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May 30, 2007
My Blog Roll and the Supreme Court
First off, something is wrong with my blog roll and I don't know how to fix it.... I used to have all these links to all these great blogs, and they're still there, somewhere in the html.... but they don't show up on my actual blog. This is what I get for neglecting the place for the better part of six months, isn't it.
The same can be said for the Supreme Court. I remember a conversation I had at a barbeque in Iowa City back in the summer of 2000, in which the members of the Green Party I was talking to argued that it really wouldn't make any difference for anyone in the long or short term if a Republican instead of a Democrat was elected president. And then, we read something like this in today's NY Times, all about the recent ruling limiting the time an employee has to file a lawsuit regarding pay discrimination:
As with an abortion ruling last month, this decision showed the impact of Justice Alito’s presence on the court. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whom he succeeded, would almost certainly have voted the other way, bringing the opposite outcome.
What can I say but "I told you so."
Posted by holly at May 30, 2007 9:37 AM
Grrr. GRRRR!!!
Nice to see you back, Holly.
Hey, don't blame us Greens.We had a right to vote as we did. We are dealing here with criminals who stole an election. That is not our fault. I voted for Nader in 2000. It was a protest vote in my state and did not effect anything, thanks to our stupid electoral college system, which nullified third party votes. I'll probably work to get Greens elected on the local level in '08. I would like to see Greens on the national level, and other parties as well.
Our sclerotic democracy needs rejuvenation, badly. It would be nice to see several major parties vying for votes and sharing power, as in Germany, and shaking things up. One of the best foreign ministers Germany ever had was Joschka Fischer, a Green who worked with the Socialist Democratic Schroeder. Gee, I wish we could have a real democracy, like Germany! See what we've come to!
I am waiting eagerly for the flurry of wage discrimination suits that this Supreme Court decision is sure to set off. And a change in laws that we can work for that would require employers to treat their employees' salaries as public information. Such a law would make it harder to overpay and underpay workers.
I respect my Democratic congresspeople, and I voted for them. But we have all those blue dog Democrats mucking things up.
The Republicans love it when liberals turn against each other, so don't fall into Green bashing!
We had a right to vote as we did.
Oh good grief. I have never disputed anyone's right to vote as s/he sees fit. I didn't even try to dissuade my Green friends from voting as they intended to. I merely suggested that I was fairly certain that there would be far-reaching negative consequences if George Bush instead of Al Gore ended up in the White House. Not that I expected Gore to do such a bang-up job; I just could tell that George Bush was a very, very bad man, and Gore wasn't so bad.
And I was right.
I respect my Democratic congresspeople, and I voted for them. But we have all those blue dog Democrats mucking things up.
I don't particularly respect my Democratic congress people, by and large. The Democratic party lost what little respect I had for it when it failed to make any meaningful protest to the war in 2003.
But the fact remains that although there might not be a lot of difference between the Democratic party and the Republican party, there is often a lot of difference between the individuals running in individual races. The 2000 presidential election is one such example.
The Republicans love it when liberals turn against each other, so don't fall into Green bashing!
!!!!
Good god, Hattie, can you really say that after this diatribe about how we need multiple parties? I am all in favor of multiple parties, frankly, as well as disagreement and debate between people on all sorts of levels. But that doesn't change the fact that the most important and far-reaching disagreement among liberals is the one that put George Bush in the White House in 2000.
For crying out loud, one of the consequences of bringing in additional parties is a going to be less unity among the two major factions of progressive and conservative. I'm willing to accept that consequence. But it doesn't seem that you are.
Well, all I can say is that Americans have lost the ability to envision a different kind of democracy from the one we have.
I think my analysis is correct, but I know all this suggestion of basic change seems too risky to many.
Look at what Cindy Sheehan says about how the Dems have caved in to Bush. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060107R.shtml
I agree wholeheartedly with her that a change of strategy is vital.
We don't have a single Green in Congress, but if we did you can bet she would be yelling her head off about this latest sellout of the American people.