"I WANT massive, widespread and uncontrolled civil unrest. I WANT to totally collapse the house of cards that is our current unsustainable war "economy". I WANT to totally collapse the system of government as it now stands."

I'm in. Jay Rockefeller, Harry Reid and others have shown themselves to be completely false patriots. They deserve to go down in defeat. To think I was happy when Reid became majority leader. Maybe we'd have been better off had the Democrats stayed in the minority. Perhaps sufficient anger would have built up during another 4 years of GOP rule to actually bring some change. I knew we were screwed when Connecticut sent Joe Lieberman back to the Senate.

Reid and Leahy and Rockefeller, Pelosi and Feinstein, and others have taken the last shreds of my hope for the Democratic Party. It's true, apparently, that the whole thing has to come apart before we'll see any change.

@RMP; Durbin voted NO. It was a changed vote. I lost my C-span connection but someone at FDL said it was a mechanical problem in the vote counting.

cboldt (of FDL) says official vote count should be available shortly. Link at my sig.

That's the same canned response I got from Kennedy too.

@Jkalos, January 24, 2008 10:31 AM:

"@Associative Individualist

"Thanks for the reference to the Kevin Phillips book. I checked it out on Amazon and have ordered it: it looks useful for my continuing education."

___

You're very welcome.

Phillips, a Harvard Law grad and a former major-league Republican strategist, (he was partly responsible for the design of the Republican "Southern Strategy" of the 1970s and '80s), has become one of the most cogently damning critics of the US oligarchy. (See also, reviews of his American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, 2006).

Although no one here has mentioned it that I'm aware of, one potentially powerful tactic for dealing with the criminal telecoms and their mouth-breathing sock-puppets like Reid and Rockefeller, is for millions of Americans to withdraw from them their financial support.

That's why I dropped AT&T as my long distance and internet service provider, after learning of their complicity with the Bushevics in their illegal surveillance games.

Loss of money seems to be one of the few things these slavering Mammon worshipers can relate to.

I'll do some research (and I hope other readers here will, too) regarding the practicality and effectiveness of national boycotts, as in the case of the boycott of GE some years back, which, as I recall, successfully encouraged them to get out of the nuclear weapons business.

KR

I called Obama's and Durbin's Offices re position on the telecom immunity bill

Obama's Office--Answer: Obama is voting against telecom immunity and IS TRYING TO MAKE IT BACK FOR THE VOTE.

Me: What is Obama doing in terms of exercising leadership on this issue, given that leadership is a characteristic that we look for in presidential candidates? Is he going to take a stand with Sens. Feingold and Dodd in filibustering the bill?

Answer: I'll ask the Senator that question and get his comments.

==============================================================

Durbin's Office: Answer: Sen. Durbin is voting against telecom immunity, but will not join Sens. Dodd and Feingold in filibuster.

Me: So he's trying to have it both ways? He knows that it has 50+ votes, so he knows that only a filibuster will block it.

Answer: Sen. Durbin believes it is important to get past this issue and carry on the important work of the Senate.

Me: Is there anything more important than upholding the Constitution? This guarantees that there will be no investigation of the single largest invasion of privacy rights since at least Nixon.

Answer: If not McCarthy. He learned from the Master.

Answer: Two peas...Honestly, if Democrats are going to capitulate to the Republican minority on every important issue, why should I vote for a Democrat?

Answer: They don't have a veto-proof majority.

Me: They don't need a majority to filibuster. I can count. The Republicans have done it on almost every important piece of legislation proposed by the Democrats. Why shouldn't the Democrats on this important issue? They have enough votes that, if they wanted to take a stand, the could do so. And isn't the evisceration of the 4th Amendment enough of an issue that Sen. Durbin would want to take a stand?

Answer: Will pass along thoughts to the Senator.

It's very important that we defeat any Democratic candidate for president in November. The Democratic leadership's support for telecom immunity and basket warrants shows that they, as a party, are not ready for the presidency. Another four years of Republican rule will give the Democrats a chance to re-define themselves and become a true opposition party. By contrast, if they win the presidency, this will be the end of the U.S. as a lawful democracy, because authoritarianism would have become the consensus among both major parties, and the American people would have given their stamp of approval to it.

The Republicans are beyond hope. The best chance the country has is to defeat the Democrats in November and send them back to the drawing board until they become a party worth voting for.

You are part correct?

Remember the elephant proverb?

Go slow, but not to porky, though.

Pope Benedict may be wrong to assume if he writes an 'encyclical' or rides a pope tricycle via DC in April to tell George that the jazz trumpeter Bunny Berrigan was a Roman Catholic 'revolutionary' priest.

Pure Vida! Pure Life! Be careful.

The president may see the truth unfold.

Before his eyes close, he may make a law we can't shed public tears?

My O day. The law must read to Reid and CEO's-To-Flush the commodes?

Sit there and buckle the seat belts.

It may get bad and the poor Rabbi may need to sell pork chops?

This is an existential moment. Life is a grand mystery. Yep.

A carousel (Mona hinted a true given) goes 'round and around.

The carnival will likely end at the proper time. Ah, and be ready.

Philo said, "Be kind to everyone,

and we all are fighting a battle."

Ravel's music is a Pavane (sp) symphony.

Was it John Prine who said love somebody?

I wish there was a calm background grand piano.