I believe Al From is correct: "the antiwar people cannot define the Democratic Party."

This is true, at least so far. We have tried and cannot define the Democratic Party. Only for a moment now and then when they need our votes.

Can I hope for some kind of a rebellion for peace at the Democratic National Convention?

PissantNobody August 19th, 2008 11:27 pm

I'd say the main reason Marx was and is wrong is the assumption that people are the same, that everyone wants to have the same, be the same. That some are willing to work harder than others and accept the same as someone that doesn't.

The example of the underwear is symtomatic of any business that has no incentive to get it right. The order is given, the order is manufactured, the order is delivered, the shortage happens, but what happens? Nothing, because there is no incentive to. The customer can't go down the street and buy some other brand, there isn't one. Only the state can produce and alot to each person their share.

He and others also assumed that the leadership would always be altruistic and would not do as every communist and socialist government has done so far. Become a feudal aristocracy trying to hand power down to their families or keeping power in a small circle of folks. Russia of course is the prime example.

Their hasn't been one communist or socialist government that has had a successful economy. Every one has relied on commodities or patron's, just as Russia and Cuba do now for their money.

We can argue about America and other capitalist countries and their failings in many areas, but their capacity to give even the poor a better life, make it possible to go from the bottom to the top, provide a better quality of life for the greatest number is, or should be unquestioned simply because it is empirical fact. Even our poor are rich by world standards.

Is our Republic in trouble? Yes, it is. Does it need to be replaced, I don't think so. It needs to be restored like any other society does periodically.

The biggest problem I see if we did do as you suggest and convert to a communist or socialist state is how you could achieve it. It would be a bloody civil war and frankly I don't think it would take long for the communist side to lose. Not many folks are willing to give up what they have worked for.

I'm curious as to how you see it being implemented? And another thought, how exactly would other nations feel as you nationalize their properties? Would they just stand by?

That said there is no reason Capitalism can't grow and evolve. There is no reason that health care and other social needs can't be met on a socialist level. Not a welfare state, but a socialist method of meeting needs but allowing personal responsibility and choice.

But first we need to restore the harness. Unfettered capitalism, unfettered greed at the top and no rules produce our current mess.

~PISSANT NOBODY~ is not a socialist, he/she is an "Animal Farm" communist. I'm not sure if the ~Pissant~ is a horse, a dog, or one of the pigs, but suspect he /she is hoping for a pig slot.

Thanks for the supportive thoughts, kivals. I agree that we must get past our short-term perspective, for sure.

To Thomas More (if he is still following this thread), and others who see proletarian socialism as hopeless, I wish to ask why it is hopeless. Yes, the existing and late communist experiments are not great advertisements for the program I condone, but why are they failed/failing? Just like the average JW, I have my string of rationales, and I can rattle off the reasons why capitalism has gone, and must go wrong, but I want to hear what you have to say. What makes it impossible to have a representative economy, run democratically by the workers who create the goods? Are we really doomed to forever being spoon fed by a minority of 'enlightened' people who somehow had the skill and luck to climb atop the heap?

Maybe I just can't face the thought that we - that is, the greater we - will never rise above our current petty differences, and economically unite for the infinite betterment of all. Anyway, the way Mama taught me, you can't be happy in lucky luxury when others are stuck in unlucky misery. Further, my studies have led me to the conclusion that Marx was essentially correct - ONLY the organized proletariat is capable of seizing the reigns of society in the name of greater humanity. Finally, those same studies led me to what seems to be an inescapable conclusion that it is a lack of poilitical leadership that is holding us back, and thus it is the building of that leadership (i.e, a communist party) that is the key to a brilliant future.

I'd love to hear an alternative, but please, one thing I am sure of is that it will not be a Democrat or Republican that takes us to the promised land!

kivals August 19th, 2008 2:30 pm

Nice analogy!

rtdrury August 19th, 2008 3:09 pm

I don't think we will be able to stay even if we wanted to. But we'll see.

I'm afraid Cuba isn't my idea of an ideal. Is their healthcare that good for everyone, I doubt it. Can you run an economy on craftsman like cottage industries? Not for long. Without repression, its a short step to people wanting a bit more leisure and less back breaking work and a few more goodies. I doubt that many people want to go back to the nineteenth century economy. I'd also point out that the medical care they are giving was not developed in Cuba, nor the medecines.

I haven't found a place so far where communism/socialism has been practiced in its true form pissant keeps pointing out to me. Russia, China, Cuba, etc have all been failures so far. (not that you'd agree with me on Cuba)

kivals & rtdrury

As to China, make no mistake in my opinion she is our partner for the 21st Century. Jr. partner as of now and if we don't stop our foolishness our Sr. Partner before the Centuries end.

China is no bodies tool and our Corporations can play as long as they are useful to the Chinese. I don't think there is any particular racism involved in viewing China at this point. I do believe there are a lot of folks that still consider her backward and 3rd. world. Yes, for now, thats partly true. But coming fast. They will have trouble soon, but don't we all?

Who's winning in the current economic game? Us or China? China by 99 to 1.

As far as lifting people out of poverty, yes, but they have far more than anyone else. And you can't compare our people that live in "poverty" to those in China or elsewhere for that matter. Our poor are rich by most countries standards.

rtdrury,

Looking at China through the prism of US values, or even that of Western values, will automatically result in a poor evaluation because the Chinese do not hold US or Western values.

Most people in China and in the world, though not in the US, can agree that the most basic right of all is the right to be free from want. The Chinese government has lifted far more people out of poverty in the last 10 years than any other nation or group of nations in a similar time period in the history of the world. And another fundamental right most would agree on is the right to be free from foreign domination. And the Chinese government is in the process of delivering the people from that as well.

The Chinese are dancing with the US and other Western corporations but it is a basic mistake of Americans, probably at least partly based on racism, to assume that the Chinese have become completely tools of US corporate capitalism. They are playing their own games and have their own strategies and their leaders are far from unsophisticated. And they clearly remember the period from the mid-19th Century until the mid-20th Century when they were dominated by the West and were considered second class citizens in their own country. Americans far too often assume that because their corporations can completely dominate their own government and population that such corporations can dominate the entire planet. Big mistake.

Thomas More: "the troops will be pulled out within the next two years"

All evidence points toward permanent US occupation of Iraq - that is until the oil runs out or the empire fully collapses - whichever comes first.

Thomas More: "Perhaps the Autocratic form of capitalism taking shape in China is what we need?"

If you're talking about the elites, they probably do need to reinvent their system to sustain their exploitation and destruction. Their system is currently suffering high intensity blowback. But this is good news for the people.

Thomas More: "Socialism and communism are poor producers and cannot sustain an economy, but maybe a combined form could"

Socialism/communism are like any institution - when a society decides to embrace them it can benefit from them. It's simply a question of which values the society is going to support - the values of socialism or the values of classist aggression. There's really no debate - the higher ability of our species is ethics. It is imperative that we utilize our higher abilities to the greatest extent, else they are squandered. Do you want to institutionalize the squandering and suppression of our highest ability?

Let's talk about Cuba. In terms of bang for the buck, Cuba's healthcare is unrivaled, probably 20 times the value of US healthcare. The Cuban government and the people somehow manage to both do their part, in a kind of partnership, to build more with less. The people are like the worker bees, carrying out the policy that puts people first. The government checks elitist influences, and keeps the program on course. Cuba will perhaps soon reach a similar standard of value in food and education as in healthcare. Cuba will probably do the same with public transport after that, and then expand these achievements into craftsman industries, with Cuban products made in small workshops, from materials produced by Cuban farmers.

These craftsman industries are important because they bring cultural value that mass production simply cannot. They keep the political/economic power at the local level. Cubans understand the need for this. Notice that cheap mass production isn't really a desirable goal because it only leads to materialism. Cubans are realizing that their economic system is becoming a model for the world this century.

Thomas More,

Thanks for the article by Buchanan. Sometimes he makes sense, unlike the demented duo in charge.

As for socialism vs. capitalism, I have long thought of the analogy that capitalism is like a hot air balloon and socialism is like an airplane. It is easy to get capitalism off the ground and up and flying, but difficult to control where it is going, and refinements can only improve it so much. Socialism, like an airplane, is a far more difficult and complicated system and it takes a great deal of thought and refinement to get it off the ground, but once you do, it is much easier to control and there is no limit to the improvements that may be made.

Posted under...And You Thought All Conservatives Were Bad! Anyone duisagree with ole Pat. I don't.

Who Started Cold War II
by Patrick J. Buchanan

The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.

Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis.

If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war.

From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly.

Truman refused to use force to break Stalin's Berlin blockade. Ike refused to intervene when the Butcher of Budapest drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. LBJ sat impotent as Leonid Brezhnev's tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Jimmy Carter's response to Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. When Brezhnev ordered his Warsaw satraps to crush Solidarity and shot down a South Korean airliner killing scores of U.S. citizens, including a congressman, Reagan did -- nothing.

These presidents were not cowards. They simply would not go to war when no vital U.S. interest was at risk to justify a war. Yet, had George W. Bush prevailed and were Georgia in NATO, U.S. Marines could be fighting Russian troops over whose flag should fly over a province of 70,000 South Ossetians who prefer Russians to Georgians.

The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.

Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.

And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship? How would Andy Jackson have reacted to such crowding by the British Empire?

As of 1991, the oil of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan belonged to Moscow. Can we not understand why Putin would smolder as avaricious Yankees built pipelines to siphon the oil and gas of the Caspian Basin through breakaway Georgia to the West?
For a dozen years, Putin & Co. watched as U.S. agents helped to dump over regimes in Ukraine and Georgia that were friendly to Moscow.

If Cold War II is coming, who started it, if not us?
The swift and decisive action of Putin's army in running the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia in 24 hours after Saakashvili began his barrage and invasion suggests Putin knew exactly what Saakashvili was up to and dropped the hammer on him.

What did we know? Did we know Georgia was about to walk into Putin's trap? Did we not see the Russians lying in wait north of the border? Did we give Saakashvili a green light?

Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation.

The war in Georgia has exposed the dangerous overextension of U.S. power. There is no way America can fight a war with Russia in the Caucasus with our army tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor should we. Hence, it is demented to be offering, as John McCain and Barack Obama are, NATO membership to Tbilisi.

The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.
Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.

A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.

Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?

As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

Bohemian Grove, Bilderbergers, Illuminati, and on and on.....sounds weird and very improbable, right?? Well, in light of the unnecessary war of choice in Iraq....a war pushed into being with lies, distortions and half-truths by evil NeoCons, something is VERY wrong with our "democracy".
The 2004 Presidential election in Ohio proved that.
Take a look at AEI, AIPAC, the Heritage Foundation, and all the other "think tanks" in Wash DC. Abramoff and Libby and
Delay and Bush and Cheney and K Street.....do you still think this is a country of, by and for the PEOPLE?? Billionaire hedge fund managers earning BILLIONS, and taxed at the 15% rate. Most will not earn over $2.5 Million in their lifetime, before taxes. The FED bailing out investment banks that created the real estate disaster with near worthless paper (CMOs). A 911 Commission that, thanks to Bush and Zelikow and the cowardly Democrats, just gave us a coverup. I doubt if this nation will recover from the past 20 years. $10 TRILLION in debt, and that does not count the over $50 Trillion in unfunded liabilities. What to do?? Blog, and vote for Obama?? There is nothing that America can do to "fix" this mess. You and I are just sheep to be manipulated by the show of a democracy in a system that is totally controlled by big money. And, let's be sure to generate a big scare of the Russian Bear so we can spend obscene sums of BORROWED money on a new Cold War. Let's further enrich the fat cats. Just ask Paulson.

After watching this agonizing game play out for decades, I have decided that it's all on purpose. Of course the Dems keep losing because of following the DLC line. That's not the point. A permanent and powerless minority stake is fine as long as you continue to get a share of the corporate pie and you continue to fund corporate boondoggles with taxpayer money. And then there is perhaps the biggest benefit to the ruling elite - the Dems trot out their loser team every two, then four years and lose, but give their hapless base and constituents the false hope that somehow, with a few Dems still in office, we still have a voice and still have some influence over what they are doing. The Dems, in other words, play the role of a viable opposition while being exactly the opposite (willing enablers of Repub authoritarianism and cronyism).

Barack Obama is actually, the worst, most egregious example of all this. His VP short list should be truly appalling to the "anti-war" vote Tom Andrews describes in the article. And if Andrews is right about the anti-war polling data, pro-war Bayh, Biden and the other bland hack would be terrible choices.

In summary, they are playing the game they want to play. And taking the fall for a pretty decent cut of the take. Especially From et al. And lastly, "we", the voters, and especially not the base, are not the audience for these tedious, obtuse, "back to the vital center" tirades. The audience is the corporate sponsors of the DLC/DNC. When From writes a piece like this, he is talking to his paymasters; he is re-assuring the big boys who sign the checks that pay for his Washington office and Vail retreat.

It's not about us.

Mister Chips

Perhaps I can make it clearer. What I was trying to say is that Americans have decided this issue. The war was wrong, we were lied to, it was a criminal waste of lives and the troops will be pulled out within the next two years. McCain or Obama won't make one whits difference in the timing.

The DLC is correct about about the middle of the electorate. Cannot win without them

Talking about it serves no further purpose as far as I can see. And I certanly don't need to see pictures of war torn people.

Georgia? As soon as Russia has mede her point, she will withdraw her troops back to the borders of her new provinces. She is not going to war with us.

Iran...no attack, forget it. If you want to worry about a general war, worry about Russia and China if China decides they are ready for the Urals.

ladybug August 19th, 2008 11:33 am

I think most people are anti-war at this point. The anti-war people are the Democratic party.

kivals August 19th, 2008 10:54 am
PissantNobody,

Perhaps the Autocratic form of capitalism taking shape in China is what we need? Socialism and communism are poor producers and cannot sustain an economy, but maybe a combined form could.

Though I can't see Americans giving up their standard of living or freedom for it. But I'm certainly not always right.

"Capitalism in the 40's and 50's was hardly worked for everyone"

Ok, Ok pissant, you have a very valid point, you win that one!

DLC IS DNC. Stop the From Games . They are all AL Fromm. Perhaps that could be a party theme song, written by Quincy Jones. Lobster will flow!

Progessives need to vote their conscience,period. Write in your candidate if the DLC sells out to corporate $$$$!

If the antiwar people do not define the Democratic Party, then I guess they don't need their votes. I mean, I'm going to vote for whom represents my antiwar views, and if Obama can't, I'll have to vote for third party. It makes sense.

How does the Democratic Party rid itself of these DLC types who really belong in the other party?!!!! I'm beginning to despair that the United States can elect a government of rational human beings. That is, if the electoral system can be trusted after what has happened in the last two Presidential elections.

PissantNobody,

Only with some form of worldwide socialism is the human race likely to survive the 21st Century or to have a prayer to thrive in the century. But each year that passes, this becomes more and more unlikely.

What the fools can never see is the difference between the long-term and the short-term. Socialist alternatives are designed to maximize welfare in the long-term, while capitalist alternatives maximize production, and sometimes welfare, in the short-term. The problem is that generally in competition, the one that maximizes production in the short-term wins. So the capitalists win the battles, and the human race loses the war.

What socialists must do is to make arguments about the long-term, including arguments regarding the environment and global warming, about resource depletion, about wealth accumulation and concentration and how it leads to slave-like conditions for others, and about war and inevitable conflict in an age of horrifying weapons. It may be too late, but if anything is worth the effort, it is the survival of the most important group of all, the human race.

and you, Dirty Waters,

When you get a break from yukking it up, please bestow a bit of your perspective. Help us out here. I could use a good laugh myself.

GREEN PARTY
IS THE 2ND PARTY OF THIS COUNTRY

VOTE GREEN
ESP. IF YOU are DEMOCRACY NOW. reader.

save yourself vote green

they have a true minority candidate
with capitol hill experience
$0 corporate dollars
and 9/11 truth candidate,
Hurricane Katrina candidate..

Tom, Thank you! I wish you were back in Maine running for Senate.

Thomas More,

So you've had enough talk about the war--My, My! So tired, so soon. Where will you be when the opportunity to "hold Obama's feet to the fire" rolls around. In the 2006 election, there was a strong anti-war candidate in the Chicago area. But who none other than Rahm Emanuel, Obama, and Dick Durbin chose to support her opponent, an Iraq war veteran who took No position on THE WAR. The position of this clique was to support strong BUSINESS candidates over those with strong anti-war stances.

If the gross slaughter ongoing through the administrations of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and whomever is annointed next isn't enough to keep your interest peeked, then maybe it is time to rest up for election day. If the gutting of this economy by War isn't enough, find an Arab website and refresh yourself with all the photos of gutted men, women and children. And now we have a new front in Georgia for which Obama's foreign policy handler, Brzezinski, has been lusting for a long time. And don't forget the preparations for Martial Law in the U.S. which will be initiated by Bush or either one of the presumptives. The potential for a World War increases as the criminal factions compete for dominance. This is global New World Order shit. The Bushes, the Clintons, the McCains, and the Obamas are all part of the New World Order. I know it's not cool to be paranoid, but if you aren't paranoid by this point, you should just go out and buy a larger screen TV and kick back.

SnowWolf has given up, and become part of the problem, so I won't waste any more time responding.

Thomas More: In describing the 'pragmatic facts of politics today' you are really describing the pragmatic facts of ILLEGITIMATE politics, which must be swept away. And indeed, to accept them means that you are willing to jump onto the slippery slope that leads directly to having no principles. There are only excuses for deceiving the electorate - never good reasons. You say you are uncomfortable with deceit in politics, but that you accept it. How is that different from selling out? Not a bit!

I recommend that you subscribe to some real communist papers, such as Workers Vanguard, if you want to see the naked truth, telling of which is a cornerstone of Trotskyism, as it was for the pre-Stalin Communist Party. The 'left' that you speak of is presumeably the Obama left, which is indeed as illegitimate and dangerous as the right.

Capitalism in the 40's and 50's was hardly worked for everyone. You are deluding yourself. What about Jim Crow? What about Korea? What about McCarthy? What about the theft of Palestine? Et., etc. No, our flowering in the 40's and 50's was more because we were all but untouched in a world devadstated by WW2

Finally, insofar as you are correct in characterizing organized labor as corrupted, perhaps you should reach a little furthewr back, and realize that this corruption was engineered by the capitalists, who used every tactic in the book to purge the legitimate communist union leaders with sold-out liars and theives. This is reversable, and MUST be reversed, or we face certain agony in the coming CAPITALIST world war. Even in theory, and certainly in practice, there are no capitalist solutions to war and poverty. There are only communist solutions.

Once more, for the "democratic" party supporters here :

Many of us who "bitch" about the democratic party have indeed done just as those of you are doing now, stuffing the envelopes, attending the caucuses, running precincts. We've done that. It did not shift the direction of the party away from the DLC groups, in fact, in our support for the "lesser evil" candidate for many years, in my case, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992, we saw ourselves "lesser eviled" out of the game. The democratic party has become an institution that works to drive third party efforts off of the ballot, and attacks candidates who defend their right to build a third party with language that would do a 1930s era stalinist proud.

We now function inside a "progressive" movement which sees as its sacred trust the right to shut down a noisy minority within its ranks whose positions embarass the Golden Child candidates like the Clintons, the Kerrys and the Obamas. If that's progressive politics, no thank you. As I said earlier, the political practice and ideology is one that bears a stunning resemblance to the way the old Communist party conducted itself in the 1930s. Endorse the line taken by the majority, or get out. That may well be a lot of things, but it isn't democratic practice.

As for the tired threat that we'll have to deal with a McCain if we don't support an Obama, well, I suppose we may at that. But given that Mr. Obama and his supporters are willing to make their peace with a platform which rationalizes imperial and military government for parts of the world that aren't even a part of the United States, I don't suppose we're that much nuttier in assuming McCain's government shouldn't bother Obama supporters so much. After all, Senator Obama is trying to appeal to McCain voters by adopting their ideas 24 seven these days. Given a choice between McCain light and McCain heavy, people will always opt for the real thing, which is a lesson that seems to be lost on you "lesser evil" types. All I know is that McCain's politics represent a war on the poor of a large section of the the non-white world, a position which Obama endorses, by the way, which he made clear in his little junket to the Middle East a few weeks ago. And I'm not supporting that nonsense even if they put Martin Luther King out in front of it, which, by the way, would never happen, since King constantly denounced the imperial project Obama endorses.

So you all do what you have to do, and we'll do what we have to do. Just don't come crying to us when you get your knees skinned, because at this point, all we veterans are going to say is I told you so, I told you so, I told you so. Now. Get serious.

dreamer5748 August 18th, 2008 11:41 pm

pat paulsen, now there is a presidential candidate!

PissantNobody August 19th, 2008 6:49 am
When do principles come into play? It is disturbing to think that seemingly good people - presumed 'progressives', no less - are comfortable with a world where deceit is an acceptable tactic to get elected. This behavior is exactly what has the masses so cynical about politics - which, BTW, serves the interests of the illegitimate owners of society very well.

Gee pissant, I don't think because you acknowledge the pragmatic fact of politics today means that you have no principles.

Nor am I comfortable with a world where deceit is an acceptable tactic to get elected, but it is a fact. And its unlikely to change, the left and right use it all the time for their own agendas, so who changes it?

At the same time I try to fight for what I think is right. I don't believe in socalism, nor communism. Capitalism as practiced here in the late forties and fifties worked for everyone. I'd advocate a return to those kinds of standards.

Don't depend on organized labor in the US by the way, they are busy betraying the American worker, so I doubt they would be interested in giving up control.

pissantnobody

Power to the people...eat the rich...die capitalist pigs...

*Yawn*

". . . . and an astonishing 66% of the American public opposes the war."

Wow!

Impressive!

BUT!!!

What percentage of this "astonishing 66% of the American public" realizes that in our stir-the-pot, pseudo-economic, be-damned 16th amendment system, each increment of consumption increases aggregate national taxable income and thereby supports whatever activity for which the "elected?" members of government decide to borrow funding. That includes IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN and maybe IRAN.

Do a real protest. Inform your congressperson and senators - in writing - you have decided to boycott optional consumption.

If an "astonishing 66% of the American public" were to do so (not just the letter but also the boycott), the DLC along with the DNC, the RNC and the entire elected apparatus near the Potomac would be allowed - oops, I mean directed - to pay attention.

SnowWolf and too many others: When do principles come into play? It is disturbing to think that seemingly good people - presumed 'progressives', no less - are comfortable with a world where deceit is an acceptable tactic to get elected. This behavior is exactly what has the masses so cynical about politics - which, BTW, serves the interests of the illegitimate owners of society very well.

Such is the barbaric degeneration that capitalist acquisitiveness breeds. People whose heart is still intact realize that this is not just another idiotic sport or calous ad campaign, this is real life, with real people suffering! Let's fight for what is right, and win over the ignorant by example and struggle, not by capitulating to their backwardness.

about 1/3 of the People are Democrats, about 1/3 Republicans and 1/3 Independent (Moderates, like me)...whoever wins the Moderates wins the Election...Political Strategists know this...thats why Candidates run left or right to their base for the Primaries and to the center for the election

I've always found the DLC was the Center for the Democrat Party

To those who think it is hopeless to demand real change (seemingly most of CD-land), please consider that history often goes for long, stifling periods, and then bursts into a new era in a matter of a few years. How many would have predicted the American Revolution of 1776, the rise of German Nazism, or the Communist revolution of 1917 even ten years previous to those occurences? The point is that we must not wither in this dark and cold winter, for there will again be a time when the warm sun shines.

But will we be ready, or will a new batch of thorny weeds fill our garden? We must prepare now, my friends! It is crucial! If you have lost your spirit, lean on your will power and your love of others, but do not surrender. Humanity needs you like never before.

What does preparation look like? Although it may seem alien at first, there is only one cogent and humanitarian goal for humanity: a global socialist economy, democratically controlled by the workers of the world. Every other suggestion is the spawn of pessimism or treachery.

OK, so if that is the vision, how exactly can we make it happen? To paraphrase an old master, "The crisis of humanity can be reduced to a crisis of leadership". More pertinent words can hardly be uttered! The task of this moment is to build the communist political party with the program and the will to penetrate organized labor, lead them in the ouster of the imperialists, and establish a workers' state. Then and only then, at long last, we will have peace, prosperity, and equality!

The solution is simple in theory-simply oust the two mainstrem parties! In reality though, the vast majority of Americans are heavily influenced by the MSM. Common knee-jerk answers range from... "voting for a third party candidate is just a waste of a vote" to "voting for Nader will only help the Republicans" are predictable responses generated by a sophisticated campaign of misinformation. In fact the only threat to the status quo is if Americans actually voted ouside of the box (Dems & Reps.).
If all Americans avoided polls, MSM propaganda and non-inclusive debates, and instead only reasearched each and every candidate as well as the bread and butter issues that affect us all, America would be able to wrest control of the country from our current corporate puppet masters.
Unfortunately though this grass roots solution seems highly unlikely to succeed against the well funded and well entrenched elite. Our democracy was high-jacked right under our noses with the majority of us left still scratching our heads about what went wrong.

we, as a nation, get what we deserve! this november we,the electorate, need to send a message. one that is loud and clear! do some homework, find a candidate to vote for. do not, i repeat, do not allow an incumbent to return to washington in january 2009! obama or mccain? where is pat paulsen when you need him? our present, criminal government has bankrupted this nation. if you thought the housing fiasco was a hard pill to swallow; wait until the credit card fiasco lands on top of us all. bush and allies have pretty much destroyed the middle class. between congress, defense, justice and the white house there are about 1,000 people who belong at gitmo for a long winter vacation. they can enjoy the sun, the ocean breeze, the fun and thrill of 'waterboarding'! let's take back our country! stop listening to these politicians. they are trained to 'lie as truthfully as they can'. we want elected officials who hold the people's business and the constitution to be of utmost importance. peace, to all.

elmeztisogordo August 18th, 2008 7:14 pm

If you think there is not very large center that overlaps right and left you are wrong.

If it was just left and right, Obama would be out front by a mile.

I think I'll choose whatever position on whatever the subject is. I'm no idealogue. Ideology is for fanatics.

dead zones and red herrings, batman!

Nope, it is spelled From. And he is of course totally wrong.

I thought it was spelled Frum

a good sign our country is in trouble:

being in the political "center" means supporting warrantless spying on citizens, illegal occupation of another country, expanding offshore drilling etc...

If "the antiwar people cannot define the Democratic Party" as Al From declares yet once again, then the nation is stuck with two testosterone blinded, sabre rattling war parties, utterly incapable of engaging in public discussion of how to assert meaningful civilian control over the Pentagon and military/industrial/national security complex that has arisen in the United States since World War II.

Antiwar people were never welcome in the GOP. If antiwar people are no longer considered even a legitimate "wing" of the Democratic Party by folks like From and the DLC - when 90% of the Democratic grassroots base and over 60% of the general voting public squarely reject the continued war of occupation in Iraq - then it's time for Mr. From and the other DLC die hards to get the hell out of the way of the parade.

Just today on NPR, Barack Obama was proudly contrasting his goal of ending the US military presence in Iraq with John McCain's stated goal of perpetuating the occupation for as long as "victory" takes.

If Al From can't handle an election campaign this fall with that line drawn sharply in the partisan sand by the Democratic presidential nominee, then it's time for him, Mark Penn, Dick Morris, and the other DC beltway gurus of the DLC to pack up and go, taking their sage (and losing) political advice somewhere else.

Bill from Saginaw

I'll never understand the American political perspective. You are a nation falling apart, in almost every important aspect. And while all this is occurring the best that this "progressive site" can muster in terms of actually moving forward on something progressive is to create a forum for bitching crying liberals who, most I presume, would rather write about the need for change than actually put the effort into creating it. I laugh as I watch your country fall apart.

face reality... you only have 2 bad choices:1) vote the lesser evil Obama and hope he is at least a "baby step" in the right direction; or 2) vote third party or McCain and help elect McCain with thought that maybe things will get so bad with him that in the next (or after that,or adter that....) election people and the democrats might finally offer up substantive changes in vision.A close call,but I'm going to give the "lesser evil" baby step Obama hope-vote a chance ....

DLC = corporate proxies.

From its inception the Demagogic Losership Council has been a voice opposed to democracy. The behavior of Bill Clinton(other than the Lewinsky deal) should make that clear to anyone, not to mention the campaigns they have deliberately lost for the "democrats".

TM, the "chunk of the center" you refer to is disappearing...and Poli Sci 101 was bullshit the first time I took it and I doubt anything has changed in that regard in thirty five years.

The "center" is a dead end, and my sense is that America is figuring this out without the help of the DLC or "centrist" Poli Sci professors (obviously).

Moderation in all thing is a good idea, but in this period, I would suggest
that a little moderation in moderation would be an excellent thing.

There IS no center. You are left or you are right. Make up your mind, TM.

This is great to know---how quite explicitly the ironically named "Democratic Leadership" council speaks and plans against people who have learned anything since Vietnam, against people who know the difference between what the MSM tell them they want and believe, and what they know---that the Dimocrappic Party is now just another gang of back-room gangsters and their legions of prostitutes---people paid to fuck other people for their benefit. And it's certainly true that most Americans one way or another in fact are "progressive"---far ahead of course of those who make their necro-living by holding up progress and justice and peace. I have so many people screaming at me to "get real" and "get on the real side of the working poor to whom the slowly-prostituting Obama's election will mean a great deal," and everything out of the Dimocraps makes me so sick and angry that I can't think of voting for anybody but Nader. I don't care what Nader's past is with the Greens, or about anything but his analysis and intentions NOW. He's the only one who---think of it---dares to really LIVE THE CONSTITUTION which all public officials swear to uphold and defend.

I personally think its time to get off the war as a subject. Its something that America has already decided. Nothings going to change.

I'd also say I think all they are really saying is we can't win without a chunck of the center and anyone that doesn't know that needs to go back to Polysci 101.

What From calls national security, I call imperialism. Obama must struggle with all his might to extricate himself from the DLC, which is a cancer on the Democratic Party. Forget Bayh, and get rid of Rubin and Brzninski (sp?)

In Obama's defense, Democracy Now highlighted a report from The Hill that found that the CEOs of the 100 biggest Fortune 500 corporations have given McCain over $218,000 and about $20,000 to Obama. McCain's drastic corporate tax cuts would save the country's 200 largest corporations almost $45 billion a year. According to the Center for American Progress, 8 companies would save over a biilion dollars a year under McCain's plan: Wal-Mart, AT&T, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Bank of America, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase.

Considering this and that Obama is willing to talk with our "enemies", the importance of Supreme Court nominations, consciousness of the needs of the environment, women, ethnic and racial minorities, and low income people, wrestling away the power of the veto, and on and on, the crucial nature of an Obama victory cannot be understated.

Write to Obama, as I will continue to do, and let him feel pressure from the left.

The REAL democratic party is the grass roots people who go to meetings and do the grunt work. Maybe if more of you complainers would go to the meetings, serve as local chairpeople, and give your input, the DNC would have some reason to listen to you! Policy and platforms are made at the state and local level. If the local are poorly attended, the people who habve something to gain take over.

The discouraging thing is that the question isn't who put you in office (that would be the people), but whom will you serve once there. Even as grassroots ground swells to elect Obama (we prefer to think), corporate America prepares itself to wield its power to drive yet another U.S. administration to do its bidding. I read that the Constitution itself is actually quite plutocratic and that the Bill of Rights was the bone thrown to the working people to get them on board. We may need to reinvent the whole schmear, ladies and gentlemen. Even a great and altruistic man will be playing on a field which is defined by corporate power.

"About half of Obama's campaign funds have come from the usual Big Money "contributors","

Obviously "we" the people in America can't match the largesse being handed out by Exxon and the other corporate contributors. That is beside the point. There is still a vote in America. Most Americans want things like peace and decent healthcare. So, number one, the people have the truth on their side. This means that Obama/McCain have to lie to get votes, Nader/McKinney don't. All the money in the world doesn't turn lies into truth. That is your advantage.

Money wins elections. Al From is whoring for Big Money "contributions", the greatest source of campaign funds, over 98% of which comes from corporations, banks and the mega-rich who want to buy both parties. To get their cash, he needs to act like a Republican.

About half of Obama's campaign funds have come from the usual Big Money "contributors", but unlike McCain's exclusively Big Money "contributions", the other half came from an enormous number of small donations.

Obama and McCain are running about even in campaign funding. But coming from a large segment of the population instead of from a few oligarchs and their useful idiots, Obama's funds are infinitely more representative of a one person one vote democracy.

After reading Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" I was convinced that there is hope. His numerous contributors and supporters feel the same way.

Obama is not the lesser evil as some here pretend. He is the greater good. Read his book or ignorance will win.

Al From = DLC = Republican Lite

Maybe that's what the Democrats are these days, sure beats me. They sure don't represent progressive values. Is it wrong to miss Ross Perot?

"Democrats took back Congress in 2006 with a progressive, antiwar message."

and them promptly fell all over each other to fully fund the continuing atrocities.

Obama and Co. will embrace the right wing and spurn the left, and Andrews and Kucinich and Solomon and the rest will endorse them anyway. From will be vindicated, and McCain will win.

The presumptive nominee, like all good orthodox presidential candidates, has made his obeisance to the God of War by twirling his War Boner like a champion drum majorette.

It's a settled article of faith in Amerika that anyone aspiring to the presidency must prove his or her bona fides as a Warlord who will protect the anxious citizenry from any threat or harm, external or internal. Sad, really.

Obama has enthusiastically adopted the imperialist memes coined by the present maladministration of war criminals, except of course that he intends to fight a "smarter" and ostensibly "good" war.

Like the old joke about the prostitute goes: we've already established what he is; now we're just haggling over the price.

I'm sure that he'll stand up at the carnival in Denver and let the Amerikan people know that in his own way, he too is "reporting for duty".

I'd be surprised if he even bothered to toss an olive branch to the peacniks.

2006 not 2004. The voting years have all been so bad it's hard to get them straight.

The DLC strategy of alienating the party base and trying to appear more right wing than the republicans has proven
to be a failed strategy and the 2008 election will be no different.

If the Democrats don't win the white house in November they will have been out of power for 28 of the past 40 years and they will fade into history like the whig party and the federalist party.

The Republicans have embarassed themselves as badly as any group of individuals could through their lies, racketeering, war profiteering, and racism. INstead of capitalizing on this, the Democrats decided they weren't to be outdone.
Elected on an anti-war base in 2004, the Democrats chose to sit on their behinds and support the status quo. They stuck it to their voters hard. They made up excuse after excuse about how they "couldn't stop the filibusters" or how they didn't have enough votes from the Republicans.
Not suprising. With Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid tag teaming for the worst leadership in history. They lied, buried their heads in the sand, and cut deals. Now they think that they could even POSSIBLY represent the anti-war base? In 2004 maybe, but we're not likely to get fooled again.
Why would I want ANYTHING to do with a bunch of bobble-head loser Democrats?
I gave them my vote in 2004 and felt liek CHarlie Brown trying to kick the football. Thanks a lot Lucy! So now they want my vote again in 2008? (Hey things will be different this time - I'll let you kick it! Come on....trust me.) No thanks.
Democrats do not represent the best interests of this country any more than the Republicans do. It IS time for a change - to an independent.

the article states that obama was against the war

more precisely - he was against the war in iraq

he wants the war in afghanistan - for whatever reason - who cares - it is all bullshit

if american war pigs want to fight someone - call comrade putin

he is ready and unlike most of the us hand picked opponents (such as iraq, afghanistan, panama, etc) - he is able to defend himself

let the chickenshit americans fight someone their own size - cowards that you are

I should be plain to see by now that the job of the Democratic Leadership is to insure that any popular movment for political change will be co-opted and run into the ditch before it can seriously challange cororate interests.

The DLC represents the big money behind the Democrats.
The Democratic party members represent the people.

When the DLC wants the war to continue, while 9 out of 10 Democratic party members want the war to end, its interesting to see which gets its way.

Well, what do we see? We see a Democratic majority in Congress working hard to make sure the war funding passes and is uninterrupted and not tied to any 'strings.'

We see a Democratic Presidential nominee that swears we will still have troops in Iraq in 2013, tells Israel that he'll attack Iran if Bush doesn't, and threatens to escalate the Afghan war and expand it to Pakistan.

When money talks, the Democrats listen. If you want to know why I'm no longer a Democrat, its because it became perfectly obvious that the views of the members of that party mean absolutely nothing to their leaders. Not when the money says something different.

Vote Green!
Come to Denver!