Madfloridian's Journal - Too many questions not answered. Too little time left to fix the party.

Too many things need to be fixed. There really is not time.

I fear we are heading toward a comfort level with a one party system in which everything is (I hate this word)...bipartisan. The ones who need to fix these things are too content with the way things have been. It is easier that way for them. Far easier to just let the power brokers in the party make the decisions in the smoke-filled rooms than to deal with a bunch of rag tag Johnny-come-latelys who are way too ideological.

The Iraq War was the catalyst, only then they did not really understand that. We did something so heinous that many could not take it in...and most of our party did not speak up. We invaded a country that was no threat to us, bombed its cities right out in the open on TV.

We proudly called it Shock and Awe. Our leaders in both parties were quite proud of our power on display. Now it is starting to enter their minds that there will be no real turning back...that there is too much anger and outrage among what they call the grassroots, the activists..the people.

Nothing is changing.

We are probably not going to leave Iraq.

Senator Dodd is starting to get backlash in the Senate already for his stance on the FISA immunity. They are going public with it. He stood for what was right, and his own party is lecturing him.

Nancy Pelosi won't let Florida investigators investigate Mark Foley. They are begging for access to his computers, as they suspect more than just emails. Why?

Nothing has been done on the bankruptcy bill about changing the parts which would allow the ill, disabled, elderly to lose their homes.

Looks like our party won't fight Mike McConnell on monitoring the internet...all of it.

The NH phone jamming was going on to 6 years ago. Little time has been served, not much has been said about it.

We have a Supreme Court Justice who thinks the government is a tool for the vengeance of God.

In 2003 one of our candidates said he wanted to know what so many Democrats were doing supporting Bush's unilateral war in Iraq. He also wanted to know other things as well, like why Democrats were not standing up for health care, like why they were supporting Bush's tax cuts for the rich during war time.

McJoan of Daily Kos posted at the New West Politics blog yesterday. She posted a few questions of her own.

They’ve been out there for a while. Five long years ago, on March 15, 2003, Howard Dean galvanized the Democratic base and ignited a movement with a speech at the California State Democratic Convention. The ”What I want to know” speech is the single-most referenced moment in time people tell me about when they talk about getting passionate about politics.

...."In the five years since Howard Dean stood in front of that electrified crowd and started asking those questions--finally!--so many of us had, we still don’t have answers to most of them. What’s more, we have more questions, we have harder questions – questions that the next two or three presidents are going to have to grapple with, questions that our traditional media just won’t be asking.

So here’s a few things that I want to know. I want to know why, five years later, is the substance of all of Howard Dean’s questions still unanswered?

What I want to know is that you will renounce preemptive war.

What I want to know is that you will get our troops out of Iraq before the end of your first term in office, without leaving permanent bases.

She lists many more.

McJoan is right. We don't have the answers. Very little has been fixed. There is too much of the same old, same old.

We just may not have time to get things fixed. The establishment which is quite comfortable with the corporations is not going to be comfortable with change. They don't seem to pay attention to our calls, our emails, our activism on many issues.

I don't know the answer. I thought I did a few years ago, but now I am not very sure.