nope…i wish i was more optimistic about the government

I voted NOPE for one reason.

That reason has nothing to do with the issues. The Democrats won the last two federal elections, no contest. The Democrats have the ideas and the plan that most Americans want.

But with Diebold and ES&S
in control of the vote counting there will be no turn over of the house.

End of story.

Democrates continue to ignore issue with Diebold etc. So it doesn’t matter how people vote. Until magority of people realize how bad they are betrayed and democrates try to protect themselves - nothing is gonna happen.
Probably this time reps will get full control of goverment, kill Social Security, destroy economy, ecology and other social programs then something may happens (revolution?).

I’ve been thinking for years that a real, grassroots revolution will be the only way to wrest control from these crooks.

I am not a gun owner but I’m beginning to see the wisdom in the real interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

Perhaps, a well regulated militia of citizens who have had enough
of this opressive regime will come forward and an actual 2nd Revolutionary War will ensue, releasing us from King George again.

Kind of frightening to imagine but . . . what else can we do?

I’m hopeful that the Democrats will retake the house.  The senate seems a longshot.  And the Democrats are famous for seizing defeat from the jaws of victory, especially with the bigshots wasting political capital and resources campaigning for one of their buddies in a primary.

i, like many others, had to go with ‘nope’.

our electorial process, the most direct way for a non-pol citizen to participate in a representative democracy, has been privatized sic corporatized. the people’s voice has been silenced and reps do not and have not reflected constituency concerns for quite some time.

our news media is compliant and complacent, administration stenographers at best. no issues of importance to the populace are even discussed. no false statements are challenged. no dog and pony distraction challenged.

we are told the economy is good, great, in fact.
NOPE
we are told the occupation of iraq is necessary and part of a plan to achieve victory against terrorism - a tactic.
NOPE
we are told we have the most advanced medical system on earth.
NOPE
we are told that trade pacts that don’t hold all trade partners to the same labor, health and safety standards are good for us.
NOPE
we are told 18 men and six boxcutters defeated the cia, fbi and norad.
NOPE
we are told that buildings of steel and concrete can now pancake collapse at near free-fall speeds into truck-sized bits for disposal without scientific analysis of how this was possible.
NOPE

yes, everything has indeed changed.

will the will of the people be reflected in the 2006 elections?

NOPE

will patriots rise up against tyranny and the greatest conspiracy for the theft of a nation’s treasure and soul in the history of civilization?

NOPE

When the Republicans won leadership control of the two chambers, they did so with a defined purpose given to the American people. The Republcians said that the Democratic management was corrupt and that the Republicans would fix it. In the current corruption of the Republican leadership, the Democrats merely are saying that the Republicans are bad. Are we now supposed to give Democrats leadership control because they might or might not morally support military actions in Iraq? Maybe we are supposed to give the office keys to Democrats because they might or might not clean up the Congressional corruption and love fest wtih lobbyists.

I choose to say that the Republicans won leadership control, because I choose to believe the semantics and reality that citizens control the two chambers through their representatives.

To think that it was will of people to give reps lidership in both chambers - is ...... Just remember about 16 % swing in favor of some republican candidates in some places (information is easy availabvle on net). Discussion about “bad” and “good” guys is funny. Try to understand that behind both parties are certain forces and they are representing certain groops of people. Seems to be behind the republicans is magor and international capital and behind the democrates - national.capital, middle and small. And this explains a difference about these parties and how they are acting. Main thing that right wing republicans don’t need strong US and it’s goverment. They just need a milky cow to feel their porckets. This is why they are destroying this country are put it in huge debth. And this is why we need to support democrates, why try to do something (not too much) for us and keep this country strong

I agree that election results cannot be trusted until the issues with Diebold and the voting machines are corrected.  There is ample evidence that the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections were corrupted, and nothing has been done.  Until this is dealt with, we won’t have democracy.

My fear is that the election will in reality be close thereby enabling the Republicans once again to rig the result in their favor.  There is clear evidence that 2000 and 04 were rigged.  If the democrats lose 06 and then 08 no further evidence will be needed in my opinion, democracy, at least in this country, will have gone the way of the Dodo bird.

Goodbye America, hello Project for the New American Century.

I agree that the Democrats won’t take back either the Senate or House..  The reason however is gerrymandering and the advantage of the incumbent..  The left anyhow will have little influence as the “media” is in control of the zeitgeist and is militantly pro capitalist and split on liberal issues of civil liberties and their importance.  For the left to have any influence we have to have an anti Fascist front.  I mean by that opposition to militarism, nationalism, and capitalism in general.  The issue is one of values, ethics!

How can this be achieved?  We need to talk to as many people as possible on a one to one basis.  The right has a tremendous advantage. They have the churches which provide that one to one closeness necessary to change public opinion..  We have to figure out how to do the same thing.

One thing that might help is the use of County Fairs to try and speak to as many people as possible.  Another thing is for more people on the left have to be willing to run for public office—-at the lowest levels.. The right has taken over many many school boards etc.  This is a losing proposition..  Progressives have a dilemma.  The bulk of the Democrats are conservatives and therefore it doesn’t do much good to support Democrats except in primaries to move them to the left.  On the other hand if we support progressives like the Green Party we have a chance of electing more right wingers.  The strategy is therefore to do that which will move the polity to the left.  Always support the most left candidate you can find—-even if you don’t fully agree with them. This also means that certain words such as liberal and socialist have to be framed as words that mean good things to most people.  We can’t let the fascists shape our vocabulary.

Some one mentioned revolution up thread.  Unfortunately if we move any more to the right and we want a fairer society, only revolution will work.  We will have to try and create an anti fascist front.

Another thing, we need much much more unity on the left. We need more people working together. I get three different groups sending me emails for peacedemonstrations and so on—-but not on the same day with the same themes.

So far I have found that the “world can’t wait” group seems most dynamic.  United for Peace and Justice seems timid and International ANSWER doesn’t seem to exist.  Why isn’t there one national dynamic peace group?

It’s not about how many hard-working people we have out there pushing for the issues. It’s not about how much money can be raised, although it helps. Spinoza articulates very well how organization can solidify our base and get people charged up. And that’s great. But, It has nothing to do with the issues.

I’m going to say it in capital letters this time so it looks like I’m yelling, I’d put it in three fonts sizes larger and bold if I could -
THEY’VE ALREADY GOT IT SEWN UP!!! THEY ARE PLANNING TO STEAL IT!!!!!!!  AND THEY WILL!!!!!!!

(I threw in a few extra exclamation points because they always give me a thrill) I think I’ll do it again.

THEY’RE GOING TO STEAL IT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!! IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ISSUES!!!!!!!!!!!!
IT WILL BE JUST ANOTHER STOLEN ELECTION!!!!!!! AND THE MEDIA WILL COMPLY.

Thank you.  Over and out.

There is no hope of anything changing as long as Diebold pools the vote. At least you have an excuse for BushCo winning office; I’m still baffled how conscientious Canadians could have put the Harpercrit’s neocons in power. But thankfully it’s a minority.

However, fear tactics similar to BushCo/Cheneyburton/Rumsfailed cabal are creeping into the Canadian psychè.  Harpertic’s megalomania for being a powerful figure on the world stage we find our military in more and more fierce combat in stead of ‘peackeeping’ in Afghanistan. It’s all about oil, destruction and reconstruction by Haliburton; and the rest of the corporate thugs connected to the viciously deceptive WH cabal.

People please watch Democracy Now July 12, Palest’s story on the Mexican election.

Sorry it doesn’t matter if the election is fixed if the people are organized. WE CAN TAKE OVER THE GOVERNMENT AS LONG AS WE HAVE LEGITAMCY

I need that, Spinoza!  Sometimes I need a good slap to get me out of my self-induced despair.

I WANT to believe we can take it back in November. I REALLY do.
But with Chimpy going around the country saying, with his
sleazy grin and a wink, that the Repubs are going to retain both houses and
Karl essentially parroting him at every venue - it’s as if they’ve got
something up their sleeves . . . I cannot help but worry.

I felt that we were fairly together in 2004 - Bush was going into the election with only 49% and all the polls said Kerry would win. I remember
USA Today’s headlines on Monday (election eve) “Swing States Lean To Kerry!” And the exit polls showed that Kerry was winning (exit polls were only wrong one other time - Florida 2000) and then something weird happened just after midnight . . .

Thanks for mentioning Palast, he’s the super-sleuth on the issue of election fraud.      gregpalast.com

Power to the people!

But ‘freezer beef’, you have to realize ‘diebold’ did in Kerry and the whole system of democracy. Ironic it is, though, that the goons who have stolen power are the ones now professing their actions in the middleast are to spread ‘democracy’, exactly what they have stolen from the American people.

When are you discerning Americans going to revolt is my question? Organize you guys and show up your neighbours to the north;  come on before our PM Harper gets so far up BushCo’s rectum that we Canadians will too be sucked into and gagged by the same liberty robbing slime ripping of democracy below the border.  Help! we’re choking…..

Yes,
Irony runs extremely deep into this administration.

OK, now I’m depressed again.

Have you people seen V for Vendetta?  The lesson is, get guns and practice. especially if you are younger people

Tell me the composition and voter turnout of each House district, whether there’s an incumbent, whether he or she is swing or hard line idealogue, whether the district has re-elected incumbents forever, and you might make some educated guesses about the House.  Most of the polls published about people wanting a Democratic House are worthless. They are across the board polls. We don’t elect House members that way however. Some voters use national issues when voting for a Congressperson; some don’t. Some will vote for another party is the Incumbernt did him a favor or has brought jobs to the district or agrees with the voter on one or two key issue important to the voter.Or is perceived as “honest” even if not compatible in ideology.

Unless you can get internal district by district polls from the national campaign committees, you don’t know what you are talking about in making these predictions.

And you have to assume a lot of people in different kinds of districts vote differently from other areas, and from you.

Knocko is correct of course as I said. The issue in terms of ideology and the “climate of the times” is the control of the media.  Counting votes is actually more than likely not the problem in the outcome of elections.

The most important type of communication is word of mouth and if the general public is contaminated with only one view and false information from one view—-vote counting purity doesn’t matter.

What has to happen is that capitalism and capitalist ideology (might makes right, survival of the fittest) has to be defeated.

One of the underrated causes for the ending of the Vietnam war was more than likely the weekly bombs set off by the Weather Underground.  It did two contradictory things. It made many people, especially liberals and right wingers hate the anti-war movement and it gave impetus to ending the war for fear of further disrupting the society.

Massive street agitation is one technique to overcome the right wing commercial media. Voting is only marginal to social and political change and should be done strategically helping to move the dialog to the left.

I agree that a massive movement is what is needed. If the news every night was about daily agitation and civil-disobedience conducted by
thousands of demonstrators around the country perhaps the “leaders”
would follow suit and legistale accordingly.

And I agree also that it is a HUGE problem that the MSM refuses to give credit to the anti-war movement, and we all know why. The owners of the major networks are all profiting from the war in some way or another.

Viet-Nam? Times were different. True maverick journalism was a badge of honor; checking and challenging those in power (the real job of Journalism) was working and Nixon HATED the press as much as the guys in the Whitehouse now. But these guys know how to control and spin like champs.

If, before the election, there was an enormous daily story in the news about how MOST (simple majority) people were tired of the BUSH scene it would have seemed odd that he won again. But it’s always those “too close to call” BS stories and people are left thinking . . . well
it could have gone either way.

Having said all that, Gore still won the most votes and Kerry won in 2004, but the votes were not counted. There were 180,000 votes in Florida (2000) that never got counted because the SCOTUS stopped all that nonsense! It would make BUSH look bad . . . they said. And Ohio (2004) was a famous mess of intimidation, trashed votes and outright lies.
And where was the press? Lock-down on this issue. Mum’s the word.

But, electronic voting machines, without paper verification, easily hacked, turning Kerry votes into Bush votes (read The Judiciary Commitee’s report on Ohio) and all the other dirty tricks that Republicans HAVE to pull because MOST people would vote the other way, was the final and fatal nail in the coffin. It was simply stolen.

This November will be the same.

Rabit, WTH, Liberal, anyone else that put up a good debate,

Republicans control the polling places and count the votes.  Democrats don’t seem to pay any attention.  Maybe if RFK Jr’s lawsuit gets publicity, something could change; but I doubt it.

If it is truly the ‘illuminati’ who are in control, conflicts will not cease. (when have they?) They are forever on ‘crusade’ for ‘crude’ or ‘gold’ or whatever the staple of wealth is at the time on this planet by distracting the masses with religion, and has been like that for ages, no matter what the paradigm being spun as the truth,  which, btw, has shifted dramatically since 9/11. It’s increasingly more difficult for them to continue their deviance ‘hidden in plain sight.’

I voted that Democrats will take the House, but not the Senate. The Senate is our “House of Lords,” and is reserved for the corporate aristocracy. But I think the Democrats have to take the House in order to make it seem plausible when a “Democrat” wins the White House in ‘08.

Stay with me. Bill Kristol of Project for a New American Century, said on national TV that he expects the Democrats to win in November and that it will be the best thing that could happen for the Republicans. Remember there is a tradition that Republicans only pardon some of their crooks, and they leave it to a Democratic President to pardon the outgoing Republican President. So the Republicans need a “Democrat” in the White House in ‘08, and the reason for the quotes is that their first order of business will be to pardon Bush and his cronies. Then they will continue to carry out the neo-conservative agenda in a kinder, gentler, neo-liberal way. We don’t have two parties, we have one party, the corporate party, with two branches, the Democratic branch and the Republican branch.

The Democrats are always the lesser of the two evils, but when you vote for a little devil because their opponent is Satan himself, you’ve forgotten who that little devil works for.

There are some decent Democratic candidates. You can tell which ones they are because the Democratic Party doesn’t give them any money or support, and they’re running for the House, not the Senate.

If, by some miracle, we manage to get rid of the electoral college, electronic voting machines, voter suppression, and gerrymandering, and we go to ranked choice voting with publicly funded elections, then all bets are off. We’d probably still need to burn down the Supreme Court before anyone who was freely and fairly elected was allowed to take office, but at least we’d have a chance.

The problem is that on each side, both democrats and republicans are embroiled in partisan politics and have lost touch with the very people they are elected to represent!  I am confident that no matter who wins in Novemeber, the cycle will continue. 

Republicans wrap themselves in the American Flag and shout the name of God to the hills.  This is contrary to the principals of our very foundation. Ou forefathers saw that a government based upon religion would be disasterous (Salem Witch Trials, et catera).  The religious right will never understand that the greatness of this nation and what separates us from governments like Iran is that we do not recognize God and Country as being one in the same!  It is true that America’s roots were based in Christianity.  Yet, no one would argue that we are living in a much more complex world where the implications and outcomes are vastly different than that of the world circa 1776.
For the record, I am a Christian living in America.  I believe in God and the tenets of my religion.  I just don’t understand where the republicans get off spouting their religious doctrine off at the rest of the world.  They would be hard pressed to support their case in front of Washington, Franklin and Jefferson waiting for a responce!

What is needed is that we Americans free ourselves from the plutocratic oligarchy that rules us. We need to be leftists with guns.

http://www.3dweb.no/galleri/stuestolbm/bilder/anim1.swf

Then they will continue to carry out
the neo-conservative agenda in a kinder, gentler, neo-liberal way

No, the Democrats are often worse.

I see at least one problem with just stating that the voice of the American (i.e., United States-ian) people is being stifled and leaving it at that. 

It is true that the will of the U.S. voters was thwarted by the right-wing coup of 2000.  It also seems likely that major theft possibly stole the victory in 2004 from the Democrats, although choosing Kerry as the nominee was a disastrous choice by the Democrats, I think.

However, in 2004, Bush still got something like 50 million votes.  In my opinion, too many non-rich people are too invested, psychologically and emotionally, if not financially, in the whole “American” conceptual paradigm.

A major element of this paradigm is U.S. peoples’ attitude of American exceptionalism. Note: I do not think that the USA has a monopoly on exceptionalist attitudes concerning their own country.  However, since the USA is—at the moment—the world’s only superpower, its inappropriate exceptionalism affects the rest of the world to a uniquely high degree. 

Somehow the U.S.people need to see themselves as humans first, not “Americans” first.  (Especially so since there are 20-plus other countries in the Americas.)

As far as political parties go, the Democrats are often as bad or worse than the Republicans, as Spinoza noted above. 

Now, I don’t think that 3rd party solutions are practical in the US electoral environment.  However it may be time for a new party to become the major-party alternative to the GOP. 

Before the Republicans, the 2 major parties were the Democrats and the Whigs.  By the 1850’s, the Whigs were demonstrating their failure to be a major alternative to the Democrats.  Thus the new Republican party rose to fill that void and Lincoln won in 1860.  (This was decades before the corporate-military complex and religious fanatics took the GOP over.)

As a whole, the Democrats have been tried and found wanting.  All who are economically and sociopolitically left out, and all who realize how disastrous is the direction the US is heading need to find or form a truly nationwide political force that unequivocally says “NO” to the madness that is the current U.S. regime.

It’s true. Republicans stole elections for last decade. But total swing that they did was not exceeding 10%. It means that even now about half of this country still picks republicans.
And main reason for this that people used to think only about themself and do not see far then tip of their nose.
Somebody lose medicine insurance or bancrupted by doctors - not me!
Somebody suffered by not getting help after disaster - not me!
Somebody ended in jail for wrong reason - not me!
Somebody died under the bomb - not me!
Planet is warming up and who knows what is gonna be - I drive my SUV 100 mph.
When everybody fill the result for himself - then something may happen!

I’m a registered Green Party member, probably because part of my mind is still stuck in the stupid “win/lose” paradigm. Stupid, because when Greens have attained some power in places that have proportional representation, such as Mexico and Germany, it does seem to corrupt them.

Often I find myself more in agreement with some of the Socialist parties, or with the Peace and Freedom party. But one day I was down at the Registrar of Voters’ office and noticed a list of voters divided up by parties. There were about 30 different parties listed and I was amazed to see that here in San Diego we have 55 registered Anarchists. I don’t even know if there is such a thing as an Anarchist Party, and I wasn’t able to find a website for them.

I see the Greens as a viable option for weaning people away from the corporate party system, but should there come a time when that actually happens, I think I’ll reregister Anarchist. I agree with Green Party values, but to the extent that the Greens become a viable player in electoral politics, those values are necessarily compromised. For example, the Greens are ostensibly nonhierarchical in structure, but in reality there is a national and state Green hierarchy that can interfere with local autonomy.

One of the things the Mexican Zapatistas say is, “Ni PRI, ni PAN, ni PRD—Los obreros al poder!” which translates roughly to, “No to political parties—power to the workers!” A representative form of government will always be vulnerable to corruption. But if the people who do the work and pay the taxes were given the time off, and the responsibility to actually run the government, with all offices rotating every couple of weeks, the way the autonomous juntas in Oaxaca do it, they’d be very unlikely to permit the government to keep exploiting and killing them and others like them all over the world.

So I’m sick and tired of what passes for citizen participation in government here, which is basically the right to vote (unless you are Black, Native American, or a member of any other group that tends not to vote Republican), but not necessarily to have your vote counted, and the right to petition your representatives to represent you, which they probably won’t do since corporate petitions are accompanied by much larger campaign contributions. What is needed isn’t citizen participation in government, but actual government of the people, by the people, and for the people. As Lincoln feared, it seems to have perished a long time ago and it needs to be reborn.

I am a registered Green also and I do find the Greens a bit wishy washy.  But voting is just symbolic, that is, it is part of the zeitgeist.  Voting doesn’t change anything.  What is needed is to overcome the despair of living in our culture and the climate that we live in. We need a bomb throwing anarchist conspiracy rather than an anarchist party.

While i am not a 100% Ghandi-an pacifist i dont think that anarchist conspiracies would accomplish anything but moving the US to a police state.  Basically that’s what the 9-11 conspirators accomplished.

Please dont take the following comments as a personal dig at the views expressed above in this thread—everyone on this board is concerned with the bad situation we are in and much love and respect to all.

However i do think that the u.s. left too often is not sufficiently practical.  It was noted above that when the Green party got some political power it lost its purity.  I think it would be wishful thinking to expect otherwise.  This is the real world.  I am not looking for a pure utopian solution.  I’d be happy if the U.S. just had a halfway decently civilized gov’t that just attained the level of decency and social responsibility of your average “developed” western nation other than the u.s.

Perfection is something to be strived for but one should not consider it a failure if only partial progress is made.  Sadly, in the u.s. it is regress not progress that is taking place.

It is very American and Sant-Claus like to expect a perfect solution wrapped up like a Christmas present waiting under the tree to be opened. 

The right is exhibits this wishful American-style thinking in saying that the “war on terror” will end when there is no more terrorism.  Such a 100% solution aint gonna happen.  (The regime knows that and it gives them an excuse to be on a perpetual war footing)

Anyway I’ve come to agree with Morris Berman that the US’s “glory days” are gone for good.  This doesnt emotionally crush me because i am a human first, not an american first.  Unfortunately it will not accept its loss of status as gracefully as the UK did, but rather i see the US devolving into any evermore unpleasant and constricted police state. 

I am referring to Morris Berman’s book “Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire” - i saw him on cspan2 this weekend.  I think he is on point.  The amazon site has reviews and reader comments most which were positive.  The negative comments i thought just proved Berman’s point.

It will take just one more terrorist attack for the u.s. to to become an all-out police state, i fear.

Malik3000,  you are right of course, there is very little we can do except agitate, agitate agitate and realise that the chances of success are slight..

We just have to keep presenting ethical positions and arguing the logic of ethical positions and we have to do it even if we are driven to violence by the right..  That is why I recommend two movies.  V is for Vendetta and The Last Supper (1995). Both promote the idea of violence against the right..

It has to be acknowledged by the Left that the right is always willing to use violence and it is therefore foolish to completely renounce violence.  Notice that Gandhi and Martin Luther King were assassinated. and both advocated civil disobedience which is a form of violence.

> However I do think that the u.s. left too often is not sufficiently practical.

This is always a dilemma.  How do you know when it is reasonable to compromise and when is it just selling out?  I don’t think there is any easy answers.  Given how far right the country is too many people are willing to compromise on much less than half measures,  resulting in half assed proposals——we sometimes can only make the situation worse.

Take for example health care, many so called liberals are willing to continue the HMO model of bureaucratic poor care just so long as more people are covered.  The result will be even worse care then we have now and the right will say: “see we told you any attempt at public services are no good”.  The compromising left defeats its own goals.

For this reason it is always strategically correct to take the most left position possible in the hope that a reasonable reform will take hold. For example I always argue for socialized medicine (government directly organizes health care) but I realise that as a best first compromise national health insurance will do. (government funds and controls cost of health care).  Arguing for the second option first is likely to result in half assed nonworking compromises.

BTW, when I say government I mean public agencies under “people power control”, where appropriate local).  In a true socialist society there should be next to no need for government (and its “police power” functions.

BTW, I just heard an interesting report on Syria.  Syria is a fairly ridgid society with a lot of government controls.

However, spontaneously , due to the Lebanese emergency people are acting on their own and providing for the thousands of refugees without government supervision (but with government belated encouragement).

It is during emergencies that people often pull together and do what they should be doing all of the time.

“We just have to keep presenting ethical positions and arguing the logic of ethical positions and we have to do it even if we are driven to violence…”

This is perhaps the most profoundly contradictory statement I’ve seen.

Ever.

I’m with John Lennon: you can count me OUT.

It’s no wonder we can’t win an election.  We are our own worst enemy.

> Republicans control the polling places and count the votes. 

This is not true.  In all states that I am familiar with there are Democrat and Republican poll watchers.  The American electoral system is fixed but the voting is not the major issue.  I suggest some courses in Political Science for everyone concerned with politics of any type.  The American electoral system favors an anti-urban right wing bias and a capitalist culture. (might makes right, survival of the fittest, the only good is profits and the all mighty dollar and so on).

> This is perhaps the most profoundly contradictory statement I’ve seen. Ever.

This is because you don’t understand the Irony of life. 
Fascism is a violent movement that advocates violence.  Can you please explain how you propose to stop a fascist movement such as American Imperialism?  Or a quasi fascist party such as the Republicans?

Further

Do you think the Bush Regime will be stopped by ads in the NY TIMES or nonviolent street demonstrations?  Can you explain at what point in history has this occurred? Any example will do as I can’t think of one.  All power comes out of the barrel of a gun. (directly or indirectly) This includes people power, it even includes such things as the American Revolution.

AND the reason nonviolence sometimes works is because there is a threat of violence.

> It’s no wonder we can’t win an election.  We are our own worst enemy.

Elections are mostly worthless in a plutocratic oligarchy.  The party of the filthy rich always wins or are you under false illusions?

And in the USA this also means that the war party always wins.  Are you good with constant wars in your name?