Sunday, July 29, 2007
Sheehan Says U.S. Started WWII, Should Not Have Fought Hitler
This column by Cindy Sheehan appeared in the July 22nd edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. In this column, she writes about her upcoming Independent campaign against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Now, take a look at this! Cindy says that the Democrats started EVERY war that the U.S. fought, and including WORLD WAR II. So according to her, the U.S. should not have fought that war or in other words, should not have fought Hitler. Now everyone knows that I don't believe in the Iraq War, nor did I believe in the Vietnam War. Nancy Pelosi opposes the Iraq War and is working on getting legislation passed to get our troops out. Many Democrats including Pelosi opposed the Vietnam War. Cindy also attacks the Democrats for slavery and the internment camps, but these are not issues that she can successfully pin on Nancy Pelosi. Note this quote from Cindy Sheehan's column: "I was a lifelong Democrat only because the choices were limited. The Democrats are the party of slavery and were the party that started every war in the 20th century, except the other Bush debacle. The Federal Reserve, permanent federal income taxes, not one but two World Wars, Japanese concentration camps, and not one but two atom bombs dropped on the innocent citizens of Japan -- all brought to us via the Democrats." In her column, Cindy also says "Good change has happened during Democratic regimes, but as in the civil rights and union movements, the positive changes occurred because of the people, not the politicians." I agree that positive changes come because of mass movements by the people, but suppose we had someone like W. Bush as or Reagan as President during those times? Would we have had those changes? I think not! Cindy says "Some people have offered to quit their jobs to move to California's Eighth Congressional District to help my possible campaign." When next year rolls around perhaps SOME people will come to help her, but as I said before too many people are pleased that we have a Democratic House and Pelosi as the Speaker instead of the Republicans. More people will be working to elect a Democratic President and more Democrats to Congress, so Cindy Sheehan with her misplaced priorities is dreaming! I'm sure that her remarks that the U.S. started WWII, meaning that we should not have fought Hitler, will be very helpful to her in her campaign. I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi will help Cindy Sheehan advertise that position of her's. Here is the link to her column.
My Critique Of The Green Party
Although I have been active in volunteer liberal Democratic politics for over 40 years, for a time between 1997 and 2004, I was registered in the Green Party. In 2001, I moved from San Francisco, where I lived all of my life, to Chico California. I served on the Butte County Green Party's County Council from 2001-2004. The reason that I left the Democrats during that period, was because I was very disappointed at President Bill Clinton for his failure to deliver universal health care, his signing of the awful Welfare Reform legislation of 1996, NAFTA, his failure to stem corporate mergers resulting in worker layoffs, and other issues. Our Democratic Governor at the time, Gray Davis, was also a disappointment and incompetent, which is why we had the re-call in 2003 and ended up with Schwarzenegger. During the past few years that I lived in San Francisco, Mayor Willie Brown who was supposed to be a liberal Democrat, sold out to the landlords, developers, real estate interests, and other corporate interests. So, I became a Green. I voted for Ralph Nader for President in 1996 and 2000.
Now, had I known that 'Dubya' Bush was going to be as bad a President as he is, and in fact much worse than his father, and had I resided in a state in 2000 where the election was close, I would have voted for Gore.
Early in 2004, I expressed my view to the Butte County Green Party's County Council that the Green Party must not support Ralph Nader for President in that year, nor should the party run a Presidential candidate. The party leadership here disagreed with me and stated it's intention to actively campaign for Nader again. This was despite the fact that the national Green Party nominated an unknown candidate, David Cobb, who ran a "safe states" campaign. So, I left the Green Party and became a Democrat again and I supported the Kerry-Edwards ticket. However, I will say that my departure from the local Green Party was amicable.
Before I left the Green Party, I made a couple of suggestions as to what the party could do to make themselves a more viable political party. I suggested that the Green Party should stop running candidates for President, U.S. Senator, and other statewide offices, but target U.S. House of Representative and state legislative districts where they would have a chance of electing someone, and running candidates in those districts. The Green Party has done a terrific job of electing local non-partisan officials, but has elected very few if any candidates to partisan offices. So, the Green Party has officials who hold local offices who have a base and could get elected to partisan offices like the Legislature. Santa Monica California is an example where Greens serve on the City Council. I also stated that running candidates for the higher offices that I mentioned, would be a distraction from the effort to elect more candidates to the lower partisan positions, and also would be divisive if the Greens adopted my idea. Unfortunately, the local leadership didn't see all of this the way I saw it.
Another point that I want to bring up is that there are some people who join the Green and I suppose other third parties, who have racist, sexist, and homophobic views, and of course I'm not saying everyone. There is one man in particular who expresses some of these views to me. This man happens to strongly admire Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo. He opposes the Iraq War, war spending, bad trade deals like NAFTA, the power of the corporations, and wants big money taken out of politics. This gentleman often criticizes the Democrats for not being good enough on some of these issues. However, he has also expressed his homophobic views, and said that women should be paid less than men, and opposes free breakfasts and lunches being served in our schools for children from poor families. Here is what he said in regards to that: "Babies, more babies is what you get. Lots of people here in my neighborhood feed the wild animals, squirrels, humming birds, and other birds. When animals are fed they no longer have to forage for food all of the time so they breed in excess. So if we want more poor people then set up programs to feed them without foraging for food and they will breed more poor people. Is that what society needs, more poor families?" Some time ago, I was also told by a reliable source that there were a couple of other Greens who were holier than thou in speaking out against the Greens supporting any liberal Democrats even for local offices, but who made racist remarks against Blacks and Latinos. Now, those particular Greens stated in 2004 that any Green who would not support Nader for President, should get out of the party.
In stating this, as far as the Green Party is concerned, I know that the views of those particular individuals run contrary to the positions of the Green Party. My point is that when the Green Party fails to take the necessary steps that I suggested above to make themselves a more viable political party, while it attracts some very intelligent and well meaning people who seek to make this a better country and who want a better world, it also attracts people who simply want to be non-conformists or what I might call "political party shoppers."
Now, had I known that 'Dubya' Bush was going to be as bad a President as he is, and in fact much worse than his father, and had I resided in a state in 2000 where the election was close, I would have voted for Gore.
Early in 2004, I expressed my view to the Butte County Green Party's County Council that the Green Party must not support Ralph Nader for President in that year, nor should the party run a Presidential candidate. The party leadership here disagreed with me and stated it's intention to actively campaign for Nader again. This was despite the fact that the national Green Party nominated an unknown candidate, David Cobb, who ran a "safe states" campaign. So, I left the Green Party and became a Democrat again and I supported the Kerry-Edwards ticket. However, I will say that my departure from the local Green Party was amicable.
Before I left the Green Party, I made a couple of suggestions as to what the party could do to make themselves a more viable political party. I suggested that the Green Party should stop running candidates for President, U.S. Senator, and other statewide offices, but target U.S. House of Representative and state legislative districts where they would have a chance of electing someone, and running candidates in those districts. The Green Party has done a terrific job of electing local non-partisan officials, but has elected very few if any candidates to partisan offices. So, the Green Party has officials who hold local offices who have a base and could get elected to partisan offices like the Legislature. Santa Monica California is an example where Greens serve on the City Council. I also stated that running candidates for the higher offices that I mentioned, would be a distraction from the effort to elect more candidates to the lower partisan positions, and also would be divisive if the Greens adopted my idea. Unfortunately, the local leadership didn't see all of this the way I saw it.
Another point that I want to bring up is that there are some people who join the Green and I suppose other third parties, who have racist, sexist, and homophobic views, and of course I'm not saying everyone. There is one man in particular who expresses some of these views to me. This man happens to strongly admire Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo. He opposes the Iraq War, war spending, bad trade deals like NAFTA, the power of the corporations, and wants big money taken out of politics. This gentleman often criticizes the Democrats for not being good enough on some of these issues. However, he has also expressed his homophobic views, and said that women should be paid less than men, and opposes free breakfasts and lunches being served in our schools for children from poor families. Here is what he said in regards to that: "Babies, more babies is what you get. Lots of people here in my neighborhood feed the wild animals, squirrels, humming birds, and other birds. When animals are fed they no longer have to forage for food all of the time so they breed in excess. So if we want more poor people then set up programs to feed them without foraging for food and they will breed more poor people. Is that what society needs, more poor families?" Some time ago, I was also told by a reliable source that there were a couple of other Greens who were holier than thou in speaking out against the Greens supporting any liberal Democrats even for local offices, but who made racist remarks against Blacks and Latinos. Now, those particular Greens stated in 2004 that any Green who would not support Nader for President, should get out of the party.
In stating this, as far as the Green Party is concerned, I know that the views of those particular individuals run contrary to the positions of the Green Party. My point is that when the Green Party fails to take the necessary steps that I suggested above to make themselves a more viable political party, while it attracts some very intelligent and well meaning people who seek to make this a better country and who want a better world, it also attracts people who simply want to be non-conformists or what I might call "political party shoppers."
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