Never Give An Inch
If you ever doubted it...
...this should resolve the question once and for all: We are on our own.
...
Asked about her "greatest mistake," Pelosi said Why don't you tell me? 'Cause I think we're doing just great." Remember when Georgie stumbled over a similar question and couldn't recall any mistakes? It seems Our Only President is not the only one so afflicted.
The hand-off...
It has been pointed out to me many times that the Iraq Occupation and the FISA amendment are only two issues of many, on most of which the Democrats are incrementally better than Republicans, and this has been used as an argument against the conclusion that there is no difference between them.
They are incrementally better. Is that a reason to give them a pass for being complicit in the mass death caused by the Iraq Occupation and in the bankrupting of America? Or a reason to give them a pass for hacking away at freedom and privacy?
Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership are confidant that they will win the presidency and the Congress next year simply on the strength of peoples fear of Republicans.
Sadly, if that happens "rethugs" will be back in power for another four or eight years, dressed up as and self-labelled as "democrats". And the shell games will continue.
And it all can be turned around - if enough people quit whining about how powerless they feel, and remember that they have the power.
If every time a Democratic candidate met with constituents or knocked on peoples doors or phoned them looking for money or votes they heard...
"If you Democrats defund and end the occupation of Iraq before November 2008 I'll contribute to you and vote for you.
Don't waste my time with excuses. Come back or call back when you're done and you'll get my money and my vote. Have a nice day."
... the Democratic Leadership would quickly sit up and listen.
And the Iraq occupation would be history. Along with the FISA amendment. And along with all the bullsh*t of the past seven years.
If enough people quit whining about how powerless they feel, and remember that they have the power...
and use it.
If they believe they will have the votes without doing what they were elected to do, and instead keep enabling Bush, then they have no reason to change and there is no effective difference between them and the rethugs.
I will not, two years down the road, be defending myself for supporting people who enabled Bush when they had the power to stop him.
I also will not wait for millions or tens of millions of other people to use the threat of support withdrawal to pressure them before I will do so.
Waiting for that to happen would mean someone else would have to go first, and would mean that I do not have the courage of my own convictions but would stand with my finger in the wind...
Someone has to go first. If it's me then so be it. I've stood alone most of my life.
There are two taglines on my blog. One from Hunter Thompson: "The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."
And one from me: "The opposite of conventional wisdom is the likely truth of most things."
"If you Democrats defund and end the occupation of Iraq before November 2008 I'll contribute to you and vote for you.
Don't waste my time with excuses. Come back or call back when you're done and you'll get my money and my vote. Have a nice day."
