Senate Dems: Missing In Action - What Are They Afraid Of?

This is an excellent and concise article that should be sent to all democrats, everywhere! "WHAT ARE THEY AFRAID OF", indeed.

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Senate Democrats: Missing In Action
Bill Press - March 31, 2005

(snip....)
This is bad news for the country. Unlike most of our allies, we Americans suffer from having only two major parties to choose from. Once there’s only one party left (if that’s not already the case), there will no longer be any competition for good ideas — and public policy will sink even lower.

But the cowardice of Democrats is bad news — most of all for the Democratic Party itself. This president is the worst in our lifetime. Why are Democrats so hesitant to take him on? What are they afraid of? What do Democrats stand for anymore? The truth is, I don’t know.

But I do know this: Until they start acting like a real opposition party, Democrats might just as well forget all their bold talk of taking back Congress in 2006. The times demand a choice, not an echo. Democrats will never regain power until they stop playing Republican Lite.

http://billpress.com/columns.html

Crossing their corporate masters and having the money well come up dry. Welcome to our two party/same corporate master system of government.

Howard Dean, Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama and other Democrats have experienced first-hand the kind of economic support from a motivated base that leaves Republican robber barons in the dust.

Granted, Dean and Boxer are out there swinging, and Obama's getting in a jab or two; actually, Harry Reid when it comes right down to it, comes off as much more "street-tough" in a quiet way than Tom Daschle was, but we have the same group of 18 or 19 Democrats who can almost be counted on to vote with the radical extremist agenda, especially on the most critical issues -- Harold Ford, Jr. and Mary Landrieu are two who come immediately to mind.

a unified objective supporting all contestants will forever taint the fight.

yet, how can we get true campaign reform when the sponsored have control over the changes?

Campaign reform has been the bottom line forever and yet time marches on and the system gets more and more corrupt.

Start pushing hard for publicly financed elections and IRV. Four states already have PFEs, and they brought it about through the use of the initiative petition. Twenty other states can bring this into law using the same process, the others will have to work with the state legislatures to achieve it. Granted, it could be very hard to move the state legislatures to do this, but they can be pressured more effectively on a local level than trying to go national.

Then again, we can also pledge not to support any candidate, on any level, that takes corporate money. Last election cycle, that would have been Kucinich. Take the votes away, and the candidate will follow.

I'm feeling achy all over.

Big question: is the Democratic leadership's pusillanimity a tactic or is it an inherent character flaw?

If it's just a tactic, it can be quickly corrected once they finally (at friggin' long last!) realize it has been a disaster.

If it's inherent, we need a total party shakeup. That will take a long time to accomplish.

that fund the Republicans.

What we really need is total campaign reform! Equal money for all parties and NO CORPORATIONS ALLOWED!

Of course, I don't know how we get that when the crooks are the legislators that would have to make the changes.

We are truly lost.

Perhaps they are kicking back waiting for the economy to collapse.

If an economic depression strikes they will be swept into office no matter what they say or do in the next few years. The Republicans will lose control of Congress and the White House without the Democratic Party needing to fight the Bush government and Republicans on most big issues.

That's what it looks like to me.

from their corporate owners.

" And that would give them the freedom to turn away from their corporate owners."

That's assuming they really want to.

The Long Emergency

What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?

By JAMES HOWARD KUNSTLER


Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that "people cannot stand too much reality." What you're about to read may challenge your assumptions about the kind of world we live in, and especially the kind of world into which events are propelling us. We are in for a rough ride through uncharted territory.

It has been very hard for Americans -- lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring -- to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society. Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency.

(snip...)
Now we are faced with the global oil-production peak. The best estimates of when this will actually happen have been somewhere between now and 2010. In 2004, however, after demand from burgeoning China and India shot up, and revelations that Shell Oil wildly misstated its reserves, and Saudi Arabia proved incapable of goosing up its production despite promises to do so, the most knowledgeable experts revised their predictions and now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production.

It will change everything about how we live.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7203633