Monday, December 8, 2008

Thank You Congressman Kucinich!

If his remarks are mentioned at all on the TeeVee News or in what passes for a free press in the U.S., it will be a small miracle. If this patriot's words are mentioned, we can all bet there will be some right-wing nut job like Pat Buchanan to inform us that Kucinich is a left-wing loon and must therefore be ignored and, of course, Congress will do just that, and at their own peril I'm afraid.

I would be remiss if I did not point out that this speech was made on March 15, 2007. Not much has changed since then on the Justice front, except we now have Barack Obama close to being in the White House and a larger Democratic majority in the House and a narrower one in the Senate. Still the issue of war crimes committed or ordered to be committed at the highest levels of our government hangs over our collective heads like the sword of Damocles.

If these illegal acts are allowed to stand with no one in this appallingly corrupt, murderous administration held accountable, our laws are absolutely useless, unless they are used in some perverse way to oppress activists' rights to free speech and to subvert the rights of the so-called minority for 6 of the 8 years Bush/Cheney occupied the White House and their enablers held majorities in both the House and the Senate and who refused to do any real oversight. By the election of 2006, the damage was done.

I've heard some say that it would be political suicide for Obama's Justice Department to bring those in the Bush administration who are guilty of International crimes, as well as domestic crimes against the people of America and our Constitution. I certainly understand why Obama would rather not spend his time on holding this bunch accountable. He might well lose in 2012.

I'm thinking of that old phrase from the 60s and 70s; The Whole World Is Watching. I don't know how true that "chant"was back then, but I know damn well that it is true now.

I know quite a few people who believe the U.S. to be invincible. They are like teenagers who feel invulnerable, and don't care what the rest of the world thinks about the crimes of our government. There is not a whit of wisdom among them. They move through life, mechanically, like adults who still believe in fairy tales, trapped in their own concrete, rigidly ideological minds.

It is, no doubt, to late for impeachment now but, after all, impeachment and trial by the senate is only one way to skin a skunk or two or three, four, etc., etc. It is a way to remove a president and VP from office so that they can be tried for their crimes.

I realize that one of Obama's most cherished motives for running for president was to bring a deeply divided nation together. That goal may well be beyond the grasp of any president. The dangerous divide in this nation didn't begin 8 years ago. It started with the assassination of JFK, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

In 1968 America went off the rails and I'm not hopeful that a people so deeply divided that they literally live in two different realities can ever be brought together again.

Nevertheless, accountability and justice can and must be done.

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING, as well they might after the latest reign of "the effing Crazies."






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Thank Kucinich for His Remarks Today on Iran and Impeachment

When a Congress Member steps out into a firestorm of opposition from the corporate media and his own party's leadership, he has to hear support from us to keep him going.
Please call Rep. Dennis Kucinich at 202-225-5871 and Email him at http://kucinich.us/contact and thank him for his remarks today on the floor of the House, in which he stood up for Congress' war powers and stated impeachment may be the only way to prevent President Bush from attacking Iran. If you really want to encourage Dennis to move ahead on impeachment, one idea is to go to http://kucinich.us and donate to his presidential campaign. Try giving $15 because this is March 15th and indicating that impeachment is the reason why.

Remarks on the floor of the U.S. House, March 15, 2007

This House cannot avoid its Constitutionally authorized responsibility to restrain the abuse of Executive power.

The Administration has been preparing for an aggressive war against Iran. There is no solid, direct evidence that Iran has the intention of attacking the United States or its allies.

The US is a signatory to the UN Charter, a constituent treaty among the nations of the world. Article II, Section 4 of the UN Charter states, "all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. . . Even the threat of a war of aggression is illegal.

Article VI of the US Constitution makes such treaties the Supreme Law of the Land. This Administration, has openly threatened aggression against Iran in violation of the US Constitution and the UN Charter.

This week the House Appropriations committee removed language from the Iraq war funding bill requiring the Administration, under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, to seek permission before it launched an attack against Iran.

Since war with Iran is an option of this Administration and since such war is patently illegal, then impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.

www.kucinich.us



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Times they are Truly Changin'


As we are reminded by Democrat and Obama Campaign manager, David Plouffe , now is not the time to revert back to our typical, uniquely American ADD/ADHD/Coma.


If you are finally awake stay that way. We are far from out of the woods yet. To do otherwise could well cost us our life, liberty and our country.

Change has to come in America. It must!

We did not get to this hellish place overnight and at it is, indeed, a long journey back

Sign up for a house meeting Exactly one month ago, you made history by giving all Americans a real opportunity for change.

Now it's time to start preparing and working for change in our communities.

On December 13th and 14th, supporters are coming together in every part of the country to reflect on what we've accomplished and plan the future of this movement. Your ideas and feedback will be collected and used to guide this movement in the months and years ahead.

Join your friends and neighbors -- sign up to host or attend a Change is Coming house meeting near you.

Since the election, the challenges we face -- and our responsibility to take action -- have only gotten more urgent.

You can connect with fellow supporters, make progress on the issues you care about, and help shape the future of your community and our country.

Learn what you can do now to support President-elect Obama's agenda for change and continue to make a difference in your community.

Take the first important step by hosting or attending a Change is Coming house meeting. Sign up right now:

http://my.barackobama.com/changeiscoming

To get our country back on track, it will take all of us working together.

Barack and Joe have a clear agenda and an unprecedented opportunity for change. But they can't do it alone.

Will you join us at a house meeting and help plan the next steps for this movement?

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


Iraq's US Security Charade

The Bush/Cheney administration has no clue what Democracy is, so how can they proclaim Iraq a Democracy of any kind?

By Ramzy Baroud

December 05, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" --- World media rashly celebrated the "historic" security pact that allows for US troops to stay in Iraq for three more years after the Iraqi parliament ratified the agreement on Thursday, 27 November. The approval came one week after the Iraqi cabinet did the same.

Thousands of headlines exuded from media outlets, largely giving the false impression that the Iraqi government and parliament have a real say over the future of US troops in their country, once again playing into the ruse fashioned by Washington that Iraq is a democratic country, operating independently from the dictates of US Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker and the top commander of US troops in Iraq, General Ray Odierno. The men issued a joint, congratulatory statement shortly after the parliamentary vote, describing it as one that would "formalise a strong and equal partnership" between the US and Iraq.

Jonathan Steel of the British Guardian also joined the chorus. "Look at the agreement's text. It is remarkable for the number and scope of the concessions that the Iraqi government has managed to get from the Bush administration. They amount to a series of U-turns that spell the complete defeat of the neo-conservative plan to turn Iraq into a pro-Western ally and a platform from which to project US power across the Middle East."

Even Aljazeera.net English seemed oblivious to the charade. It assuredly wrote that the agreement "will end the 2003 invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein. It is effectively a coming-of-age for the Iraqi government, which drove a hard bargain with Washington, securing a number of concessions -- including a hard timeline for withdrawal -- over more than 11 months of tough negotiations."

Most attention was given to dates and numbers as if their mere mention was enough to compel the US government to respect the sovereignty of Iraq: 30 June 2009 is the date on which US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities and January 2012 is the date for withdrawal from the entire country. Also duly mentioned is a hurried reference to opposition to the agreement represented in the "no" vote of the "followers of Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia leader", which caused, according to the BBC "rowdy scenes of stamping, shouting and the waving of placards during the debate".

The dismissal of the opposition as "followers" of this or that -- portraying those who refuse to be intimidated by US pressure as a cultic, unruly bunch -- also has its rewards. After all, only a real democracy can allow for such stark, fervent disagreements, as long as the will of the majority is honoured in the end.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh knew exactly how to capitalise on the buzzwords that the media was eagerly waiting to hear. The success of the vote would constitute a "victory for democracy because the opposition have done their part and the supporters have done their part".

Of course, there is nothing worth celebrating about all of this, for it's the same charade that the Bush administration and previous administrations have promoted for decades, in Iraq and also elsewhere. "Real democracy" in the Third World is merely a means to a specific end, always ensuring the dominion of US interests and its allies. Those who dare to deviate from the norm find themselves the subject of violent, grand experiments, with Gaza being the latest example.

What is particularly interesting about the Iraq case is that news reports and media analysts scampered to dissect the 18- page agreement as if a piece of paper with fancy wording would in any way prove binding upon the US administration which, in the last eight years, has made a mockery of international law and treaties that have been otherwise used as a global frame of reference. Why would the US government, which largely acted alone in Iraq, violated the Geneva Conventions, international law and even its own war and combat regulations, respect an agreement signed with an occupied, hapless power constituted mostly of men and women handpicked by the US itself to serve the role of "sovereign"?

It's also bewildering how some important details are so conveniently overlooked; for example, the fact that the Iraqi government can sign a separate agreement with the US to extend the deadline for withdrawal should the security situation deem such an agreement necessary. Instead, the focus was made on "concessions" obtained by the Iraqis regarding Iraq's jurisdiction over US citizens and soldiers who commit heinous crimes while "off duty" and outside their military bases. This precisely means that the gruesome crimes committed in prisons such as Abu Ghraib and the willful shooting last year of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater mercenaries in Nisour Square in Central Baghdad is of no concern for Iraqis. And even when crimes that fall under Iraqi jurisdiction are reported, such matters are to be referred to a joint US-Iraqi committee. One can only assume that those with the bigger guns will always prevail in their interpretation of the agreement.

In fact, a major reason behind the delay in publishing the agreement in English (an Arabic version was first publicised) is the apparent US insistence on interpreting the language in a fashion that would allow for loopholes in future disagreements. But even if the language is understood with mutual clarity, and even if the Iraqi government were determined to stand its ground on a particular issue, who is likely to prevail: the US government with 150,000 troops on the ground and a massive imperial project whose failure will prove most costly to US interests in the Middle East, or the government of Nuri Al-Maliki, whose very existence is a US determination?

More than five years have passed since the US occupied Iraq, leaving in its wake a tragedy that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, destroyed civil society, thus allowing for the growth of one of the world's most corrupt political regimes, and introducing the same terrorists to Iraq that the Bush administration vowed to defeat. Nothing has changed since then. The US attacked Iraq for its wealth and the strategic value of controlling such wealth. The Bush administration and their allies have tried many times to distract from this reality, using every political cover and charade imaginable. The facts remain the same, as does the remedy: The US must withdraw from Iraq without delay, allowing Iraqis to pick up the pieces and work out their differences as they have done for millennia.

-Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).



(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


Truth Serum? Oh, Puleeze!

There is no such thing as truth serum. Neither Sodium Pentobarbital nor Sodium Amytal will cause anyone to tell anything he or she does not wish to tell. It is a myth.

Rhys Blakely, Mumbai | December 04, 2008

Article from: The Australian

INDIAN police interrogators are preparing to administer a "truth serum" on the sole Islamic militant captured during last week's terror attacks on Mumbai to settle once and for all the question of where he is from.


Rice's plea after Mumbai attacks

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Pakistan to cooperate "fully and transparently"...


The mystery of the man dubbed "the baby-faced gunman" has weighed heavily on India's relations with Pakistan as the nuclear-armed neighbours dispute each other's accounts of his origin.

Police interrogators in Mumbai told The Times that they have "verified" that Azam Amir Kasab, who was captured after a shoot-out in a Mumbai railway station last week, is from Faridkot, a small village in Pakistan's impoverished south Punjab region. They say that the nine dead gunmen are also Pakistani.

Disputing that account, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan told CNN last night: "We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt it … that he is a Pakistani."

He added: "The gunmen plus the planners, whoever they are, (are) stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world."

Proof that the militants were Pakistani would rapidly escalate the pressure on Mr Zardari's government to take action or risk a backlash from allies including the United States.

Police interrogators in Mumbai told The Times that they are poised to settle the matter of Kasab's nationality through the use of "narcoanalysis" – a controversial technique, banned in most democracies, where the subject is injected with a truth serum.

The method was widely used by Western intelligence agencies during the Cold War, before it emerged that the drugs used – typically the barbiturate sodium pentothal – may induce hallucinations, delusions and psychotic manifestations.

Mumbai police said that their evidence of a Pakistan link includes hand grenades manufactured in the city of Rawalpindi, in Pakistan, and satellite phone calls traced back to the country.

Deven Bharti, a deputy police commissioner in Mumbai and one of the interrogators, told The Times that Kasab had shown no remorse for his part in a terror attack that had killed nearly 200 people.

"He is a 24-year-old boy with the eyes of a killer," Mr Bharti said.

"Nobody should doubt: he is a highly trained murderer. He has told us he came to Mumbai from Pakistan to cause maximum casualties."


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.


Israel 'has faith in team Obama'

I wouldn't be so sure, if I were them.

There seems to me misinformation everywhere on the WWW these days.

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:18:57 GMT
An Israeli official says Tel Aviv has full confidence in the Obama administration.

An Israeli official says Tel Aviv is familiar with and has full confidence in the people nominated to run the Obama administration.


"Obama is surrounding himself with people who we know - from Hillary Clinton, to Rahm Emanuel, to James Jones. There is no reason to panic," the Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post.

The official's remarks come shortly after the release of a recent report compiled by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and the Council on Foreign Relations -- which contains recommendations for the Obama administration's policies in regards to the Middle East and Iran.

The think-tank report, authored by veterans of past US administrations, suggests that "to deal effectively with a rising Iran, the United States must embark on a far deeper reevaluation of its strategy and launch a comprehensive diplomatic initiative to attempt to engage" Iranian officials.

The report also called for a timely normalization of "low-level diplomatic relations" with Tehran.

Israel's Foreign Ministry reportedly did not agree with the recommendations. The Israeli official, however, dismissed the proposals and told the paper that, "We have nothing to be afraid of."

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, boasts strong ties with Israel, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

"With Emanuel, Obama gets an enforcer, a bad cop who loves the f-word, with a unique resume no one else in the US can match," argues a Chicago Sun Times columnist.
Emanuel, a veteran of seven years in the White House during the Clinton administration, reportedly held dual citizenship with Israel and assisted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the 1991 Iraq war.

Hillary Clinton, appointed as the secretary of state, is also expected to steer the next administration in a pro-Israel direction. During her 2008 presidential campaign, she threatened to "obliterate" Iran should Israel come under attack.

"It could be that the new administration's policy will be different from the Bush administration's; in fact, it will be a little different. But that doesn't mean it will be against Israel," the Israeli official told the Post.

Israel insists that Iran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has "plans" to develop a military nuclear program.

Under the allegation, top Israeli echelons and army brass have long argued that militarily taking out Iran's nuclear infrastructure is a legitimate option.

Since Obama's election victory, his campaign promise of engaging "in aggressive personal diplomacy" with Iranian leaders to resolve the controversy surrounding the nuclear program has been severely criticized by Tel Aviv.

The UN agency responsible for investigating Iran's nuclear activities confirmed in its latest report that it has "been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran."

The UN body, however, insists that unless Tehran increases its nuclear cooperation, it "will not be able to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran."

MD/HGH


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

GOP Imploding...but


Don't make the mistake of thinking they are dead
.

Also, one must understand that the Democratic Party is made up of several groups, not all of whom would have even been considered Democrats 20 years ago. Can we spell BLUE DOGS?

We need to create more viable parties who are more honest about who they are and what their real agendas are!

For the past couple of decades, the consensus in the mainstream media was that the Democratic Party was in dire trouble: politically close to irrelevance and on the wrong foot demographically. Even Bill Clinton's eight years in power were considered a fluke: brought on by a third-party candidate, Ross Perot, and reliant on a centrist triangulating strategy that threw Congressional Democrats under the bus. Red states were growing the fastest, gaining congressional seats and electoral votes which would ensure a permanent GOP majority.

Obviously, it has not quite worked out like that. From Arizona to North Carolina, and Nevada to New Hampshire, the scope of the defeat for the Republican Party in 2008 is stunning. The very states that the GOP was counting on to build on its electoral successes of the past 20-some years turned against them the hardest. Much of it has to do with the ineptitude of the party's leadership, from the economy to the war in Iraq, but it is also about simple math: did Republicans really think that newcomers to Colorado, Virginia and a dozen other fast-growing states were of the same mind set as the backwards-looking social conservatives that had dominated local politics? Or were they more likely to be transplants from blue states with little appetite for fights about abortion, gay rights, and English-only initiatives?

The answer is in the numbers, and they are ugly for the Republican Party. On the presidential level, the fastest-growing state last year, Nevada, flipped to the Democrats, as did two others among the top 10: Colorado and North Carolina. Georgia swung 14 points, coming close to giving Barack Obama an unexpected victory, and Arizona actually voted more Democratic than four years ago, even with John McCain on the ticket. Rather than strengthening the Republican Party, internal migration and immigration have diluted its strength in some critical strongholds.

It is in the Congressional results that the scope of the disaster for Republicans is best illustrated. Democrats now outnumber Republicans in the delegations of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. Indeed, New Mexico's entire delegation, as well as its governorship, is Democratic. Among other Western states, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Montana all send more (often far more) Democrats than Republicans to DC. The GOP's Western front now consists of Utah, Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming, some of the smallest states in the country; and even those are showing cracks, with Alaska and Idaho electing Democrats to Congress for the first time in years.

The GOP's ambitions in the Northeast have long been limited, but they nonetheless managed to fall short of even the lowest expectations. New England's six-state, 22-person House caucus is now entirely Democratic thanks to the defeat of last GOP Rep standing Chris Shays in Connecticut. In New York, the Republican delegation now stands at three, less than 10% of the 31 members of Congress from the state.

The Midwest may remain a battleground, although one that was lost resoundingly by Republicans this year: only three of the twelve states in the region now send more Republicans to Congress than Democrats: Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri, the latter now having officially forfeited its bellwether status.

Even in the South, cracks are beginning to show. Virginia and North Carolina, in addition to swinging to Obama, both contributed to the growth in the Democrats' Senate majority and feature Congressional delegations dominated by Democrats. Victories in previously scarlet-red districts in Mississippi and Alabama may also prove problematic for the Republican Party. Overall the GOP has an edge in the region (80 to 62 in the House; 19 to 7 in the Senate) but that is far less of an advantage than the Democratic Party's in the Northeast and the West Coast, for instance.

Those members of Congress from the South represent nearly half the entire GOP representation, and it is not an exaggeration to call the current Republican party a regional one. This in itself is a severe problem for the GOP, especially as the West is actually a faster-growing region, but other demographic data from exit polling should be even scarier for party leaders.

Losing the youth vote is something most Republicans expect, but losing 18-29 year-olds by 66% to 32%, as McCain did this year, is a preposterously high obstacle to future growth. By the same token, the only age group the Republican candidate won, those 65 and older, is not one the party can rely on to stick around forever.

Ethnically and racially, too, the Republican party is in a bind, winning among the only group that is shrinking nationally: non-Hispanic whites. McCain lost by the GOP's usual massive margin among African-Americans, but also by 2 to 1 among Latinos and Asians, the fastest growing groups. The Republican Party lost among urban voters, of course, but also among suburbanites; it scored only among rural voters, a shrinking demographic group.

The loss of the suburbs remains one of the biggest challenges for the GOP, one that has been years in the making, and will not be solved overnight. Here too, a look at Congressional results over the years shows how, one by one, quintessentially suburban districts started falling to Democrats in the 1990s, culminating in this year's victory by Obama in the suburbs. It was not so long ago that places such as Walnut Creek outside of San Francisco, or Long Island, NY, were staunchly Republican bastions. Contra Costa County, where Walnut Creek is located, voted for Obama 68% to 31%, and both Long Island counties favored him too. Both regions are have solely favored Democrats for Congress in recent years. Entire swaths of suburbs around New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Detroit and large California cities are represented by Democrats in Congress, who often win by massive margins. On the suburban level, GOP strength is concentrated around a handful of Southern cities such as Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.

Beyond its regional concentration, the Republican Party's face is from another time. The party's only Hispanic Senator has just announced he is not running for reelection, leaving an entirely non-white, non-Hispanic GOP Senate. In fact, the party's Congressional caucus overall includes only three Latinos, no African-Americans, and just one Asian-American elected this week in a Louisiana district that is so Democratic he is sure to lose in two years. Republican women are a dwindling group in Congress: down to four in the Senate (including the two Senators from Maine), with one, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, likely to retire soon too. In the House, they are down to 18. There are three openly gay Democrats, but no Republicans. Overall, straight white men represent about half of the Democratic Party in Congress, but close to 90% of Republicans. Indeed, nearly half of the Republican caucus is composed of Southern white men.

The conservative remains of Republicanism are likely to yield an ever more right-wing direction, as evidenced by the current race for the party leadership. One strong candidate calls for change that emphasizes "commitment to be the party of [...] respect for the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, the importance of family." It is far from clear that disgust with the Republican position on social issues is the sole culprit for the alienation a growing majority of voters feel towards the party: after all, majorities of voters in California, Arizona and Florida, defeated same-sex marriage recently. But it is certainly clear that right-wing campaigns that focus on the "sanctity" of marriage, life and guns are doomed for failure, at least nationally.

This surely means that in the long run, self-preservation will take precedence, and some form of reason will prevail, as it did, for instance, within the UK's Conservative Party. Drained of life post Margaret Thatcher, the party became increasingly insular, focused on older, native-born, white, male, rural voters, as the country became younger, more diverse and suburban. The current leader of the Conservatives, David Cameron, has brought his party close to victory after 14 years in the wilderness, and his potential success bears some lessons for Republicans, even accounting for transatlantic differences.

The cultural warfare that exists in the United States does not define British political life in the same way, except perhaps on immigration. Nonetheless Cameron has aptly put behind him topics such as gay rights and abortion that are sure losers in the long-term because of cultural and demographic shifts. Indeed, he has co-opted some of the governing Labour Party's stances on these issues, and even taken what in the US would be considered a more liberal attitude than the Democratic Party's. He has also emphasized policies on the environment, for instance, that are of growing concern to suburban and younger voters. Even if the environment is not the top vote-getting issue in most countries, in the UK, at least, it gives Cameron a modern sheen that his party has desperately lacked. The recruitment of candidates who are not straight old white men has also been given a priority, and time will tell how successful that effort will be, but, again, at the very least (and quite cynically) it gives the party a contemporary look that has been sorely lacking. At the very least, Britain's Conservatives have developed a viable marketing strategy.

No one expects a Southern-dominated GOP to abandon its single-minded focus on social issues but, at some point, Republicans will want to win again. After all, many up-and-coming party members have staked entire careers and livelihoods on winning, and winning as Republicans. There are only so many elective offices in rural Alabama and suburban Houston, and they cannot satisfy even a dwindling group of ambitious Republicans. They will start to show more pragmatism, perhaps get lucky, perhaps the Democrats will overplay their hand on taxes and bailouts, but they will be back: the US electoral system is built that way and big business has too much invested in the party to let it fail (just call it the Citigroup of political parties).

For some perspective, two years ago, one mainstream conservative commentator described the Democratic Party as "imploding," "meaningless" and run by "crazies." Just one national election later, Peggy Noonan looks like the fool that she is. And even though we know that it is the Republican Party that is imploding, meaningless and run by crazies, we also know better than to assume it is dead.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.