News Snipet 'Blog

There is much guarded joyfulness in the ranks of the Democrats today.

Not because they have assembled a winning team, or because they have winning ideas.

It's not because what they want for the country is what the country wants for itself or because they have turned a new leaf and started placing their constituents needs above their own voracious appetite for political power. The hopefulness of the Democrat party is not that it will WIN the House or Senate, but that the Republicans will LOSE it. What is this country coming to? "We have to go back to 1974 (during Watergate) to find such a favorable environment," says James Carville, who ran Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. "If we can't win in this environment, we have to question the whole premise of the party."

If there is a thinking adult in the United States who still maintains that the global warming debate in this nation is anything other than political, they have a hole in their head. To think that the power mongers (politicians) of today give one whit about the environment demonstrates a certain softness in the average American head. Here is the deal:

• Contemporary politics is about power.
• Money is power.
• The world's natural resources are money.
• Most natural resources in this nation are controlled by private capitalists.
• These wealthy are referred to by others as "Big Somethings" (Big Oil, Big Tobacco, etc.)
• These "Bigs" are largely "conservative" when it comes to government, low taxation, non-interference, etc. because they want to keep those resources.
• The "Littles" are in a struggle for control over what the "Bigs" have and the only hope they have of gaining that control is to scare their constituents into empowering government to seize control of those resources for their own benefit (to increase their own power and ambition)

Now if you are a "Little" constituent who has been frightened out of 7 of your 9 lives by Al Gore and his parties (the sky is falling!) fear mongering, don't feel bad--fear is contagious and rapidly spreading in our flagging democracy.

USATODAY.com - Gore isn't quite as green as he's led the world to believe: "Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a 'carbon-neutral lifestyle.' To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. 'Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb,' warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. 'We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin.' For someone who says the sky is falling, he does very little. He says he recycles and drives a hybrid. And he claims he uses renewable energy credits to offset the pollution he produces when using a private jet to promote his film. (In reality, Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, pays this.)"

If you are racking your brains to try to figure out what yesterday's election results in Connecticut, Georgia and elsewhere might bode for the future, good luck.

In Connecticut, Democratic voters dumped incumbent Sen. Joe Lieberman for a moveon.org anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont.

Lesson: The super liberal, anti-war wing has taken control of the Democratic Party, and Democrats will now all move to the left. Oops. That could be bad for conservatives because it leave more room in the middle (farther from the right) for Republican lawmakers. Republicans and Democrats will both drift farther to the left.

In Georgia, Democratic voters dumped super-liberal, anti-war incumbent Cynthia McKinney for a run-of-the mill liberal who gets along with Republicans.

Lesson: The super liberal, anti-war wing is losing its grip on the Democratic Party, and Democrats have to move away from the left to win. It's one small step for conservatives, one giant step for McKinney's embarrassed constituents. (You may have noticed that lesson #1 and #2 appear to conflict)

In Michigan, moderate Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz lost to a conservative in a GOP primary.

Lesson: Republican voters are punishing incumbents who become too moderate (read that "liberal") so Republican lawmakers will now begin to shape up and ship right.

In Connecticut, critics tarred Lieberman with the accusation that he was too close to President Bush. In Michigan, the loser (Schwartz) had the support of President Bush.

Lesson: Both Democratic and Republican voters hate President Bush. Or maybe they are just fed up with incumbents.

If you are not confused yet, don't worry, the pundits still have nearly three months to confuse you before the general election. Then, you'll drive yourself to the poll and vote for the person you like the best or dislike the least, and it will be for reasons that are personal and important to you, and there's a pretty good chance the pundits will never have asked you "just what IS important to you this year?"

Voters don’t send messages. They simply vote for candidates they like the best. If there is a lesson to be learned about Americans in general and our priorities, you won't learn it from a few primary elections.

This kind of scary hatred, my dad used to tell me, comes only from the right wing--in his day from people such as the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, with his tirades against 'communists and their fellow travelers.' The word 'McCarthyism' became a red flag for liberals, signifying the far right's fascistic tactics of labeling anyone a 'communist' or 'socialist' who favored an active federal government to help the middle class and the poor, and to level the playing field.

I came to believe that we liberals couldn't possibly be so intolerant and hateful, because our ideology was famous for ACLU-type commitments to free speech, dissent and, especially, tolerance for those who differed with us. And in recent years--with the deadly combination of sanctimony and vitriol displayed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage--I held on to the view that the left was inherently more tolerant and less hateful than the right. "

Dear Lanny: Refer to posts

News Snipet 'Blog: The Far Left

and

News Snipet 'Blog: IDEOLOGICAL

and

News Snipet 'Blog: THE LEFT AND FASCISM

and

If viewed over time, an average political science student will observe that we as a nation have become increasingly progressive--leaving our "originalist" roots. This has not only happened as a nation, but globally we have experienced the same in both the western and eastern hemispheres. Most of the east is still under a form of leftist Communism or socialism. Most of the west has moved further toward the left.

It is obvious that the world is tilting left on its teetering axis.

What are the results?

Here are some of today's headlines:

• Hundreds of thousands Iraqi Shiites Chant 'Death to Israel'...
• Over 70 rockets slam into North Israel -- in under an hour...
• Uproar at BBC satire featuring London 9/11 attack...
• Indonesian President Warns 'Ultimate Nightmare; Clash Of civilizations'...
• Leaked UK document sees 'civil war'...
• Senate votes to fund fence...
• Lieberman's millionaire challenger blasts WAL-MART -- while owning stock...
• Double Amputee Marine Mugged Outside Restaurant...
• Mideast War Rages With No End in Sight...
• Woman Jailed in Housekeeper Slavery Case...
• Christian station becomes 'Porn Radio'...
• Columnist Sees the 'Collapse' of Conservatism
• ACLU Accused of Profiting at Taxpayer Expense
• Bill Gates Urged to Fund Embryonic Stem-Cell Research
• Members of UN Body Say Israel's Military Actions Motivated by Racism
• Phoenix Authorities Report 2 Arrests in Serial Killer Case
• Catholics, Muslims, Jews condemn Madonna's plans for on-stage crucifixion

Are things getting better the further left we proceed both nationally and globally?

One of Congress's most committed liberals and interesting characters is betting his career that Republicans will lose the House in the November election. Democrat Charles Rangel of New York says if his party does not regain control of the House, he'll resign. If they do retain control, he'll be the most powerful committee chairman in the house. He'll preside over the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. That would pretty much give him the power to stop any conservative tax reforms or tax cuts for as long as his party stays in power.

Rangel is pretty confident that he won't retire soon. "I'm a poker player and I've had good hands all night long. This is all in," Rangel said in an interview. "I would not put everything on the table if I thought for one minute we would lose."

Conservatives are hugely unimpressed with the lack of spending restraint and the new growth and intrusion of government, particularly in the areas of healthcare and education. Aside from the appointment of two new Supreme Court judges who should be able to halt liberal activism from the bench, conservatives are hugely disappointed with the product of what will be eight years of GOP control of the federal government. The slide toward European style socialism has been steeper in the Bush era than in the Clinton era. In 2000, Republicans told voters "Give us Congress and the White House and watch our smoke." We're still waiting for the spark, let alone the smoke.

A lot of conservatives have reached the conclusion that, while voting for Democrats is certainly not the answer, Republicans can't (or won't) deliver even when they have the White House, the House and the Senate. In other words, we're pretty much SOL regardless of which party is in power.

Add to that a general public dissatisfaction (justified or not) with such things as the Iraq war, gas prices, and immigration problems, voters are more than likely to conclude that while Republicans can't deliver on reform, they are also generally incompetent.

To use Rangel's poker analogy, whether the Democrats are holding a good hand may be irrelevant because Republicans are holding a uniquely bad hand. Democrats don't have to show their hand. People have seen the Republican hand and they are weary of it. Democrats don't have to show their hand to win, and you can bet they won't.

I now believe the chances are slightly in the Democrats' favor to win back the House in 2006-but probably not the Senate. My only hesitation in making a bold prediction is that Democrats have about a 30-seat deficit to overcome. If Republicans do hang on to the House, they will have a two-year reprieve to impress voters with their ability to govern. I'd hate to have to depend on either of those possibilities, and I don't plan to.

While I return to politics from time to time, just for the fun of it, I have given up completely on the idea of attempting to alter political events as a vehicle for progress. I become more convinced every day that the outcome of American elections is among the least important and/or consequential events in our lives.