right now that drastic measures need to be taken. I remember being welcomed by many of you but one person in particular told me I needed to have "thick skin" at times, but all in all a good bunch of people here.

I have been to enough rallies and meetings to see Dems AND Republicans. This bunch in the GOP now don't even hold a candle to the "old" republican party. They are ruthless, secretive, organized and almost never speak negatively about one another. They have been in lock step with the president from the get go. Which explains the pickle we are in now.

What I see here on DU is a LOT of bashing. Whether against a candidate that isn't their choice, or an elected democrat who is "not doing enough", or another DUer.
I've been in medicine most of my life. You can have the crappiest doctor on the staff... however, you would NEVER hear another doctor ever utter a negative word about him/her. Why? They have a code of ethics to never do so. Right or wrong...it is what it is.
I believe the republican party runs the same way. While there are those fussing about who did or didn't do enough, so and so's issues on health care etc, pointing fingers at those in our party who let us down on a particular vote, I can go on but you get the picture. While we are doing all that fussing and pontificating, the men "behind the curtain" remain at the controls.

I know that we don't have to agree on everything, it's human nature. But the negativity needs to stop. This bunch running things now have done SO much damage that I could make a list over 24 hours and still not have touched on all they have done. It is staggering.

I guess what I am trying to say is to stay focused on the large portion of meat and potatoes the republicans dished out on the plate, not so much on the scattered peas. We need to keep the focus on THEM. We all need to be on the same page and stand united. Speak softly and carry a big broom folks, 2008 is right around the corner and we need a BIG sweep!

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

Mother Theresa (1910-1997)

My contibution for today..Dylan and Springstein...doesn't get any better than this....enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL87kBq9aiE

[Vilis Veritas]

1. Nailed it.

I too am a product of the 60's...I remember that the key word was 'Love'...the implied understanding was that there are nuanced differences amongst all people and THAT was the point. Nuances divide, love unites.

Maintain the nuanced differences for they will keep us vital and strong. I have been trying to break through the nuanced thought noise for the past week or so...

Peace Brother and

No Fear.

My take on this subject...;-)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1917157&mesg_id=1920543

[Highway61]

4. Back at ya

"Yes, it will take a long time, but we have to start by getting rid of the scum that has infected the pond. Then we can start clearing out the crap we used to get rid of the scum.

Together We Are Invincible"

YOU nailed it! Excellent piece.

[Vilis Veritas]

10. I long for unity.

There appears to be so many levels of complexity that it is hard to get a consensus. Nuances. Shades of gray.

Thank you for the compliment...and the Dylan/Springsteen link...

Peace.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. The problem is, too many here want to be EXACTLY like the GOP...

except on the left side of the aisle. All of the things you're talking about, EXCEPT in terms of cohesiveness. DU wants Democrats to be ruthless. They want them to be secretive. The problem is, everyone wants everyone else to fall in lock step behind them. We have no "Bush" equivalent to put people in line.

And making it worse, DUers want that Bush figure to be as liberal as humanly possible, which is fine except that it's not going to happen. The current Bush became President due to a few reasons. 1) His father. Republicans that had enough of Clinton longed for the days when Poppy was in charge. That became a rallying cry for the son. 2) He lied. Repeatedly. He convinced enough people he was going to be a moderate, and people bought it. Remember that whole "uniter, not a divider" bullshit? Yeah, well, people actually believed it. 3) Ralph Nader/Florida election fraud. Even with 1 & 2 working for him, he still needed some help, and he got it. SCOTUS didn't help. And though I love the man, number 4 is the fact that Gore didn't run a great campaign. Namely, he ran away from all of his positives in running away from Clinton, not realizing that the people that cared about Clinton's scandal in the first place weren't going to vote for him anyway.

Really, Bush getting elected was a perfect storm in a lot of ways. And like the perfect storm, it caused a shitload of damage that will take many years to undo. But thinking you can get the liberal equivalent of Bush into the White House without that perfect storm is just plain silly. I think we can all agree that Bush was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of President, and I don't mean that in a positive way.

[Highway61]

7. Made some good points

now....totally off the subject....GO RED SOX!!!!!!!!... from Maine :)

[redqueen]

3. IMO that "never speak ill of a republican" crap is why their party was ruined first. n/t

[Emit]

14. Ditto. It's that authoritarian thing. n/t

[LeftCoast]

5. Well, this is a forum geared around discussion primarily

Lots of people organize here of course, but most of what goes on is talking (ok, arguing).

[Warpy]

6. I , too, am a product of the 60s

and saw it all fall apart into drugs and violence by the early 70s. Some peace and love types went back to the land. Others stuck it out in the cities, gritting their teeth and doing what needed to be done to survive. All found it necessary to make a living and found that process eating up so much of their time that peace and love were lost in the process as wages fell and benefits disappeared.

We are the generation who got robbed of all our parents took for granted, and ignoring some of the robbers simply because they have a "D" after their names is not going to get us anywhere.

If you want people to march in lock step and refrain from criticising wrong when they see it, better join that other party. If you want us to fall in line behind men who vote to censure an organization for running a perfectly legal ad they don't like or to say they'll probably authorize a bad president to start another bad war, then that other party might be for you.

If you want to stay in this one, be prepared to see criticism of candidates who waste time on such proposals instead of raising the minimum wage, ending the war, ensuring health care, stopping offshoring, and doing all the other things our country so desperately needs.

Refraining from criticising evil in our own party is just as evil as turning a blind eye to it in theirs is.

[Vilis Veritas]

9. No one is asking anyone to 'March in Lockstep'...

That is rhetoric used to divide by implying that ignoring NUANCE and uniting under peace and love is a call towards fascism.

Right now, the largest evil in the land is the Republican/Neo-Con Agenda to reshape the policies and direction of the nation. Many have been enablers, but the KEY point is the PLANNERS, Who planned all this? It was not the Democratic Leadership, it was the Neo-Cons.

We have to come together to fight the common evil. That Common evil IS the Neo-Cons. They need to be removed from office. The best and fastest way to do that is to remove the Republican Party from power on the hill.

I do not believe in asking anyone to refrain from exercising their right to speak out and criticise. I do have an issue when that criticism is used to divide the people of the Democratic Party.

Peace.

[redqueen]

15. What if some of those in the Dem party are helping the neo-cons?

What then?

[Vilis Veritas]

16. I think this is where nuance comes into play...

Helping to plot and plan the demise of the nation and voting for certain wedge issues to avoid condemnation by the neo-con media machine, while both wrong, are not the same thing. I have not seen any hard evidence that the Dem Leaders are doing any REAL help...they don't go to the semi-secret Cheney CNP meetings, they are not writing papers for PNAC...I need proof of help and aid by affiliation before I travel that road. If you have links please...I am always willing to change...;-)

There is a huge neo-con political media machine out there that uses each vote as a wedge against the Democratic Leadership...the fucking neo-cons are downright masterful at it, and it has the Dem Leaders hobbled. They are damned if they do (by their own constituents) and damned if they don't (by the neo-cons in print).

I sincerely believe that some of the Dem leaders have gotten savvy to that fact, it is the only thing that can explain their actions...the RW swing in the country is so strong, it is difficult to fart without invoking the wrath of GOD...

I used a metaphor in one of my posts about a pond that was full of scum. Sometimes, in order to clean out the scum, you have to resort to measures that may cause some crap to contaminate the waters...however, once the water is cleaned of the scum, you can work on removing the crap that was used to kill the scum. Right now, our best option is to accept the candidate that is given us and work to put Dem leaders in office. One we have taken back the hill, we can work on them to change the course.

Key point: So far as I can tell, the Dem Leaders are not involved in ANY way with the Neo-Con organizations that have planned the destruction and reshaping of this country. They just aren't. That simple fact alone tells me that there is hope to changing course once they are in power.

Peace.

[KoKo]

12. I can't add much of anything to what Warpy says but I'll try to say a little more....

I was around then too. Seem to many of our hopes and dreams for a better world have gone down all these years. Our hopes and dreams about our party waking up after Selection 2000 and the shredding of what we "thought" was our constitution and what we Dems "thought" we stood for have crashed and burned in the past weeks. I think many of us are in a "re-valuation phase." What does it mean to be a Democrat? Are we just seeing the party going through growing pains where the old ways are resisting the new? Or, is it more sinister. It's hard figuring that out. Until we can sort it out and get a grip on what we are seeing and what it all means, there will be much conflict. So many of us worked so hard since 2000 and not here on DU but everywhere across America to re-energize our party...there's a bit of grieving going on. :shrug:

[nightrider767]

8. So Let's Do Something About It!

People are frustrated here because we get nothing done. It's all "preaching to the choir".

It's time for a leader to "step up", someone who's been around for a while and has influence.

We ought to be bombarding Washington with petitions that have thousands of e-signatures.

Demand a speedy end to the war.

Start investigations into the missing money, the buddy contracts, the crooked deals etc. Once you expose the corruption, people will see the reality.

If we could all actually have some impact, this board would be way less frustrating.

[Terran]

11. Being a product of the Sixties...

You of all people should be acutely aware that *real* change from the ground up is needed if we're going to save this country from totally going to corporate-republican hell. So the reason so many people are bashing our own right now is that they don't see anyone, except maybe Kucinich, who is willing make the changes that are needed.

Also, things get like this here as a presidential election approaches. I guess you weren't here in 2003, but it was the same. People have just had four more years of bullshit to make them testy.

[Highway61]

21. I will be voting for Dennis n/t

[Greyhound]

13. I understand what you're saying, but I think you've mis-stated the problem as a solution.

You said it perfectly in your post;

You can have the crappiest doctor on the staff... however, you would NEVER hear another doctor ever utter a negative word about him/her. Why? They have a code of ethics to never do so. Right or wrong...it is what it is.

This does not make the profession better, it makes you all bear the blame for the actions of the few incompetents and even the dangerous. As an aside, I'm pretty sure that covering for these people has nothing to do with ethics.

In the '60s, the hippies identified with the Democrats, not because the Democratic Party was liberal, but because they were the only other choice. They tried to change the party from the inside and began to succeed, that resulted in the convention of '68 and the party establishment actively working against its own candidates in the '68 and again in the '72 elections. They clearly demonstrated that they, like Lucifer, "would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven".

We are in much the same place today as nothing has changed. The party rulers of then became the party rulers of the '70s and worked against the positive changes that President Carter (hardly a liberal himself, but a man of conscious) tried to enact, and were the same people, or their proteges, that enabled Raygun's war on the working class.

I can't believe that you really think that our Constitution, rule of law, mass murder, criminal negligence, election fraud, and corporate totalitarianism, are "scattered peas", but to unify under candidates that advocate all of this and actually block attempts to address these issues, would be to endorse them.

This is a battle for the very soul of our nation, and to sell it for a temporary victory, would be a crime. We simply cannot let this stand.

[redqueen]

17. Well said...

:thumbsup:

[Vilis Veritas]

18. So what do you suggest?

Me, I am working from the bottom up. That is where the change has to start...not sure if it will help.

Peace.

[Greyhound]

22. That is what the hippies did, but TPTB figured out that it was the war that fueled them.

Once the war was ended, most of them drifted away and many came back to politics as Raygun Democrats.

What is needed is, I believe, obvious, but the will to make the long-term commitment and personal sacrifice is lacking. Frankly, I don't see Americans changing anything until it is too late. Something happened to us along the way, we forgot what America means.

I think FDR put it well in the acceptance speech for his second nomination; "They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy." IIRC, he was talking about Europeans, but we have become them. Look what it took to wake them up.

[Highway61]

20. Oh my goodness

The "scattered peas" I was referring to are the folks here who criticize the dems for not doing enough....I totally agree with what you have to say. I just wish we had more solidarity here. Honestly, I returned to an area where I grew up. The folks who marched with me and had true convictions are a part of the "me" generation. Some are now republicans driving top of the line Mercedes and doing well in their 650K homes! They have zero tolerance for the poor. WTF??? (Jerry Garcia must be rolling over in his grave) I get in despair now and again, that's all.
Thanks for sharing. Peace.

[KoKo]

19. ...

[maine_raptor]

23. Can't agree more, Highway61

The enemy of the good is the perfect.

Everybody here has one thing in common; we are anti-Republican. There maybe many shades and depths to that, but it is the reason WHY we are here.

Maybe some posters should think on that prior to hitting the Post button. I know I do.

Good post about something that needs saying ever once in a while.

I agree with one other thing you said after the OP:

GO SOX!

In Maine also........:toast:

[Perry Logan]

24. Ironically, I have never worked harder to defend the Democratic record than here at DU.

But of course, that's because liberals are naturally very self-critical people.

Coming here can be unnerving. But I would never want us to be like the Republicans, who are total herd animals.