You say there is no draft! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that STOP-LOSS is a draft. Stop-loss is forced military service. And it cannot be deemed otherwise, as it allows the government to ignore the end of a serving members contract, and forces them to stay in the Armed Forces whether they like it or not. It does not matter that they previously served. The contract is up and the US government decides to not honor that contractual obligation to release them from service.

But again the sheeple are kept in the dark about this issue because the media from both the right and the left will not treat it as a big issue. Maybe if a few of these columns were devoted to exposing the truth sheeple may become informed people.

Don't push the line that there is no draft. Just because the word draft is not used, and it only affects serving militry members, does not mean it is not one. Why is your article not screaming there is a draft instead of underscoring the administration lies that there is no draft. I have the feeling the the troops are not being supported enough because no one seems to be speaking up for them!

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I hate to agree with you, but you're probably right because I get the feeling that Democrats in government have as much to gain as Republicans for Americans being in Iraq as long as they have.

And I realize that I am painting with the broadest of brushes and that there are Democrats that would have nothing to do with such cynicism, like Russ Feingold and Maxine Waters, for example.

I am not sure as to the reasoning, because American troops remaining there makes Democrats, despite being in the majority–albeit a razor-thin one–seem ineffective and weak.

Though on the other hand the failed efforts to get out troops out of Iraq does give Democrats ammunition to use against Republicans in that they are at least trying to comply with the wishes of the American people, which is being prevented by Bush.

While that's quite possible, I suspect what's at heart (or perhaps the lack thereof) is that most Democrats are afraid. It is logical to assume that there will probably be another terrorist attack on American soil (not the homegrown, Timothy McVeigh variety) and if the attackers happen to be of Middle Eastern origin (possible though we have pissed off so many nations that a potential terrorist attack could come from Latin America as well), they don't want someone to say: If the Democrats have not withdrawn from Iraq in 2020–I write half facetiously–then the attack would not have happened.

Such a strategy would have probably worked with any other figure, but there's one reason why such a strategy is destined to fail: Bush just doesn't care.

He has done so much damage to our country's reputation and institutions (which is not to say that he has gotten everything that he wanted) that in many ways our government is barely functional, which seems to have been his goal all along.

That, and flooding the levees of the public coffers to the benefit of the rich and well-to-do.

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I have to agree that the comment by Rich saying that the Dems gaining seats in Congress will help stop the war is a slip-up on Rich's part.
But I also think that, not only will Democrats not stop the war if they stay in the majority, but they will LOSE their majority in probably both houses of the Congress. McCain, I predict, will win big time in November, sadly (and frighteningly). And his coat-tails will drag Republicans up from the putrid sewer in which they were spawned, placing them in Congress in huge numbers.
(Why should Americans vote for Democrats if there is no real difference between the parties anyway?)

Don't say you weren't warned!

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This is from the "rather be right than happy" crowd and we are hearing it daily now. Rachel Maddow comes to mind among others. "McCain is going to win because" .... fill in the blank... "the Dems won't change anything in congress beacuse bla bla bla" and so "see how detached I am and so brilliantly able to predict the outcome of this election cycle." Well screw that. Get to work and make some change happen. We don't need another pundit. There's a depression going on out here and if you don't think that that changes everything then you aren't awake. The connection between the depression and the occupation is going to get more and more clear to everybody by this summer, giving us a Dem in the Whitehouse and Dem control of congress. How's that for punditry? I have to go to work now. I have a job.

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He's right, of course: keeping the public largely "uninvested" in their dirty little colonial war was clever politics, keeping the opposition down to a simmer. Most especially, there's no threat to the college students, the ones who mounted such radical opposition to the Viet Nam War.

That "thin majority": you do all realize that it takes only 40 votes in the Senate to stop the war? Filibuster the funding, the war ends. Ask Hillary & Barack why they haven't done that. I asked Ron Wyden that question, and he lied; pretended the issue was the budget, not the funding supplemental, just for the war. So be prepared.

It doesn't take complicated maneuvers or overcoming a veto to stop the war: just don't pass the funding, and the troops start coming home. So why all the complicated maneuvers?

Because the Democrats are PRETENDING to be against the war, while actually making sure it continues. Take a look at the results. Words lie, actions tell the truth. TRUTH is, they support the war - not all of them, as another commenter notes; just enough of them.

The whole line about them being "gutless" or "spineless" stopped making sense in '06, when there was obviously nothing to be afraid of anymore - except, of course, their own constituents, who are increasingly furious with their malfeasance. So they aren't "gutless" at all. Pretty gutsy, really, defying your constituents.

Why? My own theory, that it was meant to get them a landslide this year, isn't looking too good, because at this point it may cost them an election they have no excuse for losing. So it's got to be mostly just the money.

I solicit better explanations.

In the meantime, you'll have a real peace candidate to vote for: I expect the Greens to nominate Cynthia McKinney, whom the Dems maneuvered out of Congress because she was just too progressive.

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The only difference we will see starting next January will be blue pigs replacing red pigs at the all-you-can-eat trough of legislation for sale sponsored by the corporate-lobbyist band of crooks running this plutocracy. Step on the toes of war machine's profit-driven agenda and you'll get the saddam treatment if you go too far ... run out of office during the next pre-arranged election cycle, at best. I've been watching this shit for 50 years expecting some kind of change, but the only change is the players on the scorecard. That, and the elections are as phony as American Idol and just as valid. Politicians have been preaching change to the American voters (idiots) since John Adams and the only changes are continually for the worse of the working stiffs and for the betterment of the wealthy industrialists.
Four years from now as the last above-minimum wage job moves to India, the candidates' battle cry will be "Spare Change you Can Believe In"

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Like Rip Van Winkle, we are awakening, discovering that we have been participating unconsciously in the new era of corporatism. That is the word coined by Benito Mussolini that means corporate welfare state, corporate socialism, National Socialism (acronym Nazi). 'Corporatism' is epithet for special political sanction extended to institutions above and beyond the individual rights. Individuals are expected to attach and assign their loyalty to such socially sanctified institutions. It is the replacement of individual entitlement, that was guaranteed by the US Constitution, with institutional entitlement; bank/finance, health care industry, right churches, media monopolists, war industry.

These institutions that, in this system, gain the blessings of the State are not the analog of subjects of a king or multitude of citizens of the Nation. They are the surrogate strength of the State itself. Theirs is the rule of proxy. Their's is not the rule of law; theirs is the rule of metastasized dollars, incipient tumors of treason. Their's is the State. One tumor for every elected official who follows the expectations of contributors, consciously or unconsciously. That dog don't bite the hand that feeds him.

The war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, Vietnam, Korea; the perpetual war for perpetual 'peace', is but a symptom. Its a symptom of a malaise now gone arrogalantly (sic) public. It is the malaise of the centrist ruling class that has learned the lessons of Madison Avenue manipulation; the mind suck of advertising.

Such is the level of arrogance that the ruling bankers, oil men and media owners have abused the international financial system to the point of failure. But lets be careful not to imply that it is careless accident. Their game is to Latinize the economy of the world, to claim the ultimate social status of exclusivity. This coming depression is engineered.

I have seen the goal and it is Chile. Landed gentry own orchard, vineyard and winery; a string of 40 polo horses and a string of 30 rodeo ponies. There is little traffic,little carbon, a green advantage to southern poverty. Why? School teachers, like my translator with a 4 year degree, certificate and 16 years experience, left home to teach in Santiago where there is the highest pay scale on Chile. What does he make? Twenty four dollars a day, $6,000 per annum. His SUV is a Yamaha 125. He could never hope to own a house.

Why is there no hope for the Democrats? They fear assassination.

Who is brave enough to say the truth to power? Mike Gravel. Denis Kucinich, Richardson. They were repudiated by their party. Ron Paul is the only brave person left; tilting against the mill. We should celebrate him by looking again at his message. Mike Gravel might encourage us to set aside our media induced aversion to listening to Paul.

Does Peak Oil portend an end to the old order? The New World Order will be green with 125 Yamaha's. Its time to review The Time Machine by Orson Welles. If the aristocracy is appropriately small enough, 1% as in old Tibet, there are a world of resources for all. There will be plenty for all if we can only learn not to share?

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Here's the facts. Obama spoke the truth. People always look around for scapegoats when faced with hard times. In fact, the term 'scapegoat' with it's connotation of substitution for payment for past sins, comes straight out of the Bible.

People thrown out of work or displaced in other ways are blaming immigrant transient laborers for their lost fortunes, even knowing that is not even the kind of labor they ever did themselves!

Whites blame blacks, latinos and women just for being there and needing to work for a living too. Ideologues and politicians take advantage of these bitter feelings to direct the anger away from their own contributory errors and greed.

The question is, why do we fall for these ugly ways to deflect anger onto the innocent instead of where it belongs, which could actually do some good instead of evil?

I forgot to mention another target that is a common favorite for blame and punishment- teenagers who are making noise while having fun, like the children they are. If only I had a nickel for every angry old man who bent my ear with his desires to shoot a noisy group of teens! Usually I got a lecture on the exact damage his various weapons could do to them, how fast, and where on the kid he would shoot.

All you really have to do is stop long enough to listen to these many disaffected persons who are washed up on life's highway. You'll get an earful. That's what Obama is actually hearing these days, along with a few of the facts!

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