So, Why in the Hell Can't We Stand Up to the Ultra Right Wing??

Obviously (see other posts) I am on a rant tonight--but sometimes people break. Look, we act in this country and in this party like we are in front of an abusive mother who says "sit in your dirty diapers until it burns your ass off"; and the country crawls to the corner like an abused child and weeps. Fine if you are a 1 year old. What the hell is the excuse for the rest of us?? Now you are a 30 year old child facing the abusive mother---why not punch the bitch in the mouth and leave home?? Well, folks, that's exactly how the right wing has trained this country....we are adults, sitting in our dung, weeping in a corner. Where the hell is the social worker who comes in and takes the child away and tells them that you don't have to live like an animal?? Where..are..our...Dem...leaders..tonight???? The fact that our "mother" is being condemned by all the Moms in the neighborhood isn't helping us, is it?? At some point someone has to come in through that door and say "I'm here for you"........ Well, I'm waiting in my dirty diapers.

n/t

When it comes time for a fight what happens to them? Look at Bunnypants, Dick, Wolfie, and El Drugbo. They are a bunch of Chickehawks, shreik like a hawk and run like a chicken.

I have guns, too.

The "give them enough rope" people IMO are a bunch of cowards. This policy just enables the wingnuts to keep on keeping on. It certainly didn't stop them in Vietnam, Iran Contra, the first Gulf War, 9/11 or this Gulf War.

The right has gotten away with so much that they just don't give a shit about the left anymore. They have become irrelevant doormats and sheep.

Bush is destroying himself. NO HE ISN"T. The people didn't give a damn about the April bloodletting in Iraq or the 9/11 testimony that said Bush fucked us on 9/11. His ratings went up. This latest dip is nothing but GAS PRICES. When they go down, Bush will go up. For the Kerry campaign to delude themselves that for solid reasons Bush's numbers are dropping is just a "delusion". We either fight FOR FOR FOR something...or we are going to be shitting and spitting and blaming come the day after elections '04.

The Democrats should have been storming the halls of Congress over Bush and Cheney testifying together.

Nope.

Hell, there are hundreds of things this administration has done since in office that were criminal...guess what? The Dems just rolled over and asked to have their bellies rubbed.

violated for an all out scream from Dems that if they could go all out on Clinton like they did for sex, why couldn't Baby Bush at least come alone to the hearings?? Didn't hear any major thunders about it, did you?? Don't anyone give me the shit that "it wouldn't have been wise, acceptable, etc.". It wasn't the goddamn precious war, folks. This could have been a major blast. We past. Sound familiar?? Will Carville put a trash can over his head again this November?....face up to it now.

anger in this post.

Anger is great, but if it's too intense it's counterproductive.
Think about it--if a pissed off FReeper sends you a rant about
the evils of liberals, are you persuaded?

Kerry's goal is to recruit, to convince, to enlighten, to
persuade. Bush's evil acts are not enough in and of themselves,
even though maybe they should be.

We have to work carefully to change people's minds.
Calmly, rationally. Sure, passion is great. But a lot of
our potential friends will recoil from the anger.
(Remember what happened to Howard Dean when the "too angry"
label finally stuck.)

When Kerry attacks, the story of the day will be diverted from Bush's mistakes to Kerry's partisanship. Take that to the bank.

Rove is just waiting to be able to change the subject. Bush hasn't had a positive day since January. Things are working out swell, so far.

When Kerry attacks, the story of the day will be diverted from Bush's mistakes to Kerry's partisanship. Take that to the bank.

Yep. You got that right. But I think she wasn't talking so much about what Kerry should be doing as what WE should be doing.

It's really frustrating. We protested the war in our thousands and the response was that people in the U.S. have the right to express their opinions freely, isn't that great, that's what we want for the Iraqis, and on with the war. We write our Congressional representatives and the response to our letters is polite but nothing seems to happen on that scene. We get Air America and wind up with a Democratic version of Rush Limbaugh, tactics-wise. Slam versus slam... idiot versus idiot. So, that leaves "We the People" with no where to turn but to ourselves, and "We the People" keep looking for "leaders" to show the way. I think it's become painfully obvious that, for whatever reasons, there are no leaders to lead us.

It's up to us.

Maybe this forum would be a good place to strategize and brainstorm to come up with something that the individual American citizen, sick at heart but not broken in spirit, can do.

Maybe one thing would be to get trained and go out and register voters. But also, remembering the 60s, I think there was one time when someone got phone numbers at the Pentagon and whole groups of people called up all at one time and jammed up all their phone lines for an hour or so. Maybe there's something like that we could organize.

Not a bad idea, even if it didn't work. No, I'm only halfway being facetious. When anger doesn't work and reason doesn't work, you have to look for a third way. Can't anyone on the Democratic side "think outside the box?"

We certainly don't have to worry about over passion on the part of Kerry do we?? ( and he was my candidate from day one). Neither did we have to worry on that score with Dukakis and a long list of others......fade to forgotten...........We have to get over the mentality that Bush will self destruct. Even if he does, so what??? They will vote for him unless they feel some passion and belief in Kerry. You might. 99% of the rest of the country doesn't know if Kerry stands for anything. Vote for Kerry for Student Council. At least the smart candidate for Student Council adds: "and I promise no more homework".

I guess you must have slept through your poly sci classes
when they talked about the mushy middle, and how most
elections are decided by the swing voters.

Oh, yeah, it's such a great idea to turn off the swing
voters by screaming at them that "Bush is a criminal, Bush
is a liar, you are so foolish, you are so dumb, because
you don't see the world the way I do."

Oh, yeah, that's a real recipe for success. :eyes:

and basically unimportant swing and independent voters in this election. This one is down to getting the bast out. Before it was kissing the ass of soccer Moms and other morons. Not now. It's getting the base out. And here we are, sweetcums, back in the middle ages trying to get the swing voters--------how Gore--ish.

The fact is, the Democratic Party is united and energized now
as never in recent history. The base is motivated, the base
is ready to do this thing. We are all in this to win this.

The swing or independent voter is nearly quarter to one third
of the electorate. You may want to ignore them, but I think
it would be a mistake to squander this moment with an
overly-strident campaign.

John Kerry looks presidential. That is a huge factor when
campaigning in a television age. He is above the fray, talking
about his ideas and his agenda. That is exactly where we want
him. Not down in the trenches getting all dirty and mucky and
slimy and soiled.

Then why isn't he in the WH?

"for the good of the country":eyes:

DU 101 there. :eyes:

Clarence Thomas should have been forced to recuse. Also, according to a very close friend on the ground in Florida - they focused on all the wrong things. People don't steal elections in this country unless you let them.

Now we are.

This is a bunch of criminals we're dealing with. While Gore
and the Dems share some of the blame for lying down after Bush
v. Gore, it was the BFEE that committed the crime. It's like
blaming the crime victim for the crime. Doesn't work.

I really do. I've been in these types of fights before and my experience is you better come armed (metaphorically speaking - don't anybody get alarmed!) I also have some experience with criminals, and they know a good mark from trouble most of the time.

I'm not naive, I know we're in for the fight of our
lives. I know the lengths these people will go to, and
am not fooled by their pieties.

I just think that Kerry should let the media and the
Congress do the heavy lifting right now against Bush,
while he shapes his message and raises money.

Not a peep.

Hey I'm doing my share. Sending money spending my time. Let's face it we have been out gunned and out spent. But I never expected a fair fight.

I want to see my party stop being doormats and start fighting fire with fire.

... I have with your point of view is the idea that "Kerry is looking presidential" by never saying anything that can be called an attack, and that people are "turned off" by negative campaigning.

I believe neither to be true. It is true that sort of rhetoric would not have worked a year ago when it looked like there could still be success in Iraq.

There are precious few who still think that. It is, or will be soon, time to go in for the kill. I'm wondering if Kerry can/will do it. The idea that pointing out failures doesn't work does not wash. The right has been busy pointing out the nonexistent failures of the left for 2 decades and it has worked for them quite well, or didn't you notice.

The crap you're handing out is starting to piss people off in more ways than one.

By the way, Gore won. It took a bloodless coup to keep him out of the White House, but he did win. If you don't like that, that's just too bad.

How can you say the Swing Voters are non-existant or unimportant? In basically every state except for NY/MA on our side and, like, AL/OK on theirs, the vote is virtually tied at something like 48/46 with something like 7% undecided... Someone who can convince 3% of those 7% would have history's biggest landslide.
The sub line is from the end of "Swing Kids"... Anyone? Anyone?

fear of standing in one's truth, no matter what kind of pounding one will take for it. Fear of not being liked--or being popular. Or being popular for negative reasons. Fear of being publicly criticized for having the beliefs one does.

Perhaps laziness--waiting for someone else to come along and rescue us, when that's probably not going to happen. If you want that diaper changed, better undo those tape tabs yourself and throw the nasty one at "mother".

In Time magazine I read that Kerry wants to be liked by everyone and afraid of offending anyone. Oh, God..oh, no.....not NOW.....please, NOT NOW. A leader makes enemies (note GWB--talk about enemies). Damn...damn...damn

The US is spozed to be a Representative Republic. The problem is that
our Representatives for the most part represent "Special Interests" with the money that has influence over them. The "common people" are not "special". The only thing that we can do is vote. The two party system, favors interests that now over ride the "little folk". Real reform in the system is needed but the two parties are not going to
budge with that plan.

I don't have bumperstickers. I don't write letters to the editor. Even though I am a (somewhat) public person, I don't reveal my political opinions to the public. What I do is give lots of money to Democratic candidates and throw parties (for the converted) and rant to my liberal friends.

So okay, I'm a wimp. I'm also NOT caucasian, so I feel way more vulnerable than you white folks feel. Your analogy is right -- we're liked abused kids, whimpering in the corner.

I took part in a protest march last year. It took one pickup truck with a gun rack and a buncha guys yelling at me to "go back to your fucking country" to freak me out.

When you're already feeling marginalized (as a minority, as a woman) it's not so easy to be as brave as a white person.

So, you are from my state. And I deal with a lot of immigrants from African nations. I live near one of the biggest hatemongerers in the state---a gun shop owner who posts horrible hate on his message board in front of his shop every day. This animal needs to be shut down. You should not have to fight this fight. That is what all the money to our national leaders is about. You are the perfect example of why they have to stand up NOW and fight and not hope the republicans will just die a natural death. The Nazis didn't. They had to be taken out. Oh, by the way, at a stoplight in Gorham this morning I pulled behind a car that had a big swatsitka in the window....I wanted to get out and ask him if he wanted a Bush/Cheney '04 sticker to go with that sweet decoration!!!!!!!!!!!!

When you're already feeling marginalized (as a minority, as a woman) it's not so easy to be as brave as a white person.


Being a woman, you do face particular risks. I understand that. But I think that you and I can do more than we think we can. Clearly we can't win a fistfight, but I've found that a lot of the people you'd love to confront are pretty wussy themselves. They back right down. You just have to choose your battles.

I guess it's not fair for me to tell a non-white to not be afraid... what do I know about it? I'm just really sorry that you've been made to feel marginalized to the extent that you even accept that for yourself. I wish you didn't feel that way, but I understand and accept that you do. I also hate it that it is so.

morally corrupt morons.

fat and lazyand frightened, more worried about risking what little they have being rather bold and working for what could be.

I agree with all of you. I do have to say though, that it's a big problem being in the minority party in congress. The Dems should be more vocal, more acusatory and quit worrying about whether it's true or not! Fight fire with fire!

I can only guess it's because they don't hear from YOU! If they got a few thousand emails or phone calls, they'd know they are not risking re-election and they'd do what you want.

I do call my Senators and Representatives when I want them to support something. I do write letters to the editor of my town newspaper.........and have had about 10 of them published!

Politicians are concerned about one thing....re-election! If they feel they have support of the voters, that's who they'll listen to.

which is why it's effective to grow constituencies. Join organizations, write letters to editors, argue at the water cooler, and anything else to persuade, educate, and increase the ranks of liberals -- then get them to vote!

I'm sorry, but what the hell is wrong with partisanship anyway? What's wrong with being saying I'm progressive? This isn't about crafting compromise - this is about taking our country away from an unelected junta of corporate goons who are ruining everything that was good about it! America loves a winner and admires a fighter. Period.

There was a time in this country when folks stood up and said "break up the trusts! give the people a fair deal!" Now we hear to much junk about growth and stability and other Gingrich-speak.

So, come to think of it, I'm not sorry - we outta give 'em hell!

the Amurekan people love about their beloved Chimp is this macho fighter image. For Christ's sake who advised Kerry to lay low and don't make noises?? They are going to vote for macho in this country like it or not. You either beat your chest and stand for something or join Dukakis in the tank. And any idiot who thinks that the chicks are turned off to macho is living in the past. That worked in the 70's and 80's and 90's. But now 9/11 changed things and sadly too many women want a protective male. Either get with the modern era or you're going to get run over........jesus if a pushing 60 broad can realize this, one would think a national campaign staff could figure it out!!!!!!!

I'm afraid that right now it won't come from the top. Don't get me wrong I'm all for Kerry - I think they're skittish because of all the foreign policy mess. But here's the thing - in the state where I live, a poll was recently published showing that a MAJORITY of the folks believed that the country was on the wrong track and then - here's the kicker - they broke for Bush by 22 PERCENT!! Now, there are a bunch of conservative nuts down here, but that's crazy!

I also don't think there's anything wrong with hashing this stuff out. Hopefully the campaign gurus will pay attention and get some more guts!

Maybe its me , but I dont see the kill instinct in Libs and Progressives that a nasty right winger has.

I read Freerepub once in a while and those guys are good at what they do. They seem to possess a pure form of hatred that we dont. I know , Im generalizing. But I can read and see. And I see a vile hateful side who use propaganda and have their own media versus us who are a more easy going live and let live types who actually believe in fair and balanced media.

..and there's nothing wrong with anger and passion.

But John Kerry doesn't have to engage in either of those at this moment.

Let others kick Bushco around. (As they are doing.)

Kerry is fly-fishing for Republican voters right now. It's an excellent strategy. If they see him with a blunderbuss, they're going to run right back to the base.

:eyes:

cause everyone knows the repubs in power are all wishy washy moderates, so thats what you need to do to win.

/sarcasm

Because it isn't in our nature to destroy other human beings just because we can? I hate myself for what I'm about to say--but it's always been my dream that the Democratic Party could get their own Lee Atwater. Of course, he's burning in hell now for the destruction he brought to the lives of his opponents but he was one of the primary architects for the "politics of personal destruction" that we're suffering through now. It would be a wonderful world if we didn't have to fight fire with fire but we saw what happened last time when we didn't. I don't want us to make that same mistake twice. Hit them. Hit them with everything we've got--and hit them hard. We can't ever let up--not for one single second. We're dealing here with people who sold their souls to satan a long time ago. I want us to be better than they are but at the same time, I want us to win!

They fucking HATE me.

I LOVE it. They call me a foul-mouthed, uneducated sociopath, and I say, "well, I must be doing something right!"

I back 'em into a corner in the real world, and I TOTALLY give them aneurysms on the web.

I like to scream at 'em, and I also like to use logic and lots of links; it depends on my mood.

I HIGHLY recommend screwing with these bastards. There is nothing to fear. They are only tough in groups. One on one, they are like little schoolyard wannabe bullies. Slap 'em ONCE, and they run for the hills.

see this excerpt from Brock's new book, at Buzzflash:

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/05/con04218.html

are kicking ass and taking names...

Where are you getting this lame ass we're wimpy crap from? What makes you think we're laying up? Just because we're not lowering ourselves to the GOP lies and rhetoric doesn't mean we're not kicking ass.

Don't use the nefarious gop methods of shrieking, thuggery, lies, waving arms and bullying as the measure of how WE are doing. We are doing FINE, by virture of being lead by a good man running a clean, honorable campaign.

Maybe you need to volunteer on the Kerry campaign to feel more effective.

Because despite his many flaws, he was the only prominent Democrat pulling the Republicans to the mat for their crimes and displaying any passion in the process.

I know...Dean lost, Kerry won. There's no need for salt in the wounds. But Kerry sure as hell could take notes, because the party base could use a recharge.

It is amazing though, how they all take on approximately the same shape and length. Bizarre.

n/t

Hate. Everything about the Post Modern strategy is about limiting hate. It does not allow itself to hate others. It insists that everyone has a right to their point of view and hating them for it is wrong. In a society as diverse and wide as ours you simply cannot force one cultural view on others. Thus the Post Modern citizen welcomes all points of view.

But what do you do with hate. How do you embrace a cultural value that includes the very thing you are trying to limit. There are advocates on the right that are adamant about their beliefs and absolutely convinced that our march forward on matters of civil rights is horribly wrong. They decry other beliefs. They despise homosexuals. They are trying to force their beliefs on the world around them. All in the name of their beliefs.

How do you stop this without dismantling their beliefs. There is a philosophical metaphor used in an Anime called Trigun. If you seek to preserve life how do you deal with spiders and butterflies. You could kill the spider to save the butterfly but the spider has as much right to live as the butterfly. You could keep the spider from eating the butterfly but this is its nature and it will die this way as well.

This is the situation we face in society today. We could mandate that such belief is wrong. But this goes in the face of the idea behind our society. We can silence them and force them to keep to theirselves but again this violates the very ideas this society is based on.

A better understanding of the nature of how this problem came about may give some indication as how things got this way. For a large part of our civilizations history social progress was relatively static. Morallity was defined by religious institutions with the power to bring death to any that opposed their position. It was not until about 500 years ago when the humanist revolution brought us into the Age of Enlightenment that we began to take control of our own sense of morallity.

When we seperated the Churches from the reigns of power we took responsibility for determining our own moral definitions. We now examine the origins of our moral concepts and using deconstruction and other means of self examination attempt to determine if our positions are truly moral within the context of human society.

And over time we have discovered moral travesties that had been long embraced by society. Slavery, child labor, women and minority rights are just some of the more known issues confonted by this new method. To be sure there were and are far more than those within.

Our perspective allows us to look back and criticize those in the past for supporting such things. But the fact is that they believed these things at one point to be valid moral positions. Consider that at one time it was perfectly acceptable to kill off female babies because males were prefered. Social values change.

The trouble is they do not change all at once. This process of self examination often finds ugly things within our society. Once discovered those that percieve them as such see no choice other than to eradicate them. They do not see that society has functioned for 1000s of years with these ideas embedded in it. They do not care that suddenly pulling these conditions out of the society will have ramifications. They only see that it is wrong and that it must be righted.

As they wake more and more people to this wrong their case builds more weight. Those that are not yet awake to this wrong see only the harm that the change will do to society and thus struggle against them in the name of civilization. Eventually there will be a balance point passed. The bulk of society will move to the new position and embrace the new understanding. There will remain for a time numbers of people that simply refuse to accept the new position but they will be absorbed in time.

As we progress in this way the newer discoveries are sometimes more difficult to awaken to. They can be concerned with matters so far removed from some peoples lives that they carry no weight and will always remain socially uncomfortable to deal with. Thus the struggle does not always make it to the balance point. It can become stalled as those that oppose change due to the damage it can cause society struggle more in the growing awareness that their opposition is losing position.

It is in this extremely dynamic system that we find Post Modern Ethics (the heir to the Age of Enlightenment) pitted against the struggling factions of the religious right (heir to the Dark Ages). Social changes and scientific advancement have created an environment where the fundimentalist mindset is increasingly difficult to maintain. Isolating themself in ever increasing means they have been backed into a corner and now the only means of survival for them is to lash out at their oppressors.

They have all this fervor and need to survive pitted against our reasoned advance. The trouble we have is that it is increasinly difficult to understand the complexities of the society we are creating. Their society is eminently easy to understand. Obey god (as they interpret him). We cannot dismantle their belief because of our tolerance of others and they are dedicated to the dismantling of our position. And this why it is so hard to find a leader on the left that can stand up directly against the ultra right while they can find dozens willing to stand against the left.

...but they're usually the same ones who applaud Democrats for hiding in the shadows while America burns.

- Passion such as yours scares the hell out of some. Their 'wait and see what happens' mentality is the exact reason why Dems are in the minority and Bush* has accomplished so much for the far right.

until all the other "parents" get together and take the baby away. It is going to take civil and maybe global war to deal with the threat to our country.

Who pays the 'Pugs, big business and corporate PACs. Do you think that these so called "leaders" are going to bite the hand that feeds them? Hell no!

So now we have come to the time where we the people have to take the government into our own hands. There are two ways to do this. First, work your collective ass off to get publicly financed elections in your state. Twenty eight states can do this via initiative petition, the rest are going to have to force it down their state legislature's throat. Second, do not vote for any party or candidate who takes corporate money. I know that this last pill is a bitter one to swallow, but if you continue to feed the beast, the larger it will grow, the harder it will be to get our government back, and the bigger the crash will be when it comes(and yes, a crash is certainly on the way).

Our two party, same corporate master system of government will ruin us. We can no longer depend on our "leaders" to do the right thing, for the vast majority of them are corrupted by corporate cash. The only thing to do is take the bull by the horns and wrest our country back from the hands of the corporatistas, and we must start NOW, otherwise there will be no United States as we know it.