Part 1–Independent Thinking: PARTISAN NO MORE

Editor’s Note: Originally planned as a double post on the subject of “independent thinking” in the wake of the Democratic Party’s recent actions, we’ve decided to post each piece individually since each has it’s own distincet tone and content. Part 2 will appear on Friday…

Partisan No More

~~By kenosha Marge

When you discard something that has been a part of your identity for all of your adult life it’s frightening. It’s a lonely feeling when you abandon your tribe. It was home. It was comfort.

That was what it meant to me to leave the Democratic Party. It was not a decision I made lightly. It was a long lonely process that ended on May 31^st 2008. That was the day that the Democratic Party, the DNC and the RBC decided that democracy didn’t matter anymore. That was the day I became an Independent.

Clicking around the Internet I find many people like me. Many of us now feel free to pick and choose when casting our votes. We do not feel bound by partisanship or loyalty to a party. I also see people who are just waiting for the party to come to its senses so that they can rush back home. I will not do that.

I found out a fundamental thing about myself this election cycle. For years I cringed as fellow liberals called conservatives horrid names and impugned their intellect. I cringed because I had family and friends who were good, decent people and, horror of horrors, Republicans. My maternal Grandparents, who were two of the best people I have ever known, were Republicans. Evil Ratfuckers? That I did nothing but cringe is shameful.

Taking a step back and looking around I began to wonder how many of my other preconceived notions were wrong. This election cycle has challenged the core beliefs for many of us. We look around without the bias of our partisanship and we don’t like what we see. We have had the nastiness and name-calling turned on us by fellow Democrats/Liberals and we are outraged.

Partisanship forces people to hang onto the most outrageous nonsense in an effort to avoid admitting they’re wrong. Some will refuse to see what is indisputable simply because they don’t want to see. What’s the old proverb; “None so blind as those that will not see”? I used to think that only meant Republicans.

We on the left like to pretend it’s only those stupid Conservatives who just won’t wake up and smell the coffee. They have a chance to be right, as in correct, if only they thought like us.

Partisanship allows people to do and say things they would find detestable if done by others.

Senator John W. Warner of Virginia was a man I respected even though I often disagreed with him. I thought him a good, decent man. So I ask myself how could this good, decent man go along with the Bush Administration so over and over again? Did he become evil over night? I don’t think so. I think that he simply put his party before everything else. In doing so he allowed his partisanship to compromise his integrity.

I believe most politicians put their party and their own re-election chances before their country and their integrity. Therefore they don’t actually represent the people who elected them.

I confess that I used to believe, and believe profoundly that all Democrats were better than all Republicans. I still believe that one of my Senators, Russ Feingold, is better than most Republicans. I’m also convinced he’s better than the majority of Democrats. Any time I become upset when he doesn’t vote exactly as I want him to vote, I remember the vote on the repulsive Patriot Act. The vote was 98 to 1. Clinton voted for it. McCain voted for it. Biden voted for it. The one man, with the integrity to stand alone for what he knew was right was Russ Feingold. (Landrieu (D-LA) did not vote.)

Just FYI, when reauthorization came up on March 2, 2006 the vote was 89 to 10 with Daniel Inouye not voting. Voting for? Most of the same cast of characters voted aye with the addition of the Junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. Clinton, McCain, Biden all voted for the reauthorization. Daniel Akaka, Jeff Bingaman, Robert Byrd, Tom Harkin, Patrick Leahy, Carl Levin, Patty Murray and Ron Wyden had the integrity to join Russ Feingold. As I am a supporter of the 30% solution it’s nice to see at least one female Senator with the integrity to vote against this atrocity.

My other Wisconsin Senator is Herb Kohl. How could he be better than a Republican when he basically is a Republican? I really dislike DINOs, RINOs, and Blue Dog Democrats more than any other political critters. No one should vote for people that lack the courage to state who and what they are when running for office.

Another example of someone unafraid to be who and what he is, is Senator Bernie Sanders. He calls himself a Democratic Socialist and is classified as an Independent. Listen to what Bernie Sanders says sometimes and you’ll discover a man of integrity and decency. Men like Sanders and Feingold are few and far between. They do offer hope that people of integrity can be elected, just not many or often.

Partisan Republicans will vote for Republican Crooks over good decent Democrats; indeed they will deny that such a creature exists. Partisan Democrats will vote for Democratic Crooks over good decent Republicans and insist from their partisan viewpoint that there are no good Republicans. Partisan voters insist there is no good to be found in the other party.

And elected officials will follow the party line, with a few exceptions, whether the party line is good for the country or not. Our country is going to hell in a partisan handbasket.

Why Obama Doesn’t Want Clinton Democrats

~~By Grail Guardian

It’s 44 days until the General Election as I write this and after a long and hard fought primary season the Democratic Party, and the Obama campaign specifically, are still unable to get over their terminal case of CDS. I can’t help but ask “Why”? For the uninitiated, CDS stands for Clinton Derangement Syndrome, usually defined as the uncontrollable impulse to rail against all things Clinton (Hillary, Bill, Chelsea, Hillary’s supporters, and basically anything connected to centrist positions).

Team Obama not only masterminded the overthrow of the Democratic Party to form the “New Democrats” (remember the May 31, 2008 coup when all semblance of the rules were overthrown at a behind-closed-doors meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee), they literally declared the nomination belonged to Obama despite the fact that:

• Hillary Clinton won more of the popular vote than Obama (when the Florida and Michigan primaries are included as originally voted)
• Automatic (also called Super) Delegates are unable to actually cast a vote until the national Convention
• Obama did not actually have enough Super Delegates “locked in” to declare himself the winner when he did
• Hillary Clinton didn’t contest the illegal theft of earned delegates in Michigan, despite her legal right to do so

Clinton suspended her own campaign, as she had promised during the primaries she began to campaign for Obama, she asked her fundraisers to jump to Team Obama, and eventually Clinton herself served as the conduit to end her historic campaign by interrupting a roll call vote at the convention to ask for Obama’s nomination by acclaim. Yet still the Oborg continues to harass Clinton supporters. Team O bloggers continue to infiltrate web sites that had been pro-Clinton. Commenters continue to compare John McCain and Sarah Plain to Clinton, who they now conveniently claim as one of their own. Web sites continue to be hijacked and crashed. The Main Stream Media continues to fawn over Obama as messiah, ignore every negative story posted about him on the Internet, and call anyone disagreeing with their views a racist. And Middle Class voters continue to be insulted, marginalized, and discounted.

So at this late juncture, one must ask why it is that so many of the Oborg continue to fight dirty against the moderate, centrist voters that refuse to support Obama, rather than to sensibly go after them? After all, Obama went after the right wing and evangelical voters with his votes on FISA and promises to continue funding George W. Bush’s Faith Based Initiative, so why not court the center? It only makes good political sense that once the cries of “you have no where else to go” and “you’ll fall in line eventually” were obviously falling on deaf ears that the next move would be to go after this significant voting bloc with gusto and speed. But with just over 6 weeks left, the taunting and harassment continues unabated.

So let’s look at the possibilities:

Paul Lukasiak’s Post on THE RBC VIOLATION OF DNC “SUNSHINE RULES”

I was honored to have Paul Lukasiak read this blog and post a response on one of my own postings a couple of days ago (“Al Gore Resurface for the DSCC…[Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee]).

He has now posted his current piece on the RBC shenanigans of May 31 at The Confluence and Corrente.

In an effort to have this spread around, I am reposting the entire post, along with his tags, here.

The RBC Violation of DNC “Sunshine” Rules

The “Magic Number” is still 2025, or 2209. But its not 2118.

That’s because, in violation of the DNC charter, a secret meeting was held, and secret votes were taken — violations of specific Charter “sunshine rules” provisions. A deal was struck among Obama supporters on the committee to completely ignore what is known as the “fair reflection” rule (see note below), and to treat the constituency groups that had provided Hillary Clinton with considerable margins in two states (Hispanic/Latino voters, older voters, women, Jewish voters in Florida, older voters, working class voters, rural voters, and women in Michigan) as “half voters”.

These violations occurred with the direct knowledge and involvement of Party Secretary Alice Germond, and Co-chairs James Roosevelt and Alexis Herman. Because of their knowing and willful violation of Party rules, they should be stripped of all authority in the Party organization, and removed from the DNC entirely. And if Howard Dean or any other party official was cognizant of the violation of the Rules, they too should lose their jobs.

The Democratic Party Charter (Article 9, section 12) states “All meetings of…official party committees…shall be open to the public and votes shall not be taken by secret ballot.” Yet a two hour closed meeting in which business before the committee was discussed was held, and secret votes were taken during that meeting.

Here is the sequence of events: