Write your comment in the form below. Be sure to 'Preview' your comment to make sure that it will appear as you want it to.
You Are Replying To This Comment:
THROW ME OUT
By Bruce Freeman
Mar 2nd 2007
at 1:46 pm EST
The only ones that should be thrown out are the neocons in our government and other loud-mouth, intolerant, absolutists. I am a 100% disabled Vietnam era veteran and I flew cross country from Oregon to D.C. to the Peace March on Congress on Jan 27th in Washington D.C. I then lobbied Congress members on Monday Jan 29th to make BINDING resolutions to end the war in Iraq. Because of my physical condition and being on fixed income, I really have no business doing such things. America's youth needs to pick up the slack in our domestic war to recapture our country which has become a corporatocracy run by big business, as well as entities that would tear down the wall between church and state. We are in the most dangerous period in our history with the president attacking the Constitution and such rights as habeus corpus and privacy. I plead with all who read this to act. It is not enough to send emails or make phone calls -- the time has come for strong demonstrations -- it is the only way Congress will get the message that we, the people, run the country. Most think only of reelection, on both sides of the aisle. For the sake of your future and the future of our this nation and our Constitution, I urge you to act now and not stop and without letup. There is another March on the Pentagon on March 19th [Link I encourage all who read this to make it. Just do it dammit. The following are bits of wisdom from heroes past and present, as well as a warning I, sadly, feel I must add to all posts and blogs and I encourage you to read them and hold them to you and use them as encouragement to act:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WARNING: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, and provisions passed by the previous Republican-controlled Congress, the National Security Agency may have read this email, my blog postings, and may listen to my private phone conversations without warrant, warning, or notice, and certainly without probable cause. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. They may also arrest me without telling me of any charges against me, and hold me secretly and indefinitely in an undisclosed location without notifying my wife or relatives, and with no access to an attorney. I/We have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President and voting to remove rubber-stamp Republicans from office.
"Remember, all that Hitler did was legal in Germany at the time." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
"A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader." ~ Golda Meir
"The provision of the Constitution giving war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, for the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and (thus), they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." ~Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to his friend and law partner William H. Herndon (15 February 1848)
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." ~Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
"Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen." ~Peggy Noonan
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." ~Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address
"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God." ~Thomas Jefferson (Motto on his seal)
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” ~James Madison
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country." ~George Washington
"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." ~James Madison
"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts." ~Edmund Burke
"Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction." ~Thomas Jefferson
"Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." ~George Washington
"The nobility of the soldier willing to give a life for country and God
lies silent and still amidst the broken promises of leaders.
Send them not to futile sacrifice on shores so far from home.
But keep your word to all that serve that none shall die in vain." ~ a poem by Rich Raitano, a brother Vietnam era medic
"A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come from it." ~Wm. Penn
"Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all this time, and all of this sacrifice, and of all this support, there is no end in sight, then I say for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past." ~ Richard Nixon, 1968
"A little patience (and action), and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake." ~Thomas Jefferson, 1798
"Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns." ~Louis XIV
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~John F. Kennedy
"So long as one wants to retain one's sword, one has not attained complete fearlessness... Peace will never come until the great powers courageously decide to disarm themselves... What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?...There is no such thing as shooting out of love... Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty... No government on earth can make men who have realized freedom in their hearts salute against their will. " ~Mahatma Gandhi
"All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Liberalism... is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak." ~Jose Ortega Y Gasset
"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." ~Bertrand Russell
"Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power, lust, stupidity (nor arrogance, nor vanity) are good motives." ~ Ayn Rand
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness." ~Justice William O. Douglas
"Before honor is humility." ~Bible
"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows ... We are today not far from a disaster." ~T.E. Lawrence(a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia); The Sunday Times, August 1920
"The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." ~Epictetus
"How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?" ~Bob Marley
You Are Commenting On This Post:
Live from the Conservative Political Action Conference: A Conservative College Activism Seminar
“Does everybody here think conservatives have good ideas? Good. And does everybody here think liberals have bad ideas. Well you better, this is the Conservative Political Action Conference, we’ll just throw you out.”
And with that, The Leadership Institute’s seminar on conservative college activism departed from the battle for young minds, and became a case study in the irrelevance of conservatism to young people. The Institute’s Director of Student Publications, Jeff Fulcher’s, maintained the philosophy was that, if your ideas are good, all you need is money to win. Convincing ones peers seemed beside the point, and the words “college campus” were never mentioned. He did, however, frequently repeat that the “average donor is 77 years old.” The training was about how to get checks.
The audience, just barely kept engaged by weak humor and the occasional toss of a Starburst (a bizarre Pavlovian reward for any response not totally off-base), seemed to turn on only when the lecturer mentioned one group that received a $300,000 check. The lecture, which took an entire hour to cover all the minutia of direct mailing, from the appropriate choices of envelope, paper stock, and stamp assortment, to the proper length of sentences (18 words) and paragraphs (under 6 lines), was grueling.
The seminar wasn't much of a skill-session. It was a demonstration that the single-minded pursuit of money and appeasement of old white men is not just the conservative political platform, but their entire political strategy as well.
Please remember that Campus Progress' terms of use do not allow promoting or endorsing any particular political party or candidate for office. Posts or comments that do this will be deleted.
!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WARNING: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, and provisions passed by the previous Republican-controlled Congress, the National Security Agency may have read this email, my blog postings, and may listen to my private phone conversations without warrant, warning, or notice, and certainly without probable cause. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. They may also arrest me without telling me of any charges against me, and hold me secretly and indefinitely in an undisclosed location without notifying my wife or relatives, and with no access to an attorney. I/We have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current President and voting to remove rubber-stamp Republicans from office.
"Remember, all that Hitler did was legal in Germany at the time." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
"A leader who doesn't hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader." ~ Golda Meir
"The provision of the Constitution giving war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, for the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and (thus), they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us." ~Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to his friend and law partner William H. Herndon (15 February 1848)
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." ~Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
"Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen." ~Peggy Noonan
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." ~Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address
"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God." ~Thomas Jefferson (Motto on his seal)
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” ~James Madison
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country." ~George Washington
"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." ~James Madison
"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts." ~Edmund Burke
"Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction." ~Thomas Jefferson
"Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." ~George Washington
"The nobility of the soldier willing to give a life for country and God
lies silent and still amidst the broken promises of leaders.
Send them not to futile sacrifice on shores so far from home.
But keep your word to all that serve that none shall die in vain." ~ a poem by Rich Raitano, a brother Vietnam era medic
"A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil that good may come from it." ~Wm. Penn
"Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all this time, and all of this sacrifice, and of all this support, there is no end in sight, then I say for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past." ~ Richard Nixon, 1968
"A little patience (and action), and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake." ~Thomas Jefferson, 1798
"Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns." ~Louis XIV
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~John F. Kennedy
"So long as one wants to retain one's sword, one has not attained complete fearlessness... Peace will never come until the great powers courageously decide to disarm themselves... What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?...There is no such thing as shooting out of love... Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty... No government on earth can make men who have realized freedom in their hearts salute against their will. " ~Mahatma Gandhi
"All conservatives are such from personal defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Liberalism... is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak." ~Jose Ortega Y Gasset
"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." ~Bertrand Russell
"Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power, lust, stupidity (nor arrogance, nor vanity) are good motives." ~ Ayn Rand
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower
"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness." ~Justice William O. Douglas
"Before honor is humility." ~Bible
"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows ... We are today not far from a disaster." ~T.E. Lawrence(a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia); The Sunday Times, August 1920
"The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." ~Epictetus
"How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?" ~Bob Marley