Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Paul? Hiding?

Happy Thanksgiving, All

Till the day after the morrow

Someone there has some clean-up to do at Democratic Fiickr...some of the newer stuff is pretty tasteless.

Also, someone needs to go over to Slate and give John Dickerson a good talking to.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/687

But good news is that Down with Tyranny's great blog analyzes the election data and comes with the result in favor of Dean's strategy.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/684

Hope all of you there at the DNC have a great holiday.

happy thanksgiving. was in nyc today and it was cool and overcast but very thanksgivingish. lots of people hustling home, the trains were filled, and the smell of roasting chesnuts in the air. also lots of cops and dog cops in grand central. i learned today that some guy named cambel had his own apartment at one end of grand central back in the old days ( this would be like have a really elegant apartment in the middle of one of the o'hare terminals ) and now it is a fancy cocktail bar. i'll have to check it out sometime.

anyhow pamurtha whoever you might be i suggest if you have any interest in participating in this blog in a role other than that of a troll you stop beating whatever horse you are consumed with to death...

should this:

grand central cocktail lounge

replace this:

nah

good nite. see you in the morning.

Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

President John F. Kennedy
November 22, 1963

The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial and political support and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities--from MIT to Cal Tech--tend to attract the new and growing industries. I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research Center.

This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.

The Iraqi Public on the US Presence and the Future of Iraq (PDF)

* Seven in ten Iraqis want US-led forces to commit to withdraw within a year.

* An overwhelming majority believes that the US military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing.

* More broadly, most feel the US is having a predominantly negative influence in Iraq and have little or no confidence in the US military.

* If the US made a commitment to withdraw, a majority believes that this would strengthen the Iraqi government.

* Majorities believe that the withdrawal of US troops would lead to a reduction in the amount of inter-ethnic violence and improvement in the dayto-day security of Iraqis.

* A modest majority, including a large majority of Shia, now believes that in the near future Iraqi security forces will be strong enough to deal with their security challenges without foreign forces.

* There is little interest in replacing US-led forces with an international peacekeeping force.

* Support for attacks on US-led forces has grown to a majority position—now six in ten.

* Growing approval for attacks on US-led forces has not been accompanied by any significant support for al Qaeda. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are rejected by overwhelming majorities of Shias and Kurds and large majorities of Sunnis

* Shias have mildly positive views of Iran and its President, while Kurds and Sunnis have strongly negative views.

* Shias and Kurds have mostly negative views of Syria, while Sunnis are mildly positive.

* Shias have overwhelmingly positive views of Hezbollah, while Kurds and Sunnis have negative views.

The power of the vote ...

Top Marine: Troops under too much strain

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The new Marine Corps commandant said Wednesday that the longer than anticipated pace of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is putting an unacceptable strain on his troops.

Gen. James Conway said the service is unable to meet its goal of giving Marines twice as much time at home as in a war zone.

He said unless the demand on the corps eases, he may have to propose increasing the size of the force

free-trade-at-all-cost Republicans writhing in pain

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The midterm elections, which produced the highest voter turnout in more than two decades, resulted in not only the Democratic takeover of both the House and the Senate, but a new political reality that has some free-trade-at-all-cost Republicans writhing in pain.

The free-trade orthodoxy, made up not only of Republicans but still a sizeable number of Democrats, appears to be spouting ever-louder lies and disturbing distortions of truth and reality as their desperation over the ascension of the "Lou Dobbs Democrats" on November 7 is becoming more shrill, verging on outright panic.

To these media merchants of obfuscation and hollow meaningless language, the very idea that ideology and blind partisanship may be giving way to truth must be frightening indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving

and.....

To all my fellow Native Americans,

"I know. I know"

;p

Posted by FreedomOfSpeechForWeThePeople on November 23, 2006 at 12:33 AM To all my fellow Native Americans, "I know. I know"

Good point. And good night, FOS. cya later, aligator.

Good Night Dors,

;p

Good afternoon to all of us getting ready for the big dinner.

Me? I'm deep into some cornbread stuffing/sausage and my sweet potato pie mix is already made. The pies get baked in the morning. The mustard/turnip greens with authentic Smithfield Bacon for seasoning will finish up this afternoon.

If I don't get a chance to say to some
Happy Thanksgiving and God bless. Take care.

bbl

P.S. Oh yeah DPD, how do you make homemade cranberry sauce? sounds good.

Posted by J on November 22, 2006 at 12:24 PM

Thanks for making me reminisce .....

I'll be sobbing over a bottle of White Merlot and .......pasta. (I can't cook)

:(

;p

It may be an old saw, but it remains true: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And this, ultimately, is why occupation is so pernicious. The occupier is at once all powerful, able to arrest and berate the occupied at will, but also powerless, for he knows that his security and safety are largely outside his control. He knows he is hated.

The result is this

There's a lot of talk about the mounting toll in Iraq: in blood , in treasure , in the lives of innocent Iraqis. But one of war's darkest legacies is the moral corrosion it inflicts on those who wage it. The longer we stay in Iraq, the worse it will get.

Next time that little boy will be wielding a rock. Later, a bomb.

The Odd Attack on Dean

Amid Democratic postelection celebrating, there was a bizarre outburst: a malicious attack launched by James Carville against Howard Dean, chair of the Democratic National Committee, demanding his ouster. Carville's freakish initiative was bogus in every way. He has the same influence in party affairs as any other talking head on CNN--that is, none. In a year when the Democrats achieved their first real Congressional victory since 1992, Carville accused Dean of losing seats by not devoting more money to close House races.

Carville's reckless foray, joined by pollster Stanley Greenberg, is worthy of comment only because the two are picking a fight that reflects the deep, potentially explosive fault-line in the party: the battle for control between old and new. Carville speaks for yesterday's failed politics--the Clinton years. Dean represents a more promising future with his aggressive efforts to rebuild a fifty-state party that grows from the grassroots up.

To get the hypocrisy, remember that Carville and Greenberg came to fame with Bill Clinton's 1992 "Putting People First" victory. The new President promptly turned right, and his White House eviscerated the DNC's promising coordination of state party campaigns. Clinton politics was all about him. Eight years later, Democrats had lost it all: White House, Senate, House.

In contrast, Dean got a lot of flak when he remarked that Democrats should start talking to everyone, including people in deeply red states. He made the same pitch when he ran for DNC chair in 2005 against the establishment and won.

Surprise--Dean has actually done what he promised. He gets funds to states, with the result that Democrats are speaking directly again to people in red areas, including through ads on Christian-right radio. This is politics for the long term. Nobody expects early conversion in Mississippi. But less than two years after Dean's launch, Democrats won control of the House and Senate for the first time since the Clinton team lost it in 1994.

The party does face a soul-searching reckoning, and this is a good fight to have.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061211/editors

People alive at the time of the Kennedy assassination have a common thread of the memory of where they were when they heard the news. Unfortunately, those who were not alive in 63 now understand the burning memory. If you ask people where you were on 9/11, they can tell you.
There were no actions taken after Kennedy’s death. There was nothing to do. The killer was caught within the day. And he in turn was dead the next. We were refitted to T.V. for several days, after that, it was business as usual. November 22 was the saddest day and that was all.
9/11 is different. 9/11 invokes anger. 9/11 invokes rage. 9/11 invokes war.
We are still in the quagmire of 9/11. We know who is responsible for the attack, other than Rice, and Osama is on his way to dying of old age. Of course he still has to suffer the 08 elections. The republicans may need to get his head in a bag of ice for their next presidential candidate. So what if we ever catch him? He has his fame. It’s a little late to appear decisive.
The war in Iraq is over. If we leave by the end of the year , or in 6 months, or a year, the outcome will be the same. The people of Iraq will form a new government and settle into a day to day routine. They will probably have more freedom and a better life than during Saddam’s reign. There was plenty of room for improvement in their government.
We will have to find a way to combat terror. We have our guard up now. We can convince people we need to guard against attack. Something we could not do when we handed the reins over to this republican administration. Perhaps that will be enough.

This Thanks Giving, Let's appreciate those who we take for granted......

Like , I don't know. The YOUTH maybe ?

Posted by Nora November 22, 2006 @9:26PM
Thank you for your list of Congressmen who voted for the "Bankruotcy Reform Act"...I was surprised to see that Bayh, Biden and Reid voted for this legislation. The fact that Hillary did not vote on this legislation is the same thing to me as voting for it. I am disabled as the result of bladder cancer surgury done by a HMO doctor. I have written a book about cancer, cancer treatment and the criminal fraud that private insurance companies engage in to cheat thier insureds out of benifits they are rigtfully entitled to. For those reasons, it is very troubling to me to read else where that Hillary Clinton is accepting large contibutions from medical associations and HMO's.The statement was made that these groups, realizing that she might be the next president, "want a place at the table"...It really troubled me that she is taking money from these groups. The Bankruptcy Reform Act and "Tort Reform" with it's $250,000 cap on non economic damages are closely tied together, both acts are to the extreme detriment of working Americans. I'm going to have to watch these "corparate Dems" much more closely. Thanks for for your help. Please pardon the typos, my"editor" is asleep....Happy Thankgiving!!

hi dana, yup i was in intermediate algebra class, 11th grade. we were taking a test and the news came over the classroom loud speaker that he had been shot. the teacher told us to keep taking the test...a bit later it they said kennedy was dead. we were sent home. i wonder if that teacher remembers how foolish she was?

Posted by TomN on November 22, 2006 @9:47 PM...Re your letter to John McCain...you naided it!...I don't believe McCain has much left in the tank. His pandering to the center of the Republican Party and to the power brokers in the party and to the religious base are going to be seen for what it is, a sell out in order to try to get elected. I don't think the American people are going to fall for it. Two Bushs were enough. A Bush look alike isn't going to fly. You can stick a fork in him, he's done!

Posted by gregg on November 23, 2006 at 07:12 AM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi gregg,

They actually announced it in your class? Was there any counseling or did they expect you all to just deal with it?

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Finally we have something to be thankful for on the domestic political front but now we must advocate for the newly elected congress to do things that are progressive and aimed at improving the outlook for future generations. This is no easy task.

Some of us will be blessed with the companionship of family and friends, others will be cursed by their presence. Life is weird that way ain't it?

here is a little sing along album from long ago via internet weekly:

damn i love that girl!

Posted by gregg on November 23, 2006 at 07:23 AM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ROFLMAO!

I love it!

fos, we had this system of loud speakers in each classroom that the principal could use to make announcements and stuff. they could also hook this up to the radio. it was a new modern school built in 1959! the announcement just started flowing out of the speaker. there was no introduction from the principal or anything and there certainly was no counseling. back then such things were not a part of life. communications were not as abundant and intrusive as they are now and we were just sent home. a few kids were sobbing on the bus but most of us didn't know what to make of it. our parents had been thru the depression and the second world war and were experienced with bad news. school was closed for a day or more and we all watched on t.v. and saw ruby get shot and saw the funeral and then the country went into a sort of long lasting state of shock or mourning that was followed by the intensification of the vietnam war, civil rights, demonstrations, johnson's resignation, the youth movement the re-emergence of nixon and so on.

but things were never quite the same. of course in the next few years martin luther king and malcomx and bobby kennedy were all assassinated and the war that was a minor pimple when jfk was killed became a raging nightmare.

Oh, gregg.

I did'nt even think about the effect that must have had.OMG.So noone talked to the kids about it all.I can't imagine what it must have bn like for an entire generation of children...oh that's bad.I've been thinking a lot about the different generations and how each's experiences brought about the changes we see today and this is something I never thought about.I had no clue they announced it to the kids with no kind of counseling. No wonder why today we have have all this "crisis management" stuff in place. Your generation knows just how important it is that's why your peers put the practice in place .Wow .

fos. my friends and i did publish our own underground newspaper in those days and circulated it in the school which had student body of about 2,000. this is one of the poems we published in our 11/25/63 issue in honor of jfk:

William Collins. 1721–1759

How sleep the Brave

HOW sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod 5
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay; 10
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

(been like). Sorry. My keyboard sucks. I think someone spilled coffee on it and did'nt fess up about it. They keys get stuck.

LOL

Posted by gregg on November 23, 2006 at 07:44 AM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's beautiful, gregg.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!

(slap an in-law for me)

I'm totally joking.

;p

It was nice to watch the news this morning, troops saying how thankful they are for freeing Iraqi's and seeing the smiles on the children. Thank our troops today and all they have accomplished.

Why settle for giving a "thank you"
when you can give a POWER THANK YOU?

If you want to make the people who are special to you, feel special, try a Power Thank You. It has 3 parts:

Part 1: Thank them for something specific that they did for you (it can also be something they refrained from doing that would have hurt you).

Part 2: Acknowledge to them the effort it took for them to do it (by saying something like: "I know you didn't have to do ----" or "I know you went out of your way to do ----").

Part 3: Tell them the difference it personally made to you.

I still get choked up when I think of the power thank you a CEO client gave me a couple years ago.

He told me: "1. I think you might have saved my life; 2. I can be very tough and hard headed but you took me on. You told me very firmly and in no uncertain terms about the incredible pain my 15 year old, underachieving son was in by having a high IQ and not being able to use it because he couldn't focus. I just kept treating him like he was lazy; 3. And what did it mean to me? I remember when I asked him (as you suggested), how bad it got for him (that he couldn't concentrate), and he broke and started crying and let me in instead of blowing me off like he usually did. And then I'll never forget when I asked him, why he hadn't told me it was so bad and he looked right back at and through me and said (correctly), 'Dad, you didn't want to know!'

I told my son I was sorry for not knowing and for not caring enough to find out. He looked back at me at said, 'I'm sorry for all the self-destructive things I did, when I didn't give a damn because you didn't either.' That's when I knew I had to go from hurting my boy to helping (the guy was choked up as he said this) him."* **

* This CEO started keeping his son company every night as the boy struggled through his homework, because as his dad said to him: "I can't allow you to be alone feeling so awful." This change in attitude turned everything around at home. That CEO then realized how he was doing the same thing at his company to his board and management team and turned those situations around as well.

** If this scenario speaks to you with regard to the challenge of juggling work and home without shortchanging either, you might like my column at FAST COMPANY entitled: Why I Wouldn't Want My Sister to Marry You, Part 2

Subscribe to Usable Insight of the Week at: http://www.markgoulston.com/list.

LETTER FROM A FELLOW AMERICAN--THOUGH A REPUBLICAN--
WHO LOVES YA DEMS AND THINKS THAT THE GUY WHO CREATED
THIS "OPEN BLOG" SAVED THE WORLD!
************
I am the founder of REPUBLICANS FOR DEMOCRATIC
MAJORITY
IN CONGRESS IN 2006 as a way to cure my party from its
fatal disease, metastatic Bushit. Please let me
explain, because it has a very important historical
message for you, my Democratic fellow Americans.

I never had a childhood because I spent it all being
dragged
by my parents westward from country to country as a
refugee from Stalinist Romania in their obsessive
goal to reach safety in America, their "Paradise of
Freedom." As soon as I learned a language (a skill I
was blessed with) and adapted to a country, whoosh,
off they took me to the next country to start all over
again, over and over again for more than a decade.
When I got to America's shores it was gray and
raining. I didn't like Americans because it seemed to
me that they could so easily fool themselves with
hubris about themselves and anesthetize themselves to
the suffering of others. But after passing that
beautiful lady holding up the torch to welcome me into
New York Harbor, I was awe struck and swore to give it
an
effort, for I felt indeed like the wretched, tired,
homeless refuse hoping to breathe free.

But my disdain for Americans came to an end when I
went to the University of California in Berkeley in
the mid-60s because there I saw the American love for
MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. There I, a Conservative
anti-Communist, met again all the Communists I had
known in NY from the Ethical Culture Society's youth
programs. To this day, I face Republicans and even
Democrats who insist that UC Berkley's Free Speech
Movement (FSM) was the beginning of the end for
traditional American democracy and the start of the
New Left. In fact, it could have been that except for
a dedicated Communist girl I knew from NY, Betina
Aptheker. She was not a rebel against parental
authority or the "system." On the contrary, she was
the disciplined daughter of one of the leaders of the
American Communist Party (CPUSA).

However, the Free Speech Movement (FSM) that she and
her allies began did not call for revolution. Instead,
the FSM called for the most valued jewel in America's
tradition: MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. The FSM was originally
supported by 5,000 UC Berkeley students; but the call
for MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE was supported by 25,000 out 0f
UC Berkeley's 27,000 students-- all of whom went on
strike believing that MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE is basic to
the American way. In fact, even the right-wing Cal
Conservatives for Political Action fully supported the
FSM and participated in its leadership. If there's one
common thread that almost all agree, it's the First
Amendment right to free speech.

But in the next year, after a major defeat of the UC
Regents that is now part of American History, the New
Left tried to create a mandatory Student Union (FSU)
in which all students had to belong, making UC
Berkeley something of a "closed shop," that was
controlled by a very powerful New Left Central
Committee. A few of us opposed it simply because it
advocated action instead of talk; thus it opposed
MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. So now, we who supported the FSM
were opposing the FSU because it was anti-Meaningful
Dialogue. When the student referendum finally came,
the FSU got the same 5,000 supporters it had gotten
before. But, by showing that it was anti-Meaningful
Dialogue, we got 15,000 other students to vote against
it.

There is a very important lesson here that explains
why we started REPUBLICANS FOR A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS
IN
2006-- to promote MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE in Congress. If
you Democrats learn and apply the MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE
lesson of UC Berkeley in the 1960s next year when you
gain control of Congress, you will save America and
possibly the world, something who ever set up this
Open Blog has begun to do.

If you look at Karl Rove, he is called a genius
because he got GW Bush elected and engineered his
House and Senate majority. Democratic leaders are in
awe
and fear of Rove. But when you look at who these
Democrats are, you see right away that they are only
so called ELECTION-PROS, like Rove. These people do
not believe in MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. They insist that
candidates must "stay on message" in order to win,
not only proving themselves to the voters, but
demonizing the
opposition instead of showing themselves worthy. As a
result, the message is: vote for me because you have
no choice as my opponent is pure filth!

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Last
Sunday, I watched a Republican incumbent Congressman
from NJ and a woman seeking to replace him debate. But
also participating in the debate were a Libertarian
and a Constitutionalist candidate. As the Republican
and Democrat responded to questions, they were awkward
and annoying, never dealing with the question, instead
taking cheap shots at each other. But the other two,
gave concrete answers and talked TO us directly, not
AT us like the Democratic and Republican candidates.
To save time, they would even say: I wholeheartedly
agree
with the other guy! Lucky for the Rep and Dem
candidates, not many voters were there, or the
Libertarian
and Constitutionalist candidates would have gotten all
the votes. Do you all

>remember Ross Perot? He spoke directly to both the
candidates and the voters on the issues while the Dem
and Rep candidates just threw slogans at each other
and obviously could not cope with Perot. So what
happened to MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE since the 60s?

Well, Rep and Dem candidates still run for office full
of passion. But, they are told that in order to win
they must hire election-pros who tell them what they
need say, what they must wear and how they must act to
win. These self professed ELECTION-PROS-- whether
Republican or
Democratic-- are all alike. They all have one thing in
common: they are socially retarded ever since High
School and go into this business as compensation for
their social abnormalities. Take Rove, for example, or
any of his mentors. Their lives suggest that, had they
not been saved by this profession, they could have
been part of the Columbine High School shooters in
black or something like that, had they not become
election-pros. These people DO NOT know or really
understand REAL people like us at all. In fact they
are afraid of and hate real people. That is why they
want to avoid above all MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. They only
know others as caricature cut-out stereotypes because
they could never really fit into common normality. And
so, they seek to compensate by forcing others who seek
election to behave aggressively and viciously instead
of honestly, aggressively as they themselves would
love to behave but are too timid! For these types,
politics is show business for ugly people.

To election-pros, image is like armor and script is a
weapon. Thus, free and open dialogue and debate is, in
their eyes, defenselessness. I can imagine the
Founding Fathers turning in their graves as they watch
these people seek to replace the democratic tradition
of MEANINGFUL DIALOG and responsible debate as a means
to consensus with their divisive tactics as a
means of convincing people that THERE IS NO CHOICE BUT
MY CANDIDATE, the other guy is a Creature from a
Horror Movie. I recall young Communist activists in
East Europe and Asia studying in ruptured awe
classical Leninist texts on how to mobilize by
incriminating the "lumpen proletariat" into
polarization so that they have no other choice but to
stand with the Revolution. To these young Communist
activists, from Romania to Vietnam, MEANINGFUL
DIALOGUE simply meant dissipation of intensity of rage
and loss of control. Only through hate-- insisted
Lenin, Mao and Stalin-- can you mobilize the inactive
by nature masses into a violent revolutionary force.
And yet, election-pros, because of their personality
disorders, are seeking to prevent MEANINGFUL
DIALOGUE in an election for the same reasons. They
fear the unifying effect of consensus and the finding
of middle ground because that dissipates the mobilized
rage they think is needed to win. The election-pros
are, therefore, as anti-democratic as Communist
activists, each because of psychological quirks of
his/her own, obsessed with control of mass rage.

But Rove-type Republicans go still one step further.
They don't trust anyone, even on their own side. As a
leader in Young Americans for Freedom in the 1970s, I
got to see many of the right-wing grow up. They seemed
to live by three principles:

1) BUREAUCRATIC CANNIBALISM-- your side is only means,
not ends. Thus, one is a member of of strict pecking
order where someone is sitting on your face. To get
ahead, somehow, like a snake that dislocates its jaws
in order to swallow large prey, you have to get your
teeth around the butt of the guy above you and devour
him so that you can move up to his spot.

2) RULE OF THE FACES-- The right is often nothing but
a bunch of fat slobs and misfits whose timidity
neutralizes their rage. But, while each is a weak
reed, easily bent, tied together very tightly with
strict discipline they make an unbreakable whole.

3) THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX-- Most right-wingers I knew
live in utter frustration over their own mediocrity,
physically and mentality. But, by thinking "outside
the box," they believe can get ahead. Of course,
outside the box does not mean doing something
creative; after all, knowing yourself to be mediocre,
that's not what you have in mind. The leg-up is to
think of the box as the rules. The sooner and the more
you violate the rules, the more you surprise your
opponent. Thus, for example, when Joe Wilson (who had
supported Bush because of his affection for the
father) found that the Niger Yellow Cake Story was a
lie and went public, Cheney's office ran a slanderous
whisper campaign. It was not meant to go public; but,
lacking a story to print, Novak blew the silent
underground slander campaign to discredit Wilson. It
was run by Libby for Cheney through Judy Miller of the
NY Times. As usual, it's the cover-up that does more
damage to the perpetrator than the original "out of
the box" violation of the law-- as Libby learned the
hard way. Being unethical is in no way to be equated
with genius.

Some of you might be history buffs and suddenly
realize that hey, this kind of stuff is exactly what
the Nazi Party used to do in the 1920s and 30s! And
some may even find frightening similarities between
Rove and other anti-democratic operatives. In fact,
the one thing that GW Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Melhman
and Rove hate most is MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. That's why
they engage only in monologue. Remember the tantrum
they threw when John Kerry blew the punch line to a
joke about Bush.

Unfortunately, Democratic election-pros hate
meaningful
dialogue as much as their Republican counterparts do.
But you Dems are lucky because fate has put the
Republicans in ABSOLUTE charge of our government for
so long that they have proven Lord Acton's principle
that: "POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS
ABSOLUTELY!"

So now you have to make a decision: WILL YOU FOLLOW
THE KARL ROVE-LIKE DEMOCRAT ELECTION-PROS, or will you
call for MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE from now through to 2008?

Before you answer, look at what happened to John Kerry
when he listened to his DEMOCRATIC ELECTION-PROS
instead
of following his own instinct to engage the "Swifties"
in MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE!

MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE is the great DE-POLARIZER, for it
promises some sort of mutual understanding, if not
consensus. It bridges the distance from the middle.
Bill Clinton proved that and totally disarmed
Gingrich, by the latter's own admission.

When we study the American Revolution, we tend to
focus far more on the MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE that forged
men from totally different parts of the country into a
CONTINENTAL CONGRESS that produced the Constitution
and Bill of Rights-- documents that all mankind
cherishes. DE-POLARIZED, they found their way to the
greatest event of mankind-- and yet none of them was
anything but an average American....They became
awesome only through MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE.

When Bush invoked Jesus, he blasphemed. And he
blasphemed because, so desperate was he to become
president, that he listened to Rove and used the
greatest DE-POLARIZER, Jesus, to POLARIZE Americans.
As a result, we Republicans suffer from a metastatic
BUSHIT cancer. Only you Democrats can save us through
meaningful dialogue-- the same way Betina saved UC
Berkeley by calling for MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. But,
unlike her, you must used MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE when you
win as a means to DE-POLARIZE Americans so that we can
be one people again. The goal of meaningful dialogue
is consensus and the way to consensus is
truth-telling...You must seek the truth through
MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE as a Democratic Congress. If you
do
that, then I can promise you on behalf of far more
Republicans than you can imagine, that in 2008 we will
face you in a campaign of MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE instead
of hateful mobilization of the masses through
culture-war polarization, as the election-pros try to
encourage. And if candidates face each
other the way Perot and the NJ Libertarian and
Constitutionalist faced debate as dialogue, think of
how much less expensive the 2008 Presidential Campaign
will be without the election-pros!

In the 1960s, a young Communist saved America's
students from a self-destructive polarization by
calling for MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE instead of Revolution.
Now you Democrats have a chance to save this nation
from polarization, de-polarizing it also through
MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE. It is only because of the
polarization of the American people by Rove and
Rove-like election-pros that GW Bush was able to get
away with justifying an Iraq War of reckless
endangerment on the basis of "I'm following my gut."
You don't have to be a biologist to know what you get
if you follow your gut all the way to the end....We
are therefore now all drowning in BUSHIT!

Meaningful dialogue can clear it all away and we can
again become once more, the Shinning City on a Hill.
Gold always shines, even when you smear it with feces.
So once we clean away the Bushit with meaningful
dialogue, America will again shine, lighting the way
to peace and freedom for the rest of the world.

THAT IS WHY, WHOEVER CREATED THIS OPEN BLOG SECTION ON
THE DNC WEB SITE, MAY HAVE SAVED THE WORLD BY LIGHTING
A LIGHT THROUGH MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE IN THE DARKNESS,
INSTEAD OF JUST CURSING IT AND MAKING IT DARKER
STILL...I would like, if I may, as a Republican, say
BRAVO AND THANK YOU, to the Democrat who finally
violated the rules of the election-pros and called for
MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE on the DNC Blog site!

If anyone wants to discuss this further one-on-one and
to seek Rep-Dem consensus, you can reach me at

Daniel E. Teodoru

P.S. edited by Barry Sussman-- with many thanks

Just wanted to point out for anyone who's interested, that I've got a partial transcript of a recent talk by Bishop Gene Robinson on "Justice and the Common Good" here.

Hey dems, just customized my Google homepage and you losers are at the top. Whoever said McCain is toast, I doubt it. I wish you were right, but he remains the guy we shouldn't want to run against. I don't think conservatives will swallow Giuliani, but they want to win just bad enough to hold their nose for McCain, the same way many progressives held their nose for Clinton in '92. I think most of the conservative base knows he isn't sincere with all of the Jerry Falwell bootlicking, but at this point they'll take it. McCain will frantically crawl his way back to the middle and become a "straight talker" maverick again once the nomination is in the bag.

But look, you guys know that presidential elections and even modern presidencies are more about personality and personal qualities than ideology, and McCain's brand name will likely remain strong regardless.

Hillary could beat McCain I guees, but not likely. Her name, rightly or wrongly, conjures up images and thoughts of polarization and hateful discourse, exactly what most Americans are increasingly repelled by.

Oh well, you know by the username what I'm getting at. I know a lot of progressives are suspicious of Obama, and I didn't like his vote on the bankruptcy bill or the Alito confirmation. I even called his office to complain bitterly. But at the end of the day I think he and he alone is the best the democrats have had to offer since Kennedy in terms of intellect and leadership skills, especially the ability to inspire Americans from all walks of life. I mean come on... his keynote speech at the convention was even better than Cuomo's '84 attack on Reaganomics.

Also if you agree, come to our website, www.heartlanddraftobama.citymax.com and sign a draft petition. We became a 527 a couple of days ago and will be taking online credit card donations in about a week.