Stop Me Before I Vote Again

He's the Dennis Kucinich of the Senate.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vxRVpwl1moIJ:www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Politicians/Russ_Feingold.html+russ+feingold+israel&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

here's russ on mjs's big issue:

" What about the current crisis in Israel and Palestine, which just seems so despairing? What is your position?

Feingold: Well, I have long believed that Israel should seek to give up the so-called Occupied Territories in return for security, and that a Palestinian state should be established. I have felt that way all my life. I think it is unreasonable to ask the Israelis to do this in a context where there is no guarantee at all that suicide bombers will be controlled. Even though Ariel
Sharon would've been my last choice for prime minister, I do agree with his spokesman who said given what has happened in the last few weeks that Israel is, in fact, on the front line of terrorism. I think that is true. But that doesn't mean that the Palestinian people themselves don't deserve self-determination and a state. They do. So the tragedy right now is that the people who are running the show are the very conservative elements in Israel along with the scariest people on the Palestinian side who, quite frankly, are big fans of bin Laden.

Q: There is absolutely no defense for these suicide bombings. But I have to believe that Sharon isn't helping anyone's cause by attacking Arafat the way he is.

Feingold: I don't know what he thinks he's accomplishing by this image of Arafat holed up in this building. I don't get it. If there is some rationale, I'd love to hear it. I don't think it's helpful.

Q: And the Israeli military seems to be taking steps that are going to sow resentment among
Palestinians for another generation.

Feingold: That's true. But they're in a terrible dilemma. I don't know how you explain to your families that you're going to sit back and twiddle your thumbs while suicide bombers strap bombs to themselves and kill your kids. Who would put up with that?
I believe that the Israelis and the Palestinians, by and large, want peace, they each want their own country, and they want to get along, and they are going to get along. I know it sounds unbelievable, but I know enough about this, having been there, that these are sophisticated people. It's not like in Pakistan, where people have been told about Jews for a thousand years but don't know any. The Palestinians know the Jews. And the Jews know the Palestinians. And they know they're not really different. And they know they are from the same background. And they know if they coordinated that they could be an economic success and a real basis for a rebirth in the Middle East"

Well, along with a smattering of other alleged progressive creds, he has the distinction of being the only Senator who voted against the Patriot Act -- which, in itself, is worth a huge tip of the hat.

The news of his possibly considering a primary challenge in '12 is hugely good news to me if only for the entertainment value in watching Obummer and the DLC mob crapping their drawers.

If he really wants to make an impact, though, he needs to run in the General as an independent or Green -- and do it to win, all-out, no "safe states", with the express purpose of sending the Donkeycrats down in flames (what I like to call "political suicide bombing").

I'm not holding my breath, though, as Feingold is... well, what Schumann said.

what possessed alex c to suggest this ???

I couldn't say, Owen. He might be making mischief. Or hoping for mischief.

Feingold doesn't look like an upsetter of apple carts to me, but he might fit Cockburn's view of one.

op sez on 11.30.10 @12:45:
what possessed alex c to suggest this ???

If I know Cockburn, he might actually still have faith not only in the US electoral system, but in the idea that the Donkeycrats can be pressured into doing The Right Thing™.

Shame, really; I've been reading his stuff for a long time and liked it a lot.

Alex makes suggestions like these every four years (Nader in 00, 04; Paul in 08 as a Libertarian, etc).

Mostly mischief, methinks.

Geoff sez on 11.30.10 @13:18:
Alex makes suggestions like these every four years (Nader in 00, 04; Paul in 08 as a Libertarian, etc).

What, y'mean he didn't have the cajones to suggest Nader in '96 (I voted for him then)? And, he supported that crank Paul as a Libertarian in '08 instead of Nader?

Jeezus, my opinion of Cockburn is dropping like a rock on Jupiter right now...

I don't know if he supported Nader in 96. Might have. If memory serves, I think he thought Paul-as-Libertarian would've had more passionate, anti-war support than Nader 08. And that the best potential for mischief-making would've come from a Paul run.

How about one of those "open letters" that was so popular during the Bush years?

Let's imagine, for example, that Obama follows the most severe recommendations of the cat food commission, and it finally sends Paul Krugman over the edge.

He organizes an "open letter" of 100 well-known public intellectuals (Krugman himself, Joseph Stiglitz, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Wendell Potter, etc. etc) calling for the formation of a "New Progressive Party" modeled on the old Bull Moose Party or the La Follette run in 1924.

Would Feingold be interested?

1.) He's from Wisconsin, so he's surely thought many times about La Follette in 1924.

2.) But what white progressive wants to be run a third party campaign against the first African American president?

The solution is either to find a credible African American to run against Obama, or have Feingold chose an African American as his running mate.

How about Keith Ellison?

Feingold/Ellison 2012, the first Jewish/Muslim ticket in American history.

Of course it's a fantasy but Nader is too old to mount a serious campaign and I don't think Cynthia McKinney could get enough support.

It would have to be a heavyweight in the Democratic party backed by other Democratic party heavyweights, a split in the party, not a gathering of a few people on the margins.

i can't imagine he'd pick up support from koch et al except to sink obama. they'd never want him as president, his atty gen'l would fight back.

Feingold's no Wellstone. And Wellstone was the bar, for politicians worth talking about.

I sorta think I know what might have been on Alex's mind. I think it's really all about mischief, and I'm like sooo with him on that.

It doesn't, or wouldn't, matter how fundamentally conventional Feingold's ideas are, if only he were willing and able to throw a monkeywrench into the duopoly machine.

Nader isn't exactly Lenin, either, but he has deserved well of the Republic for his interference with the orderly precession of the elephantine and asinine equinoxes.

And before somebody offers the sage observation that such a stunt wouldn't immediately result in Soviet power and rural electrification, allow me to state, for the record, that I know that.

On another topic, the picture that illustrates this story is rather fascinating on a couple of levels. Why, for example, does every photograph of Michelle Obama, no matter what the circumstances, make her look as if she's scolding somebody? Can anyone point me to an image of her looking genuinely cheerful? I really kinda want to like her, since she's not personally kidnapping people and bombing people and kicking in people's doors; but nobody enjoys being scowled at all the time.

http://216.97.229.165/diverse/img/photos/biz/010510_Michelle_Obama.jpg

Of course, she looks like she's holding in a barium enema, instead.

mischief ???

how disappointing

i guess i don't see how alex
is in any position to create mischief
by personally suggesting without endorsing
a Russy run agin the bummer

i'll confess
i'm not a scrupulous alex follower
so i hadn't realized
this august radical figure
has imposed on himself ...
a Punxsutawney Phil type
ritual pick
of the proper independent challenger
about two years b4 the arrival
of the next prez campaign season

some one above suggested
this is convincing evidence of alex's
crypto opportunism
and i might add
inclination toward
super-numerary sidewalk super-intendence

regardless of intrinsic quality
i must add
russ strikes me as a massive
bad choice indeed
even if only because
he couldn't even hold his own seat

"willing and able to throw a monkeywrench into the duopoly machine. "
unlike yourself mjs alex pussy foots here
he will not call for the defeat
by whatever means possible of barry the bummer boy and the election of GOP brute
which as u suggest
is the only meaningful hope
behind a russ run :
fatally wound the donkey potus
ala carter
and ....elect another "rogue " elephant

---------
alex as flugnutz suggests
" might actually still have faith ..
in the idea that the Donkeycrats can be pressured into doing The Right Thing™.

the mere threat from the left of defection
leading to a Dem move left
-- one of the suggested nader
safe state vote motives --

thesis :
threats are not enough to move
a unitary corporate backed Dem-potus left

ohbummer will not move left
anymore then harry moved left in 48
yes they might move their mouths left
........some
but actions ??

forget about it !!!!

the only positive thing i ever read about madame ohbummer

even as an adult she liked to sit
on her father's lap
and to me
he sounds like
he was
indeed
a wonderful fellow

"what white progressive wants to be run a third party campaign against the first African American president"

the real race card here he's made immune
to organized topple oriented
attacks from the educated left
not even a white women challenge
could avoid a holier then thou
shitslide

takes a thick brine of ambition
toughened skin to weather that kinda gauntlet
a hide like this coed developed ...in the saltiness of time
http://niqnaq.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/hillary-clinton-young.jpg

Great thinking geniuses. Maybe we should just go and ahead and measure the White House curtains for Beck and Palin now.

You "enlightened" folk never learn do you? One would think the 2000 election would've silenced this sort of nonsense for good.

This is belated, but thanks so much for the Iraq war and the Bush regime. Couldn't have happened without your Naderista nonsense about the evils of the duopoly. "Tweedle dee/Tweedle dum." Noooo difference between the parties. Noooone at all.

Gore wins, there's no 9/11 (he'd have been paying attention), which means no Patriot Act, no Iraq war (he wouldn't have gone there), no waterboarding, no wiretapping. Plus, budget surpluses and more money for people who need it, not billionaires.

Thanks "radicals." You are all tools for Power. Some of you are probably paid tools.

My namesake talked about people being "objectively" serving one side or the other. Objectively, you serve Power.

"Gore wins, there's no 9/11 (he'd have been paying attention), which means no Patriot Act, no Iraq war (he wouldn't have gone there), no waterboarding, no wiretapping. Plus, budget surpluses and more money for people who need it, not billionaires."

gold plate that gang
its one for the time capsule

ask yourself this

when the dems get defeated do they move left or right ???

can you imagine them moving left
if they get nadered again ???

so why are we forcing the dems to the right ??

to make room for a left party ???

ask them questions mm
they stick better to the ribs

Gore wins

Gore did win. There was a coup. He was no Boris Yeltsin.

"Why, for example, does every photograph of Michelle Obama, no matter what the circumstances, make her look as if she's scolding somebody?"

They don't, and she's not. Keep your manifold, and manifest, hangups about women to yourself. You really have "issues" MJS. They are as plain as day. Get some help. Or get laid.

even as an adult she liked to sit on her father's lap

I was pleased to see Miltie, a few comments up, exhibiting in such classic form the hypnotic power of the subjunctive mood, a subject discussed here from time to time. Gore would have done this, wouldn't have done that -- all presented, quite sincerely I'm sure, with an air of absolute conviction. The indicative-preterite tragical-historical record would seem to give little ground for this confidence, to any observer as jaundiced as myself -- but faith is a wonderful thing.

Fadduh Smiff sez:
On another topic, the picture that illustrates this story is rather fascinating on a couple of levels. Why, for example, does every photograph of Michelle Obama, no matter what the circumstances, make her look as if she's scolding somebody?

God damn, man; I'm sure glad I'm not the only person on the whole goddamn' planet asking that same question. Every goddamn' foto, every goddamn' piece of video footage I've ever seen of her in, she looks mean as a motherfucker -- and not only that, but on video, she even sounds as if she's scolding misbehaving children, even when giving a speech to adults. As I understand it, she's quite aware of it as she actually has a personal makeup artist on staff, who was quoted in a NYT article last year as saying that a major part of her job was to figure out how to make Mrs. O over so she doesn't look so mean.

It's as if she can't help looking mean, the same way Jim Breuer can't help looking stoned.

MJS: I realize one can't prove or disprove something that didn't happen. But please be honest here, and don't screw with me just to provoke. Do you really, honestly believe that Gore would've invaded Iraq? I do not think that you believe that. Maybe you, but the whole scenario seems like a stretch to me.

"Do you really, honestly believe that Gore would've invaded Iraq? "
how is that decisive
the dual power system
half jack ass half elephant
sees to it what needs to be done
gets done
who's saying uncle's continued hegemony required the saddam topple in 03 anymore
then the passed up opportunity in 92

i submit the performance of nobel peace prizer
barry O
suggests the empire has its requirements that no unitary president can turn
their back on

and the dirty work if you look back over the period since TR
has been nicely distributed between
both party gangs

Thus Milton:

I realize one can't prove or disprove something that didn't happen. But please be honest here, and don't screw with me just to provoke. Do you really, honestly believe that Gore would've invaded Iraq? I do not think that you believe that. Maybe you [do], but the whole scenario seems like a stretch to me.

Democrats have been quite good at getting us into wars over the last hundred years or so.

Obie inherited two wars. He has gotten us out of neither, has widened one, and seems to be cooking up a couple of new ones.

Given this track record, a conviction that Gore "would not have" invaded Iraq seems a great deal more fideistic than my own attitude, which could be summed up as follows: the future is usually much like the past, except when something happens that nobody could have foreseen.