Letters to the Editor
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Amen to that, Gary...
You sending a copy of this to the Democratic National Committee, and people like Barack Obama?
Somebody needs to get out front on this. Somebody big.
Problem is, you left out a constituency: corporate America. I'm not too sure corporate America would be too thrilled if the Dems really took out the axe on the GOP.
And corporate america is where the money comes from, let's face it. The electoral dance is a part of the equation, as I've pointed out here more than once. A big part, but not the only part.
In any event, a great essay, in the fine tradition of Louis Lapham. Give 'em hell. God knows, the Dems could use a little fire in the belly about now. They sound nearly as idiotic as the GOP does, too much of the time.
I hope you're right about Americans. I do. But I have my doubts. The public seems so damned stupid. And right-wing bloggers, who actually do seem to have brains in their heads, seem to be otherwise demented. So, I dunno. Seems as if people are much more likely to believe interesting lies than the truth.
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maybe one of them isn't that wimpy
The other day in a debate, Democratic Senate candidate John Tester was accused by his rival that he is soft on terrorism and wants to weaken the Patriot Act. Tester set the record straight... He says he does not want to weaken the Patriot Act... he wants to Repeal it. He said you don't defeat the terrorists by taking away freedoms. I think repealing the Patriot Act, as well as removing this President's Authorization to go to War are an excelent idea. It was all a giant mistake
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We need an adult
It's felt for a long time like this country is being run by spoiled children with a good marketing machine. Hearing people like Kerry repeat the marketing team's catch-phrase, "War on Terror" and aphorisms associated with the whole terror hysteria made me absolutely sick during last election's debates. I've been waiting in quiet desperation for an adult to step forward and, without apology or mealy nods toward respecting this administration's behavior, that enough is enough. We're ready to go back to being America again. The country that fights against abuse and tyrany, not implements it. I think you nailed it when you said, "Ever since 9/11 this country has been driven by fear and hysteria. ... But the time for self-defeating emotionalism is over"
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Jeeze, there is a Democrat that has been saying this...
His name is Bill Clinton. The President who almost helped bring peace to the Middle East has been saying for quite a long time that we know there will be a deal betweeen Isreal and Palestine. that we know what the boundries pretty much will be...its only a question of how many more will die before the deal,a political deal, is done. This problem is the source of all troubles and the reason for hope for a solution. When Bush used the word `Crusade' on 9/14, one had to know that this man, recently (s)elected as President was gonna cause serious and lasting trouble of his own.
I agree with much of the premise of this article but I wonder why the author says that the Dems are acting scared of only the Republicans...the Dems are still responding to the crazy cheerleading that came from the mainstream and so called liberal media that huraahed Bush when he appeared in his phony flight suit on the Aircraft Carrier Lincoln. Of course, this is the same media that did countless `wag the dog' stories every time that President Clinton attempted to deal with Osama or anything else during the Impeachment hoo-hah.
So I say four more years. Put a Clinton (both of em) back in the White House and always remember that it was the press who presented Bush as a reasonable candidate to run the world and presented a series of lies about Gore's pretend lies that guaranteed that Bush would be placed there. Just because they thought it would be more interesting and they were sick of the Clintons
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Wimpy Rambos
The real problem with Irag and War on Terror is that both the administration and the Democrats are abyssmal failures. The Democrats voted overwhelmingly for this disasterous war and have no alternative to the current policy. The reason that the Democrats can get no traction, even with the current disaster, is that they offer nothing different from the administration. There is no alternative to which the voters can turn, only two failed parties.
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The Shocking Lack of Mainstream Rhetoric is Costing America Dearly
In other regimes such as China, the USSR, Poland -- in countries that lack our rich heritage of democracy to look back on -- when freedoms have been taken away, strong voices have spoken out, often at their own peril.
There is no such voice breaking through the media bubble today in America.
Today, the "middle" of America, its college aged voters, its distracted, its middle class, working their asses off with only so much time to take in the details, these voters, in whose hands a restoration of some modicum of checks and balances lies, aren't sure if their President could possibly be this bad, or if Democrats are just whining on the other side of an abstract meaningless political football.
By the way, no one has covered the vehement storm of lies and characature hurled at Rush Holt's HR-550 voter-verified paper trail bill in a House hearing on Thursday. Why such institutional venom against a clear, clean form of accountability? After all, HR-550 has more than 200 Congressional signatures on it. It's because if the 2006 elections are close, even if Democrats are ahead in the polls, they will not take either house. The lack of Democratic rhetoric is poison.
Go, Gary, Go! Yes indeed.
The American electorate has exhibited itself to be savvy, insightful, even principled. But not during a dought of leadership. Without leadership, we just muddle around the corporate media miasma.
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What the Democrats Haven't Communicated...
The Democrats have railed about Guantanamo, torture, habeus corpus, etc. The Republicans have responded with a simple "we will get the terrorists". Americans respond with a great call to "get the terrorists" and that they don't know what Democrats stand for.
Every American has had experience with a power-hungry authority figure -- from a school hallway monitor, to a parking ticket giver, to the state police, to the TSA groping grandmothers at the airport.
Democrats need to articulate to the American public that the consitutional protections that are being unwound protect them from these very people. It was never publicized in the United States that the vast majority of people held at Abu Graib were entirely innocent. They were literally seized in the night after American forces kicked down the doors to their homes. Maybe 30 to 40% of the people held at Guantanomo have been released. Again these were innocent people picked up in big raids or on the word of neighbors with an axe to grind.
We can't afford to give George W. Bush the freedom to torture you -- because it is somewhat well understood by all Americans that he isn't very good at intelligence or planning. That is what the Democrats are trying to protect you from.
Don't let the Republicans get away with framing the stripping of Constitutional rights as applicable onlyto "the Terrorists". Does any American in a post-Katrina, post-Iraq war world believe that Bush should have the power to determine who is, in fact, a terrorist?
We have the Keystone Kops saying that they need to detain and torture at will -- and the Democrats are so pathetic that they are going along.
(My husband is a legal alien -- has a Green Card, has lived here for 14 years, paid a ton in taxes. That he can be seized at an airport with little provocation and held for no reason for an indefinite amount of time has really changed my view of the United States. That I was purposely groped at the airport last weekend by TSA agents for the first time -- and when I objected was told that I would be arrested -- has added to my sense of paranoia. I also understand that the definitions in the law passed last week could included U.S. citizens. All completely unprecedented to even ponder.)