Unity

Between Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr, and Ralph Nader, two out of three of these people need to agree to withdraw from the Presidential race no later than Sept. 1.

The key is that we need one unified opposition candidate. We work in a winner-take-all system. To try to run three separate campaigns and to split our time, our money and our resources between them is political suicide. It is letting pride get in the way of our chances at success.

We don't need symbolic campaigns. We need a serious effort to change the country. If we run symbolic campaigns, we are essentially abandoning our country to the less than gentile ministrations of the two parties who represent rule by the corporations, of the corporations, and for the corporations. This is destroying America for the rest of us, and we need a serious effort to end it. Not symbolic campaigns. If we run three separate campaigns, then we confirm the charges of the Democrats that we aren't serious and can't win.

OK, its not hard to see how Mr. Nader and Ms. McKinney could combine campaigns. Their positions are relatively close to each other. But sure its impossible for the Greens and the Libertarians to unite, isn't it?

Here's how its done. The groups all agree to agree on what they agree on. What is the result of that Yogi Berra-ish sentence? What do they agree on? They agree on ending the war. They agree on bringing our troops home? They believe further in a general change in foreign policy of being less militaristic and imperialistic. They agree that our current government is corrupt and in the hands of special interests. They agree on ending secret detentions and domestic spying and torture. They agree we need to break the two-party monopoly and reform our system of elections to make them free, fair, honest and transparent.

When we win, that's a rather large action list for a two-year period before the next Congressional elections in 2010. So, that's plenty to agree on. Thus, even though the Greens and Libertarians might disagree on economics and health care and so many other things, it doesn't matter. The only thing the parties need to do is to agree that when they win they won't act unilaterally in these areas over the objections of their coalition partners.

The benefit is that we now get to run one and only opposition campaign for President. Now our votes are unified behind one candidate, while the pro-corporate votes are split. Remember, its a winner-take-all election, and this gives us our best chance of winning. And we have to win to break the locks on the system. We know neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are going to break their two-party lock on the system. We know neither will create elections that aren't decided by money. We know neither will introduce reforms like proportional representation and instant run-off voting.

Unless we can win, all of these blocks to democracy will remain. And we'll constantly be locked-out underdogs fighting from outside to try to change the system. And the only way we can win that fight is to win a winner-take-all election, then take power and introduce the real changes we need to occur.

Furthermore, this needs to happen not only at the Presidential level, but also at elections all the way down the line. We need to have single unity opposition candidates in every House and Senate race. And beyond that we need to be competing to take back our country at the state and local levels of government.

So, let the candidates campaign for awhile to determine who is the strongest candidate. But at some point, and I'd say not later than Labor Day, they need to settle that and unite behind whomever is the strongest candidate. This is the only way to really change this country. Anything less is failing the need to act effectively and rationally to return our country to be a land of the free governed by the people, of the people and for the people.

When we've taken back our country, and we've reformed our political system such that its a true democracy that represents the will of the people, then I'd be happy to see the Libertarians and the Greens and any others debate their ideas for the best policies of the nation. But for today, that's a hopeless act of pride and we need to unify to win and make the changes we know this land requires.

Why do Democrats hate freedom?

Why did the Democrats just vote to help legalize President Bush's lawbreaking, and also to further strip away the rights and liberties of Americans? A website called maplight.org may be shedding some light on the question.

Telecom donations tied to FISA vote

" Maplight's analysis, crunched using contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics, found that the 293 House members voting last week in favor of the wiretapping compromise received, on average, more than double the amount of money as those who voted against it."

And, when I went to excellent website that Maplight.org has started, I dug a bit and created the table illustrated above. Now, one striking thing is the dates of the data in the table. They go back to 2001. But, when you look at the top three on the list, while Sen. McCain and Clinton had been in the US Senate that whole time, Sen. Obama has only been on the national stage for about half of that period. Yet, there he is very high up the list.

This vote was highly damaging in several ways. For one, it was the last step in essentially legalizing President Bush's illegal spying on Americans. Remember, President Bush initially stood up before the nation and announced both that he had already been breaking the law on a regular basis, but that he would continue to do so. In a nation of laws, that should have sparked immediate impeachment hearings. Instead, the Congress with full 'bipartisan' support has passed laws legalizing the unconstitutional spying on Americans. And now this bill goes further and gives immunity to the companies that knowingly collaborated in these illegal acts.

Furthermore, it blocks any attempt to find out the scope of the program or other information. The lawsuits that were progressing on this issue were the only real avenue of getting to that information given the inaction of the Democratic led Congress. This bill shuts those down.

Further, it establishes a very dangerous precedent in that the President can bypass everything you thought you knew about how a law was made in this country and just make up his own laws at any time. You know at some point in the future that advisors to a President are going to be discussing some future illegal act by a President and that this issue will come up in the discussion as an argument for the President to act illegally.

And, while the public debate has been over telecom immunity, this bill also contains a very dangerous expansion of the government's ability to spy on Americans.

Sen. Feingold will attempt to filibuster FISA bill

Even worse are the provisions of the bill that will make it very easy for the government to essentially suck up the communications, all communications of Americans that go overseas, whether it's an email or a text message or a phone call to a daughter, junior year abroad, or a child who's in Iraq or a reporter or a business associate. This is one of the greatest intrusions, potentially, on the rights of Americans protected under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution in the history of our country.

And gee, there's Sen. Obama with $200,000 plus in his campaign accounts from the industry he just said he supports giving immunity. Of course, like any politician he'll say that's not why he voted.

But, try going to visit Sen. Obama's office to discuss this issue with him? Give it a try. See how far you get. If you are really lucky and persistent, you might get a brief interview with staff who will listen to your pitch and then cite back the party line on why Sen. Obama just gave away the rights your forefathers died to obtain for you.

Wanna bet the executives of those telecom companies that have funneled so much money into Sen. Obama's coffers wouldn't have any trouble at all speaking to the Senator about this issue? Wanna bet their phone calls got returned by the Senator? Even if it is not as nefarious as buying votes, it is certainly buying access. Access that you as a citizen who is concerned about a government that is taking away your rights would never had is certainly granted to the big companies that funnel money to these politicians.

And, with Sen. Obama now foregoing public financing, what do you think the odds were that he was going to turn and bite the hand of an industry that's funded him so well and that he is surely counting on for more donations into the fall campaign?

Tales from the workplace

Zogby Poll:...Finds One in Four Working Americans Describe their Employer as a "Dictatorship"

"One out of every four working Americans (25%) describes their workplace as a dictatorship, while just 34% of bosses in the American workplace react well to valid criticism, according to a new Workplace Democracy Association/Zogby Interactive survey."

Overconfident CEOs

"they find that CEOs appear to overly attribute their role in successful deals, leading to more deals even though these subsequent deals are value destructive.

They also find evidence that CEOs alter their stock holdings prior to deals in a pattern consistent with overconfidence in the outcome of these subsequent deals. "

Thanks to Progressive Review where I found these.

Celebrate George Carlin!

go to a search engine and type 'george carlin video'. Or go to video site and just search on 'george carlin'. Sit back and enjoy the results!

Or, here's a list of what I've found ....

George Carlin on white people
George Carlin on death -RIP
George Carlin on death - again
George Carlin -Wonderful Wino
George Carlin - 7 dirty words
George Carlin on Religion-1
George Carlin - pro-life is anti-woman
George Carlin - Sanctity of Life
George Carlin - Seven Words
George Carlin - Please Wake Up America
George Carlin - Education and the owners of America
George Carlin comments on 9/11 truth and NWO
George Carlin - voting
George Carlin- Religion is bullshit
George Carlin defrags the 10 Commandments
George Carlin on soft language
George Carlin on Airport Security
George Carlin on the American Dream
George Carlin on American bullshit
George Carlin - We like war
George Carlin - Bicycles
George Carlin - Flamethrowers
George Carlin - the Hippy Dippy Weatherman

Gonna miss having George around!

Obama keeps turning right

The hits just keep on coming. Now its NAFTA. I was watching Democracy Now! this morning, and the guest Joseph Nevins, mentioned that Obama had recently given a speech where he'd changed his stance on NAFTA since the primaries.

Gee, what a shock.

A quick search found a link to CNN article about the speech.

Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.

Can I say "I told you so?" For someone like me who always felt like Obama looked like a con and didn't believe him, this isn't exactly a great shock. And especially in this case, since one of his advisors had let it slip months before that Obama was lying about NAFTA. Remember this ...

Goolsbee "candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign" but reassured Rioux that Obama's NAFTA-bashing "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans." Three weeks later, Canada's CTV News reported that a "senior member" of Obama's campaign had phoned Wilson personally to advise him to "not be worried about what Obama says about NAFTA."

At the time, the Obama campaign denied this story. But gee, guess what turned out to be the truth?

At this point, huge alarm bells should be going off about Obama. During the Democratic primaries, Mr. Obama tried to position himself as the Great Progressive Hope. The problem is, apparently it was all a lie. Now Obama is apparently giving a series of speeches where he is disavowing everything he said in the primaries. We've seen it in foreign policy. Now we find out that all that talk sympathetic to workers who've lost their jobs was just 'overheated rhetoric' in the campaign.

Now all we get from Sen. Obama is the old Clintonesque bull about 'labor' and 'environmental' standards. The only update to this old red herring is adding the word 'enforceable'. Of course, politically you have to realize he's added that new word to try to get around the fact that most people have figured out this was just window dressing in the Clinton era to try to get people to accept a very pro-corporate trade deal that was going to cost Americans jobs and drive down our standard of living. The trick is to realize that the Clinton era Democrats of course never said that the labor and enviromental standards they were touting were in fact 'unenforceable'. Expect more of the same from the Obama Democrats. The trade deals will continue to enhance his big contributors, and a few years later everyone will know that his 'enforceable' standards didn't mean squat.

Shouldn't Democrats and people on the left be very concerned by now that the Obama that was presented in the primaries was essentially a fraud? Don't these quotes above from Obama clearly say that the man was simply willing to say anything and take any position in order to win the nomination? Why is it I can almost hear him making an under-the-breath comment of "gee, you really believed that?"

Here's the core of the problem. We know what the Democratic Party represents. We've seen the Clinton presidential era, we've seen their lack of opposition to the Republicans when in the minority, and we've seen the actions the Democratic majority in Congress is taking. Almost as I type they are fully funding the war (again), and massively expanding the government's powers to spy on Americans without a warrant. And just along the way they are making sure the telecoms that have been funneling them money all this year can't be sued for breaking the law and spying on us when the spying was illegal.

We can see the ACTIONS the Democrats take. We see them support the bankruptcy bill that the banking and credit card industries wanted knowing this economic downturn was coming. We see them supporting a bill big pharma wanted that protected big pharma profits by blocking Americans from shopping for meds overseas. We constantly see from their ACTIONS that the Democrats support an aggressive militaristic empire abroad that spies on its citizens in the name of security and that they follow trade and economic policies that benefit their big contributors at a big cost to the rest of us.

Sen. Obama in the primaries tried to pretend that he opposed this. Sen. Obama in the primaries tried to differentiate himself from Sen. Clinton (who is directly connectd to these same policies) and pretend he was an alternative.

But, clearly he is not. What we are now hearing on a regular basis from Sen. Obama is "Ha, Ha, I fooled you!".

Its way too late for the Democrats to correct their mistake. The only people who can change their votes are super-delegates, and not only are they the same Democratic party hacks who support these psuedo-republican policies, but the only alternative is probably DLC founder Hillary Clinton who's been the poster child for these policies for two decades now. And the real clincher is that the Democrats won't think its been a mistake. Listen closely and you'll certainly hear the Democrats tell you that its perfectly normal to lie to the party members to get a nomination then radically change all your policies to something different. That alone should tell everyone to get far, far away from the Democrats.

Nope, its clear the Democrats are not the answer. Its clear that this is the time for everyone on the left to move to campaigns and parties that really represent our interests. Supporting politicians that disrespect us by lying to our faces to get our votes in not the answer. There are candidates on the ballot this year that have shown a committment throughout their public lives to representing our interests and fighting corporate interests. I speak of both Rep. McKinney and Mr. Nader (links in column on right).

If you vote for Obama, you are voting for a candidate that is going to continue the policies of Clinton, Reid and Pelosi. The fine print always said this, even though the candidate and his campaign said otherwise. And now we know that Obama will directly lie to you to get you to put him in office. What he wants is power. And what he's just shown is that he lacks the morals and character that would keep him from saying anything to get it.

There are clearly better choices on the ballot this Nov.