I was absolutely going to vote for Colbert. I hope he runs as an independant.

Are we really free to decide, when not any candidate can run for office on his chosen ticket?

Sent by Jody Sol | 4:21 PM ET | 11-30-2007

We're free to decide from whatever choices the ruling class will allow us. Nothing new about it. Been that way since a bunch of wealthy landowners put the country together and cut the ruling class across the pond out of the action. The one percent of the country that owns about half the country actually nominates, via campaign contributions or other political and material aid, then the common people who are still interested choose one of two realistic options. That's what we call democracy.

Sent by John R. Otten | 2:07 PM ET | 12-01-2007

Sent by John R. Otten: We're free to decide from whatever choices the ruling class will allow us.

The FBI thanks you for marching in Washington:

bigbro says: The FBI was faced with a dilemma: how to get a photograph and information on all the anti-war advocates in the United States.

The FBI simply doesn't have enough manpower to send agents running helter-skelter across the country getting photographs and information.

Then someone got the idea to start a bunch of anti-war internet web sites, organize a demonstration march in Washington, that way the anti-war demostrators came to the FBI.

Remember, anti-war demonstrators, to send your local FBI field office a Christmas Card to go along with your photo in your dossier.

Vote early and often...............bb

Sent by fred call | 3:02 PM ET | 12-02-2007

KHARTOUM, Sudan - A British teacher jailed after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad was released Monday.....Gibbons escaped harsher punishment that could have included up to 40 lashes, six months in prison and a fine....some called for her execution.

It's not that George Bush is a good or bad president, or that this government is a corrupt government.....it's that the world if stock full of moon howling, parnaoid schizophrenic sociopaths who make Belzeebub look polite.

You may have your fair share of complaints about the way America works. And you have the right to express them without getting forty lashes or the death sentence. As long as your fist doesn't touch anyone's nose.

But if you think this government is bad, try letting something like the Sudanese government take over this government (and why would we want to risk American soldier's lives to go into Darfur to save these asylum whackos? Let them save themselves for more future insanity).

So, we have war for oil. War is not perfect. But humankind is not perfect. Those who think humankind is perfect need to move to Sudan and live the strict fundamentalist lifestyle and get forty lashes if your Teddy Bear becomes rebellious.

Okay, Hillary and Barack and Edwars are going to put on their dog-and-pony beauty show that we laughingly call a debate. Just like Mitt and Fred and Rudy will put on their prance and dance act with well rehearsed scripts.

And the war will go on, and Hillary and Barach will go back to senatoring after the requisite election day on which the major media anchors will predict early on that Hillary and Barack will go back to senatoring while a Republican becomes president elect in an imperfect society that wages a war against raving lunatics.

No, it ain't perfect by a long shot.

But compared to the stark raving lunatics running amoke with flailing whips and firing squads, America has got it made.

So, get just a little less idealistic, and just a little more realistic, and enjoy what you got, Amigos.

And remember, the more you complain about the federal government, the more you try to hold the federal government responsible for your personal lives, the more you involve the federal government in your personal neighborhood lives. Catch-22.

Learn to be self-reliant like Jefferson and Franklin and the rest who were true traditional liberals who nutured a stronger Constitutional state's rights.

Instead of being conservatives pretending you are liberals.

fred call

Politicophobia- Fear or abnormal dislike of politicians.

And South Carolina's electoral college will go Republican no matter who gets the GOP nomination.

Sent by fred call | 10:18 AM ET | 12-03-2007

Although I don't always see "eye-to-eye" with you. Fred, you nailed it this time.

Sent by Harold | 11:44 AM ET | 12-03-2007

Of course you have some good insights there Fred. But one you missed is that, ultimately, the idea is to avoid having an evangelical Christian version of the government in Sudan. Remember the Spanish Inquisition? And of course, my post that you refer to was actually being precisely, exactly and without reservation 'realistic' and not 'idealistic'. A realist realizes that the rich would never allow someone a chance to become president in the first place if they thought that person would undermine what they want. An idealist thinks that the common people have as much say in this 'democracy' as the one percent who actually own most of the country. I respectfully remind you of King George calling the elite ruling class his 'base' and being very accurate with that statement. Yeah I know, he was joking. But the Russians say that for every joke there is a little bit of humor.

Sent by John R. Otten | 2:56 PM ET | 12-03-2007

Sent by John R. Otten: the idea is to avoid having an evangelical Christian version of the government in Sudan.

Direct and to the point. And here is how this Constitutional Question of church and state goes (among others).

States Rights versus Federalism.

If you go to the Federal Government to determine how your state, county or city prays, or doesn't pray, you are butting heads with the FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY. Remember those two words.

Now, STATE'S RIGHTS....and remember those two words as well.

Everyone is quick to quote Jefferson nowadays, without knowing a lick of what Jefferson was talking about. You had thirteen colonies individually governed, and a federal government to make sure the thirteen colonies (now expanded to fifty) remain a nation (Which is what Lincoln fought to keep...a strong union of individual states somehow agreeing in the end on how to pray, or not pray).

Constitutionally, you have fifty different governments that are designed to ensure state's rights on how you pray, or not pray (which is what your Supreme Court of late has been trying to tell everyone).

If you keep asking the Federal Government to solve your individual problems, you have gone against the original Constitutional ideals of Jefferson and Washington and Franklin et al.

Hillary and Barack will lose not because one is a woman and the other is a black. They will lose because they come with the baggage of people expecting MORE from the Federal Government being involved in state's rights. And the electoral college majority will vote for the candidate who offer more local control.

Please, try to remember those two words: ELECTORAL COLLEGE.

Exemplary Hint: Hurrican Katrina was not George Bush's fault.

Another hint about who is more corrupt:
There is no such thing as a Mafia. But, if there was, the first so-called organized crime families in America did not begin in New York or Chicago. The first organized crime families began in New Orleans. Then the godfathers that never existed migrated north to New York and Chicago, eighty or so years before before Al Capone and Lucky Luciano and Don Corleone came to prominence in the Mafia that doesn't exist.

Check your American history on the 'Big Easy.'

fred call

Sent by fred call | 4:39 PM ET | 12-03-2007

Sent by John R. Otten I respectfully remind you of King George calling the elite ruling class his 'base' and being very accurate with that statement.

Obviously a lot of people missed Stephen Colbert's satirical messages: There are no real revolutionaires in America. There are no Che Gueveras, no Gandhis, no Spartacuses, no Ben Franklins or Thomas Jeffersons.

There's Bill Maher....and he's dating Ann Coulter.

You see, the anti-war movement never existed as an anti-war movement. When you want to build a church, the first step you take is to create a Satan. The illusion of the anti-war movement was created to maintain interest in the war by giving the Hawks someone to throw darts at.

When George Bush asks for fifty billion from Congress, the Democrats hem and haw for an alloted amount of time, then give George Bush his fifty billion.

Meanwhile, America watches 'Dances With the Stars.' And so many Americans have so little understanding of the electoral college system that they actually believe when they go into the electronic voting booth, they are voting for their choice of president.

In the arranged scheme of things from JFK to the 2000 vote to 9/11, this '08 election starring Hillary goes down as one of the most interestingly contrived arranged political inventions.

George Orwell is the patron saint of the Washington.....and the marketing schema has no further use for the anti-war movement.

When the landslide dust of the '08 election is over, and the people are still watching blurry eyed their television screen........both the Democrats and the Republicans have signed intense anti-terrorism legislation to punish and make disappear those who doth protest too much.

And people who have never experienced a Chicago election will still be asking: You mean, the Democratic Party is not the part of the Real Revolutionary?

fred call

Sent by fred call | 11:59 AM ET | 12-04-2007