The Only Way To Stop Bushco Is To Elect More Democratic Office Holders....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Everything else is posturing....



If we had a Democratic President, House ,and Senate we would not be on this perilous course of exploding deficits at home and ill thought out military adventures abroad....


The Republicans control all three branches of government, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial... There is nothing we can do to stop them... We can carp, we can whine, we can beat our chests but until we wrest the levers of government from them there is nothing we can do....

The answer is too elect more Democrats...

You say but they are the wrong kind of Democrats and point to the feckless Joe Lieberman or the traitorous Zell Miller.. That is a distraction and a needless one... If the Democrats were in the majority Joe Lieberman would be a gadfly and not an auxiliary to the majority Republican party...

The answer to our current dilemma is simple but then what would we have to talk about....

[el_gato]

1. Real Democrats that is

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. I Don't Think Any Collection Of Dems Would Put Us On Our Present Course...

In the end it comes down to power...


They got the power... We don't...

[cmutt]

11. we can get power

#1:
If we wish to return to power, we must first get control of individual states. We need Democratic governors. We need control of state houses and senates. We need to pass some election reform bills that guarantee that every vote gets counted and every vote gets counted correctly. It should be an easy thing to sell to the general public. Who ISN'T for fair elections? Kerry didn't do us any favors by "going quietly" on the Ohio fiasco. We needed to be loud and make sure that everyone heard about yet another episode of corrupt voting practices. Even though it wouldn't have changed the outcome for president, we'd have gained the foundation upon which to launch voting reform bills throughout the states where we have majorities.

#2:
We need to rally around those that are willing to stand up and make themselves be heard. The Barbara Boxer's of our party need to be supported -- and rewarded with praise, and with our contributions of time and money. We need to send the signal that we SUPPORT our elected officials that STAND UP for our positions. Politicians will gravitate towards money and public opinion. Boxer has been nationally critized for her tough questions to Rice. Barbara Boxer was DOING HER JOB. Since when is anyone obligated to lo softballs? Why shouldn't we expect our elected officials to ask tough questions and demand better? And for this she gets critized? We should rally around her - and show our support to her and also show the american public that there is another way -- a better way.

[moggie12]

3. Agree 100%

If Gore had been President, the US would not have invaded Iraq. Case closed. Period.

And who handed the '00 election to Bush on a silver platter? Nader voters. The Democratic candidates weren't good enough for them, so they voted for the idealist and look what we got.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. That's A Truism..

but I prefer not to bash Nad(i)r and pick old scabs..

They gots the power.. We's don't...

[IrateCitizen]

6. WAAAAAAHHHHH!

:cry:

Yes, it's all Nader's fault. It's not the Supreme Court's fault, it's not the Gore campaign's fault, it's not Theresa LaPore's fault -- it's ALL the fault of Nader and those who voted for him, even in solidly blue states.

[IrateCitizen]

5. That's quite a bit of absolutism on your part, D_S_B

Everything else is posturing....

Hmmm... I'd be interested to share those thoughts with my many friends in Iraq Veterans Against the War, letting them know that all of our efforts are "posturing", because they aren't directly focused on getting Democrats elected.

I'd also like to share those thoughts with the many tenant organizations in New York City fighting for lower housing costs and the enforcement of existing laws against nonresponsive slumlords, letting them know that their work is simply "posturing", because they aren't directly focused on getting Democrats elected.

There are thousands upon thousands of people out there who get up each and every day, and go to work on basic social justice issues. And if you were to ask many of them, they would probably tell you that whether there are Democrats or Republicans in power anymore doesn't really change things all that much for them. Regardless of the party in power, there is still a fealty to big business interests, still a fervent belief in market fundamentalism, still a pissing away of billions of dollars on boondoggle Pentagon programs, still a lack of investment in the infrastructure of POOR areas.

If you want to believe that getting Democrats elected is the cure-all for what ails us, then that's your choice. However, I have come to a very different conclusion over my time, and that is that work needs to be done to change the basic values paradigm of large portions of the electorate through grassroots work on bringing people together and fighting for social justice. Until that paradigm shift occurs, the best we can hope for is Democrats in office enacting policies that aren't too much different from the Republicans -- just with a slightly more compassionate face.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. In Our "democratic" form of government you can only change policy in one

of two ways....


You can elect people who think like you or you can scare those currently in power to think like you or you won't vote for them next time....


Outside of that I don't know too many ways to change policy in a democracy even a highly imperfect one...

[IrateCitizen]

13. A classical short-term perspective

D_S_B, I often enjoy your perspective on these boards, although I sometimes don't agree with you. However, this is one instance in which I have to say I don't agree with you, and I don't particularly find much in your perspective to appreciate.

Policy change, if it is to STICK, is a long and tortuous process. The signing-off on such change is usually only the LAST step. And while it quite often requires politicians who are willing to display a decent amount of political courage, the final enacting of policy is, quite often, the epilogue in a long struggle.

You said, "You can elect people who think like you or you can scare those currently in power to think like you or you won't vote for them next time...."

Actually, there is a third way here, which may be a bit of an extension on point #2 -- you can scare politicians to the point that they begin to expect outright riots in the streets if they don't change. This is what largely happened in the Civil Rights movement, for instance. I'm not discounting LBJ's political courage in pushing the 1964 Civil Rights Act through, because it was integral. However, by 1964 it had become apparent that the issue of civil rights was literally tearing the nation apart, and would do so unless it were addressed. In this way, the law itself was more of an epilogue to the entire struggle, than the central piece. The movement itself had radically transformed the national conscience.

The end to slavery was another example in this vein.

I'm not saying it's not important to get sympathetic politicians elected to office. Absolutely it is. And, contrary to popular opinion here, those politicians are NOT invariably Democrats -- I'd argue that the emphasis on party has weakened our capacity to really affect change. But the MOST important thing, IMHO, is to continue doing the work necessary to change public opinion on a particular subject. That's very much like what the IVAW group is doing. Sadly, it's a situation in which the more casualties we take in Iraq, the more the situation degenerates, the more the antiwar veterans' voices will come to the fore. But the overall goal is not to simply change parties -- if Kerry were in office right now, we'd be largely stuck in the same conundrum vis a vis Iraq. The greater goal is to shift public opinion and public conscience -- it is then that the politicians will do what they always do, which is FOLLOW.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. The Majority Of Civil Rights Legislation Preceded The Riots...

In fact the Watts Riot in 1965 was the only major riot during the period that the great civil rights legislation was passed....


In fact most of the major rioting was a reaction to Dr. King's assassination and Nixon used the fear caused by the rioting to win a plurality of voters in 1968... In fact if you add the Wallace vote to the Nixon vote as that is what happened in 72 when Wallace didn't run you can see that Nixon would have won a sound majority in 1968...

Your point that Democrats are not God's gift to governance is well taken and we could chat for hours what a proper paradigm or blueprint for America would look like....But at this moment they are the only proverbial game in town...

I would be happy with a government that provides freedom at home, assistance for the most vulnerable, and a foreign policy that uses force as a last alternative and after taking into consideration the opinion of others... It is sad in this current milieu that I have to add that of course that doesn't eliminate the need for America to act unilaterally if after long and sober deliberations it decides to do so...

[RafterMan]

8. Yes, but

in order to elect more Democratic office holders, they have to *start* posturing.

[StephanieMarie]

9. We'll never get another Dem in high office without major election reform

[74dodgedart]

10. Local and State elections are improtant..

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. Exactly...

From the state house to the white house...


It's not like they are killing us...


They have approximately 55% of the Senate and 53% of the House but even a slim majority gives you absolute control of the latter body...


I'm not happy that they have more governors than us and the four most populous states have Republican governors...

That last fact makes me particularly sad..

[meow2u3]

14. What about the voting machines?

One can't elect Democrats when the voting machines are rigged to favor Repukes!