Monday, December 28, 2009

No, the Iraq War hasn't ended

Nearly seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqis seem to have not lived far away from violence featuring fatal car bombs, but not everything goes bad for them in the year 2009.
Their hard life is in hopes of improvement, as the country's rich oil will bring more cash in the coming years after a number of international firms get development rights.
A place where violence occurs most, the Iraqi capital has witnessed waves of bombings, including three high-profile coordinated car bombings since August.

The above is the opening to Li Laifang and Gao Shan's "Yearender: Iraq goes ahead amid violence in 2009" (Xinhua) which is the journalists' evaluation of the year as well as a few upcoming events (such as national elections, which are supposed to be held in March) on the horizon. Journalists -- they don't publish in Playboy, sorry, kids. The Iraq War continues and part of the reason it does is because 'reporters' like Amy Goodman go breathless, on air, about the latest issue of Playboy. Good to know that subscription went to good use, Goody, and it's probably the closest you've come to any sort of on air admission, but don't mistake that garbage for news. Garbage and gossip. Possibly if Playboy had done a feature on the Iraq Inquiry right before the centerfold, Amy Goodman would have been interested in that?

In the real world, Iraq remains an issue. From Asher Dvir-Djerassi's "Government responds only when people take action" (Las Vegas Sun):

Our moderator began our discussion by asking if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will ever come to an end. Going around the room, one student said that President Barack Obama has announced a 2011 deadline for the withdrawal of troops in Iraq. In response, a student claimed Obama cannot put a deadline on the war in Iraq that has continued with unpredictable changes, and that Iraq lacks a solid and legitimate government.
As we began to talk about the war in Afghanistan, a student who has dual citizenship between the United States and Pakistan said the U.S. government must invest in education. From living in Pakistan and visiting Afghanistan, she contended that the population is heavily illiterate and uneducated, allowing for Islamic fundamentalism and regression.
Many other students at the Sun Youth Forum agreed that a troop increase will not solve the root of conflict in Afghanistan and acknowledged that the U.S. must also heavily invest in the Afghan economy and infrastructure.
After 30 minutes of discussion on this issue, a student asserted that whatever our perspective is on the war, it will not affect Obama’s policy regarding the Middle East. He continued to state that by looking at poll results, the majority of Americans favor withdrawal from Afghanistan, but Obama has discounted this perspective.

And these conversations take place on campuses around the country. It's only in Panhandle Media that you can't find Iraq. Now some might point out that Amy Goodman's wasting all of our time with Playboy this morning because there was an apparent terrorist attempt in Detroit. Some might point out that what she's done is minimize reality to ridicule concerns. Some might point out that if she was ever to address real issues and not just grudge f**k on a daily basis, the left might be informed. But that's not her role. Her role is to find out whatever the big story in the MSM is and scream "NO! NO! NO!" All she can do is respond. She can't influence anything because she's too busy chasing after MSM. She can't set a course because she's forever responding.

The Iraq War has not ended. Sandy Davis (Baton Rouge Advocate) reports on the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of Louisiana's National Guard preparations to deploy for Iraq. During the 2004 deployment, Davis explains, 22 service members lost their lives.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.









Posted by at

Sunday, December 27, 2009

And the war drags on . . .

Capt. Margaret H. White began a relationship with a warrant officer while both were training to be deployed to Iraq. By the time they arrived this year at Camp Taji, north of here, she felt what she called “creepy vibes” and tried to break it off.
In the claustrophobic confines of a combat post, it was not easy to do. He left notes on the door to her quarters, alternately pleading and menacing. He forced her to have sex, she said. He asked her to marry him, though he was already married. He waited for her outside the women’s latrines or her quarters, once for three hours.
"It got to the point that I felt safer outside the wire," Captain White said, referring to operations that take soldiers off their heavily fortified bases, "than I did taking a shower."

The above is the opening of Steven Lee Myers' "Women At Arms" (New York Times). Myers goes on to sketch out the fears of reporting sexual assault (getting caught in the back-and-forth, not being believed, retaliation, etc.) and notes that only about 10% of military sexual assaults get reported, with 2908 sexual assaults reported for Fiscal Year 2008. The idiot Kaye Whitley (no, Kaye, you and your fan club doesn't need to e-mail), who has worked hard to discredit others in Congressional hearings (we've documented it here) and who always minimizes any issue, is quoted saying the increase in reported assaults is a good thing because it means people are more comfortable reporting them. Kaye's such an idiot. The increase most likely means an increase in sexual assaults. But Kaye will spin and lie forever. Just like the hearing where she wanted to trash a sexaul assault victim and the victim's testimony. Best moment of the year was probably when Katie Couric caught Kaye lying and Kaye had to 'take a break.' In a functioning Pentagon, Kaye Whitley (who infamously refused to testify to Congress at one point) would have been canned long ago.

And let's note something else because Steven Lee Myers doesn't. He's not covered this subject before and he refers to a program that Kaye lied to him about. The fiscal year reporting that we noted above? It's not all the reported sexual assaults. It doesn't include Kaye's pet program. This is the program that has outraged victims' rights advocates -- rightly outraged them. Kaye has pimped a program where you can get 'help' by not reporting your assault. Supposedly, this is to help women and supposedly it helps women. Yet Kaye can provide no proof of that, not even hard numbers when asked for them by the Congress.

Here's reality, as any sexual assault survivor knows, you can't live in shame and recover. But Kaye's program exists to promote shame. And your first clue to that is that Kaye refuses to tell how many women (it's a small number, I'm told) use her program and then go on to report sexual assault to a criminal division. It's a small number because her little program isn't about helping or care giving, it's about hushing up what's taking place. Loretta Sanchez gets that and had some harsh comments in a hearing for Kaye. If Steven Lee Myers had done some real research and not just run with what Kaye told him (she's always been her own best self-promoter), maybe some of those realities could have been included.

March 20th there's a DC action being called by A.N.S.W.E.R. and others.


A.N.S.W.E.R.





They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Sunday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4371. Tonight it remains 4371. Turning to some of the violence reported today . . .

Bombings?

Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Bahgdad bus bombing which claimed 1 life and left four people wounded and a Salahuddin Province bombing which claimed 4 lives and left twenty-six people wounded. Reuters adds a Kirkuk roadside bombing left four police officers injured and a Kirkuk sticky bombing injured a police officer.

Shootings?

Reuters reports 1 person shot dead in Kirkuk today and drops back to Friday to note the US military shot dead 1 man in Kirkuk "wouned another and captured a third".


Meanwhile Qais Mizher (Washington Post) reports Shi'ites demonstrating against Nouri al-Maliki in Karbala. The paper's Michael Hastings reported on the rise in attacks on various leaders (political, religious and educational) yesterday. Ned Parker and Nawaf Jabbar (Los Angeles Times) explore that issue:

The assassinations have cast a pall over Anbar province, which was the center of the Sunni Arab insurgency until late 2006, when tribesmen revolted against the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq.
It is unknown who is behind the new wave of killings and whether the violence can be traced to Al Qaeda in Iraq, or tribal or political disputes preceding national elections in March. The attacks Saturday raised concern that the region, and possibly the nation, could be entering a new era of uncertainty and violence, with elections, a new government, and the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces on the horizon.
Mahmoud Hussain Jassem Obaidi, a respected tribal leader, was killed when a bomb exploded outside his home in Abu Ghraib, an area between Fallouja and Baghdad, which was once a vital link for armed groups entering the capital.

New content at Third:



Voices Against War: resisting conflict
A new book on the history of anti-war movements in Britain illuminates the stories of those who refused to fight in the First World War. Chris Bambery looks at their struggle
Eyebrows might be raised at the news that the Imperial War Museum in London is endorsing a new history of anti-war movements in Britain from the last century.
They might be raised even higher at the news that the museum has the largest archive in the world of sound recordings of anti-war campaigners.
These have been turned over to the author Lyn Smith, who has charted opposition to war from the First World War through to the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The result is a new book, Voices Against War: A Century Of Protest. It’s a fascinating and rich read.
Socialist Worker readers will be familiar with some of those interviewed towards the end, such as Tony Benn and Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition, Kate Hudson and Bruce Kent of CND, and Reg Keys and Rose Gentle of Military Families Against the War.
But the book also charts how a smaller anti-war movement, opposing the 1999 Nato bombing campaign against Serbia, ensured activists were steeled in understanding the role of imperialism and rejecting notions of “humanitarian intervention”.
This ensured that they could react rapidly and effectively to the declaration of the “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
Other chapters describe the growth of pacifism between the First and Second World Wars in reaction to the horror at the useless slaughter unleashed in 1914.
Opponents
The book records the confusion over how to respond to Adolf Hitler, the anti-bomb movement of the late 1950s – including arguments between supporters and opponents of direct action – and a raw and honest account of the 1980s women’s peace camp outside the US cruise missile base at Greenham Common.
But for me the most interesting chapter is on those who refused to fight in the First World War.
Some 1,600 conscientious objectors were dragged before tribunals, branded as cowards, jailed, beaten and sentenced to hard labour. After the war ended they were barred from voting for five years. Sixty nine died in detention.
Many refused to fight because of their religious beliefs, but several of those featured in Voices Against War refused because of their left wing views.
One objector describes walking 11 miles to join a 10,000 strong anti-war protest addressed by Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour Party, just as further down Whitehall the cabinet was drafting its declaration of war.
Two leading lights in the Independent Labour Party, Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen, founded the No Conscription Fellowship in November 1914.
In 1916 both men were arrested after handing out leaflets opposing the introduction of conscription. They were jailed for two months and, shortly after their release, jailed once more for refusing to enlist.
Allen served 16 months in prison before being released on grounds of ill health. Brockway was only released six months after the war had ended.
The heroism of these men is striking (women were not subject to conscription in this war).
Yet their accounts point to a failure. The opposition to the war from the left was largely pacifist and stressed the need for a common humanity.
So there was no sense that war was and is central to capitalism or that it was working people who would make the most sacrifices.
Before 1914, many opposed to the capitalist system saw socialism as inevitable – whether they supported change through parliament or revolution.
They believed that the job of socialists was to prepare and advance their message through education and by standing in elections.
In practice they largely accepted the division between economics and politics that is central to parliamentary “democracy”.
So activists tended to focus on one particular feature of the system. Trade unionists looked to strikes and struggled for economic gains.
Supporters of women’s rights fought for the vote. Elected representatives focused on political change through parliament and the council chamber.
This meant that in 1914 they did not have an overall analysis of what underlay the war drive, or how to halt it.
Anti-war left wingers found they could rally and demonstrate against war up until the point where it was declared, but they had no strategy once it had begun.
Most fell in behind the “national interest”. Keir Hardie was
heartbroken. But he kept his pacifist position until his death in 1915.
The individual protests of those who refused to fight fitted in 1914.It seemed to be the only way to make a stand when even labour and trade union leaders had rallied to the flag.
Yet across Europe the mood began to turn against the war as it brought galloping price rises, wage freezes, bans on strikes and, in the case of Russia, Germany and Austria, hunger.
Unofficial
On Clydeside in the west of Scotland as early as 1915 a mass rent strike against ruthless landlords forced the government to introduce rent controls.
Shop stewards in Glasgow’s key engineering, shipyard and armament factories came together in the unofficial Clyde Workers’ Committee to coordinate resistance.
The leading lights in the Clyde Workers’ Committee were anti-war as individuals. They belonged to left wing parties.
But they also accepted a division between economics and politics. Their prime concern as a group was work in the trade unions to win and defend pay and conditions.
Their political activity was confined to the weekend, when they might make anti-war speeches.
The British government – sensing a weakness – went on the offensive, portraying the leaders of the Clyde Workers’ Committee as “unpatriotic” and “pro-German”. It used
war-time emergency legislation to arrest and deport key activists.
The Glasgow school teacher John Maclean was a fierce critic of the committee’s refusal to come out openly as anti-war, so much so that he was excluded from its meetings.
More clearly than anyone else in Britain, Maclean argued the working class had no interest in a war fought for profits and markets.
He went on to support the 1917 Russian Revolution, led by the Bolsheviks, and held it up as the shining example of what needed to be done.
He was also one of the few people on the British left who argued to support rebellions against British colonialism in Ireland, vigorously defending the 1916 Dublin Uprising as a blow against imperialism and war.
The British ruling class retaliated by ensuring that Maclean was sacked from his job and sending him to prison three times for sedition.
Yet despite his strengths, Maclean was wedded to the old model of socialist organisation that stressed education along with electoral interventions. He did not look to a new, Bolshevik-style approach that combined a sharp ideological edge with being grounded in the daily battles of working people.
Sacrifice
The First World War ended with soldiers and workers in first Russia and then Germany refusing to sacrifice themselves for the “sacred cause” of their country’s war effort.
In 1917 the October Revolution took Russia out of the war. The following year mutinies in the German forces spilled over into revolution and saw Germany leave the war, ending the conflict.
In the underground conditions of pre-war Russia, the Bolshevik Party and its main leader, Lenin, had argued that whatever areas of work individual party members might focus on, the aim was to mobilise workers with revolution as a goal. This was seen as perhaps not happening immediately, but not in the distant future either.
In 1914 Lenin argued that the First World War was an imperialist conflict in which workers had no interest, and that the main enemy was at home.
Revolution on the domestic front was the key to ending the slaughter.
One of the key reasons the Bolsheviks won the popular support needed to make a revolution was that they were the only resolutely anti-war party. Workers, peasants and soldiers knew it would deliver on its pledge to end the conflict immediately.
This did not mean the Bolsheviks refused to participate in strikes, demonstrations and protests alongside those who were not 100 percent pro-revolution or even anti-war.
It meant it put itself alongside these people while continuing to educate, agitate and organise.
This seems to have carried us a long way from the central narratives of Voices Against War.
But at its close, as the book focuses on the recent movement against the Iraq war, you get a sense of what is possible in the fight against a world where economic competition repeatedly spills over into military competition.
And you also get a sense of what will be required to cleanse the world of war for once and for all.
Voices Against War: A Century of Protest by Lyn Smith is available from Bookmarks, the socialist bookshop. Phone 020 7637 1848 or go to » www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk
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Earlier Beth posted her look back on the year. (Thank you, Beth.) Martha and Shirley plan to do their year-in-books post by New Year's Eve but say it may be ready before then. Isaiah's going to have two comics this week (that's before this Sunday). Ruth will be examining the year in radio and she thinks that will be done on Thursday or Friday. Kat will do the year in music and says, "It will be at the last minute!" I'll do a year-in-review of some sort as well. On the first.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.




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Reflecting on 2009 (Beth)

Beth: In 2005, I volunteered to be the ombudsperson for this site. At least, I think I did. More and more, I believe C.I. maneuvered me into the position -- and I'm only half-joking.

What have I learned in all that time?

Someone's always going to be offended.

It may be over a word, a joke, an omission, something stressed, you never know. But someone's always going to be offended.

And I probably should have known that. Certainly, I was one of the community's biggest complainers until I became the ombudsperson. And maybe did. But I learned something else which I didn't know before: Most people just want to be listened to.

In this community, it's not: You must agree with me!!!!!!

That's not how C.I. set it up. Please, this is the site created by the woman who often writes, "I may be wrong -- and often am."

But what really matters to those who are offended is: Am I being heard? Is the other person listening?

When I used to write a sentence like the last one, I would immediately cringe if I noticed it and change it. But sometimes I didn't change it. And then I would think, "Oh no . . ." Because we do have community members who are deaf, hearing disabled or hearing challenged and the term "listening" might be insulting.

About the sixth or seventh time I'd included "I'm here to listen" in my column at the gina & krista round-robin, I knew I'd have to address that. I was happily surprised to discover that no member took offense at that.

When you're the ombudsperson, you can get very wary about every single word. Certainly, though I wasn't attempting to be non-inclusive, that was a word that could be seen as such.

I think I was cut a lot of slack and it was understood that the phrase/statement was just popular vernacular. I also know C.I.'s transcripts make clear that community members with hearing issues are welcomed and valued members.

For the holidays, I'm at my parents. They think they have state of the art information highway. They've got dial up and a computer that's running a very old version of Windows. I'm mentioning this for a related reason. I visited a site Saturday that I enjoy and that posts a lot of videos -- it's a political site. But I visit at home, where I have DSL. And I watch the videos and get the whole point of the post. But Saturday, on my parents computer, I couldn't stream videos. It wouldn't work due to the connection (dial up) and the operating platform. There were some interesting posts, I'm sure, but I have no idea because they talked about how the video made them angry but didn't explain why and I couldn't stream the video.

The streaming issue is another reason C.I. provides transcripts. I'm glad Joe Biden says he's serious about internet access throughout the country but the reality is nothing's really improved for rural areas in some time -- as rural community members consistently point out.

But back to the issue of listening or registering the complaints.

That's all most people really want. They want to know that their complaint registered. That they were not dismissed or mocked for raising an issue that was serious to them.

And that's been the big lesson I've learned as ombudsperson.

"Ombudsperson." We tried "ombudsman" for about two minutes and neither C.I. nor I were comfortable with that term. I'm glad, I'm proud actually, that if I've done anything online, it's maybe made people think about that term "ombdusman" and how it's used even when the person is a woman. It's non-inclusive and when you see one man after another put in that position, you have to wonder if the term is part of the problem?

2009 the big issue and concern was religion in terms of this site. C.I. takes no side regarding religion and none of us know if she's even religious or practicing or whatever. (Elaine and Rebecca know and I'm sure Ava does as well.) But due to the Iraq refugee population make up and the continued attacks on various religious minorities in Iraq, C.I. explained that this was going to have to be addressed and issues like religious freedom would have to be addressed from time to time as well. She promised to do her best in tackling the issues and urged anyone who had a problem to immediately "e-mail Beth and me." (Again, I frequently feel I was maneuvered into this position.) When there was a problem, C.I. and I both addressed it -- we both addressed it in e-mails and I addressed in my weekly column.

But the biggest problem came not from members but from drive-bys or visitors. In one snapshot, C.I.'s translating -- from Italian -- some Papal media outlet. Shirley and Martha forwarded me over 40 e-mails questioning that the report said that. Did they think it said something else? No. They didn't know what it said. They were objecting that C.I. translated Italian because, unless they learned Italian, they didn't know if C.I. was translating correctly.

That's why it has to be a really important article -- such as the one on the Sahwa that C.I. translated from Arabic a few weeks ago -- for C.I. to translate it. It's just not worth it otherwise. She doesn't see these e-mails, but she knows they clog up the public account and that Martha and Shirley or Eli or someone's stuck sifting through them. Which is a real shame because when C.I. has emphasized an article in French, Spanish, Italian or Arabic, it has ended up being on a pretty important issue and a topic that existed for more than one snapshot.

The first years, I did dabble in the drive-bys and the visitors. I really don't now. I'll read them if Martha and Shirley forward them and I may weigh in on it in my column. But that's really it. Our community's grown so large that I really have my hands full with just community members.

For new community members, the biggest issue is always that I have to explain, "Yes, that is an issue. However, before you became a community member, the community had already voted that the emphasis at The Common Ills would be on Iraq." There are some topics that other websites cover and I will steer people to those sites, I'll say, "That's actually a topic Rebecca has long covered so you should take that up with her." Ruth has always been very good about saying, "I will grab it," when I've raised in a roundtable that there's an issue numerous members are bringing up but none of the sites cover. If it's the last minute and I just want to be able to be done with it and reply, "___ is dealing with it," I know I can call Mike and he'll work it into his post in some manner.

Along with complaints and topics, I also get e-mails from community members about other people's sites. I am only the ombudsperson for this site. I'll make a call on the way something was covered here. C.I. may or may not agree with me. (And we have disagreed before.) But that's what my role as ombudsperson is. I am not the ombudsperson for any other site. If there's a Third issue, for example, Jim will say, "Call me! We can discuss it." He means it. He will discuss it and discuss it and discuss it. He loves to disagree. But when that's included in my column, I make it clear that those are his opinions and that any opinion I have is my own personal opinion and I'm not the ombudsperson of any other site.

But I still get e-mails. The biggest topic there in 2009 illustrates how something can be good and bad. The big complaint about another community website in 2009 was about Betty's site. Betty's was also the most praised community website in e-mails to me. For the same reason.

Members miss Betinna (Betty does as well and I've told her before, "Mention that!"). If you're late to the party (I love how we all say that now, it just rolls off the tongue), Betty started her site as a comic online novel. Betinna was the lead character. A dazed woman who was unclear on her past but married to Thomas Friedman who insisted upon praise ("Thomas Friedman is a great man") but really didn't deserve it. As the chapters added up, we discovered he was drugging Betinna. We also discovered she was not, in fact, from another country, but from New Jersey and had been kidnapped by Thomas Friedman and Nicky Kristof. As Betinna put together all the pieces (from 2005 to 2008), she wanted her revenge and that was heading to big ending. Which would not have been pretty for Betinna. Betty had an outline of the entire story before she ever did her first chapter. She knew how it ended. Clues were dropped in various chapters throughout to prepare people for that ugly ending.

In the end, Betty couldn't kill Betinna. She loved the character too much. And she was also outraged by the Cult of St. Barack online. So she decided to halt the novel and just turn her site into a blog.

People love Blog Betty (a name Rebecca gave her back in 2005 at Third). But they miss Betinna. It's one of those trade-offs. You can't have both. Betty can't craft a chapter and also run a blog. Betty would prefer to leave Betinna where she did because it's open, it's up in the air and readers can write their own ending for Betinna whereas, if Betty writes the ending, it's not a happy one.

When I wrote in the round-robin that I'd be doing a column here Sunday to give Isaiah a day off (he'll have comics on New Year's Day, FYI), Susan e-mailed and asked if I would offer what my biggest surprise about the community was?

There's that most people just want to be listened to. After that, it's probably how large the community has become. I have Brady and Kayla helping me now with the e-mails. Then it's probably how large the community's become online.

There's this site and there's . . . .

The Third Estate Sunday Review
Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man
Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)
Mikey Likes It!
Cedric's Big Mix
Like Maria Said Paz
The Daily Jot
Trina's Kitchen
Ruth's Report
SICKOFITRADLZ
Oh Boy It Never Ends
The World Today Just Nuts
Ann's Mega Dub

I could be remembering wrong but, as I recall, this site, Third, Rebecca's and A Winding Road were the only community sites when I became ombudsperson. A Winding Road folded, shuttered its doors and it is missed. But it's amazing to realize how many sites have sprung up in this community. With Kat and Ruth and Isaiah, they were already contributing here before they began their own sites. Mike probably stands out the most because I remember him being outraged. I don't remember what it was now. But it's when I first became aware of Mike as a member. Someone had done a word for word rip-off of an entry C.I. had written a week before and Mike was furious. I think I got 25 e-mails from him in one day on this topic. He was enraged. And I remembered thinking, when I learned he'd decided to start his own site, "Oh boy, what's that going to be like?" It actually is a great site and one of its best qualities is Mike's sense of fairness. I've seen him apply that same rage for theft of the work of community members and theft of the work of non-community members. Mike has a very strong ethical code.

Like most members, I knew Betty was starting a site. She was testing it out with test posts that she shared with various community members and working with Third each weekend to see what a website entailed and all of that. So I knew she was coming. I knew Kat was being guilted into doing a website by a number of community members. Mike's was the first that sprung out of nowhere for me.

I look at that list above and think, "Damn."

There really has been something done by this community. We really have had a code and stuck to it. We've remained a diverse community and that's probably why we grew so much.

But, to Susan's question, when I think about what my biggest surprise is . . . In 2009, it requires dropping back to 2008. I still marvel over what happened in this community during the 2008 craziness.

Like a number of community members, I am of the left but not a Democrat. I self-identify "independent" (and am registered in my state as such). I did consider Socialist but after what went down in 2008, you can forget me ever claiming that.

C.I. had always said, "Your vote is your vote." We'd heard that it was up to you who to vote for and "I'm not going to tell who to vote for" and all of that.

Easy words when your site starts in 2004, right after the November election, right?

But C.I. stuck to that. We still do not know if C.I. (or Ava) voted for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney? We know they didn't vote for John McCain because, in 2005, at Third, they'd noted they could never vote for him. We know they didn't vote for Barack because Elaine has, since 2005, told the story of her and C.I.'s face to face with Barack the 'peace candidate' who told them he did not support withdrawal from Iraq.

If John Edwards had been the Democratic Party nominee, for example, I would probably be writing, "We still don't know if C.I. (or Ava) voted for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney or John Edwards."

When there was an active Democratic slate of candidates in 2007, C.I. covered them all. Including Dennis Kucinich who I had no idea C.I. disliked. I never got that from the coverage. C.I. played it fair and when so many community members endorsed him, C.I. didn't slam them or disagree with them or anything. (Those still not getting how Dennis is all talk should read Helen Redmond's article on how Dennis helped kill single-payer.) Now I can put two and two together and, yes, I caught what Rebecca was saying with regards to John Edwards and that she was explaining why C.I. would never support John Edwards. (Rebecca's teased out that blog post four times now.) But even now knowing that C.I. had always found John Edwards to be filth, you couldn't have gotten that in 2007 (and C.I. decided John Edwards was filth in 2003 -- as Rebecca's long documented). He was a candidate and if he spoke about Iraq, he was quoted. If he spoke something this community agreed with it, it was noted. If he distorted reality, he was called on it. If he proposed a withdrawal, it was addressed.

C.I. played it fair with all the Democratic candidates. She didn't play favorites. When people would endorse, she'd run their endorsement here or if they'd endorse in newsletters. (And if they endorsed in newsletters and wanted it noted here, she would include it.) She was actually surprised how Barack had no, NONE, support from this community. But why would he? We'd heard Elaine's story repeatedly. So we knew, the minute he declared, to really examine his pretty words. We weren't fooled as a result.

But a lot of other people were tricked by the Cult of St. Barack.

It's really amazing the space that was created here. As a non-Democrat who had voted for Nader in 2000 (I voted for John Kerry in 2004), I was told I was welcome and certainly everyone was nice to me and the other non-Democratic members but there's the talk and the walk. In 2008, this community endorsed Ralph Nader.

That's walking the walk. Ava and C.I. didn't endorse, they don't believe in telling people who to vote for and I have pretty strong hunch this site will go dark without us ever knowing if they voted for Ralph or for Cynthia. But that this Democratic-majority community could go for Ralph in 2008 was really something amazing to me.

That we could walk away from fear and walk away from propaganda and vote for what we believed in really amazes me.

Now six weeks before the election, Oklahoma community members suddenly had a problem. They couldn't vote for Ralph, they learned. He wasn't on the ballot. Okay, they'd vote for Cynthia. She wasn't on the ballot. Their ballot only allowed them to vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama. They rejected the Corporatist War Hawk with the Democrat label. They used their vote strategically; arguing the left would be better mobilized if McCain was in the White House because they'd already seen the left lose it's spine as it rushed to prop up Barry O.

That was a huge deal. It's something that, months after it happened, still surprised me. Democrats rejecting a corporatist War Hawk whose own adviser had bragged to the BBC that his Iraq promises were meaningless and he'd decide what he was doing after he was sworn in.

As big a step as that was for life-long Democrats in Oklahoma, think about what it says about the community? Yes, C.I. made very clear that Oklahoma members only had a choice between Barack and McCain and, yes, C.I. made very clear that no one was to attack them for their decision and that their vote was their vote ("as true if they decided to vote for Barack as their decision to vote for McCain"). But that didn't mean anyone had to listen. I waited and waited to see some griping, carping or at least a few jabs. It never happened. Not even in 2009.

Everyone was respected for their choice. That included if someone decided they were not going to vote. Starting in 2004, we got a lot of nice talk about how we own our votes and we can and should use them as we see fit and blah blah. Pretty words. 2008 was when we saw those words were true. Not only did C.I. mean them but the community did as well.

I don't think we'll be around in 2012 except for the newsletters. But if we are, I have no doubts that third parties would be covered, that independent runs would be covered, that Republicans and Democrats would be covered. I have no doubt that we would listen to each other and respect one another's votes even if we all split on who to vote for.

In 2009, that's why I still marvel over 2008, still think about it.

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