Activists need to get tough with House Democrats who are seeking re-election

[Fireweed247]

To stop the war now we need to get tough with the House Democrats who are covering up for their having allowed Bush to con them over the WMD lies.

The Iraq War will go on for years, regardless of which presidential candidate wins the November election, unless we get tough with the House Democrats Now.

The only way our Democratic Congressmen will be able to absolve themselves of the stain of having allowed Bush to get away with the rush to war in Iraq is to call for immediate impeachment hearings.
http://peacecandidates.com/discuss/746/activists_need_to_get_tough_with_ho

[Burma Jones]

1. Yeah, let's make sure we lose Congress

I'm already very pessimistic about the Presidency so why not just hand the whole shebang over to the 'Pukes, I mean we're so damned good at losing.

[Breeze54]

3. Really? Seems to me the Dems WON in 2006.

:eyes:

This year, we need to make it a complete take back of the house and senate!

[Burma Jones]

16. That was my point Ms Eyes Roll, 2006 was four years too late

Rather than target Democrats, why not target more Republicans and increase our majority into something veto proof? Are we so far in front now that we can slaughter our own instead of unseating some more Republicans?

Not happy with the Congress? make it Veto Proof.

[Fireweed247]

32. Nothing wrong with asking the Dems to listen to us

What do we win if we get the same policies?

[EFerrari]

5. Primary challenges are good. Like the one here in San Francisco.

Go Shirley!

http://www.shirley08.com/

[Fireweed247]

7. Shirley is the best!!

:applause:

[Winterblues]

14. Congress's approval is only half of Bush*'s approval

and you want them to stay????? Are you happy with the Democratic leadership in congress?

[Burma Jones]

17. Oh No, I want the GOP back in charge, I WANT to see Speaker Boehner

I mean, lets cannibalize our veto-able majority. Do you want the GOP back in charge of Congress?

Congressional approval ratings are bunk. I'll bet every individual Congressperson's approval rating is higher than the Chimp's.

[Fireweed247]

26. What is the point of being in charge when the Repubs still control everything

They are making us look weak. We need Democrats who will stand up for the Constitution and do the right thing.
A little encouragement, or even threats, might go a long way.

[warren pease]

21. We lost congress the day they started slurping from the same slimy corporate feeding trough ...

... as the GOP. And it's apparently pretty tasty slop, cause they've been chowing down non-stop for a couple of decades and show no signs of indigestion.

So for every Kucinich who refuses corporate bribes and only accepts money from actual people, there's at least 100 or more corporatized piggies -- Democrats, mind you, or at least they hide behind that little "d" after their names -- who have been morally and ethically neutered by the nectar flowing from PACs and lobbyists and CEOs and every single member of their families, including embryos, and the rest of the execs on mahogany row who better damn well cough up the maximum or consider employment elsewhere.

And then there's me, behind on a couple of monthly payments, waiting to get paid for work I did as long ago as last November, not a lot of disposable income at the moment... Personally, I doubt I'm going to be able to afford a few congressmen and maybe a senator or two as well -- at least in the foreseeable future.

But GlutCo Enterprises Worldwide, Inc. sure can. They're in it for the long run, they play to win and they've got the cash reserves to bribe as many of the swine as they need to for their agenda to get top billing in the next session.

So while I concede that democrats are the default choice if you've evolved past the protozoan stage, they're also the very definition of the lesser of two evils.

And I'm so very goddamned sick and tired of getting stuck with some moderate-right shill for corporate dominance, pre-selected for me by mass media's ability to exclude and silence anyone outside the narrow limitations of predictable American conservative orthodoxy.

Having passed their corporate obedience tests, they're shoved in front of me for ratification, although my buy-in isn't at all necessary, and then sent on to perform in some sort of cliched, scripted and vaguely disgusting faux battle against a knuckle-dragging low-brow representing the vast American dull-normal population -- and who, because that's such a gigantic constituency, might actually win. And if the numbers aren't sufficient, there's always the privatized election machinery, brought to you by all those GOP-ass-kissing corporations.

And you're actually concerned about losing congress? I'm far more concerned about the numerous ways this country has had its soul stolen by faceless corporate automatons and emotionless androids who look at Cheney and see salvation.

Reclaim the country's soul and its love of self-destructive politics and bloviating wingnut frauds goes away in a few seconds. But as long as corporate values -- and there's an oxymoron for the ages -- dominate mainstream ideology, we're fucked 12 ways from Sunday.


wp

[Burma Jones]

31. I don't know how far back you want to go

or why you think there was a time when politicians were not beholden to corporate interests. Perhaps we had a fair shake in the wake of the Great Depression when corporations had so miserably failed they had to wait until WWII to regain their power.

We live in a winner take all society that doesn't give a good goddamn about all their fellow Americans, only the members of their own tribe.

Why do I care whether Democrats win? Maybe the incremental improvement over Republican rule. Maybe because Democrats at least aren't going around trying to shove fundamentalist dogma into public policy. I can't disagree with your despair over the power of wealth over all types of politicians, but I can hope that enough momentum accrues so Liberal is no longer a dirty word.

[warren pease]

33. Agreed corporate interests have controlled politicians since the flood, but...

I guess it's the transformation of corporations into nation-states, with near absolute power and no accountability, that's really changed. I doubt that even the utter corruption of the Gilded Age or the free ride given capitalism in the 1920s could touch the modern corporate age in terms of the pervasive influence they have over all aspects of pop culture.

Corporate charters used to contain sets of principles the company had to at least seem to abide by or they'd get their charters revoked. They used to have to at least pretend to operate in the public good or they could lose their charters. Corporations used to be prohibited from building monopolies. Corporations used to be automatically decertified at various intervals and, to stay in business, they had to prove they had earned enough brownie points to justify their continued presence.

All that gave regulatory agencies and congress itself a lot of leverage in dealing with these entities. Now, with personhood established, with shareholder return the only deliverable required of corporations and with the enormous concentrated wealth and power they've accumulated over the years.

And thanks to media consolidation, they own nearly all the propaganda delivery systems and the content that gets spewed uncritically and context-free into American living rooms every single day.

Also, the PR and advertising industries are 20th Century creations. They've combined to rid the general population of their innate resistance to and distrust of these giant amoral profit machines.

Now, corporate values have become societal values, which is why the very people who would benefit most from nationalization of key industries -- the oil monopolies and this insane for-profit medical system high on the list -- are the ones most opposed to "big gummint" and therefore the ones most likely to keep shooting themselves in the foot.

So I think that's a decent, although abbreviated, case for being extremely concerned and wary about corporate control of their bribed politicians. The sums of money are unprecedented; likewise the cost of running a successful campaign; and the sheer venality of today's "representatives of the people" may be unprecedented.

So maybe the basic idea that all politicians are greedy frauds is nothing new. Still, I think the current bribocracy we live under is far more destructive today -- when our dependence on corporate goods and services is only rivaled by political dependence on campaign bribes -- because the corporate influence isn't possible to ignore.

Even if they're "off the grid," most people can't forge their own utensils, evaporate their own salt from containment ponds, throw and fire their own ceramic ware or differentiate between mushrooms that are good to eat and those that kill. So we buy utensils made by corporations, use salt supplied by corporations, buy dishes and pots made and sold by corporations and only eat mushrooms from the supermarket produce section.

Breaking our own corporate consumption habits is probably as futile as expecting politicians to abandon their addition to corporate bribery. However, unless we move to some form of public financing of campaigns, we'll continue to watch in rage or wonder as these corporate tools, of both parties, commit acts to monumentally destructive to the peasantry that the only possible reason is that corporate money speaks louder than $100 donations from constituents.


wp

[Breeze54]

2. I agree! Vote out the Blue Dogs and the BushCo DINO/DLC Reps!

They're ALL up for re-election this year!!

[Democrats_win]

4. It is now clear that "our" Democratic congress is a complete failure.

Failures:

Impeachment
Iraq war
Investigating bushco crimes
Preventing corporate crimes

[Breeze54]

6. We need a full majority and they have been

investigating

Impeachment (Kucinich)
Iraq war (Kucinich, Kennedy, Waxman, Feingold, Conyers etc...)
Investigating bushco crimes (Kucinich, Kennedy, Waxman, Feingold, Conyers etc...)
Preventing corporate crimes (huh? How do they 'prevent' it?)

[Fireweed247]

8. The investigations have gotten nowhere

and there is so much freaking evidence

[Breeze54]

9. I know but we don't have a 'real' majority in the Senate

yet to impeach. Right now it would be voted down.

[Fireweed247]

10. WE have the ability to introduce Impeachment

and then provide the US Congress, the Corporate media and the American people the mountain high pile of evidence that would make Impeachment the obvious course of action.

When and if any member of Congress bothered to defend Bush and his actions, the groundswell support to remove them from office would be overwhelming. Either way we win!

[Breeze54]

12. Yes but the SENATE votes on it and we DO NOT have a majority now!

It will FAIL. It would be a waste of time. I think they can still be
impeached even after they leave office and when we DO have a majority.

[Fireweed247]

25. The Dems DO have the majority

But my point was that it is their duty to pursue Impeachment and provide the evidence.

Whether or not Impeachment passes, the American people will know who is and isn't upholding the Constitution.

[Breeze54]

29. Not in the Senate to pass an impeachment bill.

They need 2/3 rd's votes but we don't even have 60 Dem Senators.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. You mean to CONVICT

we have the majority in the House to Impeach

Think of it this way.

Impeachment= indictment before a grand jury

Conviction+ conviction in a court of law.

Now we may not have enough votes in the HOUSE to impeach because of the blue Dogs

And I tell you, I will NOT be voting for my DEM rep in the GE... if she gets reelected with a close election she might get it that we are angry

And no, I don't prefer a puke, but she is not fulfilling her duty to THE CONSTITUTION and the excuses by her staffer last Friday are still making my blood go up

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. Our Dem rep is refusing to come to our Iraq Town Hall forun

He doesn't want to hear it I guess.

[EFerrari]

13. He must be on the Pelosi Plan.

Watch out, next he tells you you're not his constituent.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. He likes Pelosi

But what upsets me more than that is he likes Bush. Told us he would love to sit down and have a beer with him!

:puke:

[Freddie Stubbs]

18. Most Democrats in the House are, as they elected her Speaker

[EFerrari]

19. No townhall in this district in two years.

I hope she's not starting a trend.

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. Are "townhall" meetings the only way which representative can communicate with their constituents?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

22. As a community in two way communication, probably. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

23. I had a look at the Peace Candidates website

While some of the candidates there sound excellent, I do wonder if there is anyone there who is checking up sufficiently on who signs up. A few of the candidates listed are *Republicans* running against *Democratic* incumbents; and on checking one or two of their websites, they seemed to be anti-Iraq-war mainly on isolationist grounds, and to have loony ideas like abolishing income tax altogether. Also Ron Paul was listed, and, apart from the fact that he's criminally insane, this is supposed to be an anti-incumbent website!

As regards the general issue: I don't think it's good for politicians to feel too safe in office, and thus I think it's a good idea to sometimes run primary challenges against those who are in safe seats where the opposition party cannot defeat them. Probably *not* such a good idea in some seat that was won by a Dem in 2006 for the first time in living memory, with a majority of 51%.

And I hope you can defeat some Republican incumbents! Lots of them, in fact.

[Fireweed247]

24. Well Kucinich is an incumbent and peacecandidates.com supports him

The site is a collaborative effort of Kucinich supporters from his presidential campaign. If you have an opinion about one of the candidates, post about it on his/her page or on the message board.

[LeftishBrit]

28. Thanks for the suggestion - done.

[LSK]

27. GREAT IDEA, except that PRIMARY SEASON is almost over

:shrug:

[Breeze54]

30. So what? The GE is in Nov. and every congressional seat is up for re-election this year! n/t