Democratic National Convention in Denver

Obama Is Ready to Lead

Bob Fertik — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:53:43 -0400

The eyes of the nation were on Barack Obama last night, wondering whether he had the strength, knowledge, and conviction to lead us.

By the end, he left no doubt in anyone's mind: he's ready.

Ready to lead the United States at a very difficult time.

And ready to beat John McCain and the vicious Republican Party.

Best parts of Obama's speech:

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This, too, is part of America's promise -- the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

Exactly.

Update 1: The Oscar for Best Supporting Actor goes to former Republican Barney Smith:

Republicans talk about putting “country first,” but tell that to Marion, Indiana. They sent my job overseas.

America can’t afford more of the same. We need a president who puts the Barney Smiths before the Smith Barneys.

ROTFL!

This Is Our Last Time

Bob Fertik — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:12:00 -0400

Last night the Democratic Party made history by nominating the first major-party African-American candidate for President, Barack Obama.

Tonight, Barack Obama will accept our nomination. It is fitting that a 20,000 seat arena isn't remotely large enough to mark this moment. Even a 75,000 seat stadium will be too small and many will be turned away.

Rightwingers will mock the white columns. Everyone else in America and the world will marvel at the black man who stands before them.

Incredibly, it was the first viable feminist candidate, Hillary Clinton, who put him over the top. In that single act, the parallel lines of the civil rights and feminist movements met to transform American history.

And we did it through the oldest and largest political party in the world - the party that once fought civil rights - our party, the Democratic Party.

Barack Obama will stand firmly on the ground, but really he stands on the shoulders of giants. Traveling back in time we must recognize those who made his candidacy possible: presidential candidates Rev. Jesse Jackson and Shirley Chisholm, who broke the race and sex barriers to the presidency; presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who put powerful blacks and women in their cabinets; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose vivid dream (45 years ago today, also in front of Greek columns) we are finally trying to realize; Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Marion Anderson (who sang in front of Greek columns); presidents Lyndon Johnson (born 100 years ago today), John Kennedy, Harry Truman, and Franklin Roosevelt, who dismantled American apartheid; Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who struggled for 72 years so women could vote; Harriett Tubman (quoted by Hillary Clinton) and Frederick Douglass, who were born into slavery and freed America's slaves; and James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who gave us the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution with the Bill of Rights, the Democratic Party, and lots of beautiful Greek columns.

Of course none of those giants stood alone. Each rose to fame and power with popular movements, who fought in the streets and the battlefields, the voter registration offices and the voting booths for their controversial causes.

And to elect Barack Obama as our first African-American President, we who are alive today must do the same.

We Democrats were never really divided. But the Corporate Media wanted to make us look divided, and they had the power to project their Bie Lie into every American home. America's shared "reality" is nothing more than the image projected by the Wizards of Oz, the scheming profiteers at who hide behind their corporate curtains with the logos of FOX, NBC, and CNN.

Our truth-sniffing Toto's work in progressive media and blogs. They can pull back the curtains to expose the fraudulent Wizards, but it takes Dorothy's with brains, heart, and courage to find our way home. That means us - all of us.

So Barack Obama is our nominee, but this is our campaign. And we must understand the opposition we face.

We are up against the Republican Party, their corporate allies, and the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House, who will stop at nothing to keep progressive Democrats out of power, and hold them accountable for the crimes they committed over the past 8 years, including war crimes.

And we are up against the enduring emotional power of racism, which will stop at nothing to keep an African-American family out of the Master Bedroom in the All-White House.

Like the suffragists and civil rights leaders, we must lock arms and march forward, and urge our fellow citizens to support us and even join us in our historic cause. They will be inundated with lies, but we must clearly repeat the truth.

The Republican plan is more disastrous war with Iran or Russia; less health care, education, justice and jobs; and environmental catastrophe. The Democratic plan is the opposite: ending war, more health care, education, justice and jobs; and saving the planet before it is too late. That is our choice, and it leaves us no choice.

In Berlin Barack Obama declared, "This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations - including my own - will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one."

He concluded, "People of the world, this is our moment. This is our time."

But in reality, it may be our last time. So from now until the last vote is counted and re-counted by hand if need be, we must keep our eyes on the prize and do everything we can to win.

Joe Biden Accepts VP Nomination

Bob Fertik — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:45:12 -0400

What an incredible introduction by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden!

Joe Biden excerpts:

As we gather here tonight, our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole, with very few friends to help us climb out.

Should we trust John McCain's judgment when he says there can be no timelines to drawdown our troops from Iraq - that we must stay indefinitely?

Or should we listen to Barack Obama, who says shift responsibility to the Iraqis - and set a time to bring our combat troops home?

Now, after six long years, the Bush administration and the Iraqi government are on the verge of setting a date to bring our troops home.

John McCain was wrong. Barack Obama was right.

Cable Networks Let Rightwing Pundits Ratf**k Democratic Convention

Bob Fertik — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:16:37 -0400

John Amato speaks for me:

Right wing TV Pundits destroy every segment on Democratic Convention

Every time I turn on the TV and watch CNN and FOX (my hotel doesn’t get MSNBC) every Republican operative controls the dialog and direction of the panel discussion and it’s disgusting. Just one example—Hillary Clinton gave a brilliant speech last night, but every Amy Holmes-type talking head throws as much cold water on the speech as he or she can. The result is that the Dem talkers spend the rest of the time disputing the outrageous claims made and thus the GOP controls the entire framing and the entire segment. It’s shameful that the networks are allowing this to happen. I saw Jeffrey Toobin tell Amy that she was out of her mind with some of her comments and the discussion continues to that end. Soledad O’Brien comes back and says “well, that was a lively discussion.” Oh, no it was not. It’s a calculated ratf&@k. This is going on all day and all night.

Why is the Democratic Convention being ruined by these creeps? And why do all the networks allow it to happen? Why do we need them on in force to counter what is supposed to be our event?

I’m in Denver and it’s a completely different atmosphere. Party unison abounds, but you’d never know it from watching TV. Karl Rove acts like the biggest troll known to man—making sure to point out every little detail he dislikes. Well, his mission is to get McCain in the White House. But he’s the expert that Chris Wallace goes to for his “unbiased” take.

Will the Democratic talkers be allowed to do the same to the Republican Convention? I think not. It will be viewed as being an incredible event.

Update 1: After Bill Clinton spoke, it took Chuck Todd exactly 1 minute to attack Obama using a bulls**t Republican talking point that Obama is "borrowing" Biden's experience.

It's Hillary's Night!

Bob Fertik — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:03:33 -0400

For weeks, we've heard endless lying pundits insist Hillary Clinton would undermine Barack Obama. Of course Clinton proved them wrong in June when she graciously ended her race and enthusiastically endorsed Obama. And she proved them wrong again tonight.

Hillary introduced the widow of Arkansas Democratic Chair Bill Gwatney, who was recently murdered in his office. And she introduced the son of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who recently died of an aneurysm. The two survivors sat next to Bill Clinton. What a classy family!

Then she turned to policy issues and ripped the Bush Administration to shreds while praising Obama to the rafters. The convention is loving every second.

You go, Hillary Clinton!

Remembering When the Government Was at Least Approachable

dlindorff — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:26:59 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

We’ve come a long way towards imperial government in the US—towards
a view of the relationship between the federal government, and
especially the administration, and the citizenry that has more of a
ruler-subjects than a democratic feel to it.

Now I know it is easy to gloss over the way things were, and since I
spent a few days in federal prison for protesting the Indochina War at
the Pentagon in 1967, after being beaten by federal marshals for doing
nothing more than exercising my constitional right to protest on public
ground, I am well aware that 40 years ago we were also often treated
like serfs. But that said, there was something different back then—a
sense that you could deal with powerful officials as an equal.

Back in the summer of 1968, I spent one of several summers on the
road (something more young people should do today). I had hitch-hiked
across the country from Connecticut to Washington state with Allen
Baker, a college buddy, and then, towards the end of that summer break,
had bought an old pick-up truck for $100, which we were driving home
via the West Coast and the central route. Not having much cash, we were
stopping at cities along the way, where I would play guitar for gas
money.

This was the late ‘60s, and there was a major and sometimes violent
culture war underway between the long-hairs like me and the clean-cut
American “Silent Majority,” and my travel companion, Allen, and I were
concerned that it would be tough scaring up much cash in the vast
Republican stretches of desert, mountains and prairie that lay between
Nevada and Missouri. So when we passed through Yosemite National Park,
we decided to spend a day in the valley’s main parking lot, raising
donations from tourists.

While Allen dozed in the back of the truck, I opened my guitar case
and put up the “Gas Money” sign, and then, sitting on the running board
of the old Dodge, started to play.

The money poured in—over a hundred dollars in a fairly short amount
of time. It was really astounding. People walking by really enjoyed the
music and wanted to help us out.

Then a park ranger, an older fellow with a friendly smile, drove up.
“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically, “but I have been told to arrest
you.”

“What for?” I asked, genuinely shocked.

“There’s no panhandling allowed in the park,” he responded.

“What’s panhandling?” I asked him, genuinely unaware of the meaning
of the term, which I, an Easterner, thought must have to do with
cooking with a skittle on an open fire.

“It’s what you’re doing right now,” the ranger said.

By that point, Allen had woken up and sat up in the truck bed, rubbing his eyes.

“You’ll have to come in too,” the ranger told him.

We followed him back to the ranger station, where he proceeded to
write up our tickets. I noticed that there were two actual jail cells
in the station. Thankfully, at least we weren’t going to be locked up.
Then there was a loud bang outside. Suddenly, a younger ranger, looking
like a recent Marine veteran, muscled and crewcut, ran in. “Where’s the
first aid kit,” he yelled. “ I was just bringing in a kid on a
marijuana charge and he tried to run. I shot him in the leg.”

Whoa! I thought. This is Dodge City!

The older ranger told his partner where to get the kit, and then
turned his attention back to us. “Here are your tickets,” he said. “And
don’t skip out on them. This is a federal offense, and the FBI will
come after you if you don’t pay it.”

We left the building, and only then did I look at my ticket closely.
The fine: $500! It was a fortune back then. Even today it is a big
whopper—especially as a penalty for being poor.

I was pretty upset. That was about how much I had earned towards college that whole summer.

Well, the $100 I’d earned panhandling in the park got us back across the country, at least.

When I got home to Connecticut, though, my fine was rankling. Angry
at the injustice of it all, I typed up a letter to the Secretary of the
Interior, who at the time was Stewart Udall. I wrote about the shooting
incident, saying that I thought it was an outrage that an unarmed young
man arrested on a minor charge like marijuana possession would be shot
in a national park, and I also wrote that it was unfair to fine someone
$500 for simply playing music in a park parking lot. “I wasn’t
bothering people,” I wrote. “In fact, they were coming up to me to hear
the music, and the $100 they tossed into my guitar case is testimony to
the fact that they liked what I was doing. That isn’t panhandling, and
in any case, it’s pretty nasty to fine someone $500 when he’s doing
something because he needs money.”

About two weeks later, I got my letter back from the Department of
Interior. On it, in red ink, Udall himself had written, “I agree.
Forget your ticket. It’s been taken care of. Stewart Udall.”

I have tried to imagine that same situation happening today. First
of all, the unfortunate hippie who got shot that time long ago would
probably have been killed, because the ranger would have been carrying
a more high-powered weapon, and wouldn’t have even been aiming to
disable. Second, Allen and I would probably have been put on some
database at the Pentagon, the FBI and the Transportation Security
Administration, and would have been barred from flying or entering any
national parks. More importantly, though, I tried to imagine the
response I would have gotten writing to current Interior Secretary Dirk
Kempthorne to complain about an arrest for panhandling. Or to his
predecessor, Gale Norton. This is, after all, a department that has
instructed its rangers at the Grand Canyon and other parks not to talk
about evolution, and those at the Everglades National Park not to talk
about global warming and the inevitability that rising ocean levels
will swallow that sea-level park in this generation. Under both
secretaries, the Interior Department has played a key role in the Bush
administration’s efforts to alter and to selectively censor government
scientific reports on evidence of climate change.

I’m not saying it was all sweetness and light back in the ‘60s, or
even that Stu Udall was representative of all government officials in
the Johnson years, but there clearly was a different sense back then
that ordinary citizens had a right to communicate directly with their
leaders and to expect some kind of response.

Nixon began the end of all that, with his Imperial Presidency. It
wasn’t just his penchant for secrecy, though that was legendary. It was
his desire to make the government something more remote and feared,
something imposing and awesome, rather than down-to- earth and
accessible. President Carter, to his credit, went a long way towards
reversing that trend, but over the years it has continued, with Bush
and Cheney taking it to an extreme. Today the White House is a bunker.
Federal police carry assault weapons. Snipers man the roof of the White
House. People who write letters of complaint to minor federal officials
can end up being strip-searched and arrested.

And from the looks of things, it may not be much better even if
Obama takes over the White House. The first day of the Democratic
Convention in Denver saw anti-war protesters penned into the same kinds
of “free-speech zones” that the Bush/Cheney administration has made
into standard features of any “public” appearance they put in, while
AT&T, the company that brought us the convention, kept even
credentialed reporters away from a private party the company threw for
those Democrats in Congress who obligingly passed immunity legislation
to protect the company from lawsuits by those whose communications were
spied on by Bush’s National Security Agency. (Obama supported the
immunity legislation.)

So even as we are all being reduced to a nation of panhandlers, it
may be a long time before we can expect a handwritten letter from the
secretary of the Interior Department or of federal department, or for
help in getting off an unfair ticket.
___________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006).
His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Foreign Policy and National Security Are Not the Same Thing

dlindorff — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:27:10 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

One of the sorrier legacies of eight years of Bush and Cheney in the White House has been the conflation of the terms “National Security” and “Foreign Policy” by both Republicans and Democrats.

Granted that the history of US foreign policy in the world has been heavily larded with wars, many of them at America’s instigation. It is nonetheless true that foreign policy is much bigger and more far reaching than just what has come to be known as “national security” issues.

In Bush-speak, national security come to mean having big guns, lots of heavily armed troops, cruise missiles, nuclear weapons, naval armadas and a bully’s willingness to use these weapons on a whim, with no thought of consequences.

The term is kind of oxymoronic, since it is clear that by resorting to war and to threats of war, and by squandering unprecedented sums of money on the military, eight years of bellicosity has not made the nation more secure. Quite the opposite: The military has been run into the ground, the economy has been bankrupted, education, healthcare and other critical national services have been shortchanged, and the country has become a pariah state, viewed around the world as a loose cannon and a terror nation—hardly a comforting position to be in.

Foreign policy, meanwhile, has ceased to have any meaning at all, beyond the making of war or threats of war, making it virtually synonymous with the term national security.

When I was a Fulbright professor in China, back in 1991, at a mid-year conference in the southern Chinese city of Kunming, we grantees were addressed by the head of the Fulbright Program in China, a cultural affairs director from the US embassy in Beijing. He informed us that as teachers (I was teaching journalism at Fudan University in Shanghai), we Fulbrighters were the frontline of American foreign policy in China. Most of us were kind of repulsed by his semi-military allusion to a battle line and by implication to us as soldiers, and we chose instead to see our role as something different: emissaries from the American people to the Chinese people. In fact, given that most of the 21 of us were hardly superpatriots or cold warriors (the academics, journalists, lawyers and other professionals who serve in the Fulbright Program tend demographically to be among the most liberal and left-leaning group in the American workforce), we would have made a pretty bad defense line. Rather, what we were doing in China, by teaching and building relationships with young Chinese college students, was the essence of real foreign policy—building bridges at the grass roots level between the people of China and the people of the US.

Foreign policy can be reduced to a strategic chess game—the kind of “real politik” practiced by Klemens von Metternich in the 19th Century, or espoused by Henry Kissinger in the Nixon years—but it is actually, or at least ought to be, much broader than that kind of cold and calculating manipulation and pursuit of narrow self-interest.

Real foreign policy should be about winning friends, building trust, establishing relationships between countries and peoples, negotiating treaties designed to achieve mutual advantage and to deter aggression. It is about aiding countries that are in need of assistance, and at its best, should also be about making the world a safer, better place for all, which in the end is the best way to guard against war and the threats of war.

Now it would be naïve to imagine a foreign policy that ignored national self-interest. Much as I or others might wish for a world without borders and a common humanity, in a world of nation states, it is inevitable that foreign policy as practiced by any nation, including the United States, will be focused on achieving the maximum benefit for that nation, and US foreign policy has always been about just that, and unfortunately probably always will be. But even granted this selfish parochialism, it is incredibly shortsighted and ignorant to treat foreign policy as simply an America-first process of bullying others into submission to our dictates. Thousands of American teachers and Peace Corps volunteers and aid workers do much more to advance America’s position in the world and to enhance the nation’s security than do hundreds of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs and missiles.

For Republicans, there is no difference between national security, which is defined as a powerful and assertive military, and foreign policy. But Democrats, who at times have had a more nuanced view, have more recently bought into this too. At the current Democratic Convention, anxious to look as tough as Republicans, Democratic speakers have used the terms national security and foreign policy interchangeably.

Afghanistan and Iraq provide excellent cases in point. Clearly, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, ostensibly aimed initially at hunting down Al Qaeda fighters and leaders, quickly devolved into an all-out assault on that nation, which has been reduced to the same rubble and state of chaos and civil war as has Iraq. Now, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is talking about expanding the war there, and increasing the killing and destruction in that country. In Iraq, where the US has been involved in an orgy of killing and destruction now for over five years, Obama and fellow Democrats are calling for a “responsible exit” from that conflict over the course of another 16 months. A truly responsible exit would be an immediate withdrawal, a national apology to Iraqis and to the world community, and a massive program of reparations to help rebuild that nation.

What Obama and the Democrats are touting is not foreign policy. It is a continuation of national security run amok.

No amount of American force, no level of mayhem and slaughter, will bring about a secure and tranquil Afghanistan. In fact, every time Americans kill Afghanis, as American bombers recently did, slaughtering 60 children and 30 other adults, women and men, in an aerial bombardment reminiscent of the German Luftwaffe’s attack on the Basque village of Guernica, they produce not peace and submission, but rather hatred and a desire for vengeance.

It will take perhaps a generation of good works for the US to undo the evil done to American foreign relations by eight years of Bush/Cheney obsession with national security, but it doesn’t even look like the Democrats “get it.” In Congress, they have vied with Republicans to look tough, supporting both the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, they have supported the continued funding of those wars and increased funding for the already bloated US war machine, and they are now backing Obama’s call for more combat troops in Afghanistan.

Real foreign policy would be looking at ways to work with other nations to bring down the level of combat, and to bring peace to Afghanistan and to other war-torn regions of the world.

Meanwhile, the concept of national security needs to be broadened. As Genghis Khan, conqueror of China, is reputed to have said as a frightened Chinese empire, at extraordinary financial and human cost, constructed the Great Wall to fend him off, “A wall is only as strong as the people behind it.”

One need only drive through any American city today and view the bombed-out neighborhoods, the crack dens, the pot-holed streets, the decrepit transit systems, the shamefully overcrowded and prison-like schools where any teaching and learning that goes on is an accident, one need only visit ignored and forgotten rural areas of America where unemployment is the norm and healthcare is half a day’s drive and half a year’s income away, one need only drive through a suburban neighborhood and look at all the “For Sale” and even more pathetic “For Sale: Reduced Price!” signs in front of houses, to see that what lies behind America’s walls, like the ridiculous one being built now along parts of the border with Mexico, is incredible weakness. (At the rate things are going here, it won’t be long before Americans will be scaling that wall to find jobs in Mexico!)

The folly of conflating national security and foreign policy, and of imagining that a mindless willingness to resort to force and bullying is the sine qua non for being “presidential,” has been made painfully clear not only in the screams of wounded children in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the cries of hungry children in America. The United States does not need a man of war in the White House. It needs a wise advocate of peace.
________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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Ted Kennedy Is In The House!

Bob Fertik — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:47:12 -0400

No one knew if he would make it into the eagerly expectant house, but he did.

After a warm introduction by Caroline Schlossberg Kennedy and a loving film tribute, Senator Ted Kennedy strode onto the stage and greeted the convention with an incredibly strong voice, struggling but somehow managing to overcome the obvious effects of his brain tumor.

Kennedy promised to be present at Obama's inauguration in January, and promised to fight for health care for all. He praised Obama's message of hope, and reminded us that his brother John never said the moon was too far away, and we shouldn't bother to go.

Good bless Ted Kennedy, and let us pray for a full recovery of his mind, which is a national treasure.

It's Convention Time!

Bob Fertik — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:55:54 -0400

Some random notes in no particular order:

John Nichols reminds us how utterly amazing our convention is:

This week, after a century of progressive activism on behalf of civil rights, an African American will be nominated for president. And he got that nomination after a remarkable nominating contest that saw more than 18 million Americans vote for a woman.

Paul Rosenberg reports that 51% of Americans are now Democrats - a majority! - while only 38% are Republicans. The biggest gains for Democrats have come from voters under 30 (now 55D/33R) and middle-income voters (now 53D/39R). Go Democrats!

Matt Stoller found the Blue Dogs' reward for giving AT&T the right to spy on all Americans without warrants:

8 pm: Just because the Blue Dogs are fiscally conservative doesn't mean they can't have a good time, especially when AT&T is picking up the bill. Mile High Stadium, 2027 W. Lower Colfax. By invitation

Live from Main Street is broadcasting progressive events in Denver... live!

How to Vote in Primaries and Not Be an Idiot

davidswanson — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:27:26 -0500

A Short Instructions Manual
By David Swanson

1. Virtually nobody votes in primaries (or caucuses) compared to general elections. Therefore, each individual primary vote is worth many times what it is in the general election. And, it's more likely to be counted, since there's typically less fraud and abuse of the system in primaries. So, if you vote in general elections, you pretty much have to vote in primaries in order to not be an idiot. Bring a few friends to vote too, and you're practically a genius.

2. If you have to join a party that you don't support in order to vote in a primary, you can always unjoin again immediately after the primary. In the meantime, maybe you'll have helped to create a party you can support. You can even vote in a primary without planning to vote in the general election. If the 50% of Americans who don't vote at all (or even a small fraction of them) voted in primaries, they would determine the candidates in the general elections, in which they might then choose to vote as well.

3. If there's no candidate you like in a primary, you can write one in. A relatively very small amount of organizing can even lead to a victory for that candidate. (Or some signature gathering could place your candidate's name on the ballot.) *

4. If there is a good candidate on the ballot, then an extremely small amount of organizing can lead to a victory for that candidate. And something short of a victory can still mean some number of delegates for your candidate going to the party's convention from your state, or momentum for your candidate in future states. Primaries, unlike general elections, are not winner-take-all. (You can even become a delegate for your candidate and get a trip to a convention out of this.)

5. In most presidential elections, the party's nominee is decided before many states hold their primaries. So, for most people, the point of voting is not to choose the nominee. (And therefore almost nobody votes, opening the door to effective action by non-idiots.) The point is also not to "show support and loyalty" for a nominee already chosen (democracies have no need for such displays, which are best suited to another type of regime). Rather, the point is to elect as many delegates as possible for the candidate whose positions you most favor, so that those delegates can influence the party's platform and the nominee's positions at the convention, or even make your candidate the vice presidential nominee.

6. In early states, surprise underdog candidates can build momentum, and voting for such a candidate does not entail spoiling the primary for a mediocre candidate who you believe has a better chance of defeating the worst candidate. This is because it takes several states over a period of days or weeks for one candidate to lock down a victory. A surprising showing for an underdog candidate with dramatically distinct positions can put that candidate into the running in the minds of future voters, and can very quickly move the mediocre candidates to become better than mediocre, and therefore better able to compete in future states.

7. Swing voters almost do not exist. Fewer than 4% of voters in 2004 ever planned to vote for Kerry and switched to Bush or vice versa. So, appealing to one's own base and turning those people out to vote is key to winning the general election. Therefore, Democrats who want to win the general election, for example, should nominate the most Democratic, not the most Republican, candidate in the primaries. (Republicans already know this.)

8. Pre-primary corporate polls that purport to tell us who is most "viable" and "electable" are primarily a product of corporate media coverage and spin, much of which is "coverage" of the previous polls. The way to determine which candidate is most viable begins by canceling your newspaper subscriptions and recycling your television.

9. In a democracy, the most electable candidate is the candidate whom the most people actually like. The most reliable gauge available to any of us of whom people will like is whom we ourselves personally and honestly most like. Therefore, there can be no distinction between whom you like and whom you consider "viable." The candidate you most like, honestly, in your own considered private opinion, is the most viable candidate. And you can make that even more so if you lead by example. Don't just vote, but campaign, promote, and contribute, as much and as early as you can. "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men [and women], -- that is genius." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

10. The following are majority positions among Americans, and overwhelmingly majority positions among Democrats: end the occupation of Iraq, impeach the vice president, create single-payer not-for-profit universal health coverage, withdraw from corporate trade agreements like NAFTA, and slash the Pentagon budget in order to invest in diplomacy, foreign aid, education, jobs, and green energy. Only one candidate supports this platform. He came in third in MoveOn.org's poll, and then second in Democrats.com's, then first in Democracy for America's, and most recently first in Progressive Democrats of America's poll. These are polls done outside the corporate media, polls of progressive activists. His campaign is where the energy is, but it is energy that must resist the influence of the corporate media. Our country and our planet are in peril, and we have no viable alternative. Nobody else comes close. His name is Dennis Kucinich.

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* Write-in candidates are not permitted in some states.