Dennis Kucinich on Democracy Now this morning....

[mike_c]

Discussing the destruction of the progressive agenda by Kerry's delegates in Miami.

http://www.democracynow.org/streampage.pl

Despite Kucinich's lukewarm plea for unity I cannot vote for the democratic presidential candidates for the first time in 30 years, not after what Sandy Berger did in Miami. The Kerry delegates have, in effect, secured another IWR from the Democratic Platform Committee. This despite a recent poll suggesting that an overwhelming majority of democrats (56 percent to 38 percent) favor a rapid withdrawal from Iraq regardless of the "success" of the PNAC mission in Iraq.

I had pretty much already written off any intention of voting for the democratic nominees this year-- the invasion of Iraq and its foreign policy consequences is my top issue-- but hearing Kucinich and Amy Goodman describe how doggedly the Kerry camp refused to budge from a pro-war stance has thoroughly disgusted me. At least if Bush is elected the war will remain the repigs'.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I know. I don't care at all for the way the platform was handled

Normally it would not matter to me since it's not my party, but I AM voting for Kerry in November for the sake of gettting * out, so the platform stuff does matter to me this time around.

[truthspeaker]

2. Please, hold your nose and vote for Kerry

Yes, he's wrong on Iraq, and he's wrong for the wrong reasons, but he will be more responsive to our concerns than Bush.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. He better be. But this platform nonsense doesn't give me a lot of

hope that he's going to whip out a bunch of progressive reforms during his term.

--------------------------------------------------------
An open letter to John Kerry, John Edwards, and the DNC:
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/OpenLetter.htm

[truthspeaker]

5. you're right, and that's why we need to be aggressive about

getting Greens and other real progressives into local and state offices, and ideally the House of Representatives. I predict Kerry and the DLC are going to need a serious smackdown early in Kerry's term, but he will still be better than Bush.

[mike_c]

4. Kucinich and Goodman pointed out at least twice...

...that this platform is not even in line with the expectations of a majority of Democrats today, but rather reflects opinions from during the early primary when few had the courage to speak the truth about the invasion.

[OSheaman]

6. It's the name of the game

You wanna win a presidential election, you gotta look moderate. People aren't going to vote for ultra-progressives since many people feel threatened by ideas that would change their world. Now, after you become president the story changes. Then you can be as progressive as you want and ride your incumbency to re-election. I expect the Kerry platform will become decidedly more liberal once he actually makes it to the White House.