had a scary discussion with a Dem who voted against Kerry for Bush ....

[NVMojo]

We were having a local Dem Party "messaging" meeting, trying to frame who Dems are, how Repukes paint the Dem "message", what the real Repuke "message" is, etc.

This retired gentleman who said alot of very interesting things just went off on how he voted for Bush in 04 because he's a veteran and he and his other crony veterans who are Dems hated Kerry so much that they saw voting for Bush as a way to get even with Kerry for "betraying his fellow soldiers to the communists".

I was stunned. Time to take the pollyanna hat off. I looked at him and said, "wow, you fought in a lie of a war and bought into the pre-swiftboat vet shit against Kerry and you think it's ok for more US soldiers to die in Iraq over a lie of a war today just so you can get even with Kerry by spilling your hate on Americans and cursing us with Bush?" He looked at me. He said "yes." I said ..."wow, I really like you for the most part and I like what you say but ...that is so (pause of silence)...fucking (another pause of silence) ....Republican!"

I am actually still stunned at what I saw in his eyes and heard spewing out of his mouth in a Democratic Party meeting, especially after the events of the past year ...we have more work to do. The koolaid drinkers and haters are in our own party and Rove knows it. He knows how to tap into the hate of the people who put their hate before the common good. Kerry would have been a better leader today than Bush anyday.

[Lindsay]

1. I think you've put your finger on it.

"He knows how to tap into the hate."

Profound. And depressing. That's Karl Rove's "genius," I guess.

[NVMojo]

2. As rude as I was to this guy ...he must be curious about my reaction

because he and his wife got my email after the meeting to keep in touch. And I had really trashed the whole group about being stuck in the past, keeping things status quo, not moving on, not grabbing the iron while it's hot right now, forgive and forget ...move on ...I told the whole group if we didn't change this party locally now, I was changing my party to Independent. I don't want the Dems to mess up the chance of a lifetime to open their doors WIDE!!

[ladylibertee]

3. After reading this, it is...

apparent to me that I can never keep reminding people enough, that THEY ARE RETARDED......That is the only explanation for the ideology.

[Wetzelbill]

4. you know, I have a friend who served in Bosnia....

he blames Bill Clinton for all of the stuff the Republican congress actually pulled on our troops while they were over there.

Now, about a month or so ago, he was arguing with me about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who called Bush out on depleting National Guard forces. Schweitzer wanted MT NG to be rotated out of Iraq during MT fire season, so they could respond to potential disasters. My friend, a Republican -not really he calls himself one but is mainly just ignorant - who likes Schweitzer, flipped out! You would have thought Brian Schweitzer slit a baby's throat in a press conference or something. He was ranting about:" You don't know what it's like to be in a combat zone, we are in a war, fuckin' liberals want to pull our troops out, I'll never vote for him. " etc etc. He didn't even get that Schweitzer wasn't talking about pulling troops out, but putting them in at a different time for homeland security reasons. Schweitzer's argument was that depleted NG forces cannot respond properly to disasters, and have to rely on other troops coming in from other states and depleting those forces as well. Well, one problem in NOLA was that the LA NG was depleted by 35 percent and had vital equipment over in Iraq, so they couldn't respond to a natural disaster properly. Well, duh! Anybody with half a brain could put two and two together.

I said to him regarding this issue and the concept of supporting the troops, "So, it's ok that Bush lied about getting us into a war that has had over 16,000 casualties and has cost over 200 billion dollars for no reason, but it isn't ok, for Brian Schweitzer to speak his mind on an issue about homeland security, not to mention that he is right about it."

He goes: " As far as I know there's never been evidence that Bush lied about anything." Well, that set me off listing a bunch of shit then. It was a mess. Some of these guys get highly indoctrined in the military. Former Special Forces Master Sgt. Stan Goff calls this:" Institutionalized Stupidity." The problem is you get an 18 year old into the military and they don't know shit, so they'll drink the kool-aid on anything. We pretty much all do in some way at some time in our lives. It takes a lot of learning to get out of it. First of all, you have to believe that you actually don't know it all, in fact, we barely know shit. So you keep an open mind and keep learning and learning.

Some people can't grasp that. Facts mean nothing to them. They are easily spun and easily suckered in by anything. They fall victim to racist and elitist rhetoric. I know people who vote against their best interests for stupid reasons. A poor person will allow Republicans to fleece them because they think some political Pharisee is a "good Christian" who has "Family Values." WTF is that all about?

This country is a nuts place. For sure.

[NVMojo]

30. wow, you nailed this guy's essence on the head for me!

This same guy sat there last night and said, in a democratic central commitee meeting, we need to support the NRA and allow assault weapons in the homes!!!!!! They are better than shotguns!!! Sigh.

[Wetzelbill]

48. oh lord! about assault weapons,,,,

My friend was freaked out about losing assault weapons,yet he doesn't own one for personal use. He does have some badass work related guns that he gets that most people can't. He's a Homeland Security investigator or something like that. But, he was asking me why a responsible gun owner couldn't take an automatic gun or something like that to a shooting range to blast targets. I said: "well, first of all who the hell would use a machine gun to shoot at a target?" haha He was so concerned about it, I had to point out to him that he never once has taken an assault weapon and shot targets at it. Those things are cop killers. That's what they are good for. He works in Law Enforcement! He's been shot at before! He never could put two and two together. I'm not anti-gun. I'm from Montana, originally, nearly everybody I know is a hunter, it isn't my thing, but I respect it. I probably will buy a gun myself at some point soon. But, some people practically want to have the right to drive a tank to work or something. :)

[Niche]

5. So sad....That's right *(snatch) LOVES vets -

...his vote didn't just hurt the nation and he World - he hurt other vets....

and HIMSELF
(I Me Mine...and f**K you)

[newswolf56]

6. The Democrats that I know who voted for Bush did so for three reasons:

(1)-Because the Democratic Party's co-optation by the oligarchy and its resultant long-term betrayal of working families -- especially blue-collar folk, the poor and the disabled -- convinced them there was absolutely no economic difference between the Democrats and the Republicans;

(2)-Because of Kerry's own statements, which suggested he was an "appeaser" who (in the name of "political correctness" and "multi-culturalism") would yield to the Jihadist threat rather than exterminate the Jihadists -- thereby creating the impression Bush would be the better choice for the protection of America;

(3)-Because of an overwhelming fear -- based on Kerry's own voting record -- a Kerry victory would trigger the resumption of the Democratic Party's longstanding effort to forcibly disarm legal firearms owners.

In my region, among the nominally Democratic working-class people I know, each of these factors bore about equal weight; separately they probably would not have swayed many voters, but in combination (especially since these voters already felt abandoned on the all-important economic issues) the combined weight was decisive. Kerry/Edwards carried my state (Washington) by 53 percent to 45 percent, but the results nevertheless show Bush gained a whole percentage point over 2000, when Gore/Lieberman got 50 percent of the vote to Bush's 44 percent, while Nader carried off 4 percent. In other words -- factoring in the Nader results, the total presumptively "progressive" vote in 2000 was 54 percent, while by 2004 it had shrunk to 53 percent -- this in a state that is so notorious for its Leftist radicalism, it has been labeled "the Soviet of Washington."

Based on the more authoritative post-election polls, the three issues of doubtfulness I listed above probably had a similar affect on voters throughout the nation.

Hence my oft repeated argument that if we want victory in 2006 and 2008, we have to end the Party's alienation from working-class America (who now all too often in retaliation for their abandonment vote Republican); we have to end the Party's abandonment of the poor and disabled (who are increasingly cursed by the DemoPublican sameness and thus don't bother to vote at all); and -- faced by the Jihadist threat -- we have to end forever the false perception that the Party is the executive arm of the pacifist movement. Ultimately as Americans we are faced by two enemies: the oligarchy within, and the global ambitions of Jihadist Islam without. What we need in response is a robust, anti-plutocratic domestic policy and an equally robust (but absolutely non-imperialistic) foreign policy -- and most of all a new FDR to articulate them both.

[Berry Cool]

9. Well said, newswolf!

I don't think the Dems will get anywhere until they do just as you said.

[blm]

17. Except every 'reason' claimed is based on PERCEPTION of LIES catapulted by

the RNC and its mediawhores.

Expose the GOPs control of the corporate media and the voting machines.

[NVMojo]

31. ...that's what we said last night, blm ...you are absolutely right ...

the Repukes are painting the message of who we are ...we need to take that control back of our message and start paining theirs. It's called KARMA!!! We need to fucking KARL ROVE THEM!!!!

[theboss]

21. At some point, the Republicans took the working class label from us

This to me is the most dramatic, really unexplored issue of the last 20 years. How did the Republican Party manage to convince lower class and middle class whites to vote for them?

It's a combination of God, guns, and pure nationalism, but you would think that the Democrats could have figured out a counter to that in the 25 years since Reagan beat Carter like he owed him money.

We somehow need to convince the country that we are not the part of out-of-touch, godless, anti-gun elitists. Or we are going to be a permanent minority.

[rniel]

24. They simply

Generated a lot of hatred and animosity and tapped into a sort of culture war between the 'rural' working class not as highly educated against the 'big city' hollywood intellectuals. They said to those rural people that you don't have a voice in our country and they do, and that's not right because you make the country run and they just produce a lot of art and fluff and intellectual riff raff. Look at the appeal of the dumbed down popular presidents like Reagan and Bush.

Pushed the divide there for over 30 years. Divide and conquer strategy. That's a tiny nutshell of why I think people vote against their own interests. This is coming from me a farm boy who grew up in a town of only 1,100 people. I don't know why turned out so liberal. I guess I see our country has more of an economic divide between us than a cultural divide.

[NVMojo]

32. you're right, they've taken control of all those mssage

and including acting like they believe in FAMILY VALUES, they personally own the BIBLE and the US FLAG and PATRIOTISM. you are so right, we have to get a grip on this ...

[kath]

46. but boss, rniel and NVMojo, you're all leaving out RACISM -- which is one

of, if not THE main factors in Pugs getting poor and middle-class whites to vote against their own economic self-interest.

[NVMojo]

49. Good words, kath. Thanks, I will consider what you have said.

[leesa]

26. Pretty poorly informed Democrats you know! I certainly hope the myth that

Democrats want to steal your guns is put to rest as BushCo disarms NO survivors. If he is able to pull off Marshall Law across the nation, why would anyone think he does not intend to take your guns?? If you are registered with the gov. or the NRA, they know where you are. I suspect there is a prvision for it to easily happen in the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act.

[karynnj]

28. The 2000 to 2004 comparison is not bad

Bush was an incumbent President in 2004. In 2000, Gore was part of the team that had governed over a time of peace and Prosperity. A 1% decline is not bad!

Kerry's own statement about the terrorists actually show he would work to eliminate them. It was Bush who chose to invade one of the few secular nations in the area. Kerry with BCCI actually fought his own party to intelligently eliminate a terrorist bank network.

Who exactly do you propose as your new FDR?

[newswolf56]

29. Of all today's Democratic leadership, the only one...

who has even begun to develop the proper economic analysis is John Edwards. He at least is beginning to talk the class-struggle talk. Whether he is willing to walk the walk -- a second New Deal, complete with massive redistribution of wealth and enactment of measures to protect us from the oligarchy -- that remains to be seen. Ditto for whether he can win the nomination: my own belief is that the Party may be too solidly a captive of the oligarchy to ever again be allowed to present an economic alternative to capitalism's Tyrannosauric savagery.

I appreciate Dean's outspokenness also -- but (like too many post-LBJ Democrats) he seems deliberately oblivious to the economic issues, and in any case I think the corporate media has effectively neutralized him as far as presidential candidacy is concerned.

As you can tell, I am not optimistic. There is a dreadful message in the fact so many Democratic leaders have remained silent in the face of the Katrina outrage: that the oligarchy's control of the political system is already too absolute to break.

As for passion and excitement -- what used to be called "charisma" -- I was a fiercely partisan Robert Kennedy supporter, but since the bottomless heartbreak of his assassination, there has been no politician about whom I could get genuinely excited. (Frankly I think very many Democrats my age feel the same way. Certainly this is true of all my friends and acquaintances, who fear we shall never see the like of "Bobbie" again -- much less another FDR: America's greatest president ever, whose wife was by far the greatest First Lady in U.S. history.)

But despite my pessimism, I continue to hope the requisite leadership and analysis will somehow arise. If that does not happen, we are truly doomed: history shows that an unchecked runaway oligarchy -- examples include pre-revolutionary France and pre-revolutionary Russia and Rome itself -- is always the precursor to total collapse. More to the point, history also demonstrates that when a society simultaneously runs out of leadership and ideas (in this instance the vital antidote to capitalist malevolence), it's downfall and destruction is assured.

[AX10]

35. No. The GOP has painted that false image of the Democrats...

and no Democrat has corrected that propaganda yet. There is NO WAY that John Kerry would EVER let the terrorists win. Al-quiada said that they prefer Bush because he gave them what they wanted.

John Kerry is an anti-terror hawk!

[ProudDad]

37. What in the hell is wrong with Pacifism

It's Christian. It's morally right and eventually will be the only way to run a society.

Within our daily lives it's practiced quite well...I'm around hundreds of people a week in Oakland California and no-one has threatened me.

It shows an incredible lack of imagination to think that it can never be practiced world wide.

You would have us all war mongering, corporate shills in order to get elected?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

43. Welcome to the DLC.

You would have us all war mongering, corporate shills in order to get elected?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. You said it. Republicans are the party of power-hate. Be for Truth-Power.

[MintOreoCookie]

8. I know this may sound obnoxious.....

But I am betting that those veterans were not officers when they served in the ;military. They were probably jealous of Kerry's service and the medals he earned. On the whole, the majority of those who serve in the military are republicans. He may have told you he voted for Bush to get even with Kerry just to slam Kerry. I'm glad that veterans would rather vote for someone who managed to get out of going to war. To me, that just shows their stupidity.

[NVMojo]

34. right on, I told him I was having a hard time sitting at a table, talking

about the Democrat "message" with a supporting member of the Swiftboat Vets. He was not an officer, he was a marine on the ground. I held him toe to toe, my dad pulled two tours of duty in Viet Nam in the Army, Infantry, First Sergent. Volunteered the second and third tours. Voted for Kerry. McNamara's truthall book did it for him.

I'm starting to wonder if he is an infiltrator, agent provacatuer. Republicans would throw someone like this out of their party groups. Some days it's hard having a BIG TENT ....sigh.

[Vickers]

10. Any veteran that voted for Bush in 2004 is an idiot.

Plain and simple.

[ima_sinnic]

11. so how is this a "Democrat"? he voted for Bush, he hates Kerry,

he spews hatred and ignorance and talks like a dumbfuck. These are all hallmarks of Republicans. Just because he came to a Democrat meeting doesn't make him a Democrat. I woulda told him to go pound sand with his phony "Democrat" bullshit. But I'm not a very nice person around ignorant boneheads.

[NVMojo]

41. hello, ima.sinnic, i agree. I checked with party chair today and they

said they have been wondering for some time if he was an infiltrator because in 20 years, he has never come to a county Dem meeting until the county convention in O4. Hmmm. I don't know.

Edit to add that she said he has been anti-Kerry the entire time.

[Gnostic]

12. ummm...

"wow, you fought in a lie of a war and bought into the pre-swiftboat vet shit against Kerry"

And you bought into the lie of the two party fraud system in this country? ;-P

[Vickers]

13. Who are you, Socrates?

:eyes:

Oh, and welcome to DU yadda yadda yadda...

[MintOreoCookie]

16. I wondered the same thing.....

;)

[Gnostic]

23. Thank you

[NVMojo]

36. thanks Repuke! Welcome aboard, stay awhile! Big Tent!

FREEPER!

[mzteris]

14. that's what guilt

will do to a person.

He can't admit what he did was wrong, so he has to tranfer his feelings of self-loathing onto someone else - specifically a "someone" who points out what a horrible thing the Nam war was. "Someone" who reminded him, everytime he saw him, of the possibly despicable things HE did. No wonder he "hates Kerry" - he hates himself.

[MintOreoCookie]

15. Great post! I agree!

[NVMojo]

42. and I agree too, MintOreoCookie!

very good point ...the sad guilt factor ...very sad....

[Lecky]

18. It boggles my mind how any Democrat could vote for Bush...

yet 11% of Democrats voted for that idiot last election...

Who are these crazy Democrats???

[MintOreoCookie]

19. I have no idea. That % would not surprise me if it was the 2000 election

since most of us had no idea what this president was capable of. However, after seeing him for the asshole that he is, how could they vote for him? Maybe that % represents women/moms who thought that Bush could protect us better than Kerry. Idiots.

[seaglass]

22. Why has every Independent I know voted for Bush and other

Republicans?

Because people can identify themselves however they like, I listen to what they say, they tell me who they vote for - I know they're Republicans - I can't help it if they don't know.

Same as people who claim to be Democrats but aren't, they just don't know they're not.

I will admit that I haven't met a self-identified Republican who wasn't really a Republican though.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

45. Security Moms who thought * was going to keep them safe.

Except he hasn't, and now it costs $100 to fill up the tank of their SUV which wouldn't have protected little Timmy in the first place.

[Pacifist Patriot]

20. If it makes you feel any better...

my father is a Vietnam Vet who worked hard for Wes Clark and then for John Kerry. The local chapter of "Vietnam Vets for Kerry" was very active and much larger than the "Vietnam Vets Against Kerry."

As for the rest, the cabal behind Bushco has done an amazing job of casting a wide net of hatred and fear. Whether it is used to gain supporters or distress the opposition doesn't matter.

[Pewlett Hackard]

25. no offense intended

but this post is full of shit. Democrat Vets don't vote for aWol. you are perpetuating the myth that bush "won" the "election".

[NVMojo]

40. no I am not posting something "full of shit". There were 12 witnesses to

this man's behavior and statements. and he named one other dem vet, bigtime VFW who he said, " G. and I couldn't wait to get to the poll to push Bush's name for over 30 years of revenge." I called G., and he said "oh, yeah." No vet, Democrat or Republican, who survived Viet Nam would vote for Kerry. I didn't."

Are you calling me a liar, you of few posts?

[belle]

27. Plant, perhaps? Sounds like a RL equivalent of a freeper troll...

[Totally Committed]

33. During the Primaries and the Election Campaign, I was still able to

volunteer at the local VA hospital. From Vet after Vet (most disabled), I heard this same thing from vets over and over and over. They said they would absolutely never, under any circumstances, vote for Kerry. A couple even said the word "hate".

Given that Bush was a chickenhawk, to my mind a far bigger insult to Veterans (not to mention someone so intrumental in cutting their benefits!), I could not then, and still do not understand the attitude.

TC

[arewenotdemo]

39. Nor can I

How any thinking person could vote for a whole Administration and Party of CHICKENHAWKS is totally beyond me.

[Clarkie1]

38. That is why Kerry lost. He is a good man, but was a poor choice

politically.

[FreedomAngel82]

44. Amazing

Simply amazing. I wish you could show this guy the documentary "Unfinished Symphony." This documentary follows the veterans of 1971 protest's.

[NVMojo]

47. Thanks. I haven't even seen that one. I will see if I can find it.

It would be worth donating it to the guy ...