talking about this because I like most of the commenters here, but I want to address this issue that heru-ur and adnoto bring up daily:

If the "liberal" netroots had decided to plan, coordinate and implement a focused direct action/civil disobedience campaign and then wanted to add on some "working within the system" strategies as the ancillary, side actions that they are, everything would be peachy. (adnoto)

Now that we agree that the American System is rotten to the core: describe the system that you would have replace it. What will not become corrupted over time? (heru-ur)

The problem here isn't the system, it's accountability to the citizenery. I can assure you, we could eliminate the Senate and the House and create a new body called the Proletariat House of Institutional Integrity and we'd, very shortly, witness the same sort of corruption.

A superficial reading of history and/or anthropology will easily demonstrate that human behavior, when collectivized, becomes a matter of dominance, of power-seeking, of influencing others--in a word, corruption. This is not an astonishing fact; it's a pattern of behavior.

But the goal should be to modify this behavior with elected officials--in essence, to require accountability or, if refused, termination. That, and that alone, will more quickly modify the actions of these people more than anything.

I do not mock or ridicule your beliefs and/or concerns, adnoto and heru-ur. But I do believe you're seeking to replace one veneer with another--while not admitting to those underlying human behaviors that've created this problem to begin with.

It really is a matter of accountability, to my mind, that's at issue here--not the system per se.

The issue--the core issue--is accountability. The rest is so much window dressing. In the absence of accountability, no matter what the nomenclature of governance, you're going to have corruption. That is the nature of humans, I'm sorry to say.

Heh, you're right.

I didn't realize there was another post.

This is what comes from possessing a disorganized mind (which is why the NYTimes should hire me; I'd even buy a pink shirt and get new glasses).

I really enjoy these kinds of posts because these guys need skewering like nobody's business. Some choice quotes that stood out to me

But suppose we are confronted with a problem of courage? . . . . Or suppose we are confronted with a problem of character?

What a laugh. Courage and character from the likes of this little coward who can hardly wait to send the other guy's son, daughter, or wife onto the bloody battlefield, all the while nervously biting his fingernails, worried that the tuna he had for lunch might not have been as fresh as advertised.

I do suspect that the decision to pursue this confrontational course emerges from Bush's own nature. He is a man of his word. He expects others to be that way too.

I cannot tell you how offensive I find this. Bush is "a man of his word"? Great. What a victory for humanity. And as I often note, these people of character demonstrate that sterling quality with someone else's blood and money--oh, sorry, "treasure".

I could go on but I won't belabor the point.

And to think this smarmy little fuck, wearing his delicate horn-rimmed glasses and pink oxford shirt in his official Times photo, was hired by that august publication to continue to dispense his "wisdom" to those breathless millions in need of geopolitical guidance, well, the stench of it all must pervade the galaxy at this point.

You understand that for OTHERS but you don't see it in yourself and that was my point.

Setting aside the condescension, I fully understand "your point."

But, fundamentally, I disagree with it. I do not think we humans are slaves to some sort of biological determinant.

You see it differently

We are the way we are because Nature made us this way. Our pathologies allowed us to survive but we are now too successful. It happens and nature will correct it. Our arrogance is the belief that we can somehow cheat nature but in the end she always win.

This is so utterly defeatist that I cannot fathom it. "Cheat nature"? Haven't humans become agricultural? Haven't they domesticated various animals? Haven't they, via structural engineering, created dams, controlled waterways, and etc. etc.? These are irregularities that "Nature" condemns?

You seem to argue that "Nature" is a goddess that is somehow militantly arrayed against human activity. Why would this be? What human behavior is, inherently, antithetical to Gaia?

Our current collective situation is due entirely to our collective decisions. That's the point, to my mind.

The rest--balderdash.

the ones who REPENT of their sins and are ready. All we have to do pray: Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. and mean it.

I hope you aren't serious, but I kinda think you are.

Is this how you see the world, life, existence?

Let me tell you, I was raised as a fundamentalist and I was a pretty hard-core bible thumper; and I condemned so many that, were they worth a buck a piece, I'd be rich.

But I thought, "Is this right? Is this any way to live?" and I concluded, in short, "No."

I have no desire to destroy this planet, cripple generations yet to come with a filthy atmosphere and lousy water.

I do not--I firmly DO NOT--await the supposed coming of a god based on a definitional structure created by the likes of that idiot Tim LeHaye.

If that's your idea of "God," a creator who seems to take pleasure in the misery of those whom he's created, well, that's your privilege.

But keep it to yourself--that anguish, that misery, that self-destructive misery--and let the rest of us try to live our lives in a half-way decent fashion.