As one can tell from the letters posted here, there are plenty of Democrats, myself included, who are opposed to amnesty for illegals and want the influx of illegal aliens stopped. The reasons are twofold: 1) most of the environmental problems facing the country are continually exacerbated by increasing population and 2) a seemingly perpetual supply of cheap, semi-slave labor has a depressing effect on the ability of workers to receive a just wage and benefits. Both of these assertions are demonstrable. Illegal immigration has degraded the quality of life and insulted the dignity of labor. The positions of many otherwise "liberal" politicians in support of inviting more foreign labor into this country perplexes me.

Given the grave issues now facing the nation, politicians can now more accurately be categorized not as republican or democrat, not as conservative or liberal, but as globalist or anti-globalist. Globalists support policies that favor the expansion of Big Business, with its attendant properties of increasing the authoritarian nature of government and the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a diminishing number of people. Anti-globalists wish to maintain the autonomy of regional groups (nations), insist on the exercise of political liberty, and operate to maximize the opportunities of citizens in sharing wealth and power. Globalists control the mainstream media, so we are always hearing about the advantages of the global economy, even as our balance of trade deficit continues to rise, we lose jobs, factories, skills to foreign lands, and become embroiled in conflicts on the other side of the planet.

If the Republican and Democratic parties fragment over the issue of immigration, it is probably because these two parties no longer represent the poles of current political issues.

Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

Doesn't the Democratic leadership understand that there is possibly one reason and one reason only that they swept into victory last November? The American people are sick, sick, sick of this obscene war, sick of the dying, sick of the woundings, sick of the blood and violence, sick of the cost, and the cancerous corruption it has engendered. They were elected to pull the plug on George W. Bush's death machine. Over two thirds of Americans think we ought to wind this sucker down and get the hell out. Don't the Democrats know that by standing up to Bush they were regarded as heroes? Don't they know now that they are bitterly regarded as the worst kind of cowards, the ones in which so much hope for resolution was invested? Bush was sweating big bullets that money for keeping his murderous occupation alive was going to run out. He knew the people were behind the Congress demanding benchmarks and timelines as a precondition for funding. This war was his baby and his alone and he was about to lose it. The Democratic leadership (how bitter the word), still mired in the groupthink of the previous six years freaked out at the possibility that Bush might blame them for not offering unconditional funding. So they flinched, they folded and showed themselves to be utterly spineless.

Let's find some politicians with guts to stand up to the neocon bully-boys and make them our political leaders. Anyone who voted againt this outrage has my support. Let's recognize those with real political courage, Russell Feingold, Dennis Kucinich, and Dr. Ron Paul, among others, and recognize their actions to help end this nightmare.

I suppose I should take the time to 1)learn what a "podcast" is, 2)find out the kind of gadget needed to download and play it, 3)study up on the various makes and models of the gadget, 4)buy the gadget, 5)figure out how it works, 6)download the "podcast" on my dialup connection, and 7)find a time and place to listen to it. Trouble is, right now I'm trying to figure out how, if I buy a cell phone, I'm supposed to get the damned think to work.

Tell the truth, no apologies. Bush is a sorry ass excuse for a president. He's had chance after chance to be a "uniter", to bring the country around toward some positive goals on foreign relations, on energy, on health insurance (I refuse to use the term "healthcare"), and dozens of other issues and has squandered them all in pursuit of his single-minded illusion of dominating Iraq with military force. His "war on terror" has terrified me from the start and its cost in lives, treasure, and civil liberties spiral ever upward. I want to be protected from Bush's evil and wasteful Administation, not from Muslims fighting for national self-determination.

If Mr. Gingrich does indeed choose to compete in the free-for-all to select the next White House resident, I hope that his world-view can get the fullest possible exposure and receive a serious, in-depth critique by experts. I, for one, am tired of having the most responsible position in the world decided on the basis of cronyism, platitutes, a folksy manner, and a firm handshake. The debates do, in part, expose candidate strengths and weaknesses, provided the auditory canal is first examined and cleared of electronic implants.

In addition, I propose that each candidate be obligated to take the high school Advanced Placement tests, or their equivalents, in history, economics, geography, cultural anthropology, and biology, and not only that their scores be published, but their correct and incorrect answers be made a part of the public record. We need leaders that are demonstrably and independently knowledgable, not the intellectual prisoners of their sychophantic courtiers. We need to have confidence in their ability to use this knowledge base as a means of making wise choices.

The ignorant proponents of half-baked, unsubstantiated theories must be distinguished from those having substantial learning and intellectual accomplishments. Let us never again select a bumbling, dithering, witless semi-moron as our president. Too much is at stake.