Author: Archangel M

If the electoral disaster of 2004 should have taught us anything, it’s that our votes are wasted when cast for those candidates who represent the status quo and refuse to fight it.  How many of you regret throwing your ballots away on John Kerry?  How many of you did so, knowing in your hearts that you would much rather have voted for someone else, because you felt it was more important to try to oust the shrub than to vote your beliefs?

I did the same thing.  I had voted for Dennis Kucinich in the primary, and I knew Kerry didn’t have the stones to win in spite of the inevitable vote fraud the Bush-Cheney campaign was pulling off, but I cast my November ballot for John Kerry anyway.  I admit, I screwed up that year.  I had voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, a protest vote, because I believed then as I do now, that the only fundamental difference between the two major political parties today is one of competence.  The GOP is inept at, well, everything except committing crimes and getting away with them.  The Democrats are surprisingly effective at everything except committing crimes and getting away with them.  That’s all.

I watched, growing up, as the party of the New Deal abandoned all pretense of remaining true to its principles to join the corporate-conservative DLC in embracing Republican policies.  By 2000 I had had enough.  I would no longer vote along party lines.  Although a registered Democrat, if I thought a Green or a non-aligned progressive could do the job, I voted for that person.  So, full of defiance, I cast my ballot for Ralph Nader in 2000.

And yet I “repented” that action a mere four years later.  Not because I had ceased to believe in what the man stands for, but because I had partaken of the ‘Anybody But Bush’ wafer.  Not all of it, mind you.  Just a tiny nibble, after the primary season was over.  I suppressed the urge to vomit, poked the hole in the punch card, and hoped I hadn’t made a huge mistake.

Except I had made a mistake, the same one so many Democrats continue to do even after nearly three decades of unbroken conservative misrule in government.  I had compromised my principles, thrown away my vote.  I watched in disgust and horror as CBS interviewed Black voters, who told us how they had watched their Kerry votes flipped over to the shrub and his gargoyle before their very eyes, on those unholy Diebold election-rigging machines.  I watched and shook my head at the party for Kerry in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, as the results went from a solid victory for the Democrats to a bare margin of fraudulent triumph for the shrub.  Another election had been stolen, I knew.  My last and only hope was that Kerry would fight it.  The next day, that hope was dashed.  The Democratic granny candidate had capitulated.  Again.

Needless to say, I’ve learned my lesson since then.  No more will I hand my vote to someone who never has and never will earn it.  Oh, sure, you might ask; aren’t I just throwing my vote away?  I’ve done that, but not in the way you might think.

My vote for Kerry was wasted because of one, unalterable truth: the only wasted votes are those not cast, or those cast for candidates who don’t represent our interests.

Those who say we cannot vote our beliefs because our preferred candidates “can’t win” subscribe to the notion that voting our beliefs doesn’t win elections.  But as the 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and soon the 2008 elections have shown, this is nonsense.  We lose when we compromise our principles, and win when we embrace them.  The so-called experts have it all backwards, and deliberately so.

Former member of British Parliament Tony Benn said, in Michael Moore excellent documentary SiCKO, that if people in America and Great Britain were to turn out and vote in large numbers it would be a truly democratic revolution.  And he’s right.  If voter turnout were anything like what it is in European states such as France, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian states, and so forth, can you imagine how the political landscape would be altered?  Can you imagine what would happen in elections if, during the primary season, voters cast their ballots based on choosing the candidates of their preference instead of who we’re told to vote for?

The powerful can, and do, which is why they work so tirelessly to suppress the vote, to discourage us from casting our ballots the way we want.  The powerful would lose the only thing that really matters to them: power.  It’s why men and women of principle, such as Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Cynthia McKinney, Cindy Sheehan, and Ralph Nader are marginalized and excluded from presidential debates — shoved aside in favor of corporate whores who beat the drums of war on the orders of their sponsors.  It’s why Diebold rigs its machines to favor certain political parties, state secretaries purge legally registered voters from the polls, and state legislatures pass laws designed to prevent certain types of people from voting.

All of it is set up to prevent true socioeconomic reform from ever again coming to pass.  It wasn’t enough for movement conservatives to dismantle the New Deal; they had to make sure it could never happen again.  That’s why your vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is such a waste.  Neither of them is ever going to rock the boat, try to change the status quo.    They’re both from the DLC, the Trojan Horse whose sole purpose is to cripple the progressive movement from within the Democratic Party.  No matter which of the major political party candidates you vote for this year, you’re voting to keep things as they are.  You’re doing as you’re told, which is exactly what the powerful want you to do.  The message you send when you do that is that you are content with the status quo, even if you’re not.

Your vote for Ralph Nader, or Mike Gravel, or the Green Party candidate, your ballot for Dennis Kucinich as a Democratic write-in, that is the only real power you have.  The purpose of it is not to win in spite of a system rigged to favor the establishment every single time, though with hard work and unwavering dedication we may one day see that happen.  The purpose of your protest vote and mine is to send a message of defiance: “You do not own our votes.  We give them to those who do.  If you want them, you’ll have to earn them or just keep on taking them.  But we shall never just give our votes to you.”

How many of you, dear readers, have read Orwell’s 1984?  How many of you read the Party’s lessons about power?  Do you recognize what true power is?  It’s not in keeping a boot on the face of humanity, grinding us into the dirt forever; it’s in Defiance.  When you cast your ballot for the candidate of your genuine choice, you are choosing to defy a system that was set up to crush you, to keep you buried in the mud, groveling for what scraps the powerful deign to throw you.

Why do you think hatred of Ralph Nader runs so strong?  It’s not because he is perceived as having stolen votes that belonged to Al Gore in 2000, or John Kerry in 2004.  We who are wise know that no political party owns our votes.  The hatred burns so brightly because when we cast our ballots for him we are denying the powerful something they want but cannot steal.  Oh, sure, they can prevent us from voting, or reduce our options so that we can only make the choices they want us to.  But it’s not the same as us giving them our votes of our own free will.  They want, no, they need you to accept them, their way of thinking.  The powerful cannot be powerful unless you hand your power to them willingly  That’s what motivates the Party described by George Orwell in 1984: the irrational need to be loved and accepted no matter what.  When we vote for third party candidates, we reject everything the establishment represents.  And rejection is the worst thing any of us can inflict upon the powerful.

Defiance.  That is real power.  Use it or lose it.

The Politico gives us the transcript of the dictator’s latest interview (if, by “interview”, you mean yet another tedious exercise in reportorial fellatio).

The shrub lies about what his regime has done about the environment, acknowledges Global Warming, says others have to do the work on fixing it before the U.S. can even get involved, and lies again about why he’s done nothing.

Q: I wonder if in your eight years in office what the changes have been, in your view, of climate change?

THE SHRUB: I think it’s been more clearly defined as a problem. But what hasn’t changed is the realistic notion that new technologies are going to be the solution, and the fundamental question is how do you grow the economy at the same time, and at the same time encourage new technologies. And my administration has done more for the new technologies necessary to change our lifestyles without sacrificing wealth than any other administration.

Q: For the record, is global warming real?

THE SHRUB: Yes, it is real, sure is. But the solutions — having said that, the solutions have got to be measured and realistic — you can’t have a solution to global warming unless China and India are part of any international pact. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t accept what’s called the Kyoto Protocol, and therefore was labeled as anti-environment. I’m a realistic guy. If the major emitters of greenhouse gases are not a part of a solution, then those who are part of a solution are acting in a way that’s simply not going to — it will affect their own economies, but it won’t affect the overall global warming issue.

So, yes, I put forth a very realistic, straightforward program that makes sense.

Q: Acknowledging those constraints, you’re an oil man — some people say that climate change, global warming could have been your Nixon-to-China. Do you wish you’d done more?

THE SHRUB: I did what I think is necessary to actually work, Michael. I mean, I could have signed a — I could have supported a lousy treaty and everybody would have went, “Oh, man, what a wonderful sounding fellow he is.” But it just wouldn’t have worked. I don’t think you want your president trying to be the cool guy and not end up with policies that actually make a difference.

So the policies I’ve outlined are policies that will actually make a difference: nuclear power for generating electricity; battery driven cars; ethanol. There’s a variety of initiatives — clean coal technology — all of which will help us sustain our economic vitality and at the same time be better stewards of the environment.

Of course, it all makes sense now.  The shrub didn’t want to try to be cool by doing anything about the environment, and that’s why his regime has sat on its ass and done absolutely nothing to help solve the problem of Global Warming.  Wow, how enlightened he has made us plebeians!  All this time he was sacrificing his “coolness” for us!

On Jimmy Carter:

Q: President Carter recently told Charlie Rose the next president could change America’s image in 10 minutes. Here’s what he said: “I think the next president could change the image of this country around the world in 10 minutes by making an inaugural speech that would start off and say, ‘As long as I’m president we will never torture another prisoner, as long as I’m president we will never attack or invade another country unless our own security is directly threatened.'”

THE SHRUB: Yes, well, what he ought to be saying is, is that America doesn’t torture. If the implication there is that we do now, then he’s wrong. And you bet we’re going to protect ourselves by the use of military force. What he really is implying is — or some imply — you can be popular; if you want to be popular in the Middle East just go blame Israel for every problem. That will make you popular. Or if you want to be popular in Europe, say you’re going to join the International Criminal Court.

Popularity is fleeting, Michael. Principles are forever.

Uh-huh.  The boy who has instituted a policy of torture by the U.S. against prisoners in our custody is telling a former president to lie.  Never mind that, under the shrub, the U.S. is torturing prisoners, and that the shrub and his flunkies ordered it.  Because he doesn’t like being called out on it, he wants Jimmy Carter to lie and say we don’t.  What a fucking piece of shit the shrub is.  Because, you know, even though the shrub doesn’t care about being popular, he still doesn’t want to be known as the dictator who turned the United States into a country that is now on other nations’ lists of countries that torture prisoners.  The boy who has no principles is telling a former U.S. president, essentially, that he is trying to be popular by blaming Israel for everything that goes wrong in the Middle East.  The boy who hasn’t seen a law he couldn’t break is telling us that joining the International Criminal Court is just some sorry attempt to be cool with the other kids on the playground.

Q: You’re headed later today to the Middle East. The prospects for brokering peace between Israelis and Palestinians look bleak. I wonder what the best is you can hope for, and why should Americans back home care about your efforts over there?

THE SHRUB: It’s a great question. Americans at home ought to care for the advance of free societies throughout the Middle East, after all, this is the center of anti-Americanism and hatred. In other words, the people that attacked us on 9/11 came from this part of the world. By far the vast majority of people aren’t haters, and by far the vast majority of people don’t hate America. But there are enough to be able to recruit if forms of government repress people. In other words, if there’s hopelessness — there’s nothing more hopeless, by the way, than becoming a suicide bomber. And yet, these ideologues require hopeless situations.

So it’s the advance of freedom throughout the Middle East which ought to be interesting — which ought to say to the American people it’s the best way to keep us secure.

No, we have seen — we’ve witnessed this type of history before, Michael. In Europe it was the advance of freedom that now makes Europe whole, free and at peace. But that wasn’t the case throughout the 1900s. In Japan, democracy came along and that enemy of ours is now an ally. In other words, freedom is transformative. And the big challenge in the 21st century is to advance freedom in the Middle East, for our security.

And you said about the Israeli-Palestinian issue? It’s been tough for a long time. But I do believe we’ve got — we’re on the right track to defining a Palestinian state, what it looks like, so that the moderate people, the reasonable people in the region have something to be for.

So giving Israel a blank check to murder Palestinians, keep them mired in a perpetual state of apartheid (thereby perpetuating the hopeless situation that makes it easy to recruit them to strap bombs on their bodies and blow up Israelis), all this is just part of the plan to bring peace, eh?

Q: Mr. President, turning to the biggest issue of all, Iraq. I wonder if you — various people and various candidates talk about pulling out next year. If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what’s the worst that could happen, what’s the doomsday scenario?

THE SHRUB: Doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.

The biggest issue we face is — it’s bigger than Iraq — it’s this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives. Iraq just happens to be a part of this global war. Iraq is the place where al Qaeda and other extremists have made their stand — and they will be defeated. They’ll be defeated through military action, but they’ll also be defeated as this young democracy takes hold. They can’t stand to live in a free society, that’s why they try to fight free societies.

The United States pulling out of Iraq or pulling out of the Middle East or not maintaining a forward presence would send all kinds of signals throughout the Middle East. And it would shake everybody’s nerves, and it would embolden the very same people that we’re trying to defeat.

What’s you just read is the dictator of the United States threatening the country with a terrorist attack if the next executive pulls our nation out of Iraq.  On whose watch was the 9/11/2001 attack carried out?  And who let it happen, even though they knew something was up?  The shrub and his flunkies, that’s who.

The boy thinks we are stupid, that we’ll believe his lies, and even if we don’t, it doesn’t matter because there’s no way he’s going to face punishment.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24588813

Volunteering on Frank Jackson’s campaign for mayor of Cleveland in 2005, I was not surprised to hear a very unpleasant and vulgar word beginning with the letter ‘n’ used two different times. Still irritated, to be sure, but not surprised. Cleveland is a prime example of a town where racism still flourishes. This is why Obama’s tossing of his former pastor under the proverbial bus did absolutely no good, and may have even hurt his campaign in the long run. Obama cannot separate himself from his African roots no matter how hard he tries, no matter how white and nonthreatening he tries to make himself to white people. Obama was never going to get the bigot vote. Yet he thought he could simply by making a few speeches.

It saddens, but doesn’t surprise me that some of his followers are shocked to see racism alive and well on the campaign trail. No, their candidate cannot work miracles, cannot simply talk his way past hatred or heal racial divides by dissing his own as angry old relics. But why are these folk shocked? The other night I was having a political argument with my friend and mentor about Jeremiah Wright. He thinks Wright is a racist because the preacher believes AIDS may have been an invention of the white man to use against Blacks. While I disagree, and don’t think that is the case (no one would be crazy enough to create a virus that destroys the human immune system and think it wouldn’t affect everyone instead of just one group), I can see — given our history of experimentation with contagions and upon humans — why Wright and others like him might not think it such a far-fetched theory. And that appears to be the only thing my friend thinks makes Wright a racist. Never mind that false preachers such as Hagee, Falwell, and Robertson have actually blamed America for things such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and other major disasters — all for imagined crimes of immorality.

The point is that just because Barack Obama waves his oratorical magic wand and declares an end to racism in politics doesn’t mean his snake oil pitch has worked, and no one should be expressing any surprise over this.

Assuming Barack Obama actually gets the nomination (we cannot rule out Clinton somehow nabbing it at the brokered convention), I think there are perhaps three politicians who could possibly add to his ticket going into the general election:

John Edwards – His populist talk and devotion to working class issues, combined with his skills as an attorney, make him an ideal vice presidential candidate.  He managed to sell himself as one in 2004, and although he didn’t get enough footing to remain in contention for the nomination this year he still has a base of supporters who could help bridge the divide between Obama’s followers and Clinton’s.  But this is unlikely, because Edwards is an economic populist, and corporate Democrat Obama blew it big time when he tried to finagle an endorsement only to end up angering Donna Edwards by attacking her husband’s health care plan.

Christopher Dodd – Dodd has the stones to go toe to toe with adversaries on the campaign trail, and he has shown leadership in the Senate by shaming Obama and Clinton into voting against one of the appropriations bills for the occupation of Iraq.  I see no reason why he couldn’t make a strong ally on the campaign trail.

Bill Richardson – Although I don’t think he’ll add much to an Obama ticket going into November, his executive experience is desperately needed in the White House.  He could be seen to help the senator make a case that he can bring in people who know the ins and outs of governing (as opposed to legislating).

Assuming Hillary Clinton manages somehow to get the nomination at convention, I see only two potential candidates who could possibly help her win in November:

Ted Strickland – Although he has only been governor of Ohio for roughly a year and a half, he has shown he can get things done.  He has also demonstrated an ability to get the GOP in the Buckeye State’s legislature to play ball on things like the budget.

John Edwards – This is a somewhat unlikely pick considering the former senator from North Carolina is an economic populist and Clinton is an economic conservative whose support of NAFTA is likely to continue should she win the White House.  But the two of them are closer on important issue such as health care than either of them are to Obama, and while Edwards did go after her on the campaign trail he didn’t make it personal like the Illinois senator has.

Regardless of which Prima Donna ultimately gets the Democratic nomination, the only way to add to the ticket is to pick a populist vice presidential candidate, or one with executive experience.

Thanks to Sarah Lane at EENR for supplying the links in this entry.

When the Supreme (Kangaroo) Court upheld an unconstitutional poll tax last week that was passed in the form of a voter suppression law in Indiana, some people (like Injustice Antonin Scalia) were quick to dismiss the horrendous effects. But as that state held its primary yesterday, reports about voters being turned away because they did not have the poll tax began coming out.

Twelve elderly nuns–NUNS, for crying out loud–were told they could not vote because they didn’t have the required state or federal ID card. They are all in their eighties and nineties. Vietnam and Gulf War I veteran Russell Baughman was denied his right to vote, because his identification wasn’t considered good enough.

People unable to obtain the draconian Indiana poll tax ID–nuns, veterans, the disabled, students, and poor folk–are being denied their right to vote. Denied because they cannot meet the requirements to obtain state-issued identification. Bradblog reports that in order to obtain the necessary items to get a state-issued identification card (a state-issued copy of one’s birth certificate), a state-issued identification card is needed. It’s a vicious and ultimately dangerous catch-22, making it impossible for the disenfranchised to meet the poll tax requirement. Bradblog also reports that at least 43,000 Indiana residents have been prevented from exercising their right to vote in this fashion.

This is what the Supremes upheld, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty states, including Ohio, have mandatory ID laws designed to suppress the votes of minorities, the elderly, students, veterans, and the poor (an economic situation that affects all the other categories of disenfranchised to one degree or another). Although the Buckeye State was able to counter this in part by allowing fewer restrictions on absentee voting, others–including Indiana–enjoy no such protections. This is what America has come to: another banana republic, another dictatorship, that suppresses the rights of its citizens and engages in sham elections.

I’ve been trying, in my humble way, to help jump-start a renewed Progressive Party presence.  But a question that is often asked of me is why not just join the Green Party.  I could go into a long and detailed explanation, but the short of it is that I don’t think they’re very organized and some of their campaigning methods rub me the wrong way.  (For the record, the reason I don’t say much about the Libertarian and Socialist Parties is because I don’t know enough about their organizational structure or their methods of campaigning to make an informed assessment.)

First, my distaste for the Green Party’s methods in campaigning.  As reported by CBS News, they accepted money and assistance in 2006 from then-senator Rick Santorum of the Republican Party in order to get on the ballot.  The state’s high court threw candidate Carl Romanelli off the ballot citing insufficient signatures, but the story exposed an even deeper rot within the Greens’ political machine in Pennsylvania: the willingness to be compromised just to try to stick it to the Democrats, whom Greens consider little or no better than the GOP.

There is, of course, a valid argument to be made in claiming there is difference between the two major political parties.  One need only look at the voting records of the two Prima Donna Democrats competing for their party’s nomination to run for president, and the complicit cowardice by most Congressional members in either chamber, to see the truth in this point of view.  But for the Greens to accept help from a GOPer so vile as to have had post-anal sex discharge named after him reveals both a lack of integrity and a sickening display of hypocrisy.  Such actions add otherwise undeserved legitimacy to charges by Democrats that greens are somehow bent on “stealing” votes they feel belong to their party.

Then there is the organization of their campaigns for national office.  Or, rather, the lack of organization.  As I have pointed out in my recent three-part series on Progressives, Liberals, Movements and Political Parties, trying to run presidential candidates before having secured enough state-level offices (especially state secretary, judicial, and legislative positions) waste resources that are better spent building up presences in the various states so as to achieve the ability to gain traction at the national level.  What good does it do to run candidates for president when the Green Party hasn’t even made headway winning state legislative and executive offices first?

That’s why I think it’s better to rally the Progressive Movement through its own namesake political party.  I’m not saying we can’t or shouldn’t work with Greens; since their platform so closely matches that of the overall Progressive Movement, they make natural political allies and might even be tempted to switch over.  But I think as long as some elements in the party are willing to help Republicans, and as long as the party leadership insists on trying to build the party in a more top-down manner, their effectiveness as a political party is severely limited.

The following debate between Adolph Reed, Jr. and Melissa Harris-Lacewell on Democracy Now! is linked to here.  For those of you with about 120 megabytes of room on your hard drives, and have the mpeg 4 codec, you can download it here.  Reed thinks Barack Obama is incapable of getting elected to the presidency, on the grounds that he is a phony who won’t be able to withstand the inevitable Republican Noise Machine (though he thinks Hillary Clinton won’t be able to, either, for the same reason).  Harris-Lacewell takes the opposing point of view.

The debate begins exactly twenty-one minutes into the program, so if you’re impatient to get to the discussion that’s the point at which you’ll want to start.  I think this is a fascinating debate, and I wish we could see its like on the mainstream news channels such as MSNBC and CNN.  I posted the transcript of the debate at my forum, if you’d like to read it.

I take Obama to task on a lot of issues, but it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t acknowledge that he does take some good positions in this campaign.  An example is illustrated in yesterday’s column by the New York Times’ Paul Krugman, which states:

The impression that Mr. McCain’s tax talk is all about pandering is reinforced by his proposal for a summer gas tax holiday — a measure that would, in fact, do little to help consumers, although it would boost oil industry profits.

Obama opposes this silly and, ultimately, fairly useless measure.  Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, agrees with McCain.

Last night MSNBC (including Keith Olbermann) was all over Jeremiah Wright for going on a book tour and — gasp! — daring to criticize Barack Obama.  Reading today’s hate-fueled rant on the web site, you’d think he had done something wrong.  Why?  Why shouldn’t the man who was publicly tossed overboard by his former parishioner return the favor?

Reading Kevin Alexander Gray’s assessment of the speech in which the Democratic candidate for president distanced himself from the man who presided over his marriage and baptized his children, I couldn’t help but conclude that Wright had been thrown under the proverbial speeding bus by Obama — who apparently decided long ago to adopt Bill Cosby’s out-of-touch, blame-the-victim rhetoric (an observation echoed by Adolph Reed, Jr., in the May issue of The Progressive).

“His political repertoire,” writes Reed, “has always included the repugnant stratagem of using connection with Black audiences in exactly the same way Bill Clinton did — i.e., getting props for both emoting with the Black crowd and talking through them to affirm a victim-blaming, ‘tough love’ message that focuses on alleged behavioral pathologies in poor Black communities.”  Reed blasts Obama for going “beyond Clinton and rehears[ing] the scurrilous and ridiculous sort of narrative Bill Cosby has made famous.”

Gray pointed out in his April 2, 2008 Progressive online column:

Until the controversy broke about his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama himself frequently played the race card — on black people.

Shortly before the Texas and Ohio primaries, Obama was speaking to a mostly black audience and said, “I know some of ya’ll, you got that cold Popeye’s out for breakfast. I know. That’s why ya’ll laughing. … You can’t do that. Children have to have proper nutrition.”

In South Carolina, he told the state Legislative Black Caucus that a good economic development plan in the black community would be “cleaning up the garbage.”

Now, if white politicians had said these things they would have been pummeled.

And even in his much-heralded speech, Obama went out of his way to criticize welfare, decry “the erosion of black families” and stress the need for black fathers to spend more time with their kids.

This Bill Cosby routine goes down well with white voters, but it further stigmatizes blacks.

Obama managed to weasel his way out of trouble a month ago by dissing his former pastor as a bitter relic of a bygone era.  So who can blame Jeremiah Wright when he goes on the talk circuit to defend himself and retaliate against his betrayer?  For truly, did Obama not merely use his former pastor’s church as a means of establishing ties to a community whose political backing he wanted to strengthen his career (writers at Black Agenda Report and The New Republic certainly seem to think so)?

The point here is not to criticize Barack Obama so much as it is to defend Jeremiah Wright as he gives back what he received.  The danger of dismissing him as an angry, bitter old man whose message is equally ignorable lies in continuing the cycle of racism in this country, and the suppression of very real issues pertaining to U.S. foreign and domestic policy.

The fact is that not only was Wright betrayed, so too was the whole of the Black community, and the legitimate criticisms of imperialist policy that have wrought suffering and devastation upon others.  We may disagree with the reverend’s delivery, but we cannot deny that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were a direct consequence of our country’s meddling in Middle Eastern affairs that resulted in mass death and political oppression in the region.  Nor can we deny that our nation was built on the backs of African slaves, and the genocide of the aboriginal peoples of this continent.  The indignation over Jeremiah Wright’s fiery rhetoric clouds the truths contained in his diatribes.

So let’s cut the man some slack.  He may not be the sort of person we’d prefer to point out these truths, his method of delivery far too blunt for our comfort.  But sometimes we need that in order to face up to unpleasant facts about ourselves and our nation’s history.  We should consider that Mr. Wright may be justified in going public with his side of the story, with his criticisms.

If that happens to hurt Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, whose fault is that?

Thanks to Linda Milazzo at Smirking Chimp for posting these.

That is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, effectively admitting on Larry King’s program that she is chummy with a mass murderer and dictator.  That is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, dissing the mother of a soldier killed in her friend’s war of choice, because she has “a day job.”

And what job is that, exactly?  Aiding and abetting tyrants — war criminals — as they continue to torture, wage illegal war, spy on us, and collapse our economy.  And that’s not even half of the list of crimes committed by the shrub-gargoyle regime.

http://www.shirley08.com/index.php

Shirley Golub is a Democrat challenging Pelosi for the California-8th District primary in June.  She has the guts to say what no other member of the Democratic Party will: that the Speaker of the House is a craven coward.  I think Pelosi is beyond cowardice; she is complicit — an embodiment of evil, the very kind now doing so much damage to our country and our world.

http://www.cindyforcongress.org

Cindy Sheehan was the face of the anti-war movement in America as it helped propel the Democratic Party back into political power for the first time in over a decade.  And when she reaized that the Democrats had simply used us to obtain power, that they had no intention of changing the status quo, she was compelled to act in the only way she could: campaign to unseat Pelosi.

I am urging each and every member of this web site to donate to these two Ladies, to help them defeat Pelosi and send her sniveling back to the dog house she shares with Barney the Scottish Terrier.  No one who professes friendship with the dictator who has wrought so much pain and suffering should be allowed to hold power.  No one who so callously and arrogantly dismisses the mother of a slain soldier should be allowed to walk the halls of Congress.  No one who so criminally undermines the duties placed upon her by the Constitution of the United States should be allowed to show her face in D.C.

Ms. Golub and Ms. Sheehan are the best chance we have of removing the biggest obstacle to impeachment, and the most prominent enabler of the occupation and the regime that is dismantling our democracy.  Let’s help them topple Pelosi.