Dean is first.  What did you expect?

good for the aussies!!!

Only the future will tell if even half of Rudd's promises hold true.

If he only signs the Kyoto Treaty, it will be a huge improvement over the present government and another slap in the face to GWB. Of course, he won't feel it or even care if he did -- sociopaths never do.

sorry mprov -- didn't mean to jump in front of you like that:))

no problem, joan. i'm well used to it. :>)

12. (Previous thread)

Centrist political operatives [DLC Hacks] are also very good at the art of deception [dirty tricks]. 

I  agree with you Susan if your referring to political campaigning, etc. In fact, it is an appropriate "label" for any party in those instances.

But when it comes to the use of dirty tricks, maneuvering and breaking the rules in Congress, which is what I was relating to, the Republicans are the masters.

wOOT!

WILLIAM CORMIER TO KUCINICH

RUN AS AN INDEPENDENT

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_william__071123_a_commentary_directe.htm

These are tough words to write, however, they are meant with no disrespect intended, as I’m a Kucinich supporter myself and acknowledge that you possibly represent America’s only hope in returning our country to its Constitutional mandates, the Rule of Law, and in restoring our country to its constitutional beliefs is our only hope for survival as a free and democratic nation. Since I do believe in you and what you’re attempting to do for our country, I am obliged to speak honestly and bluntly - and to do otherwise would negate my responsibility to my country as well as expressing my support for your Presidential Campaign.

Whether you are right or wrong doesn’t matter, and even the GOP is betting on Hillary Clinton walking away with the Democratic nomination for President - and that would indeed be the death-knell for liberty and democracy in America. Mr. Kucinich, America needs you to win this election, and it’s time to forget party affiliation and set yourself up as an Independent. It’s more than obvious that you’re not bringing in enough campaign contributions, and the American people are not dumb; they see what’s happening, and knowing that Hillary Clinton will be crowned the Democratic Presidential Candidate, whether the people like it or not, is already a foregone conclusion; if you expect people to contribute the kind of money it takes to win the election, then you have to be in a position to win, and running as a Democrat against Clinton is a prerequisite for defeat.

Mr. Kucinich, it’s time to change tactics and make a real run at the Presidency, one that America can get behind and know that you have a real chance of winning the election. If you do anything less Sir, I believe that your bid at the Presidency is doomed, as well as our democracy and freedoms(s). In desperate times, people take desperate measures to insure their success, and the “times” couldn’t be more desperate than they are today, so if you’re truly going to have a chance at winning, changing your bid to an Independent is the only way I can imagine that you will be successful - even if it means teaming-up with Ron Paul or “Rocky” Anderson.

One last note Mr. Kucinich; if you do choose to campaign with a message of truth and power, then it’s advisable that you ramp-up your security ten-fold, as we have seen what happens to real patriots in this country, and no one would wish that upon you except for the traitors whom are doing their best to steal the America Dream and our freedom and democracy right before our eyes - and they feel no compunction against destroying America in the process.

even if it means teaming-up with Ron Paul or “Rocky” Anderson.

How can someone who advocates the government of the people helping the people team up with someone who wants it to abandon them altogether?

BTW, who is "Rocky" Anderson?

The only thing that matters to us about Bush losing his australian toady is that it further isolates him internationally in terms of launching another war. He's down to a coalition of one.

How can someone who advocates the government of the people helping the people team up with someone who wants it to abandon them altogether?

On second thought, Kucinich's voting against the Iraq invasion and being for immediate withdrawl didn't stop him from teaming up with Edwards, who did and advocated the exact opposite, back in 2004.

So I guess DK is capable of teaming up with anybody. 

Reading the caustic observations of Maureen Dowd in Wednesday's NYT does raise questions about 1) Clinton's claim of some level of experience, superior to her opponents',  as a qualification for the presidency and 2) what it is exactly that makes her seem like such a great candidate to George Bush and his ilk?  Here are some salient excerpts:

"The Clinton campaign in Iowa is in a panic. Obama has been closing the gap with women and her ginning up of gender has lost her male votes. Speaking around Iowa this week, Obama made the point that his exotic upbringing, family in Kenya and years as an outsider allow him to see the world with more understanding, and helped form his judgment about resisting the Iraq war.

“ . . . .

"President Bush is not so enamored of Obama’s foreign policy judgment. He gave a plug to Hillary on ABC News last night, calling her a 'formidable candidate,' even under pressure, who 'understands the klieg lights.'

"Asked by Charles Gibson about Obama’s offer to meet without preconditions with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea, W. declared it 'odd foreign policy.'

" . . . .

"Though he did not mention the quick 'color me experienced' trip Hillary took with some Senate colleagues to Iraq and Afghanistan just before she started running, Obama might have been thinking of it when he mocked Kabuki Congressional junkets:

"Yo'u get picked up at the airport by a state convoy and a security detail. They drive you over to the ambassador’s house and you get lunch. Then you go take a tour of some factory or some school. Children do a native dance.'

"Hillary pounced, knowing that her chief rival’s foreign policy résumé is as slender as his physique, once more conjuring a childish Obama. She brazenly borrowed Republican talking points, even though she accused John Edwards of 'throwing mud' that was 'right out of the Republican playbook.'

"'With all due respect,' she told a crowd in Iowa. ' I don’t think living in a foreign country between the ages of 6 and 10 is foreign policy experience.'

"But is living in the White House between the ages of 45 and 53 foreign policy experience?"

impeach bush now.

someone get the keys to the white house doors and change the locks.

now.

off to chincoteague to close our camper for the winter.

hope u all are great. peace to your family.

Most of the Southern States were once Democratic and became Republican, and the GOP owes much of its success to leaving the past in the past. You'll never hear them talk about Southerner with disdain as being "once Republican"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The South became Republican because the rePublicans promised them that they could remain as racist as they pleased. And they have.
Git a grip, Fred.

Australia moving progressive while Europe moves right. What's up with that?

Is it just that everyone is fed up with the status quo, whomever that may be?

5.

Joan* In*Florida


Rove and Cheney are indeed masters of the political black arts.

I highly recommend this post: http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/23084...

President Bush is not so enamored of Obama’s foreign policy judgment. He gave a plug to Hillary on ABC News last night, calling her a 'formidable candidate,' even under pressure, who 'understands the klieg lights.'

Hopefully no one with a lick of sense will let what Bush/Rove says influence them for or against Hillary or Obama. 

The South became Republican because the rePublicans promised them that they could remain as racist as they pleased. And they have.

There are some whose votes it is better not to have. 

For what shall it profit Democrats, if they shall gain the whole government, and lose their party's soul?

5.

Joan* In*Florida
Sat, 11/24/07
12:31 pm

I took a political workshop not to long ago. Our Camp Wellstone Action and Emily's List trainers mentioned how the leaders and hacks of the labor movements are known to be notorious lairs. They use deceptive words in their rhetoric to manipulate their membership into do things and signing things against their better interests. They really know who to stir up a hornet's nest and produce a very angry mob. And their hacks get paid very well to do it. In my area of the state labor is over 40% registered Republican. There are other areas of the state where it is at 60%.

Is it just that everyone is fed up with the status quo, whomever that may be?

It's cyclical. So long as their are only two viable feet, the shoe will take turns on each one. 

Finally back for a time and so glad to see Howard finally OUT!

Now it's time to get rid of the putzCo infestation. NOW!

**************
In the meantime, we have lots of problems, at home and abroad. If putzCo have not been directly responsible for each, they have certainly created the climate of corporate greed and irresponsibility that has enabled problems such as this described by Bob Herbert in today's NYT.

===============
November 24, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Lost in a Flood of Debt
By BOB HERBERT
CHICAGO

I’ve been visiting some of the people who have been most affected by the subprime mortgage debacle. It’s a largely bewildered, frightened group that includes people like Dorothy Levey, a 79-year-old widow who sits alone inside the small house she has lived in for 41 years, afraid to answer the telephone or the door.

She has every reason to be worried. The monthly note on her house in the city of Markham, just outside Chicago, is approximately 100 percent of her meager monthly income. Broke and behind in her payments, Ms. Levey expects a foreclosure notice to show up any day, followed by a visit from “the sheriff, or whoever they send to tell you to get out of your own home.”

While the media coverage has focused on the high rollers who created the subprime frenzy (“If you can breathe, we’ll give you a loan”), the hapless victims have remained in the shadows, condemned to economic ruin.

After faithfully making mortgage payments for decades, Ms. Levey and her husband, Dan, were persuaded to take out a new loan, ostensibly for debt consolidation, in 2002. It was like plunging into quicksand. Dan was seriously ill at the time and he died two years later.

To this day Ms. Levey does not understand what she and her husband of more than half a century had agreed to. The terms might as well have been written in Sanskrit.

[...]
Thousands of poor people like Dorothy Levey, who worked for years to build modest amounts of equity in their homes, have been hammered — wiped out. The most unscrupulous of the mortgage lenders, and there were many of them, swooped in and sweet-talked their targets into signing contracts designed to squeeze them for everything they had in the world.

The fact that this is often legal doesn’t make it right. As insane as it sounds, Ms. Levey is still getting offers to refinance her mortgage.

There is some truth to the assertion that a lot of buyers signed up for deals they should have known they couldn’t afford. But it won’t do for the fat cats to fall back on empty phrases like “buyer beware.”

[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinio...

Yeah, well, given the lack of attention and the patent loss of credibility and the continuing idiocy, mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence of putzCo, even if everything would happen as the NYT wishes, I do not hold out much chance of success with this.

I would LOVE to be proven wrong.

===================
November 24, 2007
Editorial
Thinking Beyond Annapolis

The invitations have been delivered and it looks as if there will indeed be an American-led conference next week in Annapolis to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After six years of neglecting the issue, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are to be commended for finally trying. Just getting all the key players in the same room, however, assuming they can pull that off, will not be enough.

Another photo-op, even one this big, will only feed the region’s cynicism and violence. What the meeting needs to produce is a disciplined process of negotiations, addressing all the core issues that the Israelis, Palestinians and Mr. Bush have so far refused to grapple with.

The Americans have not been getting anything close to the help they need. Many of the key Arab states — most notably Saudi Arabia — spent weeks playing coy about whether they would attend and whom they would send. Finally, the Saudi foreign minister confirmed yesterday that he would be there.

It is no surprise that even moderate Arab leaders do not have much confidence in either Ms. Rice’s diplomatic skills or Mr. Bush’s willingness to press the Israelis to compromise. But they all insist they want a settlement. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is too weak and under too much pressure from Hamas militants to make serious compromises without their support, while Israel needs to know that if it is serious about an agreement, it will be welcomed in from the cold.

[...]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinio...

Not the Titanic ... fortunately for these passengers!

A nasty experience, nonetheless.

===============
Cruise of a lifetime ends with passengers adrift in icy waters off coast of Antarctica
· Iceberg blamed for holing MV Explorer
· All passengers - including 24 Britons - rescued
Matthew Taylor
Saturday November 24, 2007
Guardian

Environmental campaigners have long complained about the growth in tourist numbers polluting the once pristine expanses of the world's last great wilderness, Antarctica.

But for a group of hapless adventurers bobbing around in lifeboats, buffetted by a freezing Antarctic wind as their cruise ship lurched lower in the water, it was the busy tourist traffic through the Southern Ocean that ultimately saved them.

Last night, the group were recovering aboard a Norwegian tourist vessel which also happened to be cruising through the area, reflecting on an ordeal which demonstrated that more than 90 years after the Titanic, icebergs still sink ships.

The drama began just before 1am. As the cruise ship Explorer was picking its way through the Antarctic sea ice, it hit what experts believe was a "growler" - a huge iceberg shorn from the Antarctic ice shelf. Despite being built to withstand such conditions the impact caused a hole in the hull and Explorer began taking on water. An emergency operation swung into action and as temperatures dipped below -5C (23F) the 100 passengers and 54 crew abandoned ship and took to the sea in small open top lifeboats.

For the next four hours - as they watched Explorer sink - they waited for someone to come to their aid.

Eventually, the Norwegian cruiser NordNorge appeared. Captain Arnvid Hansen said that although the passengers in the lifeboats were in good spirits when he arrived, they were cold and hungry.

"It was no problem to get them on board. They were picked up from the lifeboats ... and this operation took around one hour," he said.

Speaking yesterday afternoon he added: "They are in our premier lounge now having warm food and drying their clothes on board. Some are cold but none has hypothermia. We are giving them as many clothes as we can."

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33135...

Lebanon is currently walking a VERY fine line ... a line that would not have been so perilous had putzCo not encouraged Israel to bomb the h* out of Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

Criminal idiocy.

==================
Lebanon's president hands power to army
Clancy Chassay in Beirut
Saturday November 24, 2007
Guardian

Lebanon was again plunged into uncertainty yesterday after parliament failed in a fifth attempt to elect a president, and the former Syrian backed-president Emile Lahoud, whose term ended at midnight, passed control of the security services over to the army, declaring a state of emergency.

The US-backed government of Fouad Siniora rejected the declaration. "It is as if the statement was never issued," said Siniora. The constitution says a president cannot call a state of emergency without government approval, but Lahoud and the Hizbullah-led opposition view the cabinet as unconstitutional following the walk out of its Shia ministers last year.

The country is now in a presidential vacuum, with thousands of troops deployed across Beirut, and is likely to stay that way until the elections, postponed until next Friday, are attempted again.

Neither side seems clear on what the army's mandate will be, with some expecting it to play a noticeably greater role in managing the state and others anticipating a continuation of the status quo. Few Lebanese have expressed surprise at the move. It is generally seen as a stalling measure to give the two camps more time to find a way out of the impasse.

Some constitutional experts have said the move is meaningless and analysts say Lahoud's offer was vague enough for the army to interpret it as it pleases.

"This is essentially a military authority to oversee negotiations, but if the government takes over Lahoud's responsibilities, the opposition will escalate," said Amal Saad Ghorayeb of the Carnegie Middle East Centre. "But if the army steps in and assumes a greater role in the managing of the state, the opposition will stay silent and focus on negotiations."

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33135...

Interesting move by Musharraf here, one that will no doubt piss off Bhutto, who was hoping to return to power.

Unfortunately, she is not much of an improvement, I fear. The people of Pakistan deserve better government than they have had, and better options than the choices they have.

(As do we, IMO.)

=================
Musharraf allows rival to return to Pakistan
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Saturday November 24, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Pakistan's military ruler General Pervez Musharraf will allow his bitter rival Nawaz Sharif to return home tomorrow, ending seven years of exile in Saudi Arabia, Musharraf's spokesman said.

"Yes he will be allowed to land," retired General Rashid Qureshi told the Observer, referring to Sharif's planned arrival at Lahore airport tomorrow afternoon aboard a chartered Saudi jet.

Musharraf ejected Sharif, whom he deposed as prime minister in a 1999 coup, from Pakistan when he tried to return last September. Four hours after landing in Islamabad the burly politician was bundled onto a Saudi-bound airliner.

But the military ruler changed his mind earlier this week following a meeting with the Saudi monarch King Abdullah in Riyadh.

Qureshi said: "Discussions were carried out on Nawaz Sharif's return. The president said there is no issue, he can return if he wants to."

Sharif's return is a potent addition to Pakistan's political cauldron, with Musharraf struggling to maintain power against a backdrop of great instability and rising Islamist violence.

Today two suicide bombers struck outside army headquarters in Rawalpindi, killing at least 35 people. One bomb hit an army checkpoint; the other a bus laden with employees from the powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33136...

One last report from the Guardian's Iraqi embed, this one about Thanksgiving.

=================
Desert turkey
In the latest installment of his embed diary, David Smith finds Thanksgiving Day in Baghdad comes complete with pumpkin pie and bomb attacks
David Smith in Baghdad
Saturday November 24, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

It remains as mysterious to the British as baseball, but Thanksgiving Day is an American ritual not to be tampered with.

For US troops in Iraq, it is a day when absence from home and family is felt keenly. So a traditional celebration is put on at all the military bases, turning them into very American oases in the desert.

For lunch at Camp Striker's industrial scale canteen, adorned with brown, red and orange paper streamers and decorations, I joined a lengthy queue worthy of a check-in at Heathrow airport.

To pass the time, a Thanksgiving history quiz made the politically correct point that the first Thanksgiving feast included 91 native Americans, who had helped the pilgrims survive their first year.

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,...

Really interesting experiment here ... this could mean that cacao producing countries will be next on putzCo's hit list.

=============
Across the desert to Timbuktu in a car fuelled by chocolate
By Jerome Taylor
Published: 24 November 2007

One might think a chocolate-powered vehicle would be as much use as a chocolate tea cup – but two British adventurers have embarked on a trek across Europe and west Africa which aims to show that it could be a new, clean mode of transport.

Andy Pag and his co-driver John Grimshaw left Mr Grimshaw's home town of Poole, Dorset, on a cross-Channel ferry yesterday. They are travelling in a Ford Iveco Cargo lorry powered by fuel which began life as chocolate, in an attempt to raise awareness of "green" biofuels. Their 4,500-mile (7,250 km) trip across the Sahara desert to Timbuktu in Mali should take about three weeks.

The pair have taken with them a small processing unit to convert waste oil products into fuel, which they will then donate to an African charity, along with the lorry. They are taking 2,000 litres (454 gallons) of biodiesel made from 4,000kg (8,818lb) of chocolate misshapes – equivalent to 80,000 chocolate bars.

But they will not be able to dip into their tank if they feel peckish because biodiesel does not look or smell like ordinary chocolate. It is made from cocoa butter extracted from the waste chocolate.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/afri...

Robert Fisk writing about the crisis in Lebanon right now. Beirut is his adopted home town.

================
Robert Fisk: Darkness falls on the Middle East
In Beirut, people are moving out of their homes, just as they have in Baghdad
Published: 24 November 2007

So where do we go from here? I am talking into blackness because there is no electricity in Beirut. And everyone, of course, is frightened. A president was supposed to be elected today. He was not elected. The corniche outside my home is empty. No one wants to walk beside the sea.

When I went to get my usual breakfast cheese manouche there were no other guests in the café. We are all afraid. My driver, Abed, who has loyally travelled with me across all the war zones of Lebanon, is frightened to drive by night. I was supposed to go to Rome yesterday. I spared him the journey to the airport.

It's difficult to describe what it's like to be in a country that sits on plate glass. It is impossible to be certain if the glass will break. When a constitution breaks – as it is beginning to break in Lebanon – you never know when the glass will give way.

People are moving out of their homes, just as they have moved out of their homes in Baghdad. I may not be frightened, because I'm a foreigner. But the Lebanese are frightened. I was not in Lebanon in 1975 when the civil war began, but I was in Lebanon in 1976 when it was under way. I see many young Lebanese who want to invest their lives in this country, who are frightened, and they are right to frightened. What can we do?

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/artic...

These searches are very long overdue ... this war criminal needs to be brought to justice.

Yes, putzCo, someday we will come for you too one way or another. If Congress won't do its job, then we will have to.

================
Karadzic family homes raided
By Radul Radovanovic, Associated Press Writer
Published: 24 November 2007

European Union forces and NATO troops searched the homes of relatives of Bosnia's most-wanted war crimes suspect, Radovan Karadzic, yesterday, looking for clues to his whereabouts, officials said.

Troops began simultaneous searches at 5am at the homes of Karadzic's wife, Ljiljana, his daughter, Sonja, and his son, Alexandar, who is called Sasha.

A few hours later, troops entered the premises of a local company called Petrol and searched the office of Sonja's husband, Branislav Jovicic. They also searched the home of Ranko Cicovic, who used to be Karadzic's driver.

"The aim is to find material or information relevant to the network of Radovan Karadzic," said Maj. David Fielder, a spokesman for the European Union Force, EUFOR, at the site.

During the search of Sonja's apartment, troops found some useful information — mostly "paper-based," but some of it electronic — that may help the search, Fielder said.

Ljiljana Zelen-Karadzic lives in her sister's house in the wartime Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale, 10 miles east of Sarajevo. Sonja and Alexandar live with their families in apartment buildings, also in Pale.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/art...

Looks like I've scared everyone off ... sorry about that! This will be the last.

**********
Froim DU's wonderful Nance Greggs, the Thanksgiving that you've all been dying to hear about.

===========
Thanksgiving with the Prize Turkeys

Blogged by Mama “Babs” Bush:

Well, the day started out like it oughtta, with Junior on the phone to the troops in Iraq, letting ‘em know that for at least a few minutes, we were all botherin’ our beautiful minds with their suffering and dying – and whatever other unpleasantness might go on over there.

Thank God there happened to be a professional photographer wandering around who was, by mere happenstance, able to capture the moment!

Truth be told, so many of the people in combat, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working out very well for them. Besides, considering the current state of the economy, there’s probably a lot of families who are grateful to have one less mouth to feed on a holiday such as this.

When George Sr. and I arrived at Camp David, Junior was already well into the Wild Turkey (that boy just loves holiday traditions!), and Laura had outdone herself by choosing the perfect fabric for her Thanksgiving outfit (and let's face it, the Lincoln Bedroom really needed new curtains anyway, so what's the fuss?)

Poppy and Junior immediately went off for a discussion behind the woodshed (I keep telling Poppy to stop switchin’ the boy over that Plame woman – but as an ex-CIA man, he just refuses to let go of that whole treason thing), while I helped Laura in the kitchen.

I must say I was a bit shocked when I saw the turkey, a scrawny thing barely enough to feed four, no less a houseful. But as Laura explained, this turkey had been waterboarded in an effort to get it to disclose the location of a much plumper bird – to no avail. But as Rummy was quick to point out, you go to dinner with the the bird you have and not the one you wished you had. (I told Junior he shouldn’t have pardoned that other turkey – but he thought I was talking about Scooter Libby, and for the sake of avoiding an argument, I just dropped the whole discussion.)

Anyway, the invited guests arrived throughout the early afternoon, and included some of our dear old friends along with some of the current GOP presidential candidates.

[...]
http://www.democraticunderground.com/dis...

Thanks for the interesting reading, JfD.

Mr. Kuykendall needs to disclose who or what he is work for.


Bush Budget Request Raises Fears Of Iran Strike, Increases Funding For ‘Massive’ ‘Bunker Buster’ http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/24/bush...

http://indigentahole.blogspot.com/

http://indigentahole.blogspot.com/2007/1...

The only thing that matters to us about Bush losing his australian toady is that it further isolates him internationally in terms of launching another war. He's down to a coalition of one.  

**************************************************************

Mono-lition ?

Reminds me of mono-neucleosis - lol.

puddle
Sat, 11/24/07
1:42 pm

Reply to this

****************************************

Puddle, may I add :

Former Dixiecrat = Republican.

26.  The prime argument for getting rid of the capital gains tax on the sale of one's home (it used to be that you paid tax on only half the gain, at the going rate of the rest of your income tax rate, and then then it went to a 10% rate and the to nothing, I think) was based on the economists' argument that Americans had a lot of equity tied up in their housing stock which needed to be "liberated."  I wrote letters to the editor in opposition at the time.  The economic upturn in the '90's was driven by this false liberation.  Before that it was driven by the employment of people for wages for activities that used to be unpaid.  The economy grew, women earned some money instead of none and men earned less than they used to and most of it went up in smoke.

The elite need an underclass to make themselves feel important.  So, they make an underclass through trickery and predation and then they blame the underclass for being poor managers of their assets.  And all to make themselves feel good. 

There are some whose votes it is better not to have. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Agreed, yet the Democrats, even Dean insists on playing up to thesep people and most in the red states and deep south under the umbrella of religion, etc..................and some half wits here question why I left the Democratic party?   i wont suck up and pander to those groups..............

please recommend this post.

http://www.blogforamerica.com/view/23085...

41. Michael, I understand completely why you left the Dems. I did too, for many of the same reasons

Mike wrote "the Democrats, even Dean, insist on playing up to these people and most in the red states and deep south under the umbrella of religion, etc."

I think if you analyze the strategy, the idea is that people who live in the south have needs and seek objectives that are similar to those of people in the north, so that absent the socially polarizing politics of race and class, which Republicans tend to emphasize and exploit, there is reason to believe that there are voters in southern states who will vote Democratic in concert with their own interests. 

It's one reason that Governor Dean, in his infinite wisdom, always insisted that elections must be waged on issues other than guns, God, and gays, i.e., social issues that Republicans use to lure voters away from candidates who actually represent their interests.  I think it makes a lot of sense, although people like John Edwards have unwittingly tried to undermine efforts to advance it.

SIROTA--THE GIANT SUCKING SOUND YOU HEAR..

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071122_was_ross_perot_right/

Tom wrote:

Governor Dean, in his infinite wisdom, always insisted that elections must be waged on issues other than guns, God, and gays.

Tell that to the DLC-backed corporate Democratic candidates. They flee the real issues

37.

work for s/b working for

John wrote "Tell that to the DLC-backed corporate Democratic candidates. They flee the real issues."

This is an incrutable comment.  Is your intention to suggest that Democrats are running on divisive social issues?

16.

puddle
Sat, 11/24/07
1:42 pm

The South became Republican because the rePublicans promised them that they could remain as racist as they pleased. And they have.
Git a grip, Fred.

--------------------------------------------------------------

OK -- I have to stick up for my part of the US of A. I was raised in the 50's and 60's in Atlanta. Blacks had their own world around Spelman and Morehouse Colleges -- it was really a separate universe, one I did not even know existed at the time. The only time we saw black people on our side of town was when they came to clean, launder, babysit. We did have one entree into the black world in the late 50's which we did not tell our parents about -- we listened to the black radio stations. This, of course, was where r & b and r & r was born before Elvis and the Beatles borrowed it. When black men would come to the house to do work my mother wouldn't reuse the glasses they drank out of b/c to her they were 'dirty.' When we had skits in high school we thought it was hilarious to appear in black face. This was my world.

On the other side of Atlanta, black folks did not look you in the eye, black men dared not even look at white women of course, they always called you Miss A instead of just A and they always said yes'm and no'm. They had to sit on the back of the bus and if there wasn't a seat, even if they had been doing physical work all day, they had to stand, even if there was an empty seat in the front. Then came the 60's and Martin and all we now know. Somehow in that decade we ALL, white AND black, were forced to re-examine and re-learn everything we had learned at our mother's knee about each other.

Fast forward to the present day. I left the south in the late 60's and didn't return till Y2K. On the surface the black/white thing seemed very different. I had intermarried students, bi-racial babies, stuff that would have gotten one shot in the 60's. Underneath, much remains the same. People don't socialize across racial lines. Black churches are still black. White churches are still white. The invisible shields we all wear are firmly in place.

I personally believe that tincture of time will improve things -- the socioeconomic status of blacks, the lack of true integration. But in the meantime, I think we ALL frankly have come a long, long way in the last 50 years.

PS -- In college in the mid 60's I had a flirtation with a - today we would say foxy or hot - fellow from the black college in town where he was active in student gov't. I can't call it an affair, but we did meet for coffee or cokes occasionally and had I not fallen in love with another, it might have been more. It is a very fond memory of my life.

Has anyone else been waiting for another installment of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard? Guess what, there aren't any. That was the end! Here's a link to Masterpiece Theatre w/ some story lines that never made it to public television if you are looking for some closure.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/foru...

Annilow
Sat, 11/24/07
4:47 pm
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Good post and thanks for look back thru history from someone who was there.....side note: thats true abiut balck music and The Beatles, but John Lennon always acknowledged their influence on his band, and even in England it was unpopular to play "the negro music" as he called it...............

I gre up in the North in the 60s.......and immigrant mill town where everybody was prejudiced aginst everybody.................

Agreed, yet the Democrats, even Dean insists on playing up to thesep people and most in the red states and deep south under the umbrella of religion, etc....

I think (but don't know) that most of the dixiecrats are good people at heart and need to have their better nature appealed to. I hope that's who Dean means to ask for their votes. But pandering to the rump of virulent racists who remain, as the GOP does -- no way.

Is your intention to suggest that Democrats are running on divisive social issues?

The DLC only runs FROM issues. Their purpose is to serve corporate interests in the backrooms while presenting a benign and featureless face to the world.

There's a new thread over yonder.  That's where my baby stays.