I am just checking in!

[saracat]

[Beaverhausen]

1. I just sent you a PM but

At this point, we Edwardians are disheartened and disappointed, angry and sad. For me, the bottom line is not allowing the Republicans to put anyone else on the supreme court.

I'm so sad about the world and our country anymore...I am taking a badly needed vacation starting...now. I'm well into my second glass of wine and feeling no pain.

:hug: to all of us.

[saracat]

2. Problem is, Obamas voting record on judicial appointments is really bad. Sigh.

I am not sure there is a difference between him and McCain.

[glowing]

6. I think there is a difference.. I think he's going to be on a fast learning curve

when he sees how bad it is.. I think he is more open to changing the system than McCain ever would. I think we need to be there and we need to push the real changes. Let's have a bit of positive hope. He has overcome things that would have pushed most candidates out. People are hungry for real truths and some real progress. I don't think its going to be business as usual. He's a smart guy. I think he has a heart in there. We have to make sure that we continue getting out there and pushing the ideas. We need to insert ourselves into the campaign and push out the little mites and bring it on home.. we know the mites are a pain in the ass--they'll bring him down in the GE faster than the Repugs. Now is our time to push the front runner.

[Two Americas]

10. hi glowing

I understand and appreciate what you are saying, as this has been the thinking that we have all taken at this point in the process for decades now. I hope that you can understand and appreciate that I for one will not be doing that any more. I don't care that he is better than McCain, because I no longer think that matters. I am not going to have positive hope, because I think that is a dead end and a trap. I don't care whether he is personally admirable or not, because I don't think that matters. I don't think that "pushing the ideas" is compatible with "pushing the front runner" - I think they are contradictory and mutually exclusive. I don't think we can stop the right wing within the context of the campaign. I don't think that the campaign brings any real truths or real progress to the people. I do think that what we are seeing is very much business as usual. An important component of business as usual is all of us pretending that it isn't once again, and being disappointed once again.

I don't say any of this to be argumentative, but rather to be honest. I have lost hope of persuading anyone about this. Events will have to convince them, and events will convince them. The only thing left to do is to just keep expressing it, whether it fits in with other people's scenarios or not.

[balantz]

12. I have no clue as to what we can do.

We progressives and our concerns are pushed aside.

There are too many who think Obama is progressive, or even Clinton.

The corporate media makes sure the Republican agenda is carried through, and they choose our Democratic nominee.

The corporatacracy will stop at NOTHING to see their blueprints come to fruition.

And the Democratic Party works for the corporations, not for us.

[Two Americas]

3. check in any time

:hug:

My position since 1998 has been this - let's talk about real politics, about rebuilding the New Deal coalition, let's look at the truth for a change, let's stop putting off the inevitable and living in hope and belief land - just to talk about the real world and real people would be a welcome break from the fantasy world people live in and call "politics" these days. People always tell me "no, no, not now. Wait until after this election, or wait until after the primary, or give this or that candidate a chance (most recently Edwards.) So I stand by, lend a hand, try to be positive even as I watch the same drama with the same predictable results unfold again and again and again. Then everyone is disappointed, frustrated and angry all over again. I hate to stand by and watch people keep hitting their thumbs with the hammer.

So I know the drill - we can't talk about building a new independent people's political movement right now - we need to do what we can to get Obama elected, because otherwise McCain will mean the end of the world, just like people said when Reagan was running, or the first Bush, or the last Bush, and there is SCOTUS and what can we do and don't get me wrong I agree with you and everything, but.... "We just can't afford to be distracted right now, so please be quiet." And then after we lose again, people will be burned out and won't want to talk about politics, and then along will come the next great hope - "not perfect, but..." and we will have to give that a chance, and that will fail, and then we will have another bad candidate and we will once again hear "it is just not the right time. This election is really important. Sure our candidate is not all that great, but when you look at the alternative it is really important that we beat them. We just can't afford to be distracted by that stuff right now."

[saracat]

4. Yuppers. This presidential election season is drawing to a close for me. If we nominate Obama

we lose the GE. Over and out. And I no longer care.It isn't as though I can do anything to stop it. Oddly, the worst thing about this primary as it has taught me one persons efforts don't matter. I never used to believe that.I used to believe anything was possible. Not anymore! LOL!

[Two Americas]

9. I hear you

Ten years of frustration and grief and taking endless abuse - thousands of conversations, emails, letters, phone calls, meetings, talks. The message was simple - there is a right wing coup d'etat going on, and the response of the party is pathetically weak and misguided. I kept working working working, even though it seemed like rolling the rock uphill. I heard all of the mealy-mouth "don't get me wrong I agree with you but..." excuses, all of the "why are you so obsessed over this" character attacks, all of the blank looks, all of the misrepresentation of what I was saying, the dismissals, the marginalization, the attacks, the ridicule and humiliation. All of my warnings that were mockingly called "paranoid" have proved true.

Now, after all of that, we have a weaker (!!!???) response to that than the Clinton response? How can that be? A weaker candidate than Kerry? Not possible, I would have thought. A weaker Congress than we had in the 90's? I didn't think that could be possible, either. Then, we have a campaign copying all of the right wing tactics - the pack behavior, the hatred and intolerance, the one-liners and sound bites, the personal attacks and the mob mentality.

The only reason to do all of that work and put up with all of that abuse was because I was trying to honor people's insistence that we "work within the system." Now do you know what the attitude of the Obama supporters is? "Fuck 'em! We don't need 'em!" and "get out" and "shut up."

"Work within the system" means "knuckle under and don't make waves." It means "don't challenge the lies and don't tell the truth if you know what is good for you." It has nothing to do with how you vote or what you do, nothing to do with any "system" that we are supposedly "working in." It is a lie.

[Andrea]

7. Two things- make that three

1) I owe you some replies on that awesome thread from 10 days or so ago. I haven't forgotten.

2) Why 1998? That was a turning point year for me, too.

3) Part of the reason that drill exists is because here at DU we are obliged to support the party. I don't object to that. Those that made the site can make the rules. But, in the RW, this might be the year we just have to say, "Look, we're going to lose the general. We know it, we may as well accept it and look to the future." There will be disagreements about how to go about that. There will be different predictions of what is likely to happen. I'm just throwing out the idea that maybe now is the time to break the pattern.

[Two Americas]

8. the three things

1. That was a good thread there, yes.

2. I became aware of PNAC and read their horrific blueprint for the country, all of which has now happened, and no one in the party cared about that.

3. It is an aggressive and domineering faction of the party that we are being forced to support, not the party.

[Andrea]

11. Ah

1998 was the year I realized that the Republicans hated Clinton more than they cared about the country, so they would rather go on a witch hunt about a blow job and force a constitutional crisis than just give up on bringing him down.

In your answer to #3, you didn't address my main point: Maybe it is time to just say no. We aren't going to win, we aren't going to waste our time and money on a loser campaign that demeans us, so what do we do now? Absolutely you are right that it is an aggressive and domineering faction of the party, but we need to be cognizant of the fact that depending on the direction this conversation takes, it may not be allowed to continue here and I can accept that.

I'm undecided at this point. I may work for a local candidate (I've met one I like), I may sit this one out, or I may do something completely different. I certainly won't be working for Obama. I get looked down on enough at my job, I don't need any more of that.

[Two Americas]

13. what to do

The what to do question is for some reason not possible to answer. I am not sure why. Part of it is probably because we are so well trained to reject all suggestions. Another part of it is that our concepts of leadership and teamwork have broken down and been replaced by corporate organizational models. Those are guesses, though. Maybe the first item of business is to discuss and understand why we think that there are no options, and why we can't build organizations? I have gotten into a lot of arguments with people about this, and that didn't work. The people are more important to me than my point of view is - no sense in winning the argument and pissing everyone off - so I am trying to be more relaxed and open-minded about the subject. Wish me luck on that lol.

[Andrea]

14. I DO wish you luck on that

It's a hard thing to work through these issues that everyone has an opinion on. It's even harder now because people are so battered and bruised and have been put through hell these last seven years. I'm at a loss, myself. I no longer have any feeling that the Democratic party is on my side - if Obama is in fact the nominee. There is no longer a party of the working person. I have to consider leaving the country even though I don't want to. I feel Obama is every bit as much tied up with the corporatacracy as Bush is. He's probably more non-violent than Bush, but he's so easily led around that they'll get him continuing this war and starting others in no time. There is no there there. Nature abhors a vacuum. So, naturally all that empty space will be filled in by whoever pushes the hardest. It won't take long.

I think you and I, TA, are kind of like a long branch on a tree that at the very end splits into two twigs going the opposite direction. Does that make sense to you? As long as we work on things above that point where we split, we mostly agree. I'm sure there are lots of people in different spots on that branch. Maybe the thing to do is pull back, work on the upper two thirds or three fourths of the branch and then when that is hammered out, find some way to approach the rest - maybe some kind of peaceful coexistence. I don't know. Right now I', kind of in shock.

[balantz]

15. I think you are correct when you say this:

"I feel Obama is every bit as much tied up with the corporatacracy as Bush is. He's probably more non-violent than Bush, but he's so easily led around that they'll get him continuing this war and starting others in no time."

So many Americans think of these corporate-tied politicians as individuals who have the ability to choose to be more non-violent, or whatever.

I think the ones who are allowed to get as far as these current candidates actually have very little personal power. They may appear to embody the agenda they push, and that may be true to some small degree, but I think they are just ultimately corporate mouthpieces.

They probably mean well, but they must know that they will be very limited. They must know they will have to lie. To actually be a genuine progressive politician they would have to commit to a house-cleaning program like the one Edwards was talking about.

Our government, and the party, are lost to us. These politicians are bought and paid for.

[Two Americas]

17. yes

I get the branch metaphor (allegory? allusion? lol) and it is good.

[waiting for hope]

5. Hiya!

It's a beautiful morning, my coffee is hot, my two kids got off to school okay and as long as my boss is out of town, life is good in my little world. Did anything happen yesterday? :evilgrin:

[ClericJohnPreston]

16. Tsk,tsk

Hello saracat, my friend and mutual GDP warrior for Truth.

Ironically, we are just checking in, before we check out.

I'm disgusted by the moronic clique in control of this Party and the dialogue here at DU. There are the cynical bastards who have created this manufactured candidate I know we both dislike intensely, and the lemmings whose self-interests are caught up in their myopic zealotry, along with the truly malleable who never ask the pertinent or relevant questions.

We will all pay the price if Obama wins, with his message of "partisanship" and his love for transfiguring and transformative Republicanism. Anyone who dares to come in here and tell us we should stand behind Obama might as well be asking us to support a Republican. He is the antithesis of John's POPULIST platform and message.

The only joy I take in Obama is the gruesome gawker's delight in watching a train wreck I'm sure will come from his candidacy. He will set the Party back so far, people will be begging for Progressives.

Until then, watch the freak show unfold.

[MissDeeds]

18. Hey, saracat

Good to see you here. It's good, too, to see so many familiar folks posting, but I doubt it will be for long. I debate each day whether to even check DU, but habit wins out and I wind up disappointed and disheartened all over again. Wonder how many of us will still be here after the convention, or after the election.