For non-dems who hang here

[GreenPartyVoter]

Poll question: For non-dems who hang here

What party are you affiliated with and why are you here?

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Save this nation one town, county, and state at a time!
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[messiah]

1. Hmm parties?

I dont like parties, to crowded, locked stepped to ah beat and to many rules to follow but I do have my own individualist dance style:bounce:.
I'm here monitoring the right-ward drift of the party.

[Birthmark]

2. Independent for now

Going Green in the near future.

[EVDebs]

3. Debs would be a Green today but he'd vote for a Dem prez

if the Green candidate had no chance of winning. Republicans are for corporate 'citizens' not joe sixpack.

[IndianaGreen]

7. Debs would still be a Socialist today

for Socialism is the only rational alternative to the barbarism of capitalism.

[EVDebs]

15. The "means of production" have changed since Deb's time

so I think his thinking would have changed too. Do you think he could 'socialize' the power industry in the US with coal, nuclear, natural gas ? He'd be working for greener/cleaner ways of doing things and empowering local communities.

His first actions would be to start up 'local currencies' along the lines of the ones mentioned at E F Schumacher Society http://www.schumachersociety.org/frameset_local_currencies.html

The globalized world economy is locked into the oil economy and when the oil runs out ... ? What will Wal-Mart do say in another 35 years when the oil does run out ? Some pretty grouchy greeters at those doors, I'll tell you !

[IndianaGreen]

19. The energy industry should belong to the people

Marx is as relevant today as he was in the 19th century. You can see today how the gains made by Labor during the New Deal have been systematically dismantled by Bush in a process that began with Taft-Hartley, over President Truman's veto, and accelerated under Reagan. Workers have seen their wages and benefits significantly reduced in order to remain competitive against a foreign labor pool that was created by their own corporate masters in order to maximize their profits and drive American wages down. American workers thus find themselves increasingly voiceless and powerless in this modern version of servitude that American labor has become. Just ask the Indiana State employees who just had their collective bargaining rights taken away by executive order by the former Eli Lilly lobbyist turned Governor, Mitch Daniels.

As Marx described in Capital:

The labour-process, turned into the process by which the capitalist consumes labour-power, exhibits two characteristic phenomena. First, the labourer works under the control of the capitalist to whom his labour belongs; the capitalist taking good care that the work is done in a proper manner, and that the means of production are used with intelligence, so that there is no unnecessary waste of raw material, and no wear and tear of the implements beyond what is necessarily caused by the work.

Secondly, the product is the property of the capitalist and not that of the labourer, its immediate producer. Suppose that a capitalist pays for a day’s labour-power at its value; then the right to use that power for a day belongs to him, just as much as the right to use any other commodity, such as a horse that he has hired for the day. To the purchaser of a commodity belongs its use, and the seller of labour-power, by giving his labour, does no more, in reality, than part with the use-value that he has sold. From the instant he steps into the workshop, the use-value of his labour-power, and therefore also its use, which is labour, belongs to the capitalist. By the purchase of labour-power, the capitalist incorporates labour, as a living ferment, with the lifeless constituents of the product. From his point of view, the labour-process is nothing more than the consumption of the commodity purchased, i. e., of labour-power; but this consumption cannot be effected except by supplying the labour-power with the means of production. The labour-process is a process between things that the capitalist has purchased, things that have become his property. The product of this process belongs, therefore, to him, just as much as does the wine which is the product of a process of fermentation completed in his cellar.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm

[EVDebs]

20. Someone said Marxism works out well on paper but in reality it's always

a different story. Greening energy for individual use will be the 'withering away of the state' via the state's irrelevence !

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Hmmm It is starting to look like we need to reach out to

the Socialists and let them know we're here. I'm sure they need the encouragement as much as the rest of us. :)

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Thought Express: a think tank for progressives
http://www.livejournal.com/community/thought_express/

[RafterMan]

5. Independent

I'm here because I hate Bush.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Amen to that. A common denominator for all of us, I think.

----------------------------------------------------------
Thought Express: a think tank for progressives
http://www.livejournal.com/community/thought_express/

[uppityperson]

10. Me too. n/t

[Walt Starr]

8. I'm a Dem on the verge of going Independent

:shrug:

[CatholicEdHead]

9. Independent leaning Dem

Green and MN Independence parties also get my vote.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Aha. I did wonder if any Libertarians would pop up. :^)

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Save this nation one town, county, and state at a time!
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[BurgherHoldtheLies]

12. Religious fanatics have taken over my party

The (R) now stands for Rapturist Right. Plus, I have always been an 'independent' voter and have never had a problem crossing party lines to vote for Dems that were superior candidates. Loyal to country, not party.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. Yep. I am loyal to progressives wherever possible. Don't care

if they call themselves Communists or Socialists or Greens or Dems or whatever, as long as I can see they have the good of the people of this nation at heart and have what I consider to be a decent plan for pursuing that good.

----------------------------------------------------------
Save this nation one town, county, and state at a time!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm#why

[clancydog]

14. Libertarian

I voted for and gave money to Kerry and others. Now I am saddened, angered and vindicated by Kerry's being Bush's punk. Bush talks about small government while marching toward totalitarianism. Libertarians acknowledge personal and economic liberty. (End the war on drugs AND the war on Iraq.)A liberal, I realize our system will elect only power hungry crooks and they'll never spend our tax money on anything but their cronies. We might as well not give the crooks much power.

[Undercover Owl]

16. Officially Green.

I'm registered Green, but I voted for only Democrats.
I would never waste my vote on a Green presidential candidate.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Well, hopefully we'll get some sort of ranked voting so that one day

no one ever has to feel like they might be wasting a vote.

----------------------------------------------------------
Save our country one town, county, and state at a time!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/electionreform.htm#why

[GreenArrow]

17. was independent unitl last primaries

I registered Dem then so I could vote for Kucinich. Given what I've seen from the Democrats since, I'll be switching back to independent.

[dbeach]

18. dems

I went from Inde to Dem to vote for Clark in primary then kerry in Pres.Dems leaders are losers cuz they sold out the middle class for DC comforts of status quo for most part cept a few brave souls evidenced on 1/6/05.
DNC and RNC sure look like they have a nice deal going.
Staus quo gotta go!
I returning to Inde but it dont' mean nuttin til the repukians get exposed for their war crimes against the voters..

[ThorsHammer]

22. Registered Republican, open minded person who votes for the best person

I'd be considered liberal by a freeper, conservative by many here, and consider myself moderate. I'm definitely not pleased with the way they (GOP) have been moving (ModRepubinPA can probably back me up here). I did NOT vote for W, and am here because I'm open minded and like to have intelligent conversations/debates.

[kk897]

23. I'm sort of a Green

I "registered" Green in Ohio, but as far as I know, it isn't a fully recognized party in Ohio yet. As I understand it, I signed something saying I was a Green in the hopes that eventually there will be enough Greens to become an official party.

Even so, I'm not sure I'm a Green or a Dem. I guess that's why I'm here...I wanted to find out if there was enough left in the Dem Party proper to be interested in it.

The Greens kind of disappointed me in that I felt their anti-war stance wasn't strong enough (in Afghanistan, actually, then Iraq), and while I agree with many of the ideas of the Greens they strike me as somewhat ineffectual and disorganized. That's okay; it's a young movement here, still finding its way.

Then again, the Dems in general aren't left enough for me. Sometimes the Greens aren't either.

I'd say that as I learn more about how practical politics works (as opposed to political theory), I'm very discouraged by the Dems' somewhat liberal talk backed up with action that can't be construed as liberal in any way. That, and the huge quantities of money changing hands...leadership by wealthy elites...the way that even Dem politicians don't speak to the point and will always obfuscate rather than clarify and prefer vague generalizations to specific, pointed comments. I just get the feeling that they don't want to make themselves clear because they're afraid that if people found out what their true thoughts and feelings are, they'd be ridden out of town on a rail.

But as Republican Lite as I sometimes think the Dems are, it still seems like they may be the only avenue to take for minor changes in a positive direction. Republican Lite is preferable to Republican, I guess.

I don't know...I'm searching...hoping... maybe the PDA will make sense to me...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Longtime Dem going Green.

My nose is worn out. I might as well try voting and breathing simultaneously after 39 years of noseholding.