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...whatever "more traction" means. "Traction" in the war profiteering corporate news monopolies? No. "Traction" with voters (and donors) who hear about it? Yes, quite possibly. "Traction" enough to defeat Pelosi? Probably not. "Traction" enough to put a dent in her support, to "send her a message"? Yes, possibly.
People who dis alternative candidates (--alternatives to Corporatecrats and War funders and players-of-games on torture), merely for running against establishment candidates, do not really believe in democracy, it seems to me. And I think it's a serious misunderstanding of reality to think, for instance, that Nader was the one who kept Gore out of the White House, and inflicted the Bush Junta upon us. The Bush Junta was long planned, as was their corporate resource war. The global corporate predators who are behind it would have succeeded, one way or another, in their plan to put a dimwit frontman in the White House, with the title of president, to wage war for the Mideast oil fields, and to loot us blind, and shred our Constitution. It wasn't a matter of the numbers (the hanging chads, et al); it was a matter of POWER. But unless you realize that what we have suffered is a fascist coup, then you may fantasize that it could have been prevented, and that it must be Nader's fault. It really was not. And that mistake can lead to other critically important strategy mistakes among folks--political leaders, activists--who really do represent the majority of Americans, one of their mistakes being a failure to look at the mechanisms of power for the solution.
70% of the American people oppose the Iraq War and want it ended--up from 56% at the beginning of the war (Feb. '03). 56% is a significant majority. It would be a landslide in a presidential election (and believe me, it was). But now it's a whopping--epoch-making--anti-war majority of 70%. And, if this is a democracy, how can that whopping majority be ignored? Well, it IS being ignored--as Congress pours billions more of our tax dollars into Bush and Cheney's hands, for an EXPANSION of the occupation and more killing of insurgent Iraqis (who have a right to be there, while the U.S. has no right whatever to be occupying that country, dominating its government, killing its citizens, and demanding local signatures on oil contracts that clearly fleece the Iraqi people out of most of their oil profits).
So, do we the people--70% of whom oppose the war--and, we the members of the Democratic Party--about 90% of whom oppose the war--HAVE TO *DO* TO GET REPRESENTATION in Washington DC?!
If we can't get representation even from our leftist political leaders (left on a short spectrum, that is skewed way to the right), WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO?
Our leaders are DEAF to us. And they all supported rigging the voting system--if not by their votes, by their deafening silence about it.
I think it's been a critically important strategic error, on the part of the anti-war movement, not to go after the voting machines, as vigorously as they have gone after the warmongers. If all anti-war protests to this point had had an equal number of signs that said, "Hand-counted paper ballots NOW!," along with "No War For Oil!," we would be facing a far different and far better political situation. The election reform movement would be further along. The American people would be more aware of what has been done to them (quite literal disenfranchisement), and further election fraud (such as that which occurred in '06, limiting the anti-war win) would be more difficult for the coupsters to pull off.
But anti-war activists have made the same mistake as Democrats who blame Nader--the mistake of presuming that these are normal political times, and that all we need is more votes and more donations, or more and bigger protests, to bring about a change of course in the government. It is a delusion that is constantly fed by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and by our party leaders as well. We need to look to the MECHANISMS of the peoples' power for what is wrong. We CANNOT influence government policy. They are deaf to us. Why? Because they are not beholden to us. That is why. And they have now destroyed the most fundamental mechanism of accountability--TRANSPARENT counting of the peoples' votes.
An antiwar candidate--especially one of Cindy Sheehan's stature--defecting from the Democratic Party, and running as an independent, against a collusive and deceptively leftist establishment public official (Pelosi), does not bother me at all. It won't hurt Pelosi to be pressured from the left (which is really the middle, on an unskewed political spectrum). And if Sheehan does well, it would be great. Warmonger and corporate-apologist Democrats would thus be warned. Even in the unlikely event of Sheehan beating Pelosi, it would do nothing but good for the Democratic Party. Maybe we would at last get our party back--we, the majority--the workers, the poor, the lower middle class, the cannon fodder, who have no representation now.
I'm a 40 year Democratic Party member, voter, supporter and activist. And my personal assessment of the situation is that we must work within this party to change it, and to achieve representation for the majority of Americans. My main reason is fear of the kind of fracturing and splintering of the center/left in Germany in the early 1930s. The inability of the center-left government to govern paved the way for Hitler's rise. The two situations are not exactly parallel, but historical parallels never are--and there are lessons to heed. One of them is that, when things get as bad as they are now in the U.S., some of the very best people get pushed (or take themselves) further and further to the margins, as to their notion of the remedy. They become understandably enraged at what is happening, compromise becomes intolerable, coalitions become difficult to form, and the government cannot function. We are in a very perilous condition as a country, with crises pending on every front, including an unprecedented one--global warming and the death of our planet's biosphere. This fascist/corporate-induced disaster--on every front (economic, environmental, governmental, infrastructural, constitutional--is going to require extraordinary cooperation and unity among Americans, if we are to survive it, as a people, with a decent democracy in a livable country.
And it is furthermore essential that the U.S. begin providing leadership in the world, on global warming, peace and social justice. One of the reasons we have been disenfranchised is our great potential, as a people, for progressive leadership, in particular as to curtailing the global corporate predators who operate from our shores, including the war profiteers. It's a sort of left-handed compliment (so to speak). Special efforts have been undertaken to shut us up, to disempower us. We shouldn't permit "divide and conquer" to make things worse. It is a Bushite/corporate-fascist specialty. It hasn't worked in South America, where they've been experimenting with it. But it is something to be wary of here.
We need solutions--not fracturing. And we are more than likely going to have to deal with a kind of Vichy government for some time to come--until we restore transparent vote counting. It's disgusting, and enraging. But I think that's the reality, and the more we can focus and concentrate the left (the majority) in this country on very practical, achievable and essential goals--like transparent elections--the more chance we have of saving our democracy, stopping the warmongers and throwing the corporate rulers off our backs, not to mention saving our planet.
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