Liberal Confessional

Okay, from time to time we post in the satirical "I'm so Liberally Pure" category. (And I feel another one coming on, but I can't do it without WEL. It's just one of those things.)

Anyway, Morning Sedition on AAR has the Liberal Confessional segment wherein callers can tell what they did that wasn't liberally pure. I have a confession to make about BEING Liberally pure and silly things I have done.

True Story: I don't have an engagement ring. I got engaged in 1982 and I couldn't wear a ring that might have been touched by the DeBeers cartel. (Oooh, they are evil.) So, when I told people that I was engaged to be married they would look at my hand and check for a ring. No ring. People would look at me funny and I would explain that my undying love for my husband-to-be could not possibly be symbolized by a ring from a cartel with blood on it's hands. Sigh! In retrospect, I'm still glad I don't have a ring, but I might be Liberally Pure. (Terminally so.)

Anybody else?

Uhm, I eat meat, make off-color jokes, don't mind when a man opens doors for me, shop at corporate chains and eat at corporate restaurants, and even *GASP!* thought it would be cool to be a Navy fighter pilot when I was a kid (health problems, not liberal purity, precluded that dream).

So I'm downright moderate compared to most of DU. Maybe I'm liberally pure in other ways I can't think of now. Ah well.

Why not get a ring from somewhere else, btw? Surely all diamond companies don't fund African tribal warfare or whatever.

BTW, I am, obviously, here, so feel free to start a liberally pure thread. I can ASSURE thee I am more liberally pure than thou art. :P

--I drive all over when I want to shop for something, so that I can avoid going to Walmart!

--I sold my SUV and bought an older full-sized sedan, one that would still pull our pop-up camper.

--yes, I like to take road trips with my husband and our camper. Harkens me back to the old days: in 1971 we weren't married yet, and bought an old mail truck. We drove it from Wisconsin to California. We had no money, and had a mattress inside for sleeping, and an old refrigerator grate to use over a wood fire for cooking. Our goal was to see Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, and we did. (when I heard that John and Elizabeth Edwards had taken a similar trip around the same time, I was absolutely charmed!)

--I wouldn't take diamonds either--have an engagement ring that is a cubic zirconia, and some earrings too. Besides they're cheaper and nobody can tell! :)

Ok I've bored you long enough for one post! LOL

Then I guess I am after all. I don't care about most other stores, but I HATE Wal-Mart.

generational thing. ;-)

I don't have an engagement ring at all! Old hippies, unite!

I didn't actually have an engagement ring until I got a new set for our tenth anniversary. The original was just a wedding ring. The only "engagement" ring I had was a little silver ring with a turquoise stone that we bought at a gift shop in Yellowstone National Park, the same day that he bought himself a hatchet for chopping campfire wood!

I must take everything at face value, even when it makes no common sense whatsoever. And I must never never never challenge certain posters by saying maybe they mistook a situation. I didn't do that, so I'm not liberally pure.

I don't think I'll be posting for a while.

Oh dear! What happened? Maybe we can help? I hope it's not posting in DU generally, and that we will still see you here?

Alot of things. Look what I got in my email this morning. So now I'm having to defend Howard Dean and Deaniacs when they spit in my face day after day. Oh joy. Sunday I was defending him against a centrist Democrat who was calling Dean a pacifist liberal nut who is going to destroy the party. It's just insane.

I think of everything that's going on and the complete lack of coordination to do anything about it. It looks like I'm going to have to live the rest of my life in a country that believes in the glorious Iraqi liberation, instead of the illegal and immoral invasion that it was. And it is all just making me very tired and hopeless.

FAREWELL HOPE: THE HOGTYING OF THE DEANIACS

by Joshua Frank



February 20, 2005

"Don't say unconscious

No don't say doom

If you got to say it

Let me leave this room"


-- Television, "See No Evil"


The Democrats have finally accomplished something. Yes, I'm talking about Howard Dean's latest victory, but it's not what you think. Dean's scoring of the DNC chair isn't a win for progressives. Nope, it's a triumph for the establishment. The Beltway savants have successfully muted the only vibrant contingent within their frail party. The Deaniacs have been corralled.

Howard Dean's new post has been hailed by many as a huge feat for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party (yeah, what "progressive" wing?). But it is no feat. Not only is Howard Dean a centrist in the most disgusting Clintonesque sense of the term, but his victory this past weekend to head the DNC is also a shot in the head of his passionate supporters. He has sold them out, while taking on the roll of insider, where his new symbolic post within the party will do little more to challenge Democratic policy than, say, MoveOn's irritating phone calls to Congress.

We should have seen it coming. Right after Joe Trippi left Dean's presidential campaign last year, the good doctor moved quickly to replace him with DC insider Roy Neel. Neel, who talked Al Gore out of actively contesting the 2000 election, was a long-time telecom lobbyist who employed his status with the Clinton Administration to maneuver the atrocious Telecommunications Act through Congress in 1996 -- perhaps the greatest corporate handout of the Clinton years.

Deaniacs who believe you can be a "fiscal conservative and a social liberal" have been diagnosed with CRI syndrome. A disease heretofore found only in Republicans who believed there was such a thing as a "compassionate conservative".

It was a sign of what was to come when only months later Howard Dean jumped into the ring with presidential candidate Ralph Nader, hoping to entice his dizzied Deaniacs into not fleeing the Democrats' pro-war ticket... Although Nader's peaceful embrace was more in line with their anti-war principles, the 2004 elections were simply not the time to stand up for what they believed in. Or so claimed Howard Dean.

The ex-governor was attempting to cover his own ass, hoping to embolden his clout within the party. Old Howard even went as far as to call John Kerry a "progressive" in his debate with Mr. Nader. It was a disgusting display of political myopia. Dean sold out his loyal followers that moment. He told the very people that were responsible for his success to go ahead and piss their ideals into the political winds of Washington. The Iraq war wasn't the issue; Dean's own gluttonous motivations were.

Honest to Christ, I don't know who's dumber - Dean or his mindless worshipers!

Nevertheless Howard Dean seems to be riding high, like Bing Crosby in that awful Frank Capra flick. But don't believe the hype. Dean's new job is an administrative boondoggle. The dry Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has more influence over Democratic policy than Dean ever will. Believe it.

The party bigwigs are surely thrilled. Especially if Dean can fill their campaign coffers with a surplus of grassroots cash.

Hold on. Don't kid yourself, though. This certainly doesn't mean Dean won't continue to hobnob with the corporate fat cats like his filthy predecessors. And don't count on Deano to disclose campaign finances either. Just look at Vermont where his boys gutted the only law that called for even the slightest transparency in the state's public elections.

No, this whole DNC thing smells of rot. Let's hope that the Deaniacs (the few not having multiple orgasms over this "success") break ranks and hang Howard Dean and the Democrats out to dry like a pair of stanky old socks. That's the only way victory could ever come out of this calamity.

Joshua Frank is author of the forthcoming book, Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, to be released in March by Common Courage Press. He can be reached at: frank_joshua@hotmail.com .

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb05/Frank0220.htm

but don't let it get to you. This type of thing is as old as the Democratic Party. See, the Dems are really a coalition of groups, some of whom like and respect each and join together to seek common ground. There are other Dem groups that pretty much dislike and distrust each other. (And have ever so.)

The liberal wing of the party has always had it's share of Cassandras, crying doom into the night, only to be perennialy not listened to. (I think they kind of like it, but this is venturing into kinky politics land, and I don't want to go there, ahm, tonight.)

The guy who wrote this comes from the exceptionally liberally pure. As an ideology, I understand their usefulness in political dialogue. (The extreme wings come up with the ideas that are then filtered through the rest of the groups until these ideas are either voted down as impractical or modified and accepted and pushed as policy.) We need these guys, believe it or not. (At one time women's rights, civil rights and all other things that we now regard as wholely good things were 'liberally pure' and products of the ideological wings of the movement.)

You can safely disregard this letter. This poor writer is doomed to never, ever finding anyone in public life who will be able to totally represent his views. The necessity to function politically in the real world will always derail his candidates. This is pathetic and sad and not really relevent to the rest of us who have to venture out into the real world and talk to real voters who might be (heavens) moderate or even a tad conservative. Can you imagine this guy (or gal or whatever) talking to the guy or gal who is getting off work at an office or factory and trying to get them to understand that only the liberally pure issues matter. Ahm, I can't. These folks are of no use when it comes to figuring out how to get actual voters to actaully vote for an actual real-world candidate. So brush it off. It was ever so, and it was ever irritating.

that's hard to do, I know, especially when you've invested so much time and energy. That's what I'm going to do. I'm taking a break.

I'm much in the same place you are - it's getting hard for me to even be civil. There's a thread in GD right now - "What Democratic party do you belong to?" Our single syllable friend again. I read through it and my blood pressure shoots through the roof. Same old narrow minded my way or the highway divisive shit. And I just don't have the heart to fight right now.

I'm going to be out of the country for all of March, and I'm going to make a real effort to stay away from DU. I may check in to this forum a few times, but no GD.

I will check in to "light up the darkness", though - so I expect to see some stuff from you there!

Somebody posted an earlier article by the same guy from CounterPunch.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank02022005.html

Why do you have to defend Dean against the likes of this putz? He's not even a Dem, near as I can tell.

Dig this article.

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank11102004.html

The Reelection of George W. Bush
A Possible Bright Side?

By JOSHUA FRANK

"We are nearing the end of 2004. And if there has been one lesson that we should have all learned this year it is that the U.S. electoral system sets all challenges to the power-elite up for a horrifying defeat. Hence the reason so many liberal and progressive voters deemed John Kerry our only hope for defeating George W. Bush this November. Faulty logic indeed.

They said, and still say, that Kerry was at least marginally better than Bush. After all, who in his or her right (or left) mind did not support the Kerry campaign? Bush, we were told, was (and now again is) the worst president in history. An Adolf in the making.

Or is he? Bush is bad, no doubt. But he has yet to drop an A-bomb on a civilian population. Only Democrat Harry Truman did that. Okay, so maybe Bush is the second worst president.

No progressive would defend Dubya's doings, though. He lacks any redeeming qualities. But has Bush really been the greater evil during the past four years? Has he done a worse job than Bill Clinton did? Sure, we have eight years by which to judge Clinton, compared to Bush's four, but let's give it a quick whirl."

That guy is anti-Dem in general. Read the rest of the article. He trashs Clinton and our beloved Kerry as well. He sounds like some of the posters we get around here who say there was nearly no difference between Kerry and Bush.

Look at this paragraph:

"Gay and lesbian rights? Both were, and are, homophobes who oppose gay marriage, and John Kerry supports the Massachusetts state ban as he "triangulates" and votes against comparable federal legislation."

What crap! Kerry is not a homophobe!

And this:

"The military draft? That is more likely to happen under the Democrats than Bush. After all, it was Kerry who wanted to increase the military by 40,000 troops, though he did not specify where this new strength would come from. It was the Democrats who authored the legislation the first time around anyway. And don't forget who it was that got us in and out of Vietnam: The Republicans -- as a result of mass social movements."

What the Sam Hill was that doing in your email? Who ARE you subscribed to? Unsubscribe! Quickly!

Ahem. Sorry. Was gone for a minute. I'm back.

I know, I know, I probably shouldn't have such a bug up my butt about CounterPunch, but they do work my last nerve.

Hehe. I'm so exhausted I had to post it twice!

(nah, just a booboo)

We have a moderately steep driveway. After clearing snow, if the driveway starts to ice, I put salt rather than sand on it - because it works so much better and I'm a chicken. (We live 2 blocks from a small lake, so this is really bad.)

Other than that I'm pretty liberally pure.

I always feel guilty when I put down salt. But I do it because we have a tenant we're responsible to who's a single father and if he broke an ankle I'd feel even worse. The guilt!!!!

I joined the military and served six years active duty as an Army officer, (It WAS under the Clinton administration) and I am still in the Reserves :scared:

I was raised in the Mormon church. Mormon bashing is a pet peeve of mine.

I own a gun, and am a certified firearms instructor.

Can I still be a Kerrycrat?

Edited to add

I frequent fast food restaurants way too much fast food.

I bought a Jeep after the blizzard of 1996 or 97, and I can't afford to get rid of it.

KERRYCRATS aren't liberally pure, nor do we insist on it. We save that for some of those other wackos in GD.

John Kerry is not Liberally Pure. (And indeed, has had his passport checked from time to time upon trying to enter the People's Reopublic of Cambridge. And gotten dirty looks from the Commie end of the Commiewealth of MA. It happens.)

I do not own a gun, but don't actually care who does. It is a non-issue with me, except that I believe guns should not be in the hands of criminals and terrorists. And really, who does want them there anyway? Nobody sane. It's a non-issue.

Ahm, I have been known to ahm, find some branches of the service rather, ahm, alluring. ('nuff said.) I am quite pleased that Sen. Kerry is a veteran of the Navy. (Ahm, 'nuff said.) My brother, father, father-in-law and various and sundry uncles and aunts were all veterans. (Navy veterans, but I digress. 'nuff said.)

And I have missed you Seito. You add to the ambiance of the place, greatly.

Edit: Not only do I eat vast quantitites of fast food, but I make my children consume it as well. (Sigh! A failed parent.)
However, I do drive a Subaru, as does my husband. This makes me very nearly Liberally Pure. (Automotive division.)

lol on the failed parenthood. Heaven help any children I have, for I am hopelessly, domestically challenged.

I have missed you too. :hug:

Thanks for making me feel welcome despite my liberal shortcomings. I made the mistake of daring to challenge the liberalness of a few "purists" in GD, and was flamed big time. It is funny how these people claim to be tolerant, when it is an issue they "agree with" :eyes:

It can get pretty funny in MA about people being liberally pure. (Really funny.) Whome and I have had some great posts about Hahvid people and our intense curiousity as to how they manage to function in the real world. (Just check out Lawrence Summers, Pres of The World's Greatest University, and his hoof-in-mouth disease on whether or not women can do math and science. Hahahahahaha!) I often wonder how some libs in MA manage to get through the day.

I give John Kerry a great deal of props for his political savvy in being able to talk to Cambridge-type people, natives (like me!), and ethnic groups in Gloucester and New Bedford and working type people all over the state. (This was his great achievement in the '96 race when the deck was stacked agin him. He pulled it out when all the ethnics and working people and some of the plain vanilla natives were thought to be ripe for the picking for the Repub opponent, Bill Weld. Yet Kerry pulled it out. A really great political maneuver that took political skill and adaptibillity. He just had better ideers, ah, ideas about how to communicate with all the various factions.)

The Book of Mormon rocks! One of my ancestors was THE Joseph Smith. Wonderful man, Not a huckster, but a true visionary. (Not to say I agree with everything about Mormonism. I am Jewish-Episcopalian afterall).

But I did refuse to own a TV for most of the 90s. I try to only buy fair trade coffee (and at my coffee consumption rate, that means something!). I use public transportation every day. I recycle.

All of this is probably negated by the fact that I enrich the evil tobacco industry every day, I wear more than my fair share of leather, and I think soy milk is only fit for whatever the hell a baby soy looks like (and only until its teeth grow in at that)! Oh yeah, and I've waded into flame wars to defend the honor of Lynyrd Skynyrd. :D

Ahm, I used disposable diapers. (I was a working woman and they were easy and ahm, disposable.) And I didn't breast-feed my babies. (Oooh, were the LaLeche people mad at me. Hell hath no fury like a boobie patrol denied.)

I have also had congress with the evil tobacco vendors on a near daily basis. (well, I live near New Hampshire and New Hampshire only exists in order to trick MA people into consuming things that are cheaper in NH than MA. It's their fault. They should raise their taxes. But apparently the entire state of NH would come unglued if they raised taxes. Cheap irresponsible bastards.) I do try and consume Fair Trade anything and I recently tore up my San's Club membership and vowed never to venture forth into the evil territory of Wal-Mart until they unionize or hell freezes over, whichever comes first. (I am now liberally clear as I have a Costco membership.) I too have sinned. I just hope and pray that should I ever decide to apply for work in Cambridge, I don't get the truth serum and interrogation method of open interviewing. I will be a gonna for sure.

Oh Taytay, the liberal gestapo is gonna getcha! But you can plead your case with them: being from Massachusetts ought to count for something! And the torn up Sam's Club card--very cool! Still, I may have to hide you at my house until the liberals with the battering rams pass on by! I breast fed my three, and used cloth diapers mostly, so my "cover" is still good... (as long as they don't find out about MY sins--like voting repub until I was 40! And living in the ex-urbs with a husband who works for a large corporation! Come to think of it, I may have to come and hide in YOUR house, instead.... :)

this is really funny.

I used a (cloth) diaper service for my first. Paper for the other two, I'm afraid. And don't think I escaped the guilt pangs from HELL. I didn't. It STILL makes me feel guilty.

Breast-fed all three, though. The liberally pure question for our generation is, how long did you breast feed? No judgements, TayTay, it's not the old hippie way ;-). I had a friend who had just one kid and was still nursing him at 5, which I found frankly a little creepy.

because my first was a preemie and was separated from me for the first two weeks, and I tried and tried to go natural, but she would have suffered due to preemie problems. So, The LaLeche League called me and told me try again and the Docs said no and it was a big mess. (Huge liberal guilt. I expect it to stop soon, now that she is in college and living in NYC. Sigh!)

The Disposable diapers though are a sin against nature. I have no idea how to expunge that one from my nearly liberal soul.

However, we do recycle everything in my house now. (Paper, cardboard, plastic, shampoo bottles.) We put out 3X the amount of recycles than regular trash. So that should help assuage my soul.

(Okay, my next post will be on how Libs expunge sin. There should be a way.)

No guilt on that one.

The diapers, though...I'm a rabid recycler too. I'd never thought of it that way, but maybe it's all about expunging sins from my past...

They were all born at home, and I nursed them all ... 18 months for the oldest one, 9 months for the middle one, and 4 for the baby, because I had to get back to work. Disposable diapers for the first one because I didn't have ready access to a washing machine, cloth for the second (at least for a while), disposable for the last. I rationalize the diapers by noting that operating washing machines uses a lot of electricity. Hey -- you can rationalize almost anything.

We do still shop at Wal-Mart. We don't recycle. We only vote for Democrats (never Green Party). We get food from KFC and McDonalds. I am pro-Israel (as well as pro-Palestinian), and I HATE Israel-bashing.

I am a vegetarian though and like soy milk, oh well. I'm still having multiple orgasms over Howard Dean. Impure thoughts for a married man. I'll save that for the other confessional.

...it's not cheating if it's imaginary.

But if you wanna kick that habit, I think you're in the wrong place. :evilgrin:

and can't think of anything else say "impure thoughts" or "lust." Sin big, sin bravely. That's why I'm on this board.

And I have a little crush on Marc Maron (and his dead cat Butch).

When I'm good, I...

...use my bus pass (I have never owned a car).
...pick Coke bottles out of my supervisor's wastebasket to take them for recycling.
...work part-time in an independent bookstore.
...say hello to the clinic escorts at Planned Parenthood, whom I pass on my way to work in the morning.

When I'm bad, I...

...use too much water and throw the phone book away instead of recycling.
...keep getting cable TV (HUGE guilty pleasure on my part).
...apply for jobs at a publishing company supported largely by their satanic majesties themselves, the pharmaceutical companies!
...stay at a nice hotel during my swing-state volunteering for Kerry.

Oh, and I have gone on my last camping trip (Indiana, sometime in the '70s, in the company of most of my family. We were visited by a skunk.) I'll take the hotel any day.

I am not much of a camper. (Long story, has to do with a bear and many, many, many hungry black flies in NH.) One of the perks of growing older and having a day job is that you get to indulge yourself once in a while. And besides, it was for a great cause!

Did you get a room alone or offer to share. (I tack back and forth on that one. Some of the people who volunteered from MA in NH were seriously strange. I wouldn't want to be in a hotel room with them. They were seriously liberally pure and I don't think I would have made it through the night without a homicide or two. Sigh!)

I did bargain the price down. :-)

Besides, I hadn't taken a vacation in years and thought I would at least enjoy the setting, which was a fine old rail station turned hotel. More virtuous Kerrycrats had booked rooms at the Howard Johnson's, where they got free breakfast.

On my last day at the hotel, I had breakfast in the dining room and was waited on by a friendly liberal waitress who shared her memories of having served a meal to Hans Blix, of all people!

I think you're right to give the bears and the flies a wide berth these days. Both groups are entirely too hungry.

now, not so much, at the grand age of 19 :)

Pure: (As pure as yellow snow)
I don't do Walmart and forbade my mother to shop there (I can't believe she listened to me). I refuse to cross picket lines. I'm halfway to becoming a vegetarian ;)

Not pure: (Oh, are there many, more than I can think of)
I'm not easily offended (the word bitch does not offend me in the least)
I'm not too PC
I don't believe compromise is wrong
I don't hate John Kerry :)
And many more than I can think of at the moment.

I'm--*gasp*--IMPURE!

-I didn't hold my nose to vote for Kerry (is that one of the seven deadly sins?)
-I still use Microsoft Windows, despite what Microsoft and its ilk have done to my profession (software development) in America
-I have frequent thoughts of violence
-My car is not a hybrid vehicle and only gets 30 miles to the gallon (which actually does suck with prices being what they are)
-I don't own the collected works of Noam Chomsky
-I'm friends with a few Republicans (definitely a cardinal sin)
-I don't own a Che shirt
-I eat dead animals


On the other hand:

-I'm pretty much a fair-trader
-Neither I nor anyone in my immediate family owns, or has ever owned, an SUV
-I don't like using Microsoft Windows
-I don't shoot stuff... yet
-I am close friends with a real, bona fide Nader voter
-I'm selective about what parts of dead animals I will consume
-I do eat a lot of veggies and grains
-I recycle cans (about the only show in town :P)

This thread has made me realize that I am not even close to liberally pure - maybe I'm a moderate, though I've always checked liberal on polls.

I also used formula and disposable diapers on my 3 daughters (though that was over 10 years ago. I do have an engagement ring. We have way too much junk that we bought on impulse.

But:
- I do recycle cans, bottles, most plastic, newspapers, junk paper, cardboard and batteries. (but my town collects all but the last at curbside.)
- I drive a car (not an SUV or minivan)
- We are mostly vegetarian (my husband and I eat fish)
-I buy fair trade coffee
- We have at some time in the last 20 years visited (or passed through) all the states that were blue this year, while only going to 7 red ones.

Nobody in the living universe is liberally pure. Nobody. It's not possible to be liberally pure all the time. (The existence of the liberally pure is kind of like the existence of UFO's. They may indeed be out there, but we do not yet have definitive proof.)

The point of the thread was to show that everybody, even us generally liberal Kerrycrats have non-lib moments in our lives.

And that's okay. We can always get better. Really! (I am not liberally pure, but I still vote for pretty liberal folks. And I intend to keep on voting for practical liberal folks and no that is not an oxymoron.)

In fact my middle daughter says that it was not fair that my husband and I let our oldest daughter think that Republicans killed Bambi's mom for years. When our oldest was three she saw Bambi and asked us what animal killed Bambi's mom. We explained that people did. That some people hunted animals. A few days later, Rachel was playing near the TV when the news was on. Dan Quayle or Bush I was talking about the NRA - she started yelling to us that the guys who killed Bambi's mom were on TV. We tried to explain and told her they were "Republicans".

Well, we didn't think anything of it but about a half year later we took our daughter to a very liberal friend's 6 yr old daughter's birthday party. They had a naturalist showing the kid's interesting things in the Great Swamp and telling them a story that led to explaining that the owl couldn't be killed because it was a protected species. Our now 4 yr old raised her hand and explained that there were people who killed animals and they were... Publicans! My friend was in hysterics asking did she say what I thought she did.)

She cast her first vote this year for Kerry. My middle one thought it was unfair that she couldn't vote for Kerry because she was 17.

I doubt the article on Kerry's hunting would have changed her vote, but in all honesty if it were Kerry talking about hunting years ago I don't think I would have let her think that the Democrats killed Bambi's mom or that Kerry himself personally did. I did immediately think of this 16 yr old family story when I read the story Tay Tay posted talking about Kerry hunting.

We really did try to honestly answer our kid's questions most of the time. Really, we did. So I guess biasing your children against a group of people, especially using untrue accusations, is the ultimate in not being liberally pure - even if the group is Republicans

...sometimes I have mixed emotions about limited drilling in ANWR. In my heart of hearts I know it's wrong, wrong, wrong ... but economically it would be good for our state. Please don't hate me.

He drove the whole banning of drilling in 2003.

BTW, accoridng to the NYTimes, Big Oil is not really interested in drilling in ANWR anymore. See this article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/politics/21refuge.html

Too expensive, both in terms of money and political capital.

and I essentially agree with him on it, but it was THE reason why our Democratic candidate for senate, Tony Knowles, wasn't elected. He was running a little ahead of Lisa Murkowski right up to the end, and then she started putting on these ads with Ted Stevens saying that if Tony were elected, he'd have to side with Kerry, Kennedy and (gasp!) Hillary against the drilling and that it would be devastating for Alaska's economy. This even though Tony, along with almost all the rest of the politicians up here, support some drilling up there. Really, it's political suicide up here to oppose it. Don't ask me why. Basically we are an oil-driven economy (sad but true) with a little fishing, logging and tourism thrown in. More than anything, Alaska needs alternative sources of income for its residents. It's a complicated issue.

For what it's worth, I was strongly opposed to the construction of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline back in the '70s, but there's no denying that it has been very, very good for our state, and hasn't seemed to cause too much environmental damage aside from the idiot that shot a hole in it a few years ago.

I admit to having shopped at Walmart, and I used to have a Sam's Club card as Hubby bought it not knowing it was Walmart. We no longer have any cards as we can't afford them! But I used to have Costco as well ! I DO have an engagement ring, and wouldn't have considered not having one. However, I refused to take hubby's last name. Mine is my own identity. I don't need anyone else's! I , too, supported big tobacco .I gave it up last year. And I have eaten at and will probably continue to eat at some of the forbidden chain restaurants. I do shop at Home Depot.

On the plus side, I would only buy American cars( When I bought my car nine years ago!) and I look for union labels. I always vote Democratic, but I would NEVER vote for a pro-life candidate. Hubby IS in a union, okay it's SAG , but still they are part of the AFLCIO, so we can claim to be a union family, though my friends at the pipe fitters union might wonder!:) I have a really hard time being friends with a Republican. In fact ,I have basically eliminated most Republican friends. I make an exception if they didn't vote for Bush. I have only one that didn't. I don't see any possible excuse for voting for Bush unless you are evil or stupid and I don't need such people in my life. And BTW, once again, I hate the DLC and what they have done to the Democratic Party! I don't think Dean is liberal enough, and that is one reason amongst many that I never wavered in my support of Kerry. And I think THAT makes me MORE liberally pure than some that protesteth so much !

PS ( And I do have cable! but I don't watch Fox!)

Costco is very Blue, so feel free to go there and still be liberally pure! I don't have one near me, unfortunately.

I've got another one: I actually bring back my paper grocery bags when I go shopping so they will use them over for my next purchases. At first I felt self conscious about it, but now it's normal.

But I do have my husband's name--hey when I got married it was the dinosaur days. We didn't even tape or film our wedding, we were married so long ago!

Yes we've got cable too--although I switched us away from Directv because of Murdoch. :)

...if I say that I shop at Costco and only go into Wal-Mart if my husband drags me there?

Tay-Tay, I was happy to read that about the oil companies. That takes the whole issue out of the political arena, which is a good thing.

I don't like American cars. I've only driven Japanese and I only intend to drive Japanese. I'm quite impure

Japanese cars tend to be better when it comes to wanting the best for the environment by less pollution. so it still fits with the liberal side.

but it was built in Kentucky. ;-)

But I am locked into a lease agreement on my Subie. (Long story, I got screwed with a previous car and the Subaru people really helped me out with it. However, because of not having any money at that precise moment, they took my old car in trade on a lease.)

I wish Subaru would come out with a hybrid. They make great cars that are fantastic on slippery winter streets.

It's old and its been crashed into too many times :( Poor little car. I love it so much :cry:

i like victoria's secret but i shouldn't shop there since it's owned by some big time republican. it might be easier to boycott now though since the republican is located in ohio and he had a big part in bush's campaign there. and of course we all know about ohio 2004. but they are very good at keeping customer with their freebies for those who shop there regularly.

but i live in a place with lots of alternative places to shop so i don't have much excuse here.

i don't care for soy, tofu, yoga, which for some reason are considered liberal. someone else mentioned Che and Chomsky and i also don't pay attention to everything they say or think they are all that.

but i do try to conserve energy by avoiding using the car as much as i can. i don't buy diamonds for the same reasons you mention. although i do like other gems which these days look just as nice as diamonds but far cheaper. i am trying to boycott some places a little more like that "forever 21" store in malls which has very cheap and trendy clothes but which i read somewhere used sweatshop clothing.

i enjoy doing things such as just going out into nature and enjoying how things look. i especially love cold rainy weather and love going to the beach and looking at the ocean during a storm.

see Victoria's Secret! Moment of weakness last week - bought some of their Vanilla Lace online. Two of my clients use it & it smells sooooo good! Haven't shopped w/VS in years, but envy got the better of me.

On the plus side:
recycle like a maniac (including client's houses - housekeepers get into everything. Plus it makes them feel good @ recycling w/out having to actually do the work, win-win!)

mostly cook from scratch (McD dollar menu fridays though - maybe this should be in the negative list)

repair, rebuild, & redo most things instead of buying new (including 3 family computers - built from comps being tossed ... people leave their old computers & cats (& once a stinky old billy goat) at our door now)

only nursed 1 of my kids (at 16 I had no clue the benefits, but I learned)

i don't think i will completely give up on Victoria's Secret or some other places with republican connections.

it's about choices though. i will never shop at walmart for many reasons. but i will shop at target even though i don't like some things about them such as their giving money to republicans. target still has a very good policy towards workers and treats them very well. i think that's a good thing and one of the most important things all businesses should do.

peace signs and everything.

I think, especially lately, I've learned the wisdom of "It depends on the war." I wasn't anti-Afghanistan War, but I am anti-Iraq war. And yet I am not one of the "pull out right now" people, though I see their point. It feels like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. Pull out and destabilize the country; don't pull out and be a recruiting poster for insurgents.

I don't always agree with what Kerry has to say on national defense, but I have to respect his knowledge, and I know where his anti-terrorism furver comes from, so I have to admit that he might be right. But I also know he would have found saner ways to go after terrorism networks.

Life isn't so black and white any more. Should I turn in my peace sign?

Get ready... brace yourself...

- I own diamonds - and - yes, I admit it - I love them! I know all about the evil of the debeers thugs but - they're my birthstone and I love them. I have a diamond engagement ring, wedding band, diamond earrings (two sets) and a tennis bracelet. (Please don't tell the rest of DU - I'll be banned for sure.)

The rest:
- I shop at Sam's club (mainly for my catering business.)
- I stay at luxury hotels whenever I can.
- I'm Catholic and proud of it.

On the pure side:
- I'm a long standing member of Greenpeace and Amnesty International
- I recycle "religiously"
- I eat very little meat and I'm a proponent a of whole grain, soy and vegetable heavy diet
-I've worked (in some capacity) for every democratic presidential candidate since Carter in 1980