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Sherrod Brown

With Democrats like Sherrod Brown in the United States Senate the health for profit industry doesn't need any Republicans.

Sherrod Brown is a typical Democrat. All talk, no action.

“I would love to see a single payer system,” Brown said as he is supporting Barack Obama's health care plan protecting profits instead of people.

What a scam. Claim you are for something to get elected but when push comes to shove don't fight for it.

What's new with the Democrats? Nothing.

Where's the change? Lisa

A Marxist dialog with a liberal

I didn't know what else to call this except a "Marxist dialog with a liberal."

I received this a short while ago this morning as I sat down to write something on my blog.

I have been noticing signs up along Highway 61 promoting "Tea Parties." I find these "Tea Parties" to be disgusting acts of great nation chauvinism and racism.

It appears to me the rightwing is trying to make our communities along Highway 61 from the Cities up to Duluth kind of their stronghold to build a very racist movement.

I saw reports where some union folks went to a Tea Party in Tennessee thinking they would be welcome as they carried signs supporting the Employee Free Choice Act and what they found is a KKK rally minus the white sheets.

I just found this communication mind opening and so refreshing so I am sharing it with you.

I am posting the essay by Reverend Harry Cook at the beginning and at the end to make it easy to re-read in light of what Alan Maki wrote to him.

I also include the comments of some other people who responded to Reverend Cook's excellent essay.

Lisa

Since I posted this I went to Rev. Cook's website. The Rev. has some really super mind opening essays posted. I would encourage folks to check out what he has to say:

www.harrytcook.com

Lisa

Fear and Resentment By Harry T. Cook 4/24/09 "To ignore reason and judgment and all the fine sentiments that move [people] to follow blind force ... in the hope that fear will ... make all people safe is bad practice." (Clarence Darrow, 1926) "American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work ... who have now demonstrated ... how much political leverage can be got out of animosities and passions." (Richard Hoftsader, 1964) There's nothing like crying "FIRE!" in a crowded circus tent to get people's attention. As events have amply shown, the likely result is a stampede, each person with his or her eye fixed on the nearest exit rather than on others who may be in the way. It is instinct at work rather than reason, with the end-product being gross disorder. Likewise, there's nothing like the politics of resentment to excite what Hofstader called "animosities and passions." Making decisions on the basis of anger has never worked very well for the human race. The administration of George W. Bush, now blessedly part of the past, carried this nation into a pre-emptive war against a sovereign nation not only on a partially manufactured flood-tide of post-9/11 fear but on what finally must be called bald-faced lies, viz., nonexistent WMDs and the shameful prediction of mushroom clouds. The 2004 presidential election was prosecuted by Karl Rove & Co. using fear as an engine -- fear then not so much of WMDs as of what moral disaster would occur if gay and lesbian people were allowed to marry. The echoes of the fear campaign that drove a hapless Congress into acquiescence over Iraq joined the chorus of homophobia to put Bush back into the White House. Now comes the aftermath of another election, and still the politics of fear are made to reverberate, this time over who will pay what taxes at what rate and for how long. The ultra-demagogic Tax Day protests -- ours in Michigan featured Joe the Plumber -- were a reminder of how inchoate fear can suddenly find focus in narrow resentment. President Obama and congressional Democrats are on notice from the likes of Karl Rove and the editors of The Wall Street Journal that anything that resembles a hike in federal taxes for anyone for any reason (including saving the country from economic catastrophe) will be exploited in the 2010 election cycle and beyond. The politics of resentment are what Adolf Hitler and his Nazi thugs played in Germany to great effect and success. The German people were, in fact, wronged by some of the draconian elements of the Versailles Treaty, and were ripe for a rabble rouser. Hitler showed up just in time to start a Holocaust. The year 2009 is no time -- if ever there is a time -- for the politics of fear and resentment. Resentment is a stupid emotion. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was spot-on in that oft-quoted remark about fear in his inaugural address of March 1933 during the worst year of the Great Depression. FDR was right: Fear is to be afraid of. Of fear a late First Century C.E. Christian philosopher wrote: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear." This "perfect love" is not some gooey thing of hugs and kisses and vapid smiles. It is an attitude of robust confidence which enables a person to step away from his or her own concerns to view them in a larger context beyond personal desire -- and to do so accepting the possibility of material diminishment of his estate. Some significant number of people so enabled would cast out the kind of fear that poisons a nation's collective psyche, causing it to strike out blindly against perceived enemies and leaving chaos and old night in its wake.

© Copyright 2009, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit. Readers Write Re: essay 4/17/09 The Mirror from Hell Bonnie Smith, Traverse City, MI: Thank God, or "that which binds us together into a whole so that we don't go flying off into space," for your essays. It reassures me that I am not the only one who is very, very afraid at the direction our country has gone and appears to continue to be going when I hear the talking-heads "debating" with "sincere" looks on their faces the secession of Texas from the union, or listen to people with no rational scientific justification stating that they don't "believe" that humans have anything to do with global warming or even that there is global warming or when Sarah Palin is actually considered as a suitable potential future candidate for president of the United States. Yes, Pogo: Those of us who are not blind have seen the enemy, and most definitely, "he is us." I thought I was raising my beloved granddaughter to take my place on the streets, demonstrating for justice, but I am going to have to dust off my placards a get back out there. Arthur Wilhelme, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: I am sorry, and I do mean sorry, for you Americans having to face the fact that your people tortured. And minutes after I read your essay ("The Mirror of Hell"), I heard your President say he didn't want to prosecute anybody over this. He has gone down quite a bit in my estimation because of that. I'm glad I don't have to look into your mirror. Brenda M. Sullivan, Boston, MA: If our [Boston] Globe goes belly up, I guess we'll have to rely on you bloggers to keep us up to date. Re: your essay about the hellish mirror -- what will we do when there are no longer newspapers to hold up that mirror to us? I fear for democracy in this country. Keep on with your writing. We share it widely here in the land of the bean and the cod. Theodore Farnsworth, Portland, OR: I'll bet some of the people who read your article about "The Mirror of Hell" aren't too happy with you. Well, I'm not always happy when I see my sagging jowls looking back at me out of the mirror, either. The truth hurts. By the way, I was born many years ago in Detroit on McDougall between Theodore and Farnsworth. And my maternal grandfather's name was McDougall. How about that! Sue Mathes, Rochester Hills, MI: I also wonder why there has not been an outcry for Bush and Cheney to be held accountable for eight years of failed policies and conducting their own form of terrorism, in addition to the loss of our rights and freedoms. I only hear all the whining about the taxes being handed down to our grandchildren by the very people that never uttered a word until Obama became the president. I wonder how long before the Republican Party claims that this whole economic meltdown was the fault of the Democrats and Obama presidency? I will remind every person that I hear complaining that they need to direct their anger in the proper direction which I will gladly point out to them. Lecture Schedule The Thursday Forum Birmingham Unitarian Church 38651 Woodward Ave. (at Lone Pine) Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304 Admission: $10/students free April 30 10-11:30 a.m. President Obama at the First 100 Days: Are Things Really Changing? Lecture: Harry T. Cook

Reverend Cook,

You quote a Richard Hoftsader, did you mean Richard Hofstadter?

I found your essay, Fear & Resentment, very interesting and a very lucid analysis of where we are at, and where we are headed.

I think Barack Obama has created the atmosphere for these “Tea Parties” to take place because he has refused to bring forward the kind of change people were anticipating when they voted for him.

The liberal, progressive, left community has refused to criticize Obama by insisting on real universal reforms aimed at solving very real problems:

- No moratoriums on home foreclosures and evictions.

- Wars in three countries rage on.

- No consideration of single-payer universal health care.

- The Democrats have backed away from the Employee Free Choice Act.

- Not a single mention of reforming the minimum wage to make it a real living wage has come from Barack Obama or the Democrats.

Without criticism and a proposed progressive agenda being pushed hard for real change, I think the right-wing is going to grow in strength way beyond what the religious right was able to accomplish.

Ironically, Obama has set-up liberals, progressives and the left for a smashing defeat; voters went to the polls expecting just the opposite from what they are getting from Barack Obama.

Where’s the change?

I think Barack Obama and the Democrats in betraying the American people--- first by acquiescing to Bush and the Republicans and now by derailing all real initiatives for real reforms that working people need and require to live and survive as capitalism collapses--- are doing more than their fair share to create “anger” in this country.

The anger is really growing out of mass confusion and disorientation surrounding who Barack Obama is and what he stands for.

The ideas expressed by Richard Hofstadter later in his life--- after 1939--- certainly aren’t going to do anything to allay fear or anger, let alone point people in the direction we need to go for real change.

Anyways, Barack Obama, in bringing forward the Wall Street agenda instead of what people expected from him has set the stage enabling an even more pernicious right-wing to make its way into power.

Like Richard Hofstadter would have done, you have critiqued the situation well; and, like him in his later years you don’t bring forward anything we can do to bring about real change… as a suggestion, you might want to check out Richard Hofstadter’s pre-World War II, depression era thinking; just a suggestion.

Something you might want to consider writing and speaking about:

The United States has over 800 military bases on foreign soil when what we need is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States (16 in each of our 50 states) providing everyone with free health care instead.

We really need to provide the American people with an anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist ideological out look framed in a way that convinces them that what they are getting now for their tax dollars are the wrong things; while encouraging them not to fear struggling for what is right and just.

The two issues capable of uniting the people of this country are the need to end war and militarism and the need for real health care reform. Bring both issues together in a way that makes sense to people and you create a powerful bulwark against this vicious right-wing thrust taking the form of hate-mongering “Tea Parties.”

I don’t think your lucid analysis lacking a suggested alternative is going to be enough to halt the drive to the extreme right now underway.

Perhaps you have written about solutions to problems; but, like others like myself reading your essay here for the first time… any mention of solutions is missing.

I hope you take my criticism in the friendly manner intended because I appreciate and share your analysis concerning the danger from the right.

Liberals, progressives and the left allowed Barack Obama to get away without defining what kind of “change” he was talking about. Now we have the task of either letting the extreme right fill this void that has been created; or liberals, progressives and the left can vigorously challenge Obama to bring about the “change” that everyone was expecting.

I guess Obama had one idea what change consisted of and most voters had quite a different idea… I don’t think, based upon Obama’s actions, that he can be trusted to bring about the “change” we need in this country… he has a different agenda that is neither liberal nor progressive; it certainly isn’t an agenda that pre-war World War II Depression era Richard Hofstadter would have appreciated.

Albert Einstein’s very lucid thinking provides us with a better understanding of problems and lays a foundation for change more so than Richard Hofstadter’s constant, never-ending search for alternatives to capitalism did. You might want to Google up Albert Einstein’s, “Why Socialism?”

I have enclosed below something I recently sent out for people to consider.

Alan L. Maki

58891 County Road 13

Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432

Cell phone: 651-587-5541

E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net

Check out my blog:

Thoughts From Podunk

http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

The United States has 800 military bases on foreign soil... What we need--- instead--- is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States where people can universally access, for free, all their health care needs from pre-natal care, to general health care to eye, dental and mental care right through to burial. Instead of moving in this progressive direction, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are moving in a most reactionary direction towards establishing military bases in outer space as they seek to insure the profits of both the merchants of death and destruction and the profit-driven health care industries... talk about skewed priorities and your wacky ideas devoid of common sense. In addition to these 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil, Barack Obama and the United States Congress continue funding--- with our tax-dollars--- the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. A network of 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States would create over four-million good-paying, decent jobs--- talk about your "economic stimulus" package! We would be planting the seeds of socialism while helping to eradicate poverty as we keep people healthy and get them well when sick. Think about this kind of solution in relation to what Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers are offering the American people, and the peoples of the world... just what is the reason for bailing out the banks and AIG and maintaining more than 800 expensive U.S. military bases on foreign soil? The Mt. Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers us a glimpse at what militarization and wars continue to rob us of. The problems created by Wall Street will not be solved as long as the military-financial-industrial complex is allowed to squander human and natural resources on militarism and wars... we might just as well be dumping these resources out into the ocean... at least no one would die in wars. These merchants of death and destruction must be stopped if humanity is to survive in a livable world. The time has come to talk about the working class Marxist politics and economics of livelihood... capitalism has failed humanity miserably and left us a real mess. Something for working people to think about and discuss around the dinner table... the capitalist sooth-Sayers certainly are not going to broach such solutions to the problems of working people as they hide behind the skirt of Rosy Scenario as this global capitalist economic depression intensifies. Fear and Resentment By Harry T. Cook 4/24/09 "To ignore reason and judgment and all the fine sentiments that move [people] to follow blind force ... in the hope that fear will ... make all people safe is bad practice." (Clarence Darrow, 1926) "American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work ... who have now demonstrated ... how much political leverage can be got out of animosities and passions." (Richard Hoftsader, 1964) There's nothing like crying "FIRE!" in a crowded circus tent to get people's attention. As events have amply shown, the likely result is a stampede, each person with his or her eye fixed on the nearest exit rather than on others who may be in the way. It is instinct at work rather than reason, with the end-product being gross disorder. Likewise, there's nothing like the politics of resentment to excite what Hofstader called "animosities and passions." Making decisions on the basis of anger has never worked very well for the human race. The administration of George W. Bush, now blessedly part of the past, carried this nation into a pre-emptive war against a sovereign nation not only on a partially manufactured flood-tide of post-9/11 fear but on what finally must be called bald-faced lies, viz., nonexistent WMDs and the shameful prediction of mushroom clouds. The 2004 presidential election was prosecuted by Karl Rove & Co. using fear as an engine -- fear then not so much of WMDs as of what moral disaster would occur if gay and lesbian people were allowed to marry. The echoes of the fear campaign that drove a hapless Congress into acquiescence over Iraq joined the chorus of homophobia to put Bush back into the White House. Now comes the aftermath of another election, and still the politics of fear are made to reverberate, this time over who will pay what taxes at what rate and for how long. The ultra-demagogic Tax Day protests -- ours in Michigan featured Joe the Plumber -- were a reminder of how inchoate fear can suddenly find focus in narrow resentment. President Obama and congressional Democrats are on notice from the likes of Karl Rove and the editors of The Wall Street Journal that anything that resembles a hike in federal taxes for anyone for any reason (including saving the country from economic catastrophe) will be exploited in the 2010 election cycle and beyond. The politics of resentment are what Adolf Hitler and his Nazi thugs played in Germany to great effect and success. The German people were, in fact, wronged by some of the draconian elements of the Versailles Treaty, and were ripe for a rabble rouser. Hitler showed up just in time to start a Holocaust. The year 2009 is no time -- if ever there is a time -- for the politics of fear and resentment. Resentment is a stupid emotion. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was spot-on in that oft-quoted remark about fear in his inaugural address of March 1933 during the worst year of the Great Depression. FDR was right: Fear is to be afraid of. Of fear a late First Century C.E. Christian philosopher wrote: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear." This "perfect love" is not some gooey thing of hugs and kisses and vapid smiles. It is an attitude of robust confidence which enables a person to step away from his or her own concerns to view them in a larger context beyond personal desire -- and to do so accepting the possibility of material diminishment of his estate. Some significant number of people so enabled would cast out the kind of fear that poisons a nation's collective psyche, causing it to strike out blindly against perceived enemies and leaving chaos and old night in its wake.

© Copyright 2009, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.

Tea Party time? Maybe not.

This post by right-wing bigot Nancy L. LaRoche to the "e-democracy forum" pretty much tells us the truth behind all the statements coming from the two-bit, half-assed fascist right-wing talk radio big-mouths who host these programs that somehow these teabaggers are putting on some kind of "non-partisan" events open to all who decry wasteful government spending.

Check out this response to me very closely because the truth is in what Nancy L. LaRoche posted in opposition to what I posted.

Here is what I posted which she is responding to:

Alan wrote: "Yes, you want people to attend your "Tea Party" rallies but you exclude those with a left view from speaking... wow! Real democratic.

Invite me to speak; I'll be there."

Now, notice what she says:

Alan: Do you leftist protesters pass their bullhorns and allow the other side to speak at their rallies?

This is a very frank admission that only those from the right side of the political spectrum are welcome at these "Tea Parties."

This statement here makes Mitch Berg, Chris Baker, Shawn Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the chicken shit patriot crowd so eager to send others off to kill and die in these dirty imperialist wars being waged for control of the oil fields and gas pipeline routes along with regional domination and control of the poppy and heroin trade nothing but outright liars afraid to defend their fascist, racist, warmongering, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist ideas. They lie when they say these "Tea Parties" were organized by "concerned citizens" from grassroots, when, in fact, these right-wing bigots and blowhards of talk radio have organized these "Tea Parties" for two reasons: 1.) As promotional publicity stunts to promote the now largely discredited right-wing talk radio; and, 2.) To try to move the country further to the right THAN WHAT BARACK OBAMA, THE DEMOCRATS AND THE WALL STREET CROWD are already trying to take us. Make no mistake, Barack Obama is not liberal, progressive or left in any sense of the meaning of these words... Obama is definitely not a "socialist" as these racist, bigots of right-wing talk radio are charging.

In other words, the teabaggers are not going to allow me (or any known "leftist" to address their Tax Day Rallies with the message that military spending is wasteful government spending.

The organizers of these "Tea Parties" do not want people hearing the truth that the most excessive, wasteful government spending is for wars and militarism.

These right-wing blow-hards like Mitch Berg are afraid to have me addressing their crowds saying things like:

The United States government, dominated by Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers, is wasting trillions upon trillions of dollars of tax-payer monies borrowed from Wall Street bankers to finance a vast and far-flung network of over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting all parts of the globe instead of building 800 public health care centers right here in the United States providing free health care from cradle to grave for everyone.

Now, this self-avowed, Bircher--- this two-bit, half-assed fascist--- Nancy L. LaRoche declares that I have denied people with differing viewpoints from my own the right to speak at anti-war rallies.

This is another outright and brazen two-faced lie and she is well aware she is a liar in making this statement.

I have never in my life prevented anyone--- from any political perspective or persuasion--- with an anti-war view to speak at any anti-war rally.

To the extent it has been within my power (as one vote on a committee), I have never allowed anyone with a pro-war view to speak at an anti-war rally.

Why would I give consideration to anyone with a pro-war view to speak at an "anti-war rally?" Only a complete idiot and fool like this Birchite, Nancy L. LaRoche, would make such a statement... it is up to her and her warmongering friends who support these wars but never go off to fight them to organize their own "pro-war rallies."

However, I have organized (and participated as a debater in debates I had no part in organizing) dozens of debates all over Minnesota--- some ninety debates, in fact--- prior to the start of the war in Iraq, around the question and issue:

Should the United States Government Go To War in Iraq?

Participants in these debates, generally consisted of two or three pro and con views. As the main organizer of these debates across Minnesota I did not seek out and select participants according to my personal left-wing views. In fact, these debates included retired military people--- both pro and con--- on the question and the issue. In fact, there were even some right-wing talk show hosts who participated in these debates--- several times as the moderators. Not once was I ever accused of stacking these debates. And not once was the discourse anything but cordial. I would note, the bigots and the Birchites did condemn these debates because they included the anti-war view! You see, these two-bit, half-assed fascists do not believe in democracy or any concept of democracy. To them, democracy is only them getting out their views. These is an obviously perverted view of democracy; the same perverted view of democracy that almost thoroughly permeates right-wing talk radio--- with a very few notable exceptions of those who hold genuinely conservative views but welcome all other views into the "battle of ideas in our modern world."

Nancy L. LaRoche intentionally tries to blend "debate" with demonstrations and rallies. She does this intentionally as do all of her bigoted friends because they know that people get their ideas together when they hear the many sides to these complex and complicated questions in the process of public and democratic debate--- and, then, after formulating opinions based upon what they believe to be the best information they can gather; from this informed position they go out a try to convince others to rally and demonstrate with them to try to move government, corporations or whatever in the direction they think society should be moving.

But, where has the debate been on the Obama/Wall Street agenda?

In fact, there has been no debate.

In fact, the "left" which our bigoted, Birchite friend Nancy L. LaRoche so bemoans, has had no voice what-so-ever in a debate, which I would remind the reader, has largely been an attack on socialism.

Denying a voice to the adherents of the socialist viewpoint and perspective under these circumstances can hardly pass for democracy.

By Nancy L. LaRoche's own words here, these "Tea Party" and tax-protests are nothing more than right-wing rallies; her own words give lie to the words of those like Mitch Berg, Chris Baker, Shawn Hannity and Rush Limbaugh along with the "fair and unbiased" FOX news crew that these rallies are anything but anti-communist, pro-war and pro-corporate bash the working class and attack the rest of the world rallies.

That two-bit, half-assed fascists from both the Republican and Democratic Parties participate in these rallies does not mean these rallies are open to all who oppose wasteful government spending; it means that those on the right from both political parties support and sponsor--- and exclude--- anyone not right-wing from participation.

After all, when you openly state as Nancy L. LaRoche has done that "leftists for peace" are excluded; here in the state of Minnesota you are excluding a good 40% of the population.

And, if you are "not going to pass the bullhorn" to leftists to speak about their concerns about inappropriate government spending no one, not Mitch Berg or Chris Baker or Shawn Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, can make the claim they are speaking for all Americans... they are speaking for a very, very narrow slice of America... perhaps 3% to 4% of the population... no more than this.

But, here we are supposedly talking about bringing people of "all political persuasions together" in these Tea Parties who are opposed to "government waste."

Are these "Tea Parties" also "pro-war parties and rallies?" If we listen to Nancy L. LaRoche they really are.

Not only do the American people have to ask:

Where is the change?

We also have to ask:

Where are the debates on these issues?

Nancy L. LaRoche knew better than to demand the microphone at an anti-war rally because she was pro-war.

In her small little demented and perverted mind, patriotism is equated with being pro-war. Waving a flag is equated with being pro-war. That she convinced someone to put down a peace sign and hold the American flag tells us absolutely nothing... did she convince that person to become pro-war? No. And she knows it. That person waved the American flag to demonstrate that peace is patriotic, and war is unpatriotic.

I'm not a "flag-waver" but I will stand my patriotism for this country up against the chicken shit patriotism of these right-wing bigots hosting these Fox radio programs any day... and it they who run from the challenge of debating these issues.

That they can convince a few stupid fools like Nancy L. LaRoche to join them tells us everything we need to know about this perverted crowd of "teabaggers."

Nancy L. LaRoche tells us that she and her friends "don't bite." However, they sure want to give the working class a good "teabagging."

Teabaggers have more in common with the "steal the land from the Indians," pro-slavery, pro-Hitler crowd than with the sons and daughters of the American Revolution and Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson.

Again, I reiterate my suggestion for real--- face-to-face--- debates in every city where the teabaggers are planning their events... come on Nancy L. LaRoche, your idols Mitch Berg and Chris Baker refuse to debate me... let's me and you tour these sixteen cities debating the issues involved... let's me and you debate what constitutes wasteful government spending...

bak, bak, bak, baaakkk, bak, bak, baakk, baaakkkkk, bak, bak.

No doubt Hitler was a "teabagger," just like Mitch Berg and Chris Baker in every sense of the word.

Something to think about around the dinner table--- if you can keep from gagging.

Yours in the struggle,

Alan L. Maki





From a posting to "e-democracy" to which the "moderator," Rick Mons, would not allow me the above response.

The posting was from: Nancy L LaRoche Date: 07:23 CDT Short link

Alan Maki wrote:

"Yes, you want people to attend your "Tea Party" rallies but you
exclude those with a left view from speaking... wow! Real democratic.

Invite me to speak; I'll be there."

Alan: Do you leftist protesters pass their bullhorns and allow the other side
to speak at their rallies? I've attended some anti-war protests and had great
conversations with those opposed to my views. I didn't demand the microphone.
In fact, at one three years ago I made friends with a homeless Native American
who was given an anti-war sign to carry. After we talked for a while, he put
his sign down and picked up a flag. That's what democracy is - the right to
have differing opinions and discuss openly with others. You seem to want to
dismiss and shut up those who disagree.

Come out and talk with us May 2. Try to understand our side face to face.
Again, we don't bite.

Where's the change?

I started this blog because I am so fed up and disappointed in Barack Obama. He talked so good. Just one big let down.

I recently put a bumper sticker on my car:

Where's the change?

I thought it would make a great name for a blog.

I would like to meet others who feel the same as I do.

I am not pessimistic because I think we can figure out a way out of this mess we are in but I am pretty much convinced Barack Obama and the Dems will be more a part of the problem.

I feel really let down by Barack Obama even though I had my doubts. It was just so darn easy to "hope" after eight terrible years of George Bush.

Lisa Boucher