Die-Hard Democrats--Know your options!

I hope we will be able to obtain proof of election fraud. There, is, however, nothing we can do with it.

The puke controlled Congress not only won't act on it, they won't let it come to the floor.

The puke controlled courts will rule against us, if they don't throw it out as frivolous first.

And the Democrats are not going to fight for us, because they have to work with the pukes who control Congress.

This is a fait accompli.

If you're looking for proof that the election was stolen, ask why a President with a mandate would need 4,000 troops to guard his inauguration.

We have the options of committing suicide, committing suicide-by-cop (protesting), or dying a slow painful death under a fascist regime. In other words, we don't have any options. At least those of us who are unable to emigrate.

I keep seeing people posting that Kerry will come through in the end. He won't.

Others are supporting Bev, bombarding the media with news of election fraud facts (conspiracy), signing petitions, and donating money to count the vote efforts. I've been doing all of these things. But what happened to the money we donated to Democrats for count the vote efforts? Some say as much as $45 million has disappeared. We can pay for the audits, the recounts, and the court cases, but that doesn't mean they'll accomplish anything. The Democratic Party knew how angry we still were about the 2000 fraud, so that enabled them to take our money, and they also knew that nothing could be done about the 2004 fraud, which enabled them to pocket it and walk away.

Yet others are organizing protests. There will be many deaths. The people who will die fighting for freedom know that their sacrifice is not likely to produce any immediate result. They just hope that future generations will know that they fought, and that someday things might change.

I'm reading, "Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World," edited by David Solnit. One of the things it talks about was how the dictator Slobodan Milosevic was ousted by the Otpor (resistance) strategies of young people. One of their tactics was to train themselves in nonviolent reactions to police brutality. Then they took photos of the wounded, enlarged them, and carried the signs in front of the homes of the cops, talked to the cops' neighbors, went to their kids' schools and talked to the kids, and tolerated, and eventually coopted police infiltrators. By the time there was a full blown insurgency, the police sometimes left the city, or just stood by and watched.

The power system is compared (quoting Bernard Lafayette of SNCC) to a house with the people supporting it and the power-holders on top. No matter how many troops and tanks you put on the roof of the house, if the support is withdrawn, the whole things collapses. But it takes time for people to change their lifestyles to stop supporting the system, and the middle class in unlikely to get actively involved until the system fails them personally, as happened in Argentina.

So far, no matter how much evidence of fraud we've come up with, only third party candidates have requested recounts, often where they personally do not stand to gain. The corrupt two-party system can not benefit from recounts, since more equitable elections would open the door to people who wouldn't sell us out. The corporate parties in power need and support each other in order to stay in power.

The enemy of the Democratic Party isn't Bush and never was. The enemy of the Democratic Party is Ralph Nader--the guy who stepped forward in response to blackboxvoting.org's request and asked for a recount in New Hampshire. The enemies of the Democratic Party are David Cobb and Michael Badnarik, who are requesting recounts in Ohio. The Democratic Party does not want a recount. They won--that is, the corporate party system won. They see no difference between themselves and the pukes--they just want you to think there's a difference so that they can stop you from trying to oppose the corrupt two-party (actually one-party) system. But even then, sometimes they can't even pretend to be different. This election gave us a choice between two pro-war candidates, one who was probably a deserter, and one who was probably a war hero who actually killed people. There was no choice for those who believe that the war is about oil and want it stopped. Even the brightest Democratic strategists couldn't come up with a way to differentiate themselves from pukes on the war issue. Sure they admitted there were no ties to 9/11 and no WMDs, but they insisted that we had to win the war. Why? Because we started it.

Well, I started this thread, and I intend to finish it. Watch me.

Nihilistic. I like that.

and the world doesn't end, will you soften your tone?

As of right now, I see two major policy problems:

1. The Iraq War.

2. The redistribution of wealth upwards along with a soaring deficit.

Don't get me wrong, these are BIG problems, and especially with No. 1, may cost many lives.

There are other problems that people are worried about and they may come to pass: Decreases in civil liberties, becoming a one-party state, conservative SCOTUS overturning past decisions, but in my personal experience, none of those things have happened. They are the stuff of nightmares, but we are not really living the nightmare. It may happen, BUT it may not.

Don't cry over your milk before it's spilt.

it's a recession, but when you lose your job it's a depression?

I am grateful that I'm not one of the thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians who has been tortured or killed in my name. But I know that if they can torture and kill innocent people, no one is safe.

I do not feel safe from terrorists, and I do not feel safe from my own government. Unfortunately, they may be one and the same threat.

Two stolen elections is enough for me to say that democracy is dead in this country, that government of the people, by the people, and for the people has perished from this part of the earth. I've always considered myself fortunate. I considered myself fortunate when I was broke and homeless, because I was alive. I consider myself fortunate now that I have a place to live and enough to live on, because I know that many people don't. But when my government kills innocent people in my name, they invite "terrorists" or "insurgents" to retaliate against me, so I don't feel safe.

I am no longer homeless. Yet every day I pass homeless people on the street, and I know that we are spending money that could be used to help them, on an unjustifable war. I know there is nothing they can do, because I was one of them. So when they get hurt, I feel the pain. And knowing that things will get worse instead of better is very painful.

Some people are already living the nightmare, and for those of us who have been there, it hasn't ended. For those who haven't been there yet, it may not have begun. Like they said in the Gulag, "Me today, you tomorrow."

I feel like an ass now.

I was homeless for a lotta years, and during that time I had two reps, one for being fun and one for being negative. The people who said I was fun were in the same boat I was in. The people who said I was negative wouldn't have lasted a week in my circumstances. As for me, I was young and too inside myself to really care what anybody thought.

Truth and lies seem to be habits. People who lie, tend to keep lying. People who have nothing to lose, and can therefore indulge in the luxury of speaking truth, are usually fully aware that it is one of the most precious and valuable luxuries on earth.

Remember the old kids' story about the king who was sick and whose wise men told him the only cure was for him to wear the shirt of an honest man? He sent his minions out to search the kingdom, and after seeking everywhere they finally found an honest man, living in a small cave near the top of a mountain. But he didn't own a shirt!

What can I tell ya? They don't sell no Viagra for ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION! GOTTA RECOUNT! Kick the pukes out the VOTERGATE!
Next time go GREEN for GOODNESS sake!

During my career, I've lost my job suddenly on 4 different occasions. In each case, I had very little in savings to float my family. I have pictured what my family would look like in a homeless shelter, and it was heartbreaking to even think about.

By sheer luck or by the grace of God (depending on whether you are a religious person), I quickly found a job in each case. Yet, my career is just that: a job. I feel called to do something more beneficial, but I am just plain too hooked on money to make a move.

I am trying to stay open to opportunities, though, and hope that before I lose the ability to do productive work, I will actually find some work that is productive to my fellow man.

Thanks for the wakeup call.

I needed that.

I think that's the name of the book. This guy was a real estate developer. Somehow he got roped into giving a talk about building homes and offices that were energy efficient. Since he didn't know a darned thing about it, he picked up a book on the subject. He found the book very interesting, and he gave a good talk. Somehow he ended up founding a council on energy efficient construction that went first national and then international. It just happened to him--it had never even occurred to him to look for something like that. But when he read the book, he realized that what he was doing was so unethical that it should be criminal. And he got ideas for how things could be done differently. And when he gave his talk, people thought he was an expert on the subject, and came to him for advice. So he started doing the things he'd talked about, and found out that he was really good at it. Bingo!

Many people are only a paycheck away from poverty, and not in a position to weather an economic depression. The value of the dollar is falling, fewer people have faith in the stock market, and we just got a rise in interest rates from the fed.

What capitalism does is make life unsustainable except through submission to capitalism. Violence is used to force indigenous peoples off their land, and multinational corporations force small farmers out of business. Most of us can't survive without a job, and often that job entails doing things that we don't want to do--a good example of that is someone in human resources who gets paid to fire other people so that the company can outsource their jobs. Sooner or later they'll have fired so many people, the company won't need them any more. I call that kind of job, "digging your own grave."

The only answer is to try to make life sustainable again, which means opting out of the system as much as possible, and simplifying our lives. Many DUers buy at co-ops and try to spend their money on fair trade items instead of big brands, even if it costs a little more. Some use freecycle.org instead of giving old stuff to charities and buying new stuff when we need it. DU itself is an example of opting out, since for many of us it totally replaces the mass media. People with gardens are in a good survival position, because in worst-case scenarios, they will still be able to grow stuff to eat, stuff to sell, and stuff to trade for other stuff.

Having a family complicates things, because it is hard to refuse things to people who don't understand why, and might just think you're being mean. So you have to help your family educate themselves, until they're the ones pushing for simplification and a sustainable life.

I'm an addictive personality myself, so I know how easily people get hooked on stuff, and money is really addicting. But because I know my weaknesses, I can often outsmart myself by simply avoiding temptations that I know I would succumb to if exposed. And a lifetime of having to adapt to different circumstances, taught me that I could. When I was homeless, I had nothing, so I learned to get by on very little. Then I lived aboard a small sailboat for 12 years, at a mooring, and didn't have electricity, running water, or most of the things many people consider necessities. When I was fortunate enough to get into senior housing, the first thing I did was go hog wild, but after a while I settled down and realized that I didn't need to use things just because I have them. My electricity bill this year is half what it was last year, because I stopped turning lights on when I didn't need to, gave away the stupid cordless phone that drained electricity AND needed batteries, and went back to the little plug-in phone that works even if the electricity goes out, stopped using the central air conditioning, and went back to putting more clothes or blankets on if it is cold, and taking them off it is hot (I'm in San Diego, so this isn't possible for people in harsher climes), etc.

The big multinationals aren't paying people in poorer countries enough to enable them to buy the stuff they're producing, and they depend on us. As we withdraw support, they will begin to crumble, because there is no army in the world violent enough to force people to buy stuff they don't want. Material things can never take the place of things like freedom, democracy, friendships, and creative ideas. If we know what we want, the persuaders can spend millions on ads to change our minds, but they won't have any effect. Even the government depends on us. They're not spending their own money, they're spending our money. If we don't have a say in how they spend it (remember "no taxation without representation"), we're likely to stop giving it to them.

But it isn't easy. Radical vegetarians sometimes say that anyone who wants to eat meat should have to go out and kill the animal themselves. In that vein, I don't see why anyone who wants to put gas in their car shouldn't have to kill an Iraqi so they'll understand the situation. Would I feel the same if I had a car? Well, somebody gave me a van once, I drove it for a while, decided it was too expensive, and traded it for a rowboat. We all make choices. Knuckleheads like me learn things the hard way, but the smart money figures it out without having to live through it first.

I donated to, campaigned for, and voted for Kerry, even though I knew damned well that the corporate parties don't care about the people they supposedly represent. I've donated, contacted the media, and am demanding recounts, even though I know they won't accomplish anything. "Globalize Liberation" is a book that offers hope for a better world. But there was another book a few years ago, "The Culture of Make Believe," by Derrick Jensen, that explains why people who care about things continue fighting even after they know the situation is hopeless. Who was it said, "A lost cause is the only one worth fighting for?"

Once you understand the problem it feels wrong to continue to be part of it, so you look for ways to be part of the solution. And when you find it, please let me know.

:hi:

like what we've experienced. This year, all the "indicators" of who would win failed. All the conventional wisdom. An idiot was elected president. He's nominating a nut case as attorney general, who should probably be in jail. There WILL be a conservative S. Ct. and it WILL overturn past (good) decisins. Decrease in civil liberties? Well that, my friend HAS happened.

And the war, of course, is a fucking disaster and instead of electing someone who might have helped fix it, we have apparently returned an incompetent commander in chief. The past has not prepared us for this.