This is what I expected before the elections took place, although perhaps the one thing that confuses me most is Democrats agreeing to vote to cut FISA. ???

It seems so hopeless I can hardly stand it. The thought that occupies my mind these days is where to move: Canada. Mexico. Costa Rica.

When thinking abut the competence of this Democratic Congress, all you need to know is that they are constantly outfoxed by Dumya. Idiots.

As Nader said. Two heads of a single corporate party.

But it did bring us investigations into the politicization of DOJ and the resignation of Gonzo. It also tempted Bush to push an "immigration reform" bill that got the wingers of his party so apoplectic that they were almost willing to throw him overboard. We have Congress introducing bills to restore habeus corpus and tighter regulations on voting machine qualitications and auditing. The Democratic majority has let guys like Leahy, Waxman, Conyers, and Schumer do some good.

It's not enough. And I. like you, want to go screaming into the darkness, or like lynette to relocate to Costa Rica. Still, it is a little less bad than it might be.

And who we have to get rid of soon.

Yeah, I'm looking at you, Diane Feinstein!

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin

...of the house did not change much last year. Most of the vanquished Republicans, like Leach and Hart, were from the moderate wing, generally replaced by centrist Democrats. The house really didn't shift to the left much.

When the Democrats were supposedly forced to agree to a FISA bill that gave the Bush group what the Republicans said was even more power than they had asked for, the key of the situation for me wasn't the later revelation that the Bush flunkies were lying about the eminent threat of a terror strike that the nation faced, and the likelihood that without more power to bypass FISA that terror strike would happen. The Bush claim was that the strike would be the fault of the Democrats if the FISA restrictions weren't removed instantly, or at least before the August vacation recess.

That to me was the key. The obvious bullshit in the extreme danger of the situation. Why couldn't the Democrats say, "If the nation is in such danger, we can't go on vacation. Everyone, including Bush and all the Republicans, will have to stay in Washington to deal with the dangers and the needed laws?"

Extreme danger of terror strikes in America could not be allowed to interrupt politician's vacationing.

But that's just another of the underlying obvious contradictions of the Iraq war and its public portrayal. Iraq is a war like WWII. A battle for the very survival of our way of life. Survival of democracy! Yet there's no draft, the war is funded on credit with absolutely no accounting and there are repeated massive tax cuts for the super rich.

I'm surprised that the left blogosphere has finally begun calling for the end to open funding contributions to the Democrat party. It doesn't fight for democracy so why fund it blindly and why refer to it as "Democratic?" The Republicans are right. It's the Democrat party. A group looking out for the interests of Democrats. Not much better than the Republican party. A group which has demonstrated a complete disdain for the concerns and needs of the republic and its people, the "republicans," if you will.

These times are truly depressing. I've been saying and commenting for some time that things will have to get worse before the control of the public dialog by the right can be broken and reality break through to average Americans. That break through has been happening since at least Katrina and New Orleans, the ignored starving and dying Americans on your TV. But it wasn't enough. Things will have to get worse still and they're moving that way (down) faster and faster.

America doesn't have demonstrations in the streets because people can lose their jobs if somehow it's found out that they've participated in demonstrations. But when they have no jobs to lose ...

I think that's where Blackwater comes in, just as they did in New Orleans.

That's what it's all about. Now that the dems have "control" of the 2 houses Stenny, Rahm, DiFi, Reid et al have been bought and paid for.

Follow the money. That's all there is to it.

Paul Wellstone must be turning summersaults in his grave.

*Comforting the Afflicted and Afflicting the Comfortable*

The problem isn't just Republicans, it's the conservative and right wing Democrats that keep allowing BushCo to commit its crimes against America and the world.

What our government needs is fewer Republicans and BETTER Democrats, which means liberals with courage. Looks like bloggers may have to jump into active politics.

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing

Behind the Republican Party (and many Democrats):

The Conservative movement.

Behind the Conservative movement:

An unholy alliance of winger billionaires and megachurch theocrats.

Behind the winger billionaires:

Corporations as persons.

Behind the megachurch theocrats:

Dunno. The lizard backbrain?

Right wing local talk show host favors Iceland as the country of choice in the "post modern age". Me, I'm 52 so emmigration to just about anywhere is out.

I wonder if there is a list of democratic consultants we could examine.

unless you assume that they don't actually want a change in the direction of policy in this country.

It's a well-understood con game. They're the "good cop".

Chalo

Subpoena power. A chance to get under Bush's skin. A method for preventing Bush from doing even more odious things. It's not good enough, but it is all I expected--this is the Democratic Party, after all.

What's this 'we' stuff, by the way? Blogging about U.S. politics is one thing, but far as I know, you haven't emigrated yet...

idealisticpragmatist.blogspot.com

Someone explain to me what we did get out of the victory in 06?

Well, you couldn't get much. Krugman was right in the sense that the vote went way Democratic, and right that they shifted lots of seats, but that didn't neccessarily mean so much. The press went in the tank for the D's (because, I believe, of the immigration stuff), and the D's themselves ran on national platform of 'Uh, uh, we're not them; don't hit me'. The pickups cleared the red congressment out of the blue states, but the others were pickups of seats by candidates who got voted in on immigration and trade and stuff. Since the hard blue guys all sorta like things they way they are, except maybe on the conduct of the war, they have no incentive or reason to really change anything.

But a fair assessment requires pointing out that the R's are playing excellent aggressive defense, the kind D's refused to play (or were incapable of playing) from 2001-2007. Hell, the R's are doing their Steel Curtain imitation. It just turns out the D's ain't got no offense either. Obama I think is currently complaining that he doesn't want to play defense, he wants to play offense, but really, the D's are doing neither and are basically just running away from conflict. Complacently assuming they will get re-elected in 2008. And I don't see why they would get re-elected.

I would have expected them to push right to an extent (since they would be trying to broaden the coalition), but there are different kinds of right to push towards, and mostly they seem to be taking Republican dictation of what right is.

max
['Losing military campaigns frequently feature 'complacency' and 'ineptitude'.']

The bulleted summary up front was striking. I appreciated it all but the initial concise summary had impact.

There's been more and more lately on the subject of Democratic complicity. Earlier this evening, I saw this, 'Nancy Pelosi has seriously dropped the ball. Can we impeach her?'
and some time back saw more from the people at http://www.wolvesbook.com/ pushing their book on the subject.

We knew the game was up [way back] when Nancy Pelosi declared impeachment 'off the table'.

Leahy and Kucinich now stand out as straitlaced boy scouts every bit as much as Carter was 27 years ago.

We are at, or near past, the tipping point.
How much more blatent can total corporate control be?
The high bracket and corporate tax cuts, the no-bid contracts, the massive privatization of everything, Halliburton, Dubai, Blackwater, Rupert Murdoch, House of Saud, MicroSoft and government code, torture and extraordinary renditions, the rape of New Orleans, the telecom industry, Net Neutrality, vote manipulation, the shredding of the constitution, the massive prison construction and our excessive prisoner population itself, 9/11 itself, hedge funds and the adjustable rate home mortgage scandal even for that matter, and everywhere ever more Control in general. Time passes and new generations accept all this as normal. We haven't any time left.

We are not represented anywhere in any legal fashion. We haven't even the protection of habeas corpus to protect us.

http://zuma.theprawn.com/FuckTheDoomed.png
http://zuma.theprawn.com/wasted_world.png
http://zuma.theprawn.com/concilationofempire-1.jpg
http://zuma.theprawn.com/concilationofempire-2.jpg
http://zuma.livejournal.com/124926.html
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/18/1326231
http://zuma.theprawn.com/post-abundant_era-2.gif
http://zuma.theprawn.com/wtfdit.png

http://zuma.theprawn.com/declaration.mp3 (the DOI read strongly by Patti Smith)

Something extraordinary is called for. Impeachment is a red herring.
Much said in the Progressive community is essentially simply being repeated in response to new outrages until outrage overload kicks in.
I am of the mind to suggest a deeper revolution, a cultural one that proactively wages peace. (Dennis Kucinich's call for a Department of Peace would be wonderful, and a good but bare start.) We ought consider meeting force with antiforce rather than counterforce, much like Martin Luther King did.

"To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in dissipating the enemy's opposition
without fighting." -Sun Tzu

I wonder. Cannot a citzenry unionize for it's own sake? Need a union necessarily be a labor union? Can we not demonstrate the failure of parties? And geographical representation?? At any rate, such novel approach seems called for, in lieu of otherwise demanding to totally reconstitute ourselves. But then there is always that....

What does it take... The docility of any public citzenry of any nation has always been their weakest aspect, but ours has never been so demonstrated before or so challenged.

(And what ever happened to H. Ross Perot?? Did he pass away or something? His silence is peculiar...)

Another thing the Democratic Congress gave us is a green light for Bush on Iran by killing the ammendment saying he needed Congressional authorization for military action there. Thanks Pelosi and Reid! ... you little bitches!!!