A Conversation with Maggy
You heard it here first!
Lou Dobbs for President!
I'm an old lady, used to be very active in Perot's Reform Party. Just started this AM to explore ways I might spread the word with this message: Lou Dobbs for President -- came across your website while exploring MeetUp movement. Have you ever considered a third party alternative??
You are obviously still hopeful about changing the Republican Party from within, while I gave up on that LONG ago. I did vote for Bush in 2000 because our Reform Party had been taken over by Buchanan and his supporters and while I absolutely agree with Pat on trade issues -- he knows them better than almost any public spokesman, other than Dobbs -- he really was dishonest with us in that the price for representing the Reform Party's views on trade and other issues was, that we must change our constitution to become a pro-life party. That was anathema and so I left. We had never taken a position on social issues such as aborttion -- part of our constitutional credo. I voted for Bush for one reason: I felt Republicans had more respect, rapport with our military and I admire them so much -- thought they might as well get the president they want since nobody was running that I could truly support.
Since then I believe Bush, led by Cheney and Rumsfeld and the others have truly abused our military. I know they still love him -- the reckoning day has yet to come. I did not vote for president in 2004.
But trade and immigration (and you have to realize that our open border immigration policies of both parties is basic to trade policy including NAFTA GATT, etc., etc) How is it that globalization, NAFTA, shipping jobs offshore, denuding us of industry, broken borders -- all topics on which about 60 or 70% of the country agree are appalling. Yet they go on! Both parties have taken what I consider near-traitorous actions over years and years. Perot always knew what would happen and is now happening.
Lou Dobbs to me, is Perot without the querkines; Perot with a nightly national forum which Ross could never get from the media, even with all his money. They wouldn't sell him air time -- which ought to be illegal for TV and Radio using public airwaves.
Anyway, that's my cause these days. If you haven't heard him, listen to Dobbs at 6PM Eastern Standard Time on CNN for a week and let me know what you think. He's a voice in the wilderness in this 2-party hegemony.
Maggy, Cape Canaveral FL
LOU DOBBS FOR PRESIDENT
2 — Third Party?
Is this viable?
Maggy, thanks for your letter. I am a believer in Dobbs as one of the few in the national media who know enough to be talking! I'm not sure I'm ready for him to be our President, but compared to what we have now, Yes! Yes Lord! Anything!
Thanks for your comments. Certainly your analysis from the viewpoint of a third party is provocative. I agree that the most important goal at present is to stir up debate within the parties. The leadership in the DNC is as weak as the RNC is strong. Both are wrong. Extremes do nothing for the country. Early in the last election cycle I campaigned for a third party — The Extreme Middle!
It may be that a good discussion could be mounted on my page by installing some BLOG softweare to let people insert their ideas. Maybe the need and viability of a third party would be a good subject line for such a BLOG? I will give that some thought. I agree with the Democrats that the future of political life is on the Internet.
Harry Wettig
Leisure World Arizona
Thank you. I'm not sure I believe Dobbs is ready to be president either,but that's beside the point at this juncture. I remember, and know, thatPerot's candidacy made profound change in the presidential races of his time. I'd be happy for simply a groundswell that forces the issue of trade/jobs NAFTA, etc. plus borders/immigration into the top issues category for the other two parties. I think it's almost comical that Bush has social security and tax reform as crisis issues. Well he's dropped crisis because it didn't fly.
Democrats are no better. Their problem is that they do not have a populist issue to their name on which to run. Republicans have "patriotism" and "armed forces" because Americans do respond emotionally to these things even if they didn't want Iraq war to start. And, I remember WWII and that changing horses in midstream was so potent for Roosevelt he got 4 terms even though many people hated him.
Democrats are right now making the mistake of their political life by coming down, for the most part, AGAINST any change in law to make it harder for illegals to get driver's licenses. Clinton came down on side of NAFTA and was responsible for getting it passed actually, so they don't have trade as a populist issue. Although there are murmurings if some defections on that issue.
Health care? Could be their issue but they need a single agreed-upon approach and it should be going all the way to single-payer. Medicare for everybody. Compare overhead costs, go for broke just on lower overhead of Medicare compared to corporate HMOs, etc., etc.
Or, practically speaking, Democrats should SUPPORT a 3d party run by Dobbs. Will inevitably take more from Republicans than Democrats as Perot did and that's how Clinton got elected in both 1992 and 1996.
Maggy
Magggy, these are very good thoughts about third party supporters and I think you are absolutely right. So, we wind up with 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. Parties reather than a viable challenge to the two Major Parties.
The reason I stay with the Republican Party even when it represents very little that I can support, is that it is viable. I believe it is also ripe for a change back to the basic values on which it was established. My Republican belief is that Government should stay out of our lives, except when there is a problem we can not solve ourselves.
Look at the Republicans now who want to control every thing in sight — marriage, pregnancy (if I was female), retirement planning! They want to tell the rest of the world what government is acceptable! Everybody has to look like the Republican Model or be wrong! And if you are wrong we will attack you! They have set out to destroy the institutions that have made this a Great Country with a strong and comfortable middle class, good schools that have produced the world's best technologists, artists and philosophers. This is an Idiot Government!
If a third Party could show any promise of bringing together an Extreme middle, I would be there with them! How do we get a Perot, a Nader, a McCain, a Hagel, and many others who could fit into many slots in the middle, to forget their personal interests in favor of building a strong and viable base for political competition?
Harry Wettig
Leisure World Arizona
Well you know, years ago either Newsweek or Time characterized Reform Party members as belonging to the "Radical Middle" using the term radical in its original meaning - i.e, foundational, wanting reform at the very roots. I wanted to use that description, but the word radical has come to mean more destructive than it originally did.
Any blog to stir up interest in a 3d party is a good. Problem is (and I've had so many discussions on this over the years) 3d partiers, by definition, are sort of free thinkers. They are usually hooked on one or two issues
(like me!) and so the course they SHOULD take at the outset (team up with all other inddependent and 3d parties for a coalition just to change the system) they can't get to. Took a good step this year. Reform Party did endorse Nader, and then promptly after went bankrupt. I only recently rejoined Reform Party (left in2000) so I don't know what that was all about.
I still believe that any 3d party needs a big name, with money to run as president to make any difference. Like Perot. He literally scared them into making a balanced budget part of the lingo forever after. Not that they are
sincere, but they feel they have to talk about it at least. As to NAFTA at least we forced them to pass of it in dead of night so to speak, in a Lame Duck session, with collusion between Newt Gingrich and Clinton.
Many of them feel building the party up from the bottom is the way to go. I won't live long enough for that. If building up from the bottom worked, the Libertarians would be doing much better than they are now. They are smart, persistent, mostly seem to be well-heeled -- the 2 major parties are capable of such malice and enmity against any 3d movement making progress, that I don't believe that can work.
This morning I listened to c-span as usual and that congresswoman with hyphenated name from Texas talking on immigration almost gave me an anxiety attack! Just for my good health I NEED to do this Lou Dobbs for President whether it goes anywhere or not, otherwise I'll have to give up on politics altogether. She is IMPOSSIBLE! I once saw an exchange between her and a black constituent (and she is black) and he was saying how the invasion of illegals from Mexico in his area of L.A. had literally forced him out of his neighborhood. She responded by advising COUNSELING!!! To get over and live with his bad feelings!!! She is too much. Forget her name right now.
Maggy
Adding the Environment
Maggy, I appreciate the exchange and on re-reading find that you have made some important points that need repeating and often! I am going to put our exchange of letters on the Letters Page and see if there are those who might like to continue the discussion. (without objection?)
I listened to McCain/Lieberman this morning as they introduced their Environmental Protection Act. I happened to be writiing what I thought was a cute little message to my friends about the change of Ari(D)zona to HumidZona. All of a sudden I got caught up in the Kyota II and Global Warming and the Congress.
Here's what came out:
<< We searched to find an appropriate name for our new State! It was right there in front of us all the time. The Senior Senator, John McCain, from our State has been telling all who would listen that we, the USA and the World, are guilty of causing Global Warming. We have filled the atmosphere with green house gases which now promise to destroy us and the land we live in. In the time left to us, we will change the name from Aridzona to Humidzona!
I am just old enough to remember the time when in the temperate zones of the northern and southern hemispheres we could always count on a flow of air from the West to the East. Only on extreme occasions would a weather pattern form a Hurricane and move on shore from the East. Once or maybe twice in a winter there would be a powerful Nor'easter that would sweep down from the North to slash at the dunes of the Atlantic Coast Line. San Diego had never seen a Thunderstorm! A tornado west of the Rocky Mountain front was unimaginable.
In those predictable days the breezes flowed across from the pacific and were gently lifted by the Sierras to leave their water behind in California. The dry winds caressed the Saguaros of the Sonoran Desert before gathering some of the tropical moisture from the Gulf of Mexico to spread over the Southeast. The Olympic Mountains drained the water from the Pacific Maritime flow onto the great watershed of the Seattle-Tacoma-Portland basin and then roared across, picking up the cool of the Canadian Continental air mass to 'bathe all ye landes in swiche licour'! An Acid Rain was not known to man in those 'Good Old Days!'
Now, what do we have! It has rained here in the desert since before the beginning of the year! The Ski area north of Flagstaff had 181 inches of Snow in the first two weeks of the year! The rain expected in the next three days here in the Valley of the Sun is double the normal Total for the month — 4 inches expected in three days rather than 2 inches in the month. And, maybe this is normal!
But I'll bet you that the majority of the congressmen we have elected to do our thinking for us will say "This is just a minor aberration!" "Forget kyota!" "Don't get in the way of our business plans which are destroying the future!" "Don't listen to McCain and Lieberman!"
This eMail message started out as a little 'spoof' to tell you about how wet it is out here in Arid Zona. The 'spoof; was overtaken by the 'truth'. "There's trouble in River City!" Tune in to the Congress and listen to the coming debate on the Environmental Protection Act recently introduced by McCain, Lieberman, et al!
Harry Wettig
1883 Leisure World
Well a Perot or a Nader would not act anything like a McCain or a Hagel. I think you are talking more about the perceived basic integrity of these people vs the purely political strategy that motivates most politicians including Bush and Kerry. Democrats have a few too like Russ Feingold. The nature of our two-party winner take all system is that no one can win WITHOUT heavy compromise on whatever values they started out with.
I did vote for McCain in the NH primary in 2000 and as you may remember he WON there, which is why Bush and Carl Rove savaged him in S.C.
As to our prosperous middle class, etc. for me that hit its high in the 50s by a very simple measurement I use -- ordinary people could raise a family and own a house on ONE salary -- been on a downhill slide ever since due mostly to globalization of the economy and over-the-top immigration.
We CAN'T compete with wage scales in other countries, more and more whole industries are moving overseas -- now China is saying we ought to give up on agriculture and let them have that. So the lower middle class in this country has no where to go but down competing with global low wages, and if that isn't enough, competing with millions of illegals coming in to compete for any jobs that might accidentally stay here. Middle class is hanging on by its teeth by holding down 2-3 jobs per family. You sound as if you trust (trusted?) in basic capitalism, and I do as well. Have only to look at E. Germany vs W. Germany, N. Korea vs S. Korea. But capitalism -- like anything run by human beings -- also comes under power corrups, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Right now multi-nationals rule the world and innately can't stop I guess until it all comes falling down.
When we met with Perot years ago, he used to ask? What under NAFTA/GATT is going to STOP the race to the bottom?? And the answer is nothing can stop it carried out to its logical capitalist conclusion. I know their (perhaps your) answer is the market economy eventually will straighten it all out. Only problem with that is there won't be any America left as we know it by that time. I guess I'm just more nationalist than capitalist. And constitutionalist. They really had to savage the constitution to come up with Fast Track, which in essence hastens the race to the bottom because it virtually removes Congress' role in providing a check and balance on trade treaties. Was only able to pass by ONE VOTE after Republicans took over in both houses of Congress and the presidency. Until then independentslike Perot/Reform, left like Nader, and Republicans with a nationalist bent, small business Republicans as opposed to nulti=national republicans, kept it from getting passed.
This is my last word. Really didn't intend to get into long discussions because doesn't solve ANYTHING and doesn't change anybody's mind either.
Maggy
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