[Mb-civic] shout it from the rooftops!

[Robin McNamara]

The thing about it all is  the so called 'leaders' & possible candidates of each party are basically all beginning to seem like cartoon characters, everything they say or do we can't take seriously because we know they are full of shit. But when it comes right down to it, at this point I still want Hillary because we all know that Bill will be running the show. & know matter what you think of him he can out bullshit all them & really seems to care about the comman man.

Peace
Robin


http://lpintop.tripod.com/robinmcnamara/

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Charles Kaiser 
  To: intrafi 
  Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 11:49 AM
  Subject: [Mb-civic] shout it from the rooftops!


  By Molly Ivins

   AUSTIN, Texas --- I'd like to make it clear to
  the people   who run the Democratic Party that I will not support
  Hillary Clinton  for president.
   
                Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and
  equivocation.
     Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This
  is not a   Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable
  of taking a   clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to
  disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to
  mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible
  little dodges.
   
                The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of
  a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to
  re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is
  desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will
  not do, and  this is one of those times. There are times a country is so
  tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.
   
                If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has
  the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out
  and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to
  do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud,
  "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough,
  tough  Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained
  by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry.
   
                What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's
  sake? The (SET ITAL) majority (END ITAL) of the American people (55
  percent)  think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get
  out. The (SET ITAL) majority (END ITAL) (65 percent) of the American
  people  want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more
  taxes to get it. The (SET ITAL) majority (END ITAL) (86 percent) of the
  American  people favor raising the minimum wage. The (SET ITAL)
  majority (END  ITAL) of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing
  Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The (SET
  ITAL)  majority (END ITAL) (66 percent) wants to reduce the
  deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon
  spending or  raising taxes.
                 The (SET ITAL) majority (END ITAL) (77 percent)
  thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.
  The (SET ITAL) majority (END ITAL) (87 percent) thinks big oil
  companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax.
  That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
           I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously
     explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside
  the  Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you
  even read the damn polls?
              Here's a prize example by someone named Barry
  Casselman,who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the
  Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the
  defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are
  attempting to  prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and
  2008."
   
                This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and
  Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad new from the Middle
  East ..  into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those
  pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe
  Biden and  Joe Lieberman.
   
                Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept
  of  leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us
  into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.
             You sit there in Washington so frightened of the
  big, bad  Republican machine you have no idea what people are
  thinking. I'm  telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his
  district. If  Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the
  issue of  political reform, I give up on them entirely.
                 Do it all, go long, go for public campaign
  financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the
  only  reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone
  else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has
  made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral
  reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own
  this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.
   
                Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the
  patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it
  before: War  brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went
  around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were
  "German dogs."
     They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.
  The MINUTE  someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn
  on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country
  really means.
     That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep.
  John Murtha  did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the
  war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless
  "string of bad news."
                 Do not sit there cowering and pretending the
  only way to  win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party
  can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.
   
                                                       -30- 
  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  Charles Kaiser
  Charles at charleskaiser.com 


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