With Edwards out, its time to think of your own future

The remaining Dem candidates are rolling in corporate cash and the spigot is still wide open. For those of you who gave so generously to Edwards campaign, where you knew it would make a real difference, I would urge you to consider setting your future donations aside in your own savings account.

With Edwards out of the race, the odds that any potential Dem president to take substantive action to improve the economy, create jobs and enact real health care reform are slim to none.

Don't expect to see any relief for your personal finances in the next 2 or 3 years, and its reasonable to expect things will get worse.

All the donations in the world from regular voters won't change Obama or Clinton's actions if elected. Their first day in office will be spent thinking of how they will govern so they can raise enough money for their re-election.

Take care of yourselves first. Set your donations aside for the bad economic times ahead and don't feel guilty about it. The candidates will get plenty of money from corporations, they'll be fine.

I'll probably send directly to some other congressional campaigns that need the help.

But for the presidential - this spigot is shut.

and I'm considering sending the $$ I would have donated to the Edwards campaign to a breast cancer research charity.

But do your homework. Don't assume anyone with a D after their name is a progressive.

Blind loyalty is for authoritarians.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilence...that means doing one's homework. I would not be so convicted in my beliefs if I had not done it myself. It also makes you immune to 99% of the BS on this site that appear as one-line arguments.

But be forewarned...doing one's homework will not paint a very pretty picture.

we have enough of those dinos voting with the republicans now
including
Nelson, Fl
Clair McKaskell
the whole bunch that voted for immunity for the telcoms

easy to look up.

I am looking into helping Habitat for Humanity or our local shelter instead.

If I can't support a candidate that stands for these things, then I will just wait and decide who the media leaves me with.

since no matter who's the president we need a bigger majority in Congress

But I'd already increased savings each of the last few years

the biggest mistake that Rahn and his merry band of DLCers made was to outsmart themselves and concentrate on a few, "winnable" DLC-styled races. Howard Dean was called an a$$hole, an idiot, incompetent, crazy, and that was before Rahm and the DLC tried to depose him. And when Dean was proved to be right, Rahm grabbed (or tried to) all the credit, giving the architect none.

Dean said, go local, get in every race. Try everywhere, all the time.

he was right. It is time to heed his advice again.

try a non-profit. The people who need services from charities are the people that John Edwards wants to work for.

but otherwise, my wallet is back in my pocket. Let the corporatists buy their own candidates.

Good thoughts at a moment like this.

Lucky me

:hug:

and I know the pain never really goes away. You are in my thoughts MrsGrumpy and it is wonderful to see you back here posting.:hug:

LMAO...the status quo is staring me, AND you, in the face. There was a day the National Anthem gave me goosebumps, where I always saluted a flag, placed my hand over my heart during the Pledge, marched in Memorial, Veteran's and Arbor Day parades...MY country is a thing of the past. :cry:

"suspending" - almost like holding in abeyance.

It is at least possible that Clinton or Obama could, when faced with a real economic/ecological shitstorm, reach down into themselves and find the guts to say "Thanks for the bucks, fellas, but I have to act for the good of the whole country now." Political pressure on them from below will help, of course. One thing we know for damned sure is that no Republican running is capable of doing more than leading the country straight down into hell.

Under both Hillary and Obama's health care plans, health care will continue to increase in cost at a double digit rate. Let's assume 12%.

If you're like most employees, your employer forces you to pay a portion of your medical insurance. My experience is that this portion is some baseline plus 100% of the increases.

Thus, if insurance for your family is currently $1000/month (conservatively) then your increase over the 2007 baseline will be $1440/year ($12k + 12%). In 2009 the total increase will be $3052 ($12k + 25%). Let's project this out. By 2014, the earliest realistic point at which we could elect a progressive president, the total increase in healthcare costs for your family will be over $17,700.

year	total increase
1	 $1,440.00 
2	 $3,052.80 
3	 $4,859.14 
4	 $6,882.23 
5	 $9,148.10 
6	 $11,685.87 
7	 $14,528.18 
8	 $17,711.56 

When this president (assuming two terms) or his or her republican successor leaves office in 2014, You'll need to come up with an additional $18k each year out of your current budget, for the privilege of not dying in the street if you get appendicitis.

Yes. Save your money.

Not a single one of the candidates left in contention has any interest whatsoever in fiscal responsibility, on either side. Since fiscal responsibility, cutting the spending side of the federal budget, is a keystone to slowing or ameliorating the coming depression (which will probably be as wicked as the one from 1929-1939), expect things to get a lot worse.

Save your money, get out of debt, hold onto whatever you can and learn to be frugal, frugal, frugal. With discipline and luck you will survive what our government and the fed have done to our economy and come out all right. This isn't a year in which anything of significance will occur in Washington. Our nation needs a major overhaul and we're getting a bunch of corporate sponsored conformist Sunday tinkerers.

After the DLC Dems, with support from the Democratically controlled Senate
under a plan commissioned by Clinton, voted to demolish it and prevent the
poorest residents from returning.

Donate to community coffee houses in liberal neighborhoods (havens for traditional
face-to-face activism) and civic projects that have not getten ANY money from their neighbors
who refuse to invest in the community since 9/11 because of "Bush depression".
(I know, I've been involved in running one since then and am active with another.)