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'Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.' -- Benito Mussolini, founder of fascism 'Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, but socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality' -Mikhail Bakunin, anarcho-syndicalist Face it, dismantling regulation wholesale, which he proposes, will put us back in the "robber-baron" days-- if you dont grasp that you have had a piss-poor history education. The sanest program out there is http://gpus.org/ .. fielding a Harvard M.D. woman for Prez, who grasps what the docs grasp who were banned from testifying when Obamneycare was being crammed thru: http://pnhp.org/

Did it occur to you that since "you" don't have moral values, that might be why your guy lost? Seems your party is the most hateful around...it truly shows.

Who exactly are you talking to?

My candidate was David Cobb. Folks say a lot of things about the Green Party, but "most hateful" is one epithet I've never heard applied to it.

I'll leave the deconstruction of your assertion about my personal moral values as an exercise for the student.

Well, I'll be darned. After squirming over action items like "supporting the President in the War on Terror" and "Cracking Down on Indecency", I was concerned. We got a letter recently with a checklist of priorites, which included several of the buzzwords being bandied around by the radical right ever since they disguised fear and hate as "Moral Values" to win the 2004 elections.

And then, Jeb Hensarling (R - Athens) goes and opens the door to "these newcomers to our political process [...] bloggers and online activists." (from TFA). And in a show of rare bipartisanship (on an issue not involving oil or war), he's partnering with a leading Democratic Senator. And some of the biggest beneficiaries of the legislation will be third-party bloggers, Greens, Libertarians, and all the rest.

It's as if he has a sense of civic duty. Maybe it's possible, even today. After all, there are an awful lot of "R"s in Texas who were "D"s in a previous life.

About 80 percent of the organisms they found in the flaky scum were in the same genetic families as those known to infect wounds or cause problems for people with AIDS, cancer or other immune system disorders.

What an absolute load of crap. That's like saying "about 80 percent of Germans come from the same country as Adolph Hitler."

What's sorely missing from this article is any sense of journalism. I know that's a passe' concept. But when a "study" like this comes out, stating the obvious in "OMFG the sky is falling!" terms, you should follow the money.

Who pays for "studies" like this? I predict if you follow the money, you'll find that this fine product is from the makers of Lysol and other fine household products.

These would be the same people that supply "educational, informative" news bits to small-market stations that get run alongside the real news. I remember one in the mid-90s that described the horrors facing your family during the Thanksgiving holiday, and how you'd save their lives by using an antibiotic cleanser. Our old friend Lysol was prominently featured -- over and over -- but the company's likely sponsorship of the ad-in-news'-clothing was conveniently left out.

Or maybe I'm just another paranoid Green.

Ok, I get this comment in M2, and I'm thinking "troll, and not a very good one, either." But I'm curious, so I check out the com.com.com.com source for the blog entry:

Dean also suggested that computer makers such as Apple Computer, Dell, Gateway and Sony should be required to include an ID card reader in PCs--and Americans would have to insert their uniform IDs into the reader before they could log on. "One state's smart-card driver's license must be identifiable by another state's card reader," Dean said. "It must also be easily commercialized by the private sector and included in all PCs over time--making the Internet safer and more secure."

The presidential hopeful offered few details about his radical proposal. "On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money," Dean said.

I'm sure glad I didn't make the contribution to Dean that I'd been planning. I guess it's back to my original choice.

The more countries work together, the more it gets set into society that people from other countries are okay, and working with them is NOT like working with the enemy.

You're very much right. Before the election of 2000, the US was on its way to becoming a cooperative international power. We were involved in negotiations on the Kyoto treaty, we weren't developing "Star Wars" ABM weapons, and we were even showing signs of getting with the program on such no-brainers as land mines.

It was looking for a while like people could get along. What a difference a blown election can make. Or more specifically -- and echoing comments in other threads -- what a difference a small group of xenophobic warmongers can make in a formerly peaceful society.

By the way, I lay the blame for this mess squarely at the feet of Mr. Al Gore. The election was his to lose, and he did so in craptacular fashion. Blaming the Supreme Court is like blaming the umpire -- if you'd really played better than the other team, you'd have won.

(And this message is now officially 100% -1, Offtopic. Karma to burn, baby!)

I am the webmaster for declared Green Party pre-candidate David Cobb. It's a Zope/Plone site running on BSD. i also run the site for Cynthia McKinney, but I haven't put much time into her site recently, and don't plan to until she gives a stronger indication that she's interested in us.

Cobb's site will be growing in the near future, as the web team expands.

And for those of you who want to post crap about Nader spoiling in 2000, first read this, this, and especially this, which contains a whole string of surprises.

Me: we can't afford to export our jobs and livelihoods.
You: Why? Are we somehow fundametally better than other humans? Are people in India somehow less deserving of a chance at building wealth and success for themselves?

That's a great argument! Even if it's a bit of a troll, but I'll bite.

I don't want to do anything to deprive citizens of any country of their rights to build wealth and success. However, one of the countries whose people are "deserving of a chance at building wealth and success" is the one I'm sitting in now -- no, not that one, I mean the USA.

In the bad old days of the British Empire, the riches of the peoples of other nations were siphoned off for the benefit of the Crown. Today, we still have vestiges of that system in place -- and yes, the US is as culpable as any other imperial power in several cases.

I see so-called "Hardship" visas and overseas outsourcing as an imperial system in reverse. The concept is the same: siphoning off the target country's resources for the benefit of another country. That's not free trade -- that's exploitation. Unfortunately, countries that were once occupied by imperial powers sometimes learned the exploitation game all too well.

If you want to say, "turnabout is fair play," go ahead... but don't pretend it's right.

One more very important point:
It's unfortunate the Green Party, if what you say is true, has choses a rather short-sighted stance on this issue.

Hold on -- I'm not saying I speak for the Green Party! I was affirming my personal views against discrimination based on ethnicity, which is a tenet of the party's values. Before making any judgements about the US Green Party (or any of its international brethren and sistren), please visit their site -- their Ten Key Values will be an excellent place to start.

The Backlash article mentioned a group called TORAW:

It's not hard to find reasons for CIOs to worry. "Do you want to do business with companies that take away jobs for U.S. citizens by outsourcing work to foreign countries?" asks The Organization for the Rights of American Workers (Toraw), a group of displaced, angry American workers laid off by Connecticut insurance and financial services companies.

I'm browsing TORAW's web site now, and they look like an interesting organization. Not focused just on moving jobs offshore, they're also advocating a hard look at "non-immigrant foreign workers" - specifically, H1-B visa holders.

I like that TORAW explicity states that they're not against "permanent green card status immigrants", or against anyone based on ethnicity or country of origin. From what I've read so far, they address my concerns without hitting my Green Party hot buttons. The US should be open to those who want to come, stay, and build a new life -- but we can't afford to export our jobs and livelihoods.

Unfortunately, I can't tell if TORAW membership is available to all concerned Americans. Their membership form is encoded in virus-friendly Microsoft Word format, as are their brochures, and the CIO article notes the local CT connection.

But an organization like this looks like just what we need to keep the IT industry from being the next textile industry.

This is correct. For example, how many Deocratic Senators voted against the PATRIOT Act? One. How many Senate Democrats voted against Scalia? Zero. How many corporations donated to both Gore and Bush in 2000? 66.

Bush and Gore both were heavily invested in oil before 2000. Now Gore supports Bush's rush to war.

The Democrats are the iron fist in the velvet glove. The Republicans are just the iron fist. If you want to make a change, join the only party that is growing in the US, the Green Party.

...two-party, winner-take-all political system.

Part of the problem is the electoral system. It needs reform. There are better processes: IRV (instant runoff voting); approval voting and PR (proportional representation for multi-candidate legislative districts); the use of NOTA (none of the above) on ballots; etc. See http://ny.lp.org/issues/election_reform.htm for more info about those.

Yes, Libertarians and other third parties have what you like about the D's (certain freedoms) and what you might like about the R's (fiscal responsibility). For the most part, they just mean what the Republicans say but don't implement: smaller government, true freedom--'hands-off' of anyone not hurting anyone else. But Libertarians recruit at Gay Pride and Marijuana Marches (May 4th, worldwide!), which is how it's so easy to tell them apart from Republicans/Conservatives. They are also 100% with the 'geek lobby' on cyber and privacy issues, unlike either of the two major parties. They don't want to tax OR regulate the internet.

It's NOT hopeless or out of your control, which is the sense I'm getting from this thread. Get active. Get involved. We are fortunate to live in the age of the Information Revolution--don't waste it.

For those who trend communist (voluntary, hopefully), go Green. Otherwise, support your local Libertarian Party (in the U.S., Costa Rica, and other counties), which is the closest thing to anarchism that you can vote for.

http://www.lp.org/
http://www.gpus.org/

Please--our future depends on it.

I need to take issue with one of -cman-'s passing comments, and with the Related Links box. The Green Party that is recognized by the vast majority of capital-G Greens, as well the FEC, is the Green Party of the United States, and not the GPUSA. The differences between them are off-topic (and flame-bait in the right crowd), but it is important to distinguish between the two organizations.