November 5, 2005

Al gore's succinct delineation of this clear and present danger should be seen as a call to arms to all of us. We must heed this call and, beginning with the 2006 election, do everything in our power to save ourselves, our children and the earth. This is no time to lament what might have been.

The past is past. Al Gore did not win and our recycling the 2000 election and positing what might have been is a waste of time and energy -- a needless diversion from what must be done now. The only worthwhile attention to the 2000 election is to identify the mistakes made by the Democratic Party and Al Gore, especially their underestimation of the skill and devious lengths incompetent demagogues will go, to get elected. Not that we should mimic their behaviors and lose our soul, but that we should be prepared the next time around to unceasingly and effectively expose them, at every turn, for what they are - unscrupulous, devious and outright dishonest.

The damage wrought by George Bush and his minions, on the environment and our nation's sacred honor is devastating and will haunt us for decades. Some of what has been lost will never be recovered. But the obscenities inflicted upon us are not necessarily irreparable. For this to occur, will require principled, extraordinary leadership. These are not ordinary times and ordinary leadership will not suffice. And, anymore of the "leadership" that we currently endure may well doom our society to the collapse, so well described by Jared Diamond.

There simply is no presently serving, potentially electable, Democrat capable of providing the leadership we must have. I believe that Al Gore was clearly qualified to be President in 2000 but contributed to his own defeat. I believe, further, that he is now a much better man and would be a much stronger candidate in 2008 than he was then. He should seek the nomination, not for himself, but for his country.

Phil Corsello

The lessons of 2000 and 2004, years in which presidential elections were stolen by the Republican party for their candidate (Bush) are not for Democrats to learn in order to be better at theft prevention. Rather, they are lessons for all of us as citizens to learn, in order to get prepared for seizing state power if power is first stolen from us by the right wing. We must be ready to seize the power of the state when the next election is stolen, if not before. To this end, the left must get over its taboo about weapons and must begin to arm itself. Liberals will do nothng except wave peace flags till Kingdom Come. But until the liberals become leftists, leftists without phobias about force, they will be useless in the real struggle for power. Power must be taken from those who would and are destroying the world. Such power is not possible to take by parliamentary means, as these means are now being abolished. The process of elections has been completely co-opted by corporate rightists, and they will not yield it without being forced to.

The time to act indeed is now. But the act we must prepare for is revolution, not some pansy liberal b.s.

I agree with Walden 2 about the outcome of the

last 2 elections. And the predictable outcome of

the next election. But I am not ready for revolutionary mass violence. What might be a lesser level of resistance for people like me who

are not ready for revolutionary mass violence?

There are states with non-corrupt or potentially

non-corrupt electoral systems. Those would be

states which use either new mechanical voting

machines with all the linkages intact so that

pulling the lever marks the ballot completely each

and every first time; or---ballot-reading machines

where the initial mark is made on a Legal Paper

Ballot. Such as the Opti-Scan system used in

parts of Michigan. If disputes arise about how

the vote-count came out, the Legal Paper Ballots

exist to be counted by hand. Pre-Violent political

activism might still be possible in those states.

If a Blue State Survival Party arose in the

Blue States, I would consider joining it and working for it. To me, Blue State Survival would

mean Blue People in one of several Blue State

Regions working to get their Blue State Region

functioning as a separate free-standing economic

region. For example, suppose the nine northeastern

states which are currently working on their own

mini-Kyoto carbon-emission-reduction plan were to

go further. What if those 9 state governments were

to impose a uniform 9-state regional tax on oil

and oil products, and use that money to revive a

system of electricity-powered mass transit equal

in coverage to what existed in 1920 before it was

all destroyed? The gas-diesel tax would make car-

truck use more expensive, and the money raised

would be spent to make mass transit more rider-available and rider-friendly. The goal would be

reduce and ideally eliminate coal/gas/oil from

the transport energy supply picture of the mini-

Kyoto region.

I can think of 3 Nations-within-a-Nation which

could attempt to form separate free-standing

economies: North Atlantica, Pacifica, Great

Lakestan. If these 3 regions could achieve this

level of Independent Survival, and if neighboring

states liked what they saw, neighboring states

could 'go blue' if they so chose. We would have

a chance to crawl up out of the toilet as the

Red States continue voting to flush themselves down.

Walden's clarion call to arms would seem less like just so much ideological breast beating were it not authored by the selfsame soi-disant non-pansy who brought us the late great CLG "Grand Refusal" of shrinking font fame. But it was and it does matter and why does he insist on burdening the readership with yet another load of humbug he has no intention of carrying out ?

One might surmise that as the web somehow failed to go down (and the sky to fall) W-alden has wrapped up his vigil at the city hall of whatever town or village he lives in and has resumed consumption (of bandwidth) at normal levels. And lo ! His Critical Mass astride a piebald Pentium pony, he boldly ventures forth in search of new windmills against which to tilt and new sharks over which to jump !

ITP