What a Bustling Board You've Got Here...

[holyworrier]

I'm a member of Smirking Chimp, and, while I find the titles more generally and consistently sophomoric here, I am gratified to see that Dennis seems, after a twenty-minute tour, to be far better represented, supported and defended at DU than at SC. Should I have taken a longer tour?

All ribbing aside, I greet this community of the concerned with warmth and a sense of alliance. BushCo must go, n'est-pas? But we want more than just to eject Butch, er, Bush. We want to craft a nation-state, if a nation-state it must be, that is exemplary, but benign. We want to have the strength to come to the aid of the oppressed, but we don't want to kill people for the sake of geopolitical advantage. We don't want a perpetual war economy. We don't want a war economy at all.

We want to affect ever-worsening changes in the weather, and the continued existence of endangered species, and indeed, every species of life, and the continued existence of ancient trees and canyons and caves, minimally, with our brilliant inventions. Right? We want to act sanely, and we want world-wide society-at-large to act sanely. We don't want the worship of money to overwhelm us. We don't want to become irretrieveably corrupt...


We want a minimum of government, when that becomes possible. But under a system such as we have now, a capitalist one, if there were no government to interfere on behalf of the people, the rich would enslave us. Hell, they already have, with their art, manifested in the Church...

We've always had a surety on a psychic level, that, because we are Americans, things will work out ok. That is our arrogance, of course. We are a gullible, if not the most gullible, people on Earth... We of "Manufactured Consent" fame...

Dennis, to me, represents our best shot at the eventual fulfillment of Anarchist dreams (all contemplative people are Anarchists) of a minimal or non-existent "government." (The reason true 'liberals' are labeled 'tax-and-spend' is because they're so busy countering the so-called free-trade policies of "conservatives" in order to protect the weak...

OK, I'll get it said. Dennis is that rare public servant, that Seeker. He'll follow this thing as far as it takes us, and eliminate the Presidency, if that's where it goes. He's interested in innovation. That is the most rare attribute of a politician. And that is the thing our system has consistently stifled.

Are you petrified of innovation? Do you welcome it? Jesus. Let's get it done.

[Pepperbelly]

1. Welcome aboard, Holyworrier...

:toast:

All Democrats have supporters here.

[Wonk]

2. For some reason that post seems more PLQ than Dem to me... ymmv...

http://www.google.com/search?q=PLQ

on edit: or maybe closer to FLQ... or maybe I'm just reading too much between the lines. http://www.google.com/search?q=FLQ

[JNelson6563]

3. ah the idealism of youth

with smatterings of arrogance. How refreshing!

Julie

[GabysPoppy]

4. Welcome to DU

Enjoy your stay here

:hi:

[gully]

5. Welcome!

[sweetheart]

6. kucinich rocks

I agree wholeheartedly, that he is the only REAL option, as all the others seem to prove more of the same corporatism, just its more benign democratic form.

Given the real possibility that Mr. Kucinich will not win the 2004 presidency, what issue focuses do you see as incrementally achieving the noble objectives you speak of.

My thinking is:

1. Intensive campaign finance and lobbying reform that money-bias be removed... COMPLETELY from the electoral process.

2. Intensive re-regulation of media and financial services to serve their public responsibility to provide informed balanced reporting and a stable system of risk capital respectively. The american constitution has been completely circumvented by these 2 technological evolutions of the last century that it is no longer in force, just the power of the dollar and the lie.

3. Elimination of the senate and the antidemocratic vestiges of the original slave-owner's constitution.

I would call for an end to the war on drugs also, but that will trickle down if 1 and 2 are achieved, as the antidemocratic war of lies that has been waged for the last 50 years cannot stand to the scrutiny of transparency... as it has no empirical results except higher addiction and crime rates.

[holyworrier]

12. Good ideas, Sweetheart

But in my estimation, the most important and crucial task we face is to rein in the Department of War and the Pentagon. They are out of control. Operating virtually unchecked, and completely unaccountable, in violation of the Constitution. I'm sure many of you watched NOW when Chuck Spinney, I believe is his name, was interviewed by Bill. That was the first time I'd heard the term "military/industrial/congressional complex" used on TV...

Dennis is the ONLY candidate, to my knowledge, who wants to cut the War Budget, and who is demanding to know where unaccounted-for trillions of dollars are. Dean wants to increase the Pentagon budget, though there is nothing on his website that relates to the subject at all... That's unacceptable, to me.

Thanks for the warm welcomes.

[Rainbowreflect]

7. Welcome, Holyworrier!

:hi: From a fellow Dennis fan.

[Old and In the Way]

8. Dennis would make a great Speaker of the House I think....

wouldn't he really be more effective supporting an electable Democrat by running the show in the House?

Jumping into my Nomex suit as I type....

[sweetheart]

10. perhaps after the primary

Methinks his candidacy is more about the party including its left-left cousins, and giving them a voice to vote "FOR", as all other candidates for me are simply a vote "against" the cheap-labour neocons.

Once that vote is sounded out, the center candidate that wins the democratic nomination will have to make real policy shifts to incorporate is kucinich element..

Then likely he could move towards speaker of the house.

I think life will get us where you're seeing, just the road there may be a bit bumpy.

[JanMichael]

9. Welcome! Innovation? Afraid? Hell no.

What I'm afraid of is a lack of innovation, a captulation to the "Powers That Be", that will empower that old "Iron Heel".

I dig Dennis, I'm not committed as of yet, I also think he has a shot too.

[newyawker99]

11. Hi holy worrier!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Jackpine Radical]

13. I like Dennis. Maybe he's the closest to my true beliefs.

Nevertheless, he's not my candidate, for purely pragmatic reasons, but I'm damn glad he's in the race. His mere presence is going to force Dean (I think he'll get the nom) or Kerry or whoever further left, and air all those neat ideas I want discussed in the public forum.

And yeah. This board's a crazy place.

Sophomoric is maybe a little too exalted a term. My wife says "third grade." But then, she's mostly talking about my posts.

[ComerPerro]

14. Ask not at whom the Chimp Smirks

He smirks at you.

I have been reading Smirking Chimp for quite some time now.

[Ein]

15. But we want more than just to eject Butch, er, Bush

... like try the piece of shit and his junta for war crimes.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. wow...ishmaelian....i love your use of words......

welcome to DU holyworrier

oh and fuck you very much for the compliment - sophomoric: conceited and overconfident of knowledge but poorly informed and immature....we try harder :7

[holyworrier]

19. Teach me a new word...

I know who Ishmael was, but what does "Ishmaelian" mean? Cast out? B-)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

20. books "Ishmael," " The story of B"& "Beyond Civilization" by Daniel Quinn

edited for... ahem... lousy word usage

BTW, my post "wow...ishmaelian...i love your use of words"...was meant as a true compliment :7

http://www.ishmael.com/welcome.cfm
http://www.ishmael.com/Education/Science/


Mission: This site exists to aid in the exploration of issues central to the novel Ishmael and the ideas of Daniel Quinn. Here you can learn more about Quinn's idea, contribute thoughts and questions, and come to a deeper understanding of our culture and why things are the way they are.


"Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself. A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature drop of twenty degreesCwhich would be a lot more devastating than it sounds. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature rise of twenty degrees. But a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all."
Ishmael

[ElsewheresDaughter]

22. my usage of written words is quite bad. so please except these

links to explain what i can not about Ishmaelian..i certainly hope they are as enlightening for you as they were for me. please do not dismiss them as cultish Quinn has a very fine mind.

http://www.ishmael.com/Education/Science/tightening_conflict.shtml


For the time being, the United States and much of the industrial world have achieved very high agricultural production and low food costs on the basis of extremely intensive use offossil energy. Some industrializing countries, such as China, are forced by demographic pressure to follow suit. It is a trap. Such agriculture devours its own base, and the fossil fuel era is drawing to a close, with petroleum likely to be the first to go. The United States, with oil resources amounting to about 15 years' consumption and already dependent on importsfor half its oil, is not very well placed for the transition. China is worse off. The situation calls for a renewed respectfor the natural systems that support agriculture and for population policies that bring demand into line with the ability of the Earth to produce food on a sustainable basis. Mario Giampietro is a senior researcher at the Istituto Nationale della Nutrizione, Rome, and presently a visiting scholar at Cornell University, where David Pimentel is a professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

cynthia

[holyworrier]

26. Looks interesting...

Thanks for the links!

[Friar]

17. Welcome

:toast:

ps: we suck.

[tlcandie]

18. KucinichTsunami2win!

Bring it on!!! :party:

Welcome holyworrier..

[Born_a_Democrat]

21. If Kucinich is chosen then so be it!

He is, after all, a Democrat...however, I will most likely vote for Dean...

Welcome to the board...

[ellie]

23. Hi Holy Warrior!

I, too, post on Smirking Chimp. It was the first progressive board I joined. DU is, at times, infuriating, but always extremely informative and interesting. I love it! Welcome!

[Blue_Chill]

24. Welcome to DU

and good luck with DK. I don't support him now but if he wins the nomination almost everyone on DU will get behind him.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

25. kick