Backlash Against Dean and Pelosi is Balderdash.

Okay haven't had a real ragging rant for a while. It's time. I'm making one now.

Democrats, wake up, be the party of the people and of good and generous values!
Screw this playing to the polls and to one's financial backers! Do what is right.

I cannot stand the spin the media is putting on the coverage of Democrats finally having the balls to make firm, undisputably anti-war statements. The bleeping Washington Post attempts to undermine the strong statements of Pelosi and Dean with headlines with so much spin they could be mistaken for Dervishes. Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks. What balderdash! Real Democrats do not work from a position of fear dictated by the Republican guard who are little more than corporate stooges. Most Democrats I know do not fear any such thing. They are just glad that a couple of the power players in the Democratic Party are pulling at the curtain in the corner of the throne room of the Great And Powerful Bush.

Where to start? The Dems are not operating out of fear (except for those few Democrats such as Clinton and Lieberman whose true natures as elephantine hawks are becoming more and more apparent. At best these folks have bought the Republican propaganda that says moderate Republican perspectives are the same as Democratic ones, at worst these folks are owned by corporations whose interests are very similar to those who own/run the Bush Group. Thank heavens some Democrats are finally remembering the old central values of the Democratic Party: Labor - Equality - Individual Rights - Education.

Pelosi and Dean have balls! (I know... Howard was given his this past weekend! LOL.) Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman are war mongers and traitors to the essence of the Democratic Party.

Quite frankly I hope the Republicans keep lying their asses off. It is catching up with them. They are just digging themselves deeper. They seem to think that lies are okay; that saying it makes it so. Look at the ridiculous things they have said about anyone and everyone in the last few weeks:

Murtha. A military man through and through and one who is respected by members of both parties. This man has the ear of the highest of levels of military officers in the Pentagon.

CODEPINK. As I've already said, many times, CODEPINK is a play on the color coded threat level system of the Bush government, on girls being dressed in pink, on hospital code for a missing baby, and yes, there is even a bit of a satirical nose thumbing comparison of the Bush paranoia to that of the McCarthy commie fixation. [Check out Threatening Anthropology for a new twist on how it wasn't just communism but also equality that was so threatening.] I marched as a Pink Woman for Peace before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in D.C. The first person I spoke to who was "in" CODEPINK that was helping to direct people assembling under the banner of CODEPINK was a Quaker. The movement built itself on the vigil in front of the Whitehouse by a few women from November 2002 to March 2003. Eventually it was recognized that CODEPINK filled a real need and it was decided that CODEPINK should continue as a loosely organized women's peace movement.

Dean. Finally, strong courageous statements are coming out about the futility of continuing with a war that is lost. The increasingly immoral and reprehensible nature of continuing to kill for no reason (not that any killing is ever justified in my book.) There are places we have no business being. There are actions we have no right to take. It takes frigging courage to stand up and speak truth to power. The people who are in the streets and who put themselves out there in the public are the brave and patriotic ones. What kind of courage or patriotism does it take to throw electonically transmitted words from an office somewhere? To show your belief through public declaration and to speak from the heart when you know you will flipped off, verbally harassed, and even physically threatened takes courage. There is nothing laughable, weak, or cowardly about taking a stand.

I used to be somewhat more generous in categorizing and describing those folks who are so adamnant in their refusal to see the lies of the Bush administration. No longer. I don't hate them. But I am far less willing to trust a Bush backer now after having been flipped off when I'm just standing with a sign, having had deaths threats phoned in to a co-organizer of a peace group I'm in, and having an average of 10-15 viruses emailed to me every day, I now believe that there is a horrible cancer growing in our society that has everything to do with immorality based in the worship of money and the implicit assumption that there are some people who are inherently better than others. Equality is a very dangerous concept to systems built on inequity. Profit built upon a non-living wage is down-right evil. Relationships, personal to geopolitical, cannot survive if based on lies.

I still believe in goodness, but I'm watching my back.

Slinging catch phrases and talking to canned audiences and never taking unscripted questions is cowardly. Going AWOL is Cowardly. (I know, I know, the 60 Minute's papers were probably altered.) But hey, ya know what? Many of the papers supporting GW's both cowardly and pompous (and therefore somewhat schizophrenic?) actions in the Guard were not altered and suggest unmet Guard requirements. Quite frankly there needs to be an official investigation into whether GW's credentials with which he ran for president were fake. If so, he needs to be impeached. Cut your losses, Republicans, bug out now.