This is How You Facilitate Party Discipline

When pledging to go against the party nominee, even after you have agreed to support them, you should lose your credential to attend the National Convention. That's what happened to Debra Bartoshevich, a National Democratic Committee delegate, who publicly vowed that she would vote for John McCain, over the Democratic Party's nominee, Barack Obama.

Looks like the Wisconsin Democratic Party is going to make ole girl pay for her rebellion:

A Democratic National Convention delegate pledged to Hillary Rodham Clinton says she hopes to fight off an attempt by Wisconsin Democrats to take away her credentials because of her past statement that she would vote for John McCain if Clinton wasn't the nominee.

Well, you really don't help your cause in keeping your national credential when you engage is acts like this:

Wisconsin Democratic party chairman Joe Wineke said Friday he's confident Bartoshevich won't be at the national convention. Wineke said it's clear Bartoshevich violated party rules by failing to honor a pledge of intent to vote for the party's presidential ticket in the fall.

Wineke added that Bartoshevich would not have been chosen to be a delegate if people had known beforehand that she would vote for McCain if Obama were nominated.

Bartoshevich told the newspaper she felt Clinton was being treated unfairly and she questioned Obama's experience. She also said she had signed up with "Citizens for McCain," encouraged by her sister, who has served in Iraq and backs the Republican.

This is how you facilitate party discipline - you let renegades know that there will be consequences and repercussions for pulling stunts like this.

If only Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could do likewise, we'd have the Democratic Party we've always wanted.

BEING IN THE POSITION TO DO NOTHING

There has to be a reason why the Democratic Party won't stand up for basic civil liberties, freedoms and rights. There has to be a reason that they won't stand up to a President whose approval ratings are 25% (or less, depending on who you ask), with a VP whose ratings are so low they don't even register in polling.

When you see this Democratic Majority:

1. cave in to Bush on funding the Iraq quagmire
2. cave in on this wiretapping legislation that is so horrendous, Alberto Gonzales couldn't get then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to sign off on it because it violated the Constitution;
3. Threaten vetoes for legislation designed to help the working masses of people in America and have no back up plan
4. Get Pelosi and Reid to announce "Impeachement is off the table" and watch how this Administration continues to lie, cheat, steal and piss on the Constitution without impunity;

Then I think we have to look at other reasons why the Democrats are giving us, who elected them in 2006, the "finger".

If you're like me, you got pissed when Harry Reid said to the press on the Iraq authorization that "Americans had too high an expectation of the Democratic Majority" after hearing from constituents all over the United States about his piss-poor performance in "keeping his powder" dry.

Dammit, I'm choking on all that dry powder; how about you?

When there was a ReThug majority in both Houses of Congress, the Democrats had a ready-made excuse for doing nothing. Now that they're in charge, it is no different than when the ReThugs were running things; as a matter of fact, there is no difference between the ReThugs and the current Democratic Leadership.

When you want change, you go about effecting change. You create strategies for change, and you become responsive to the demand by the masses for change. I did not give up my hard-earned money, wear out shoe leather, monitor voting places for fraudulent turning away of voters, drive old people to polling places to vote, and everything else an activist citizen does, to get Democrats elected so they could piss on me and reprimand me for expecting them to do their jobs by challenging Bush on his BS legislation and running of this country. The fact that this current crop of Democrats are "all hat, no cattle" is pissing me off to heights of pissivity I've never imagined before now.

In pondering my frustration, it began to occur to me to ask what do certain Democrats gain by maintaining status quo? We see what it's getting faux-Democrat Joe Lieberman; a platform upon which to blackmail his Democratic colleagues in the Senate if he doesn't get what he wants. He always threatens to vote with the ReThugs - Reid pacifies him, and Holy Joe votes with the ReThugs, anyway.

So much for maintaining that majority. But when you see the obvious, and you have made your demand of those who you elected to public office, and they literally ignore your demand, for me, there is only one conclusion, and it's not about Reid and Pelosi being cowards.

I'm talking about liking the status quo and being unwilling to change it.

Most of you know that I've got this research project on accountability going with the Congressional Black Caucus because many African-Americans felt that for achieving the goal of getting 10% of Congressional Representation by African-Americans, we should have some bang for our buck. We couldn't figure out why we suddenly had a faction of that caucus voting directly in conflict with the long-held ideas and consensus of most African-Americans.

You know, stuff like quality education for our children, a safe and livable environment, jobs paying a living wage, universal healthcare.....STUFF LIKE THAT.

STUFF that is not unique to African-Americans, but is the desire of all Americans.

We wanted to know why there was a faction of that caucus that voted for Iraq war authorizations, knowing that money could have gone to fund all those things I listed in the above paragraphs; why they would vote for a bankruptcy bill that would worsen an already tanking economy; why they would vote to eviscerate our basic civil liberties and freedoms- many of which our ancestors fought and died for.

So, we began a project to start holding them accountable. While it's working, I find in my observations of Congress, that there may be an even bigger problem than demanding accountability on the part of our lawmakers. I think the Democratic Leadership actually likes being in this position of do-nothing. I think someone's benefitting from ReThug largesse, and to actually have to respond to the demand of the American people, would actually upset that largesse. What other explanation can there be of a Congress who still caves into a President that has no clothes on and the entire world knows it?

It is not about cowardice, or lack of spine or backbone. Plain and simple, there are some Democrats who actually like being in this position, because they have ready-made excuses for not listening to our demands, or for not representing our interests. Now the question is, who are they, and how do we go about getting rid of them?

You are not going to accept my vote and then piss on me and tell me it's raining. Those days are over - if they ever really got started. If you like being in this position, and you believe your constituents will understand, then dammit, switch parties. I would rather have a number of Democrats who walk their talk and who mean what they say, rather than a bunch of undercover ReThugs posing as Democrats, who spit on us every chance they get and tell us they're not spitting on us, despite evidence to the contrary.

If they like this status quo, let them "status" their "quo" somewhere else. They can enable the Bush Administration on their own dime and their own time, while someone else gets the actual job of legislating done.