inaction alert! no $$ for dems!!

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs. steven d, writing over at booman last week, expressed some sentiments that have been roiling in our minds as of late: half my spam these days comes from democratic politicians requesting my credit card number, or my check, preferably in an amount larger than $100. true, it does get worse during an election year, but since 2008 is the "big one" with the presidency up for grabs, the calls for cash have started earlier and earlier… no, we are the free money people. our emails receive automated replies, not personal ones. our phone calls get stuck in easily deleted voice mail caches, or if we're lucky, half listened to by some young staffer who probably thinks what we have to say is a big fat waste of his or her time. and the reason is because we can't contribute enough money in our pay to play political system to earn us any real access… the single biggest reason democrats won control of the house and senate was their pledge to change the direction of the war in iraq. well, they didn't change it, bush did with his "surge" plan which is now killing more american soldiers each month even as there is no let up (so far as we can tell from censored media reports) in the levels of death and destruction which the iraqi people are continuing to endure. the democrats gleefully took our money. they gladly accepted our volunteer efforts. and they rejoiced in our votes which gave them control of both houses of congress for the first time in over a decade. then they slapped us in the face, told us to shut up, and tried to make lemonade out of the bags of stale urine they dumped on our heads after they voted to give bush every damn thing he wanted without a single relevant concession on his part. okay, that's fine. nobody said politics wasn't a dirty game. but no one said we have to keep paying for being mistreated and abused by the party that putatively represents our interests, either. so here's my recommendation to you: stop sending dems your money! i mean it. stop all contributions. and after you do, send them emails or call them on the phone and tell them you will no longer contribute to any democrat or democratic organization or political action committee, ad nauseam, until they stop funding the iraq war. that's what i am going to do with respect to the democratic national committee, the only democratic organization i contribute to on a regular (i.e., monthly basis). i send them a monthly amount via my credit card every month. but no more. look, i understand that democrats can't get much of their agenda, if anything, passed so long as george bush can veto their legislation. they can't pas universal health care, for example, or a bill to start limiting our use of fossil fuels by putting caps on carbon emissions. they don't have the votes to override a veto by bush. so i won't hold them accountable for not passing much needed progressive legislation. but funding the iraq war doesn't require passing legislation. all it requires is not passing a bill to fund the war in iraq. or keep sending the same bill back to bush which mandates a withdrawal of us troops and make him blink first. but they couldn't do that, despite the fact that 70% of americans disapprove of both bush and his handling of the iraq war. so let them drink tea and eat cake without my hard earned dollars paying for their privileges. and without yours, and yours, and yours ... etc. because maybe then they'll finally take us seriously and pay attention when we tell them to: support the troops -- bring them home. now! period. end of discussion. we totally agree. and we have already begun to implement this policy. both mr. and mrs. skippy have donated extensively (at least, for middle class people) to various dem candidates and organizations in the past. they have donated enough to be on several lists of suckers that give money which other organizations use to call and solicit funds. just yesterday skippy received a call from the "democratic finance committee." once the caller identified whom he was representing, skippy told him in no uncertain terms, "you guys really screwed up on the iraq funding withdrawl vote. i'm not giving you guys another cent until you get that right." and he hung up. we strongly urge everyone to do the same. not only stop giving money to dem pols, like so many enablers spotting the drunk on the corner a dollar for "food," but also let the candidates and organizations know exactly why the teat of free currency has dried up. who's with us? ps. if you'd like the nifty "no $$ for dems" logo for your own blog, email skippy and he'll send you the code!

thanks for everything, kos; or, ralphie boy was right

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs. by now everyone should be over their initial depression of the democrats selling out to awol's war earlier this week. tho we ourselves had high hopes that the dems had grown spines ( indeed, there had been some reports of such skeletal formations spotted in the last few months), we were not at all surprised when the very people that were elected to stop the war in iraq pulled down their pants, bent over and said "thank you sir, may i have another?" the majority of americans think things are going badly in iraq; the majority of americans think we never should have gone into iraq; the majority of americans support a timetable for withdrawl from iraq. and yet, the democrats that america voted into office last fall gave up their fight to acknowledge and appease such majority views. thanks, democrats. oh, and thanks, markos, for convincing us to vote for those democrats. the brooklyn rail, reviewing crashing the gates last year, pointed out markos' platform vis-a-vis progressives: kos has repeatedly called for progressives to approach the party as a “big tent,” with room for positions that deviate from the ostensible party line on abortion, gun control, the death penalty, the environment—or the legion of “social” issues that the pundits argue have made it a pariah in many states. and so we voted for anyone who had a big "d" next to their name...whether or not he or she actually believed in, not only what we believed in, but also in what he or she actually said he or she believed in. in his quest to become the "not leader" of liberal blogs, markos banned jews, palestinians, feminists, and everybody who posts at my left wing. yes, mid-ameirca can now read the daily kos without see the "f" word in the titles of diaries. and the right-of-center can rest easy that nobody will raise the ugly spector of issues like abortion or what really happened on 9/11. but as a wiser man than we once said, "those who stand for nothing, fall for anything." sure, there are numbers of great quantity in the middle, but the fire is along the edges of american politics. bob fertik says today at democrats.com: kos the impeachment koward just kondemned one of my favorite progressive bloggers, poputonian: digby defends the iraq supplemental bill out of the house. this, on the other hand, is utter horseshit. there's little worse in progressive politics than "holier than thou" purity trolls. they are just as destructive to the progressive movement as dlc trolls. what did poputonian write to get kos so enraged? poputonian quoted david swanson's criticism of democratic house leaders for blocking a vote on the lee amendment, and swanson's criticism of moveon for aiding and abetting that vote denial through their dishonest member "poll"… so apparently if you agree with any of these points, kos believes you are a "holier than thou" purity troll who is just as destructive to the progressive movement as [a] dlc troll. it seems that those of us fought to the end for the lee amendment have touched a very sensitive nerve by objecting to the manner in which it was killed by house democratic leaders and their allies in the "progressive" movement, most conspicuously moveon. if moveon, sirota, and kos were mere spectators in that effort, their lies and vicious attacks wouldn't make much sense. could it be that some of our "progressive" allies were working with house democratic leaders in the runup to the supplemental to help them kill the lee amendment? maybe poputonian unwittingly hit the nail on the head when (s)he wrote america: still an insider's game? and markos has tried like hell to become one of those insiders in that past months. congratulations, markos. you've made it. the stephanie herseths, the jim webers, the john testers owe you a big, big debt of thanks for helping get them elected. those are the guys who voted for the stripped down iraq funding bill, right? now, we don't think markos is to blame for the dems' caving on the iraq funding bill (he is, however, obvioulsy responsible for the virginia tech massacre). but we do think that his pointed efforts to "play to the middle" at the expense of actual convictions, plus his obvious work for getting anyone elected that claimed to be a democrat, is indicative of the core problems with the entire party. the repubbblicans, for all their wrong-headedness, bigotry, selfishness and fantasy-world beliefs, at least have some beleifs. we often (and lately especially) have come to think that the only thing elected democrats believe in is getting elected. as to those who say the dems are acting just like the repubbbs, we ask:  does the name ralph nader ring a bell?

Blacks and War

Watch video Jill at Jack and Jill politics recently posted another one of her challenging post. Yes, I said challenging post, because she challenges all of us. This challenge is about America's war on Iraq and the lack of conversation on black blogs about the disguised hypocrisy of America on this critical issue. Jill recently wrote that she is frustrated like most African Americans on the continuing failure to set a timetable on Iraq. She feels that members of Congress and the political blogs are ignoring African-Americans, in part I think because we have not blogged as much about Iraq as other issues. I agree we Jill. Black bloggers should get more vocal about the war. We need to do what Malcolm and Martin taught us, become more international in our conversation. We need to comment of the Iraq war as they did about the War in Vietnam and the war against our people. I just finished taking another look at my blog(s). At African American Opinion we have posted on issue of the war many times see below: War (41) War and Peace (30) War on Iraq (15) I'm reminded of what Martin Luther King said during his Christmas Sermon back in December of 1967, which reminds me of 2007, just change the name President Johnson to Bush, Just change the country North Vietnam to Iraq: "And the leaders of the world today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in North Vietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem? They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis, means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, and ultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends." --Martin Luther King, Jr., "A CHRISTMAS SERMON" 24 December 1967 Read more of Jill's thoughts below: African-Americans on the Iraq War -- The Military and Electoral Impact What's interesting is that you don't see a lot of discussion about the Iraq War among black bloggers. That's because we all agree on it and solutions seem obvious. If other bloggers are like me, I am just so sick of talking about it. The difference among black folks is that we were largely against the war before it started and have quietly been protesting it ever since. Most African-Americans can point to someone they know personally who has been impacted in some way -- negatively -- by this war. Could be a neighbor, relative, classmate, co-worker, relative of a relative. You nah mean. Me -- I've had 2 cousins go over to Iraq. And my cousin's half-sister's husband. This colors our view of those who believe in a wait-and-see or worse yet, a "surge" approach. Discussions in the black community tend to focus on Osama bin Laden -- isn't he still at large? -- and on the Money -- it sure seems like a lot of money is being spent over there in Iraq. How is it that none of that money was seen fit to spend on helping the victims of Katrina or re-building New Orleans? Or on better healthcare, education, poverty, our cities, the environment for folks living right here in the United States? Still it's critical to talk about it because Democratic candidates looking for black votes will need to speak to us on those terms to be heard. And it also impacts the current national security. Quietly, the military has been dependent for generations on regular enlistment by young black soldiers. Why do you think that the educational and career opportunities are always touted. That's been the lure for young men and women eager to join (or stay in) the middle class. More HERE