Letters to the Editor
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Say no to all incumbents
The Democrats have turned into their normal spineless selfs. We voted them into office in 2006 with the express purpose of ending this war and bringing the criminal bush regime to heel. They have done nothing. It is time to throw all of them out of office. All incumbents need to be removed from office. On election day 2008 remember this rule. "If in office, vote them out."
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Whine, whine. How bad do you really care about this?
Wow Gary - you've gotten me to write about your articles more than once; nice rhetoric! Now please use your skills to evacuate the HR of current democrats. You're a bay area person right? Congresspeople Pelosi, Anna Eshoo, etc. - these people represent the wealthy left, which is, essentially, the right. Come on - San Francisco, Palo Alto, Kensington, Saratoga, Monte Sereno -- these people litter the Salon pages with their umbrage against Bush, but fill Pelosi's (etc.) war chest at champaign parties.
There *IS* a primary. Take these people out of the equation with your vote. I always liked sort-of libertarian Tom Campbell (R) - what ever happened to him? Mike Honda (D - San Jose) seems less repulsive than the rest, but where's HIS call for impeachment?
Yeah, this is an impotent email to an online 'zine that all but guaranteed Kerry was going to win with their wishful and specious editorials. But hey - $1000 of anti-Eshoo Kinkos signs 'magically' appearing in Los Gatos around election time might just show up; where are YOU going to be at primary time??
ER
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Kamiya for president--or Democratic advisor
Gary: This is one of the most powerful things I've read on how the Democrats are blowing it in the Middle East. It's concise, lucid and clear without being simplistic. And I thought you were a musing travel writer! Great story--perhaps Salon could print a copy out for each member of Congress? Reading your piece makes me feel like beating my head against a wall (not for the first time) at the stupidity and gutlessness--or is it complicity (Hilary Clinton's calculated establishmentarianism) of so many Democratic politicians. This is their moment. Why do they not seize it? Thanks for the piece.
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Democrats never blew it!
Stating that the Democrats blew it assumes that the Democrats were in a political position that was fundamentally and philosophically different than that of the Republicians - this is certainly not the case! That wealthy elite that runs and rules the Republicians is the same bunch that rules the Democrats,the only real difference is in the party monikers.
The fact that this wealthy elite is making loads of cash,and stands to make loads more,because of Bush's Iraq war is the primary reason why no action has been taken in the US Congress to stop the war. Many Americans are astounded by this because they see that the politicians they voted for and elected, steadfastly refuse to give their views and anti-war sentiments any representation in Washington.
Whats happened is that the American form of government has in its greedy,numbing obesity become obsolete (Alvin Toffler Future Shock) and can not function as either a bastion or an arbiter of black & white morality let alone a dispenser of truth and justice.Washington has devolved into a mob mindset like that of the mafia where it sees and recognizes only two groups,the "winning" victimizers like the Bush Regime and the losing victims which includes everyone else!!
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not least of the power of the GOP over the democrats...
has been their ability to set the frame around which the political debate can even be conceived of, let alone carried out.
The War on Terror, later renamed the Global War on Terror, was not thought up in an afternoon over a poker game, The patriot act was rushed through congress but was not itself written hastily.
The GWOT ossified even further the entrenched and highly irrational and destructively partisan attitudes in the American body politic making it all but impossible for the Democrats to get any traction when they opposed it. So overwhelmingly pervasive and effective is the Republican noise machine, that their propaganda triumphs might be viewed as their only real achievement (since they are so inept at projects where any third dimension is involved).
I've had a really depressing thought recently, far from the Iran attack ruining the GOP for '08, I have a sense that they're gearing up for it to actually help them revive their fortunes.
First though, will be needed pictures of bloodied American soldiers/navy, eyewitnesses and pictures of the wreckage of a devastating yet unprovoked attack on 'our boys' by the perfidious and swarthy Iranians. There's 24 hours in every day, and each extra tense day that passes in that part of the world, some false or provocative operation which will result in US carnage, is being planned for striking in one of those 24 hours.
This will be played for all its worth and a hyper-angry Bush barely able to contain his testosterone surge will announce to us late at night that he has enabled a punitive air raid on Iran to disable their 'terrists' bases and command and control centres and to wreck their overwheening but highly dangerous [to the region] 'nukular' programme. The sincere patriots in the 28% who support Bush will hyperventilate and create much noise and fervour in supporting operation 'Ultimate/Enduring/Iron/Infinte Justice/Fury/Payback' and I can just see the graphics on Fox, CNN, CBS and MSNBC with the night vision green-tinted missile attacks, the computer animated cross-hairs, the air sorties launched from aircraft carriers, oh... you know the rest, Gulf War III or is it IV now? it's a monster hit whenever it's rolled out.
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So long as you aren't going to make the Democrats fight for your vote
The rightwing will get theirs.
Sorry, it is how it is, until you are willing to make your representatives actually represent you, they will represent someone who is willing to take that stand.
While I agree that a Democrat president is a good idea, the time is now to take stock on the two big parties in America's Congress and Senate and vote them out.
The Democrats have what they need to end the Iraq war. They have what they need to take down Bush. They have what they need to rally the left and they aren't using any of it, they are just playing rhetorical games.
If your vote for a Democrat is only going to get you a Republican in disguise, vote independent. Your Congressman, and your Senator are both there to represent you, if they don't then don't vote for them.
And yes you can make a difference. You can lead to the rise of a third party, to the weakening of the duopoly which has trapped America in a situation where America's political discourse hasn't really moved forward since the cold war, where Vietnam is a recurring event and where there is always an external enemy who is both pathetically weak, and overwhelmingly mighty.
The American approach to the Middle East is not due to the need to do something about terrorism, and neither party is going to do what needs to be done about terrorism because America's approach to the Middle East is intended to keep America in a 1984 style stalemate.
Your vote can mean the difference between a state which proclaims "War is peace" and a state where you, the people of America, matter. The apathetic weaseling of the 90's is over, it is time to make things happen.