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kpete Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 02:41 PM
Original message
Antiwar Protesters Jeer Pelosi at Town Hall Event
LA Times Calls Majority of Americans "Weak Kneed"
Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2006-01-15 14:26. Activism
Antiwar Protesters Jeer Pelosi at Town Hall Event
Top House Democrat rankles some when she declines to endorse the impeachment of Bush.

By Mark Z. Barabak,
Los Angeles Times
Jan. 15, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO — Swarmed by antiwar protesters, Rep. Nancy Pelosi on Saturday called the invasion of Iraq "a grotesque mistake" but rejected calls for President Bush's impeachment.

Shouting to be heard above the boos and catcalls at a rowdy community forum, Pelosi — the leader of Democrats in the House — urged her constituents to instead channel their anger and energies into the 2006 midterm elections, when control of Congress will be at stake.

"I think we should solve this electorally," she said, standing on the stage of a school auditorium with roughly three dozen sign-waving demonstrators at her feet.

The two-hour town hall meeting illustrated the precarious position that Pelosi faces as representative of one of the country's most liberal cities and, at the same time, House leader of a party trying desperately to shed its weak-kneed image on defense and national security.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6785
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fooj Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 02:44 PM
Response to Original message
1. Damn.
Hello? It's called the OPPOSITION party for a fricking reason. The rat bastard has committed impeachable offenses...numerous impeachable offenses! Pelosi...do your fucking job!

Peace.

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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:32 PM
Response to Reply #1
21. She's being realistic. She may Want impeachment as much, if not
more, than we do. Unless the Democrats regain control of the House and Senate, it just ain't gonna happen.

She's doing her job.
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johncoby2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:42 PM
Response to Reply #21
27. Well said.
I totally agree. If we DO NOT take over the house, there is absolutely NO chance for impeachment or even a hearing on the false information that took us to war.

It is just that simple. As much as I have voiced my opinion against the war, I know if we dont take the house, NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING will happen.

We need to keep the pressure up, but also work to get our candidates in.
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 02:47 PM
Response to Original message
2. Nice to see the far left revealing their true
anti-Democrat colors.

And what's hilarious is that then we're going to have nimnoms wondering aloud why Pelosi really doesn't pay attention to what they have to say....
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Terran1212 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. More like nice for the population to actually display their WILL
Instead of cowering to two candidates (DEM and REP) -- ONLY TWO -- that MUST fit their needs.
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 07:56 AM
Response to Reply #3
62. Yes, it's always fun to hear the totalitarian left discuss
people's WILL.....

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tlsmith1963 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 08:13 AM
Response to Reply #62
69. Uh, Excuse Me...
...but who are the *real* totalitarians? You seem to be forgetting about the neocons. Why are you picking on liberals?

Tammy
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 08:46 AM
Response to Reply #69
70. Hahahahahaha.....
"You seem to be forgetting about the neocons."
And yet I'm not the one trying to disrupt liberal Nancy Pelosi's event.
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stevedeshazer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:00 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. Are you pro-war?
If you're not, as I am, does that make you anti-Democrat?
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 07:57 AM
Response to Reply #5
63. Are you anti-Democrat?
Have you stopped beating your wife?
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stevedeshazer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 06:52 PM
Response to Reply #63
71. For the record
1) No

2) Yes

You?
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oasis Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:05 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. Pelosi handled the situation well. She's paid her dues in the party
on her rise to the leadership position. There will be no "tails wagging the dog" as long as she's in charge.
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demosincebirth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #6
13. Pelosi is right.


We have to put our sights to the '06 elections. No matter what we clammor for, nothing can be accomplished untill the Dems take control of the House.
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oasis Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:29 PM
Response to Reply #13
18. Exactly. We have a good chance of taking the House with her leadership.
With Dems in power the neocon's imperialistic wet-dream will come to a halt.
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 07:58 AM
Response to Reply #6
64. Anyone who wants to pretend Pelosi is the problem
is either dishonest or an idiot....
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FlemingsGhost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:15 PM
Response to Reply #2
9. What an odd thing to assert: Anti-war means anti-Democrat?
Not surprised, after seeing who authored such drivel.
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Terran1212 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:15 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. Anti- SOME democrats
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 07:59 AM
Response to Reply #11
65. Mostly those up for re-election in 2006
and a shoo-in. Weird, huh?
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The Magistrate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 11:57 PM
Response to Reply #9
60. It Seems Vanishingly Unlikely, Sir
That many of the people leading that demonstration were actually Democratic Party members or voters. For that matter, it seems likely their real aim is not so much to end the war in Iraq as to make a great noise and wreck the Democratic Party. The real authors of this war are the Republican administration and Congress. That is where ire should be aimed, and where real ire will be aimed....

"Can't nobody here play this game?"
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 07:59 AM
Response to Reply #60
66. Well put.
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MrBenchley Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 07:56 AM
Response to Reply #9
61. It did in this case, didn't it?
But hey, twas ever thus.
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dchill Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 02:50 PM
Response to Original message
4. It can't really be solved "electorally"...
Gore and Kerry both won, for all the good it did them or us. If the President is guilty of crimes in office, impeachment is not an option - it's a requirement. And yes, Nancy, it's your job.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #4
19. In this case, electorally means the Democrats MUST regain the majority
before any impeachment can or will take place.

To think that a Republican-controlled House and a Republican-controlled Senate can be overcome is to live full time in Fantasyland.

Democratic leaders, Democratic caucuses, lone Democratic Senators and Congressman can rant, rave, and offer up all the resolutions and requests in the world; but until and unless we regain the majority, NOTHING even close to Impeachment is possible, period.
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Wilber_Stool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:13 PM
Response to Original message
7. And what if the GOP win
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 03:13 PM by Wilber_Stool
all the seats in both houses. What will the Supreme Court do about that?
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Joanne98 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:14 PM
Response to Original message
8. Does Nancy even ever think about the voting machines?
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OPERATIONMINDCRIME Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:15 PM
Response to Original message
10. Not Sure She Deserved It. I Think She's Done Great This Year, Considering
what she is up against.

I'm with ya Nancy!!!
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in_cog_ni_to Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:16 PM
Response to Original message
12. Solve this electorally? She's kidding, right?
Electorally? That just tells me the fucking Democrats have NO CLUE about the evoting machine fraud. How bizarre! Are they really that clueless?
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w13rd0 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #12
16. If they admit that we do not live in a democratic society...
...and that our votes don't count, and that they have absolutely no control over the process of counting the votes, why would we bother to still donate? The thing is, we HAVE won elections. We don't have the wherewithall to pinpoint results like the GOP does. We can't decide to fix election A, B and D, and let C proceed to give the illusion of democracy. We must be committed to the process itself, and move the nation through numbers, visibility and sheer force of will. It's not going to happen overnight, and we'll likely suffer the next 10-20 years in something akin to the "Dark Ages", but social revolutions can't be Trotskisized. You can't force democracy at the wrong end of a gun barrel.

The forces that compete against this, those that would keep us docile and stupid, have control of the capital (as in capital expenditure), the WH, the Congress, much of the media and soon the courts. It will take a generation or more to reverse the damage these people have done.
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radio4progressives Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:27 PM
Response to Reply #12
17. I'm meeting later this afternoon with members in my local pda and members
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 03:28 PM by radio4progressives
of the local democratic party central committee/spokeswheel council,
and i'm going to try and push to schedule a delegation meeting with Pelosi this week, and make sure the issue of election fraud is front and center on her radar screen.. among other things.

there's a few issues we have to deal with, and this certainly up on the top of the agenda.
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robbedvoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:41 PM
Response to Reply #17
26. Election fraud - 'some of it wasn't quite accurate". STOLEN ELECTIONS
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 03:42 PM by robbedvoter
convey the reality that the actual result of the past 3 national elections has been overturned. Gore won, we took senate in 2002, kerry won. Unless this is clear to everyone, we'll keep the "working harder & reinventing ourselves" BS while Diebold does its thing and people really get tired with the charade.
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robbedvoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:35 PM
Response to Reply #12
24. Sigh...Insanely doing it over and over. Sad.
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Zodiak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:20 PM
Response to Original message
14. No, we elected Dems will not get rid of the worst president...
in history even though he steals elections, destroys the country fiscally, gets us into illegal wars based on lies, spies on Americans, destroys Democratic institutions across the country, and erodes the very American dream from under your feet. We know he's destroying you, but we aren't going to do anything about it.

Oh by the way, you owe us a lot of work in 2006, so you had better be there to work.....because.....who else are you going to vote for? No matter that our elections don't mean shit...that issue scares us.

Is that the message we are supposed to get?

Out. of. touch.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:34 PM
Response to Reply #14
23. They CAN'T do anything about Impeachment until Democrats win
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 04:07 PM by mcscajun
back the majority in both houses.

Simple as that. We can scream all we want, our representives could do likewise, but until they control the committees, nothing will ever reach the floor for a vote. Nothing.
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Zodiak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:12 PM
Response to Reply #23
38. Then you are in a catch 22 because...
1. With rigged elections, there can be no victory.

2. With wussy politicians, the rigged elections look legitimate. Americans hate people who are unwilling to stand up and be counted for their principles.

They CAN do something. They can do a shitload, but they chose to do nothing and leave loyalists like you to apologize for them. They are not fighting...they aren't giving the apearance of fighting, and they rely on people them.

I have been listeing to this shit for five years, now. FIVE FRIGGING YEARS!!!! That includes the time when we DID have the ability to do something because we had a split Senate.

This talking point is hollow, cynical, inside-the-beltway bullshit that ignores all of the suffering we are to endure under this RW supreme court. We are being sold out so the Dems can keep their job DOING NOTHING!

If you are not willing to fight, ge the hell out of the way and stop making excuses to those of us that do.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:13 PM
Response to Reply #38
39. What Exactly do you propose to DO in this "fight"
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 06:13 PM by mcscajun
to accomplish impeachment? Tell me, please. If there's anything Realistic involved, you won't be alone.

But speechifying and anger won't get us Anywhere!

What would you Like to see happen, that can work within the Constitution?
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Zodiak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:37 PM
Response to Reply #39
53. Number one: address the American people
and tell them the skivvy....let them know the issues, the crimes, and the reluctance on a one-party system in policing itself. Then announce that they are holding a two-week meeting (on their own dime) to discuss these matters with their organizations (inclusding like-minded groups and think-tanks), and go to their home constiuencies to talk to their supporters. Then (after the decision is made and everyone is on the same page) go hard in the press and refuse to allow anything to contiunue in the Senate. No Democrat shows up to advance any legislation at all until impeachment inquiries are put on the agenda.

If the Republicans cry foul, then nce again highlight the many crimes and the many opportunities the Republicans had in correcting these matters.

But no....they are doing nothing. They are laying down and participating in a rigged system where the rules are written for them to lose. Any participation in this sham gives it legitimacy. It is long past time for us to end this charade. The system is broken and therefore there is no remedy in the system.

I am just saddened that it will probably take five more years of this (and many, many deaths) before we realize that.

To be honest, electoral victory is far more likely if they fight. Take it from the majority of DUers who are screaming up and down about this. This will demoralize the base, ensure the rigged systm is permanently institutionalized, and give the Republicans an reason for their surprise victory this year.

There is no fight more important than Alito, INCLUDING this upcoming election.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:56 PM
Response to Reply #53
56. Are you sharing this plan with your representatives?
Either by direct mail, or e-mail? Are you writing LTTEs about it?
I'm not certain it's workable, but still, unless more people hear of your plan than those in this thread...

Now can you answer my first question?

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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:53 PM
Response to Reply #39
55. Self-delete
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 06:54 PM by mcscajun
wrong location.
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toddaa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:22 PM
Response to Original message
15. Fear of swing voters and the corporate elite
Nancy Pelosi and all the other so called Democratic leaders fear one thing. Opinion Polls. Clinton's legacy was driven by opinion polls and our current Democratic Senators and Representatives in Congress derive much of their power from opinion polls. That's not leadership, that's following the masses. And in Pelosi's case, the masses are slowly turning toward favoring impeachment, but until the numbers are anything above 65%, she won't do anything. Those precious "swing" voters are too evenly split on the issue and she is terrified of them. The entire Democratic party leadership in Washington is terrified of swing voters.

Well, maybe it's time for them to be afraid of something else. Namely, the party base who stops supporting gutless Democrats who are nothing more than token opposition. Until these idiots are more beholden to the average middle and working class person than to swing voters and corporate lobbyists, they don't deserve to represent the rank and file Democratic party. Strip them of their membership.

Sam Alito is about to be placed on the U.S. Supreme Court where he will turn over the balance of power to the corporate elite, who will become the de facto rulers of the country. Up until now, they've had to hire sleaze balls like Abramoff to run things, but with the Supreme Court completing transfer of individual rights to corporations, you and I are fucked. Fucked. And it won't matter how many times we throw up a rich white guy as token opposition to represent the interests of the working and middle class.

So let's stop doing just that. Here's an idea, the Democratic base needs to start picking representatives that look like the base. Rich white people like Clinton and Kerry and Pelosi may talk sympathetically to the base, but they are beholden to the corporate elite and those mysterious swing voters. So quit voting for them.
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radio4progressives Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:31 PM
Response to Reply #15
20. Hear! Hear! NT
:applause: :toast: :applause:
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kliljedahl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:06 PM
Response to Reply #15
36. The only thing they stand for
is getting re-elected. They'll do nothing to upset the status quo. As long as the DLC is running things that will not change.



Keith’s Barbeque Central
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otohara Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:34 PM
Response to Original message
22. Weak-Kneed Image
House leader of a party trying desperately to shed its weak-kneed image on defense and national security.

Wow - being against this hideous Iraq war which based on a pack of lies sure gets you noticed in the liberal media.
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QC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:40 PM
Response to Original message
25. Do these people ever "jeer" Republicans?
You remember them? The people responsible for all this shit? Or do they only "jeer" Democrats. Makes one wonder....
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FlemingsGhost Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:43 PM
Response to Reply #25
28. It's called holding one's elected official accountable.
The very reason politicians conduct town hall meetings.

You wonder too much, QC.
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QC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 05:48 PM
Response to Reply #28
34. And you wonder too little about some things.
Please, for God's sake, when some guy offers to sell you the Empire State Building, don't listen to him! It's a trick!
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johncoby2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 03:43 PM
Response to Reply #25
29. No.
They cant get into the town hall meeting, because there are NO town hall meetings!!!!

The republicans are smart enough not to have townhalls.
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newswolf56 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 04:54 PM
Response to Original message
30. All the people who are foolishly denouncing Pelosi forget three things:
(1)-Impeachment requires a Democratic majority in both houses; without that it is an idle gesture, of no more significance than one motorist giving another the finger in a rush-hour traffic jam.

(2)-The war (about which reasonable people will always disagree) need not even be an issue in impeachment -- and precisely because of its volatility probably SHOULD NOT be. Bush and his administration have committed impeachable offenses aplenty merely in the blatant violations of the Constitution associated with their creation of an American sicherheitsdeinst aka the Reich Security Service and its latest incarnation the Department of Homeland Security: domestic spying, imprisonment without trial, torture, blatantly illegal suppression of protest etc.

(3)-The idiotic belief that some Republicans might join in an impeachment effort is just that -- idiotic: another expression of the increasingly demented American optimism: "O fascism can't possibly happen here." Guess again: the Republicans have ALWAYS been the party of Big Business, and after the Soviet Revolution of 1917 terrified the whole capitalist world with the possibility it might actually have to share its wealth, Big Business devised fascism in response: the unlimited tyranny inherent in corporate management expanded to politics and governance. Thus capitalism and fascism have always been one and the same: not just in Italy, Germany and Spain, but also in the United States, where since the birth of fascism, the Republican Party has been its vessel. Scratch a Republican, find a fascist -- the sworn enemy of every woman, man and child who is not independently wealthy. Here is a link to merely one of the darker manifestations of that fascist history:

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Coup.htm

The post-Katrina crisis in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast, the present Medicare prescription crisis (which is deliberately endangering the lives of 6.5 million of America's poorest, sickest and most vulnerable people) are expressions of the extent to which fascist values dominate Republican policymaking today.

To hope for impeachment assistance from ANY Republican is therefore sheer drooling idiocy.

Thus too -- as the genuinely brilliant Pelosi obviously understands -- there is no point in even attempting impeachment until Congress is solidly in Democratic hands: PROGRESSIVE Democratic hands at that. Anything attempted before then is squandered effort.

As to whether that will actually happen, I have my doubts -- very strong ones. The 2006 elections are only a little more than nine months away, and the Democratic Party continues its abject failures -- each one ruinous by itself -- to articulate a unified campaign-theme or to even apply the discipline necessary to rein in the hysterical-zealot fanaticism (anti-gun, anti-school-reform, anti-Bill-of-Rights etc.) that makes party unity impossible. Moreover the party may already be so hopelessly compromised by spit-in-our-faces votes against labor, the working class and the poor -- NAFTA, CAFTA, the re-imposition of indentured servitude via "bankruptcy reform," the slow genocide of "welfare reform" and the somewhat faster and more undeniable genocide of the Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit -- that the people driven from the Democratic Party by this unprecedented combination of class-treachery and special-interest zealotry may never return: a near majority of Americans now regard voting as a waste of time, and many more hold to the view I hear articulated so often in rural Washington state: "Ain't no difference on paycheck issues -- ain't nobody represent you if you ain't Bill Gates rich -- but at least the damn Republicans let us keep our guns." (Thanks to censorship by corporate media, the vast majority doesn't know it was the Bush Administration ordered the forcible disarmament of New Orleans: only the "gun press" covered that story accurately.)

Pelosi and I surely have our disagreements, the firearms issue chief among them, but she and John Edwards are the ONLY nationally prominent Democrats who have dared speak out against the capitalist economic policies with which Bush is savaging America. Edwards has even called for resurrection of the New Deal.

I say it loud and say it proud: Edwards/Pelosi in 2008...if it's not already too late.
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newswolf56 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 05:17 PM
Response to Original message
31. One last semantic point: "anti-war" and "far Left" are NOT the same:
The people who jeer Pelosi are for the most part pacifists. By definition, pacifists are NOT leftists:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1917/pacifism.htm

Most REAL leftists -- regardless of how we might stand on the war -- want above all else to recapture the Democratic Party and restore its New Deal radicalism: application of the historical truth of class-struggle (and the concurrent development of socialism) within a context of constitutionally guaranteed liberty -- especially the protection of the people against capitalist savagery.

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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 05:32 PM
Response to Reply #31
33. Most leftists are not marxists.
But every pacifist I've met was a leftist. Please, come back to the real world.
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newswolf56 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 11:31 PM
Response to Reply #33
58. What use (besides feel-good egotism) is protesting a war if you're not...
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 11:38 PM by newswolf56
willing to stand up to protect your brothers and sisters against capitalist savagery? (With all due respect, it seems to me the former without the latter is nothing more than selfishness.)

As to Marxism, the debt owed is the same as to the Labor Movement: just as without the Labor Movement we would all be wage slaves, without Marx there would have been no Labor Movement. It was fear of the Red Army that softened capitalism -- not any innate humanitarian impulse or even common decency: it is no coincidence that now the Red Army is no more, capitalism is once again demonstrating that at its core it is utterly malignant -- that it is the cancer of maximum greed (and therefore tyranny) cunningly disguised as virtue.

Thus the renewed relevance of Marx -- especially the historical truth of class struggle -- for absolute proof of which we need look no further than those victimized by the resumption of capitalism's tyrannosauric malevolence: the million-plus humans wantonly displaced by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the 6.5 million of America's poorest, sickest and most vulnerable whose lives are now threatened by prescription drug cut-offs knowingly imposed by the Bush Administration and the corporate oligarchy -- genocide in the name of what few dare call by its proper title: the Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit.

Yet without the analytical tool of class-struggle, the plight of these victims remains incomprehensible, and the solution to their victimhood remains unrecognized.

On DU I make no secret of the fact I am a cultural worker -- a social issues writer -- that I struggle to serve and protect a local community of the very people most often victimized by capitalism, and that I know their terror and abandonment because I myself have been one of capitalism's victims. That you insultingly suggest my world is somehow less real than yours -- that the world of poverty and homelessness has no meaning to you and is therefore beneath your concern -- goes a long way toward explaining how and why in the United States (and ONLY in the United States) an arrogant, self-proclaimedly "leftist" bourgeois elite has damned itself to irrelevance by uniquely alienating the working class and thereby destroying genuine leftist solidarity -- quite possibly forever.

Indeed I wonder if you have even read the works of the great man whose portrait is your avatar.


Edit: one sentence revised for clarity.
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 05:30 PM
Response to Original message
32. We were given the same line in 2004.
There needs to be hearings so that the public will know the whole truth. She deserves the boos.
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QC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:00 PM
Response to Reply #32
35. The minority cannot conduct hearings.
Sure, they can hold a pretend hearing on their own time in a spare committee room somewhere, but they don't have subpoena power, so witnesses don't have to come and the press ignores the whole thing.

If you want real hearings to show everyone the truth about these people, that takes the power to compel witnesses to testify under oath, which requires a majority.
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:07 PM
Response to Reply #35
37. Which requires convincing a small number of Republicans
that hearings are the right thing to do. If the party were willing to fight, and repeatedly publicly embarrass Congressional Republicans for not doing the right thing, hearings could happen. Why are Republicans the only party with enough resolve to do things like that?
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QC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:19 PM
Response to Reply #37
42. There was a time when some Republicans would do the right thing.
But that time is long past. The GOP is now a personality cult. When it comes to party discipline and absolute ideological conformity, they make the Bolsheviks look like slackers. There's no way in hell 15 or 20 of them will go along with hearings. Yeah, it was Republicans who went to the White House and told Nixon the jig was up, but that was a whole other world.
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:21 PM
Response to Reply #42
43. Pessimism is the seed of defeat.
9 out of 10 times Democrats don't win because we don't try. All it takes is convincing two Republicans on one committee that has jurisdiction over some of the major scandals. Of course, Pelosi would rather you ignore that and help her get a few more Democrats in the House.

Our best chance at getting a majority is making sure the American public all know just how far Bush has gone, which won't happen without Congressional hearings.
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OPERATIONMINDCRIME Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:23 PM
Response to Reply #43
45. So You Are Saying The Lack Of Hearings Is Pelosi's Fault?
Man are we starting to eat our own on here to the nth degree these days. Jesus.
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:24 PM
Response to Reply #45
47. Has she made a strong public effort?
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 06:25 PM by Radical Activist
If not, then she bears some responsibility. According to the article above she doesn't even want to discuss the issue.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:25 PM
Response to Reply #45
48. You Said It! So much easier for armchair activists to attack from a
distance and mouth off whenever they like.

They don't have to face off with the Republicans in committees and lose battle after battle because we do NOT have the votes!
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:28 PM
Response to Reply #48
50. Why should Republicans hold hearings
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 06:32 PM by Radical Activist
when no one will publicly criticize them for not doing so when they run for re-election? We're putting no pressure on them at all. Isn't asking the public why Republicans are too partisan to investigate a President of their own party a decent election year issue? I think it is.

And despite your assumption, I'm anything but an "armchair" activist.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:16 PM
Response to Reply #32
40. Our side can't call hearings...only the chairmen of committees can
do so. We don't run the committees, we don't have the votes...so, No Hearings UNTIL and Unless we get back the MAJORITY!

Focus, people...we have to win the 2006 elections to get ANYthing Done!
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:18 PM
Response to Reply #40
41. It only takes convincing two Republicans on one relevant committee.
A party with resolve would make that effort. But go ahead, be a good foot soldier and don't do anything but help re-elect the Democratic leaders who will never have the guts to do what needs to be done.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:22 PM
Response to Reply #41
44. What makes you think that there are any Republicans who can be
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 06:24 PM by mcscajun
swayed? What makes you think our Democrats have not or are not trying? Who says I'm not doing anything? You?


I ran for local office last November, I'm involved with the local party. I'm on the DU activist corps. I write letters, I sign petitions, I give money. What are you doing?
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:26 PM
Response to Reply #44
49. Actually, I'm doing all those things...
And I'm not willing to give up simply because something seems hard or unlikely. I think there are Republicans who can be swayed because some Republicans have been willing to speak out against Bush and they are human beings too, not robots.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:28 PM
Response to Reply #49
51. I'm not "giving up" either...but I'm being realistic in where I channel
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 06:29 PM by mcscajun
my time, money and energies.

We Must Concentrate on This Year's Elections!

Nothing will happen until we get back the majority.

There's going to be a big push starting soon for just that purpose. IN the meantime, it behooves us NOT to Eat Ourselves Up, Form the Circular Firing Squad, etc.
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Radical Activist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #51
52. And I think the best way to regain the majority
is to push for hearings to investigate Bush. Either the hearings will expose massive corruption, or we get to beat Republicans over the head with their blind partisan loyalty. Either way, its a win. Being slightly less bad than Republicans hasn't been working as an election strategy. This sounds like a return to 2002 when Democrats wanted to avoid the War in Iraq issue and lost seats.
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QC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:50 PM
Response to Reply #52
54. What do you think will happen to a GOP chairman who calls for hearings?
My guess is that he will no longer be a chairman about ten minutes later. Rank and file members who call for hearings will be stripped of their committee assignments, denied funding, and hit with primary challengers. Your faith in the human decency of GOP bigwigs is touching and all, but misguided. This bunch plays for keeps. The only way to change things is to get a majority.
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mcscajun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:59 PM
Response to Reply #52
57. I don't believe that either way it's a win. We're obviously going to
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 07:00 PM by mcscajun
continue to disagree on strategy. Beating Republicans over the head in private is one thing that may or many not work, but beating them over the head with party loyalty in public might amount in the public's eye to just so much whining, so long as the Republican Noise Machine continues unabated.

I don't share your pessimism comparing 2002 to 2006. As I said in another post in this thread, expect to see a coordinated push by the Democratic Party to convince America that they can do better with us. We're about to get a lot more organized.
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fujiyama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 06:24 PM
Response to Original message
46. I really don't know
what more Pelosi can do. It's not her fault that a sizable faction of the party is made by corporatist ass holes willing to sell over anyone for a contribution.

And Reid for the most part has done a fine job as well. True, I wish he would lead a filibuster Alito, but even if he tried it wouldn't go anywhere. They simply can't get the required 40+ senators required.

These protestors should go harass those like Feinstein which are destroying the party's principles. Pelosi is far from the worst here.
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nolabels Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jan-15-06 11:48 PM
Response to Original message
59. What she says was a "grotesque mistake" was actually an EVIL LIE
Edited on Sun Jan-15-06 11:49 PM by nolabels
It has come back to bite many in the ass and is still bitting. They won't let go of the lie even though they need to. I feel that it is very possible to blame the weak and the strong, it might get me nowhere but at least I can go down swinging. In my opinion that if she really wants to be the change she would forget the apologies to do the right thing and call the spade a spade
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bedazzled Donating Member (584 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 08:09 AM
Response to Original message
67. we'll never win electorally until we stop being thug-lite
i jeer pelosi, too. if i wanted to support the rat-bastards who favor killing thousands of our soldiers and untold numbers of innocent iraqis i would vote for bush.

voting machines aside, if the democrats would stand up for what's right for a change, they would win overwhelmingly, in spite of all of the election fraud



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lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-16-06 08:10 AM
Response to Original message
68. heh heh heh
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