Democracy Now! has video on today's show of the police attacking their journalists trying to cover the police riot at the RNC peace march.
Nicole Salazar being arrested for filming police at RNC.
Amy Goodman's arrest for daring to asking what's happening to her reporters.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Transcript of Obama's speech
I can tell I'll be writing a bit about Obama's acceptance speech. So, to be fair, here's a link to the transcript.
Obama's acceptance speech to the 2008 Democratic Convention
And since there are so many attempts to try to tie Obama to FDR, here is also a link to FDR's famous speech in 1932. If you read both, the contrast is striking. FDR used his speech to lay out the specifics of the New Deal to Americans. In doing so, he created a mandate for what he wanted to do once he took office.
FDR's acceptance speech to the 1932 Democratic convention
Obama's acceptance speech to the 2008 Democratic Convention
And since there are so many attempts to try to tie Obama to FDR, here is also a link to FDR's famous speech in 1932. If you read both, the contrast is striking. FDR used his speech to lay out the specifics of the New Deal to Americans. In doing so, he created a mandate for what he wanted to do once he took office.
FDR's acceptance speech to the 1932 Democratic convention
Thursday, August 28, 2008
A political strategy for dealing with the Democratic Party.
Today, the left appears powerless. The Democratic Party has moved to the right side of center-right. And in doing so it treats the votes of the left as something it can take for granted. And it treats the left with outright contempt, referring to them as 'idiot liberals' when they don't realize there's a camera pointed at them.
But the situation is not hopeless. In fact, the political position of the left is actually quite strong.
The balance between Democrats and Republicans in the country is quite close. The last two Presidential elections have hinged on the results of just one state (Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004). This means changing the outcome of just one state, and not only the one that finally decided the race, can change the outcome of the entire election. Changing the outcome of just a few Senate race, or a handful of House races can change which party holds the majority in those bodies.
What this means is that the Democrats can not afford to lose anywhere. Each party is struggling to hold on to what its got, and then win just a little more than last time from the other. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any margin of error. And this is what gives the left power.
What the left needs to do is to attack the Democrats precisely where it hurts. Pick the races that are going to be close, and then throw concentrated efforts into third party races in those districts. And make it personal. When running against a Democratic incumbent, make it absolutely crystal clear that this campaign is being mounted precisely to defeat them for the actions they've taken while in office. Make it clear that this Democrat is going down because he supported the war, or because he supported telecom immunity.
The goal is to show political strength. That is the problem the left has today. It has shown no political strength at all in decades. Since the 1970's, it has mostly just meekly supported whatever candidate the Democrats had in the race. The Nader campaign of 2000 is the one exception to this on the national stage. And the reverberations of that can still be felt.
The Democrats will never take the left seriously until they know we can hurt them. That has to be the goal. The inflicting of pain on the Democratic party. Make it expressly clear that they've lost the say the Presidency precisely because the left was so mad with them because they wouldn't end the war. Make it completely clear that they've lost the majority in the Senate because they wouldn't oppose or prosecute the Bush administration crimes. Make it precisely clear to the Democrats that they've lost this election because they lost the support of the left.
The first reaction of most people to this would be, 'oh my gawd, that means the Republicans will be elected!' And, yes it does. But stop and think a bit more about that. First there's the very real question of just how much better the Democrats are than the Republicans. But even conceding that the Republicans can at times be worse than the Democrats, lets continue to think this through.
What's going to happen fairly early on in the next election cycle? The Democrats are going to come to the left and try to get the left not to do that to them again. Aha! Now that the left has shown that it can exercise some political power, it gets treated like a player in the game. Now the left is sitting at the table negotiating with the Democrats. And both sides of the table know that the left can defeat the Democratic dreams of power in the next election if it chooses to. So, what do you want to ask for? Because now by defeating those Democrats in the last election, you now get to ask for almost anything. And the Democrats will want to give it to you.
I know what I'd ask for. I'd try to get political reforms to open up the system. All the stuff the 3rd parties have talked of for ages. Instant run-off voting, campaign reform, election systems reform. Long term, that gets more for the left in terms of getting into a chance to really hold political power than a 'win' on any one issue. But, with lives at stake, I'd say getting an end to our wars from such a negotiation wouldn't be a bad thing either.
From where we sit today, its hard to picture the Democrats giving any of that to the left. But remember, after defeating their dreams of power in one election, they are going to know we can do it again in the next. We will literally hold their chance at political power in our hands. We can ask for anything we want, and suddenly the Democrats will be trying to find a way to give it to us.
So, while it may seem counter-intuitive, the real path towards change in this country lies with defeating the Democrats. It does not lie in helping the Democrats win, that only leads to more of today's status quo. The key to obtaining real change in this country lies in doing everything we can to defeat the Democrats.
And besides, we'd get to have some fun doing it. We'd get to support candidates who really do believe in our views. We'd get to run campaigns that really matter, and that are right in the thick of the action. And we'd get to retire from politics a few Democrats who really need retiring. Another benefit from this, we get to hone our own campaign skills by working with tough campaigns in tough races. Not only would that be fun. And not only would it be fun to get to dance on the Democrats graves for a change, but that's yet another way in which the left would come out of such a strategy stronger politically.
But the situation is not hopeless. In fact, the political position of the left is actually quite strong.
The balance between Democrats and Republicans in the country is quite close. The last two Presidential elections have hinged on the results of just one state (Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004). This means changing the outcome of just one state, and not only the one that finally decided the race, can change the outcome of the entire election. Changing the outcome of just a few Senate race, or a handful of House races can change which party holds the majority in those bodies.
What this means is that the Democrats can not afford to lose anywhere. Each party is struggling to hold on to what its got, and then win just a little more than last time from the other. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any margin of error. And this is what gives the left power.
What the left needs to do is to attack the Democrats precisely where it hurts. Pick the races that are going to be close, and then throw concentrated efforts into third party races in those districts. And make it personal. When running against a Democratic incumbent, make it absolutely crystal clear that this campaign is being mounted precisely to defeat them for the actions they've taken while in office. Make it clear that this Democrat is going down because he supported the war, or because he supported telecom immunity.
The goal is to show political strength. That is the problem the left has today. It has shown no political strength at all in decades. Since the 1970's, it has mostly just meekly supported whatever candidate the Democrats had in the race. The Nader campaign of 2000 is the one exception to this on the national stage. And the reverberations of that can still be felt.
The Democrats will never take the left seriously until they know we can hurt them. That has to be the goal. The inflicting of pain on the Democratic party. Make it expressly clear that they've lost the say the Presidency precisely because the left was so mad with them because they wouldn't end the war. Make it completely clear that they've lost the majority in the Senate because they wouldn't oppose or prosecute the Bush administration crimes. Make it precisely clear to the Democrats that they've lost this election because they lost the support of the left.
The first reaction of most people to this would be, 'oh my gawd, that means the Republicans will be elected!' And, yes it does. But stop and think a bit more about that. First there's the very real question of just how much better the Democrats are than the Republicans. But even conceding that the Republicans can at times be worse than the Democrats, lets continue to think this through.
What's going to happen fairly early on in the next election cycle? The Democrats are going to come to the left and try to get the left not to do that to them again. Aha! Now that the left has shown that it can exercise some political power, it gets treated like a player in the game. Now the left is sitting at the table negotiating with the Democrats. And both sides of the table know that the left can defeat the Democratic dreams of power in the next election if it chooses to. So, what do you want to ask for? Because now by defeating those Democrats in the last election, you now get to ask for almost anything. And the Democrats will want to give it to you.
I know what I'd ask for. I'd try to get political reforms to open up the system. All the stuff the 3rd parties have talked of for ages. Instant run-off voting, campaign reform, election systems reform. Long term, that gets more for the left in terms of getting into a chance to really hold political power than a 'win' on any one issue. But, with lives at stake, I'd say getting an end to our wars from such a negotiation wouldn't be a bad thing either.
From where we sit today, its hard to picture the Democrats giving any of that to the left. But remember, after defeating their dreams of power in one election, they are going to know we can do it again in the next. We will literally hold their chance at political power in our hands. We can ask for anything we want, and suddenly the Democrats will be trying to find a way to give it to us.
So, while it may seem counter-intuitive, the real path towards change in this country lies with defeating the Democrats. It does not lie in helping the Democrats win, that only leads to more of today's status quo. The key to obtaining real change in this country lies in doing everything we can to defeat the Democrats.
And besides, we'd get to have some fun doing it. We'd get to support candidates who really do believe in our views. We'd get to run campaigns that really matter, and that are right in the thick of the action. And we'd get to retire from politics a few Democrats who really need retiring. Another benefit from this, we get to hone our own campaign skills by working with tough campaigns in tough races. Not only would that be fun. And not only would it be fun to get to dance on the Democrats graves for a change, but that's yet another way in which the left would come out of such a strategy stronger politically.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Democrats against democracy
Well, the one thing that is clear this week in Denver is that we no longer live in a democracy.
How could it possibly be a democracy, when the people are forbidden to talk with their political representatives? And that is clearly the message delivered by the surveillance cameras and the helicopters and the amazing numbers of police in riot gear. Our representatives have no interest in what we say, and they want us pushed as far away from them as possible. Our representatives don't want their lives interrupted by even a faint squeak of protest, thus the riot police have orders to keep any protesters out of sight.
And, as I occasionally watch bits and pieces of this farce of a political convention, that is also the clear message. What is the role of a delegate at a modern political convention? Apparently the role of a delegate is to wear funny hats. Apparently the role of a delegate is to dance in the aisles. Apparently the role of a delegate is to attend expensive parties from which the public is banned. Apparently the role of a delegate is to provide a backdrop to a giant photo opportunity. Or just to be the live studio audience for the television infomercial.
One of the problems is that I am old enough to remember when it was different. To remember when a political convention was the gathering of a party. To remember when delegates at times had more important duties than the wearing of funny hats. I am old enough to remember when a party used to gather and debate its platform, and the planks that made it up. To remember when it was the members of the party, gathered together once every four years in a convention, that decided such questions for the party.
At this convention, there is no room left for quaint notions of democracy. The candidate has of course long been decided before the convention. Even the quaint notion of letting the convention have a say in who is the vice presidential candidate has long been discarded as well. Note very carefully the way the vice president is decided before the convention even begins. Note carefully that the vote of the delegates is now just such a formality that the results can be announced a week in advance. I suppose there might still be the farce of a vote. Where each delegation chair will make some cute little line about their state before the formality of rubber stamping the decision of the party leaders. But this has become meaningless ritual. The real notion of democracy that used to underlie it is dead and gone.
That is very representative of today's farce of democracy. Decisions are made at the highest levels. At best the people might occasionally be asked to rubber stamp that decision. Another meaningless ritual that has lost all its real meaning.
Think for a moment about the farce we've seen in meaningless ritual of the primaries. At the surface, it at least looks like democracy. Voters going to computers to indicate their choice for the next candidate. But what choice were voters really given? Because, by now its surely obvious that at least one of the candidates was lying during the campaigns.
Stop and think a minute about what we've seen. The primaries began with one clear Democratic front runner. Hillary Clinton was running for a third term of the Clinton administration. The problem of course was that way too many members of the Democratic Party knew exactly what this meant. In the corporate media, the corruption of the first two Clinton terms is now described as Bill Clinton's famous problems in keeping the zipper of his pants closed. But that was never the true corruption of the Clinton years. The true corruption of the Clinton years was the way the Clinton's sold the services of the Presidency to the highest bidder. There was little that was out of bounds. They happily sold off America's economic strength. The trade agreements of the Clinton years were the death knell to the notion that America would build anything real and of value. Our manufacturing capability was sold off for a short term bump in the corporate balance sheet. Today's economic problems all trace back to that. We are a nation of debtors who don't produce anything of real value any more. All of our trade deficits, the falling dollar, the bubbles in the speculative markets, they all stem from this basic problem.
The Clintons were willing to sell anything. Our manufacturing base, our democracy, our freedoms. It was the 1996 Clinton\Gore campaign that tore the giant loopholes in the post-Watergate political reforms that tried to limit the role of money in an election. It was the 1996 Clinton\Gore campaigns that opened the door to the hundreds of millions of dollars that have flowed into first the Bush campaigns and now the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign has raised over $400 million dollars so far. And despite the mythology spread by the campaign, this hasn't come in $20 bills from concerned college students. Instead, that is corporate money that is flowing in through the giant loopholes that the Clinton's ripped in our campaign finance laws.
This was the problem the Democratic front runner had at the start of the primaries. Way too many members of the Democratic party knew exactly what another Clinton Administration would mean. They knew it would be what the rest of the world would call either a center-right or a pure right-wing government. That beyond a couple of litmus test issues like abortion, that a third Clinton term would mean yet another government of the money, by the money and for the money. A big portion of the Democratic party wanted something different.
Thus evolved the farce of the primaries where it appeared that the party would indeed be able to choose something different. A slick new candidate was presented, one who spoke of hope and change. Sure, he was awfully vague on what that meant. But he looked good and he looked different. He used the words 'hope' and 'change' so often that they became associated with his name. The candidate made noises that if elected he would indeed make changes to America's foreign policy and to its economic policy. He said he'd be willing to talk with our enemies, instead of just bombing them. He said he'd be willing to renegotiate the trade deals that have so crippled our economy and sent so many of our good paying jobs overseas.
So, the members of the Democratic party, in primary after primary across the nation, made the choice to go with this new candidate. They rejected the corporatism of the Clintons and instead decided to send their party and their nation in a different direction.
The only problem was, it was all a giant fraud. As soon as Barack Obama had the nomination in hand, he immediately started telling everyone that his entire primary campaign had been a giant lie. Suddenly the idea of changing our foreign policy was off the table. He would only talk to our enemies if his preconditions were met. Or do deliver ultimatums that precede the usual bombings. He pledged to ally his foreign policy with the same right-wing goals of the Cuban terrorists in Florida. And to make certain that America's interests were secondary to that of Israel.
The candidate's pledge to renegotiate trade deals like NAFTA were then dismissed as the overheated rhetoric of the campaign. And most telling, the same old crew of advisers and party hacks that had characterized the Clinton years suddenly coalesced around the new candidate. While the members of the Democratic party had voted for change, suddenly it was revealed that no change was possible. It was revealed that an Obama administration would look amazingly like what a Hillary Clinton administration would have looked like.
This is today's Democratic Party. Its primaries are a fraud, and its political convention is a farce. Today's Democratic party treats its members as people to be lied to and manipulated. Today's Democratic Party relegates its delegates to the role of dancing in the aisles wearing funny hats while the next speaker for the TV infomercial gets ready in the back room.
And if no democracy is allowed inside the party, there is certainly none allowed outside. What is perfectly clear today is that there is one thing that the Democrats are willing to fight, and that is democracy. A Democratic Party that constantly shocks its members by its unwillingness to fight its Republican opposition shows that it has no problems at all fighting the people of this country who still want democracy. A party that seems spineless instead morphs into a vicious attack dog should words like 'Nader' or 'Green Party' be mentioned in their presence. A Democratic Party that is unwilling to use the political or legal process to fight to defend its own votes in rigged elections suddenly is willing to go to great lengths to fight say the petition signatures that might put an independent or Green party candidate on the ballot. A Democratic Party that is too cowardly to fight the Republicans unleashes the riot police on any citizens who might dare to try to march in the streets in protest.
Yes, there is one thing that is certainly clear here in Denver this week. The one thing the Democratic Party certainly hates is democracy. From its lying candidates in its rigged primary campaigns, to its delegating the delegates to the role of mere extras, to the attacks on any who dare protest, the message of the Democratic Party in this area is quite clear. Democracy is not allowed.
All decisions are to be made at the highest levels. And they are to be made by politicians who refuse to even to talk to the people any more. If the people of this country say they want these wars to end, the leaders of the Democratic Party instead promise to expand the wars. If the people of this country say they want national health insurance like every other civilized western country, the leaders of the Democratic party respond with proposals to make it a crime not to buy corporate health insurance. If the people of this country say they want the laws upheld and political criminals prosecuted, the leaders of the Democratic Party respond by taking impeachment off the table and by promising not to prosecute the criminals of the current regime after they leave office.
Yes, the one thing that is most certainly clear this week in Denver is that the Democratic Party opposes the very idea of democracy. From the fact that its primaries were a fraud because of the dishonesty of its candidates, to its turning its convention from a democratic event to a corporate sponsored infomercial to its sending the riot police out to deal with any dissent, its all too clear we are on our own.
If you still believe in America. If you still believe in democracy. If you still believe in a free country, where our freedoms are protected by the rule of law and a series of checks and balances between branches of the government. If you still believe in the Bill of Rights, and its guarantees that we would be free of a government spying on its citizens and its guarantees of a chance of political expression, then its all too clear that today's Democratic Party is a part of the problem. Its all too clear that this Democratic Party has sold its soul to AT&T and its other corporate sponsors. If you want democracy in America, its all too clear that the Democratic Party is not the answer. In fact, the clear message from the riot police being ordered into the streets by the local Democratic mayor is that the Democratic Party is the enemy of democracy.
And the real puzzle of the week is why the American people seem willing to accept this?
How could it possibly be a democracy, when the people are forbidden to talk with their political representatives? And that is clearly the message delivered by the surveillance cameras and the helicopters and the amazing numbers of police in riot gear. Our representatives have no interest in what we say, and they want us pushed as far away from them as possible. Our representatives don't want their lives interrupted by even a faint squeak of protest, thus the riot police have orders to keep any protesters out of sight.
And, as I occasionally watch bits and pieces of this farce of a political convention, that is also the clear message. What is the role of a delegate at a modern political convention? Apparently the role of a delegate is to wear funny hats. Apparently the role of a delegate is to dance in the aisles. Apparently the role of a delegate is to attend expensive parties from which the public is banned. Apparently the role of a delegate is to provide a backdrop to a giant photo opportunity. Or just to be the live studio audience for the television infomercial.
One of the problems is that I am old enough to remember when it was different. To remember when a political convention was the gathering of a party. To remember when delegates at times had more important duties than the wearing of funny hats. I am old enough to remember when a party used to gather and debate its platform, and the planks that made it up. To remember when it was the members of the party, gathered together once every four years in a convention, that decided such questions for the party.
At this convention, there is no room left for quaint notions of democracy. The candidate has of course long been decided before the convention. Even the quaint notion of letting the convention have a say in who is the vice presidential candidate has long been discarded as well. Note very carefully the way the vice president is decided before the convention even begins. Note carefully that the vote of the delegates is now just such a formality that the results can be announced a week in advance. I suppose there might still be the farce of a vote. Where each delegation chair will make some cute little line about their state before the formality of rubber stamping the decision of the party leaders. But this has become meaningless ritual. The real notion of democracy that used to underlie it is dead and gone.
That is very representative of today's farce of democracy. Decisions are made at the highest levels. At best the people might occasionally be asked to rubber stamp that decision. Another meaningless ritual that has lost all its real meaning.
Think for a moment about the farce we've seen in meaningless ritual of the primaries. At the surface, it at least looks like democracy. Voters going to computers to indicate their choice for the next candidate. But what choice were voters really given? Because, by now its surely obvious that at least one of the candidates was lying during the campaigns.
Stop and think a minute about what we've seen. The primaries began with one clear Democratic front runner. Hillary Clinton was running for a third term of the Clinton administration. The problem of course was that way too many members of the Democratic Party knew exactly what this meant. In the corporate media, the corruption of the first two Clinton terms is now described as Bill Clinton's famous problems in keeping the zipper of his pants closed. But that was never the true corruption of the Clinton years. The true corruption of the Clinton years was the way the Clinton's sold the services of the Presidency to the highest bidder. There was little that was out of bounds. They happily sold off America's economic strength. The trade agreements of the Clinton years were the death knell to the notion that America would build anything real and of value. Our manufacturing capability was sold off for a short term bump in the corporate balance sheet. Today's economic problems all trace back to that. We are a nation of debtors who don't produce anything of real value any more. All of our trade deficits, the falling dollar, the bubbles in the speculative markets, they all stem from this basic problem.
The Clintons were willing to sell anything. Our manufacturing base, our democracy, our freedoms. It was the 1996 Clinton\Gore campaign that tore the giant loopholes in the post-Watergate political reforms that tried to limit the role of money in an election. It was the 1996 Clinton\Gore campaigns that opened the door to the hundreds of millions of dollars that have flowed into first the Bush campaigns and now the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign has raised over $400 million dollars so far. And despite the mythology spread by the campaign, this hasn't come in $20 bills from concerned college students. Instead, that is corporate money that is flowing in through the giant loopholes that the Clinton's ripped in our campaign finance laws.
This was the problem the Democratic front runner had at the start of the primaries. Way too many members of the Democratic party knew exactly what another Clinton Administration would mean. They knew it would be what the rest of the world would call either a center-right or a pure right-wing government. That beyond a couple of litmus test issues like abortion, that a third Clinton term would mean yet another government of the money, by the money and for the money. A big portion of the Democratic party wanted something different.
Thus evolved the farce of the primaries where it appeared that the party would indeed be able to choose something different. A slick new candidate was presented, one who spoke of hope and change. Sure, he was awfully vague on what that meant. But he looked good and he looked different. He used the words 'hope' and 'change' so often that they became associated with his name. The candidate made noises that if elected he would indeed make changes to America's foreign policy and to its economic policy. He said he'd be willing to talk with our enemies, instead of just bombing them. He said he'd be willing to renegotiate the trade deals that have so crippled our economy and sent so many of our good paying jobs overseas.
So, the members of the Democratic party, in primary after primary across the nation, made the choice to go with this new candidate. They rejected the corporatism of the Clintons and instead decided to send their party and their nation in a different direction.
The only problem was, it was all a giant fraud. As soon as Barack Obama had the nomination in hand, he immediately started telling everyone that his entire primary campaign had been a giant lie. Suddenly the idea of changing our foreign policy was off the table. He would only talk to our enemies if his preconditions were met. Or do deliver ultimatums that precede the usual bombings. He pledged to ally his foreign policy with the same right-wing goals of the Cuban terrorists in Florida. And to make certain that America's interests were secondary to that of Israel.
The candidate's pledge to renegotiate trade deals like NAFTA were then dismissed as the overheated rhetoric of the campaign. And most telling, the same old crew of advisers and party hacks that had characterized the Clinton years suddenly coalesced around the new candidate. While the members of the Democratic party had voted for change, suddenly it was revealed that no change was possible. It was revealed that an Obama administration would look amazingly like what a Hillary Clinton administration would have looked like.
This is today's Democratic Party. Its primaries are a fraud, and its political convention is a farce. Today's Democratic party treats its members as people to be lied to and manipulated. Today's Democratic Party relegates its delegates to the role of dancing in the aisles wearing funny hats while the next speaker for the TV infomercial gets ready in the back room.
And if no democracy is allowed inside the party, there is certainly none allowed outside. What is perfectly clear today is that there is one thing that the Democrats are willing to fight, and that is democracy. A Democratic Party that constantly shocks its members by its unwillingness to fight its Republican opposition shows that it has no problems at all fighting the people of this country who still want democracy. A party that seems spineless instead morphs into a vicious attack dog should words like 'Nader' or 'Green Party' be mentioned in their presence. A Democratic Party that is unwilling to use the political or legal process to fight to defend its own votes in rigged elections suddenly is willing to go to great lengths to fight say the petition signatures that might put an independent or Green party candidate on the ballot. A Democratic Party that is too cowardly to fight the Republicans unleashes the riot police on any citizens who might dare to try to march in the streets in protest.
Yes, there is one thing that is certainly clear here in Denver this week. The one thing the Democratic Party certainly hates is democracy. From its lying candidates in its rigged primary campaigns, to its delegating the delegates to the role of mere extras, to the attacks on any who dare protest, the message of the Democratic Party in this area is quite clear. Democracy is not allowed.
All decisions are to be made at the highest levels. And they are to be made by politicians who refuse to even to talk to the people any more. If the people of this country say they want these wars to end, the leaders of the Democratic Party instead promise to expand the wars. If the people of this country say they want national health insurance like every other civilized western country, the leaders of the Democratic party respond with proposals to make it a crime not to buy corporate health insurance. If the people of this country say they want the laws upheld and political criminals prosecuted, the leaders of the Democratic Party respond by taking impeachment off the table and by promising not to prosecute the criminals of the current regime after they leave office.
Yes, the one thing that is most certainly clear this week in Denver is that the Democratic Party opposes the very idea of democracy. From the fact that its primaries were a fraud because of the dishonesty of its candidates, to its turning its convention from a democratic event to a corporate sponsored infomercial to its sending the riot police out to deal with any dissent, its all too clear we are on our own.
If you still believe in America. If you still believe in democracy. If you still believe in a free country, where our freedoms are protected by the rule of law and a series of checks and balances between branches of the government. If you still believe in the Bill of Rights, and its guarantees that we would be free of a government spying on its citizens and its guarantees of a chance of political expression, then its all too clear that today's Democratic Party is a part of the problem. Its all too clear that this Democratic Party has sold its soul to AT&T and its other corporate sponsors. If you want democracy in America, its all too clear that the Democratic Party is not the answer. In fact, the clear message from the riot police being ordered into the streets by the local Democratic mayor is that the Democratic Party is the enemy of democracy.
And the real puzzle of the week is why the American people seem willing to accept this?
Friday, August 22, 2008
Conformity
"Conformity is one of the nihilistic temptations of rebellion which dominate a large part of our intellectual history. It demonstrates how the rebel who takes to action is tempted to succumb, if he forgets his origins, to the most absolute conformity. And so explains the twentieth century."-- Albert Camus