Three is STILL the Magic Number

I was reading a few moments ago about how CoryF and Icababe have wrapped up the last two primary spots for the Independent Party. Somewhere, there is a list of qualifiers for the Convention, and I would put that list up proudly against those representing the U4Prez Democrats and Republicans.

I ran my campaign as pretty much a single-issue campaign, to end the two-party system, to destroy the myth of Republocratic dominance, and to bring more parties, more candidates, and more philosophies into the Washington mix. Each in their own way, I believe that not only the Independent primary winners, but the vast majority of Independents themselves believe in this, to one degree or another. They might be conservative or liberal, it doesn't matter, they are disgusted with politics-as-usual, and they are willing to take the risk of a campaign run alone, without a true party machine behind them, than compromise their principles for the sake of popularity.

Just like America itself, we are Independent.

It is this spirit we share that binds us, and has kept us bound as the strongest party at U4Prez. It is the appreciation we have for one another, no matter where on the political spectrum we might fall, that has kept the Independent Party vibrant and positive. And despite the countless many times we have seen others try to drive wedges between us, we realize its just another variation of the partisan gameplaying we all got sick of years ago, and we recognized it for what it is.

That is why Independents didn't have a problem voting for a liberal like me in June to be leader, or a conservative like Icababe most recently. In the end, our bond goes beyond the weak labels the Republocrats like to divvy up everyone under. I got along fine with strong conservatives like CoryF, because we share the same singular belief that nothing we want to do will come to fruition if we don't first clean house, rid Washington of the two monopolizing parties, and come up with some real answers for real people.

Independents get that, and that is why I have no problem giving my complete support to Icababe and encourage all Independents to not only join with him in solidarity, but to also participate in his committee to build a better party. This isn't the sort of Steering Committee Mduminiak installed with the Republicans, which was little more than an elitist collection of his bestest buddies to decide for the rest of the GOP world. Icababe wants everyone to join in. There should be far more than the four or five names on the committee list. While I realize every candidate is running her own campaign her own way, it still wouldn't hurt to chime in.

I have always had a respectful relationship with Icababe, and I appreciate his want to get as much input from the other Independents. He deserves the same sort of commitment from the rest of you. When he creates a committee any Independent can join, I would like to think there would be many who would jump to help. Likewise, I see he has created a chat page in which Independents can discuss issues and strategy. In respect, I haven't tried to peek in, but I truly hope it's being utilized.

The Independent Party has to move forward, and I recall a few comments Icababe made concerning me, and I agree with him. The Party cannot move ahead, and cannot perfect itself, if the conversation constantly returns to the past. It is unfair to everyone to continue to bring my name up every time Independent Party Leadership is discussed. No party leader will ever get a fair shake if he is constantly compared to Olivia, even in a congradulatory way. The party has a convention coming up in a couple of weeks, it will not properly be prepared to take full advantage of the attention it will receive if the focus remains on a former candidate who is not active on U4Prez itself and can only influence things from the outside looking in.

What's more, many use my name in a petty fashion, trying to use my name as a wedge. Just as some would previously try to drive a wedge between me and the conservative Independents, they again seek to use my name to play partisan games. These are the very same games Independents detest in the first place. Such games are expected out of the Republicans and Democrats. Don't sink to their level. Don't give into this bullshit. Recognize it for what it is, and root it out.

However you saw my stay as party leader, as a good thing or a bad thing, in the end it is over, and if the Party is to be at its best, it must look and move forward. I appreciate all the positive feedback, and I note all the sarcasm and hurtful things said my way. But so long as the talk remains on what Olivia did or didn't do, you're not giving Icababe a chance at all, and the Indys will remain stuck in Summer 2007 instead of looking forward with their sights on the general election.

I believe the Independents have a legitimate shot in winning the whole thing. Kempite's campaign is in flames, so if there was ever a "fix", Eric Gurr would be pretty stupid to maintain it at this moment. Look at the final roster when it comes out. If we're looking for someone with name recognition, MejicoJohn is as strong a candidate in terms of sheer popularity as there is at U4Prez. I believe we have the truest and most sincere conservative at U4Prez, namely CoryF, which, if the Independents backed him, he could legitimately defeat Mduminiak, a candidate who has had virtually every break go his way, who is grossly over-exposed, and who is just as into playing partisan bullshit games as he is to chime the conservative chime. You have Maditude, probably the closest thing to a champion of the Libertarian Party U4Prez has, someone who has quite quietly put together a solid campaign, and again, he has not engaged in gameplaying and partisanship. Icababe is proving himself to be a strong leader for the Independents.

Once there is a list put out as to who will represent the Independents up to the general election, I will be on my toes to support them all as best as I can, but also to prop up whoever ends up representing the Indys in the general election.

Whatever cancers there are in the Independent Party, root them out now, before we get down to brass tacks. I do believe our diversity is what makes the Indys successful, being able to set aside our ideologies, without compromising them for a moment, for the sake of a greater good. Ask yourself, when you see Independents engaging in partisan hackery, if they are representing the best the party has to offer.

Everyone knows my displeasure with BigDaddy, and with Mduminiak capitulating and Kempite impaled and twitching, he is the biggest partisan gameplaying hack on U4Prez. He came to the Indy Party, thinking Independents would be stupid enough to elect him leader, even though he goes against everything Independents stand for. He continues to show his true colors, calling anyone left of him a socialist, trying to drive wedges between the left and the right within the Independents, trying to use my name to show division within ranks, as if continued contact with me were something sordid, as if appreciating my tactics as leader were tantamount to treason. THIS is why we all became Independents, because we were tired of the two main parties bickering with one another, pointing fingers, calling names, driving wedges, and more-or-less dummying down American politics. BigDaddy has been one of the bigest partisan bullshit artists since he came to U4Prez. He has said it for himself, partisanship is so engrained into American politics, it might as well be in the Constitution. He proves this belief every day. I have always urged you, and will continue to urge you, to shun him, to make it clear his petty gameplaying is not what being an Indepedent is about, and that he can go back to the Republicans if he wishes to continue his shenanigans.

At the end of the day, I always lay my trust in the intelligence and the commitment Independents share. No matter the odds, we've managed to construct a "party" that is truly all-inclusive, liberals and conservatives uniting under the belief that the status-quo will kill America, and the cure is to unravel the total domination the Republocrats hold in modern American government. If we can win at U4Prez, maybe we can do it in 2008 for real! We have a destiny as a party. It can be done. We have the candidates, we have the smarts, the commitment, the issue, the leadership, the unity. The Indys have it all. It's just a matter of putting it all together and sprinting to the finish line.

In these final weeks until the general election, I hope to have a few "gifts" for the Independent Party, something to pick their spirits up. I am your biggest cheerleader, your number-one fan. You can do it!

Love Always, Olivia. XXX

Dissecting a BigDaddy GOTCHA

Last weekend, we watched arguably the biggest name, the largest ego, certainly the biggest hypocrite at U4Prez get caught, committing one of the worst sins one can commit when talking about respect to democracy. Kempite was proven to have manipulates votes, which proves how "serious" a candidate he truly is.

Unfortunately for some, U4Prez is little more than a grand game of GOTCHA, and if that is the case, Copulate has pulled down the biggest bird by bringing Kempite's scheme to the attention of Eric Gurr.

Realizing that's all he has to offer, realizing there aren't too many other names as big as Kempite's to pull down, and realizing the Hard Right made him who he was, BigDaddy is going after me with renewed vigor.

Which is fine, so long as we all realize who his is and what he stands for. Political discussions, I've seen he has the ability to hold a discussion on a smarmy adolescent level, yet he is capable. That's not his passion, his reason for being. Promoting a conservative agenda is what he does when he has nothing better to do, and even that can only be promoted by him through calling anyone who disagrees with him a socialist.

His true passion is to play GOTCHA, and were he not able to do this, he probably would have left U4Prez a long time ago.

I've mentioned his antics playing hero for gay rights for deciding to browbeat Copulate's remarks in a PM to Kempite, yet never quite getting around to browbeating Kempite for doing the same thing to Bluproject. Which tells me his belief system is selective at best, hypocritical at worst, and when it comes to deciding where BigDaddy really stands concerning the issues facing the homosexual community, I fail to see how anyone could do anything but laugh wholeheartedly at him. Bullying one fagbasher and letting his fagbashing master off the hook doesn't sound like someone who is morally principled. Sounds more like bullshit partisanship to me.

As for me, he's tried to make things stick with me in the past. And like I said, whatever, you can't blame a leech for being a leech, he is what he is. My name is dotted all over his GOTCHA list, as if my name on such a list somehow ruins me, as if I were a communist merely for showing up on some McCarthy-era blacklist. Not that anything he claims he's "got" me for amasses to much, the only place where it might matter is in his own warped mind.

For instance, I voted for Michael Badnarik in 2004 for President. Not George Bush, not John Kerry. I voted Libertarian. Apparently, BigDaddy believes, for whatever reason, my vote somehow has no merit, which I still laugh at the ludicrous logic that somehow goes into such a thought. He claims to have voted for Badnarik in 2004 as well, and apparently he is insulted that I would vote for him, and since he believes he is the sole protector of all things conservative, my vote for Badnarik is somehow not good enough for him, hence it counts as a GOTCHA. In his bigoted and thoroughly partisan mind, how in the world could a liberal vote for a conservative? Such a notion apparently makes his soul shake in his rotting torso, because he is so deeply immersed in partisan bullshit that he cannot fathom such a thing to be possible.

I grew up in Arizona, the so-called birthplace of the modern conservative movement. There is no person in the history of Arizona more beloved than Barry Goldwater, the father of modern conservatism, and whether you are on the right or left politically, no one has an ill word to speak concerning Goldwater. He is everything that is good and honest in conservatism, and in an era dominated by neo-conservatives who take up the cloak of conservatism to merely get themselves elected, then go to Washington and spend like drunk sailors and snub their constituents for the sake of payola, Goldwater becomes more and more revered, and were he in his prime today, dare I say it, his policies would be deemed liberal, or as BigDaddy would call such things, socialist.

I liked Michael Badnarik from the first time I heard him on the radio, as championed by Charles Goyette. In a day when the two big parties are trying to drive wedges between one another and trying to disclude others from being in their camps, Badnarik argued that there is a place for both the left and the right with the Libertarians; if you are a conservative, you should try the Libertarians because they preach fiscal responsibility, and if you are a liberal, you should try the Libertarians because they champion civil liberties. From this introduction, I took the angst I felt for my fellow Democrats, and started to really shop around, considering other parties, seeing what they have to offer. If Badnarik was representative of the best of the Libertarian Party, maybe he and his party deserve more attention than they get.

During the 2004 election cycle, many were disgruntled with having to choose between Dumb and Dumber, and though 99% of American voters still voted for these two putzes, I do think, were there more exposure given to the other candidates, perhaps such disparity wouldn't continue. Unfortunately, the Republicans and Democrats have engrained themselves so deeply into the election and legislative processes, that they have colluded to not allow other candidates or parties to partake in presidential debates. When you realize that such debates are funded by taxpayer monies, you come to the conclusion that such collusion is not only illegal, it is dangerous to the integrity of American democracy.

Michael Badnarik and David Cobb, the Green Party nominee, believed in this so strongly that, on the day of the debate in St. Louis, they found a judge who agreed with them and would write them a court order to take to the debate in order to arrest party officials for collusion. The judge realized what I just told you, that the Dems and the Reps were breaking the law and working together to do so. Badnarik and Cobb went straight to the debate, wove their way through the crowd, and when they came to the barricades, the police ignored the court order and told the two, should they try to crash the party, they would be arrested. They looked at each other and broke the police line, to which they were immediately arrested.

In an era where everyone is scared of losing their jobs over the slightest hiccup, such an act should have stood out like a sore thumb. This is an age of covering your own ass, and these two could have gone to the press and made a big stink of the whole thing. Instead, they did what they felt was their duty as Americans and sought to deliver the court order. It's that kind of civil disobedience that distinguishes American democracy from every other political ideology in history, the idea that an individual or a small group can band together and expose the inherent evil of a given law by standing up to it. This is why we remember names like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Henry David Thoreau. Not that Badnarik and Cobb should be considered as great of men as Gandhi, but at a time when everyone is out to get their piece of the pie and protect it at all cost, it's refreshing to see someone actually take a stand against corruption and collusion, even if it puts their careers in jeopardy, their reputations at risk, and their persons in potential harm. While many gripe over the two big parties working with one another to keep alternative voices out of the mix, such an act of defiance should be seen as a rallying cry, and such men deserve to be seen as heroes.

Hence, I voted for Badnarik.

Apparently, such lofty thoughts for Badnarik mean nothing to BigDaddy. According to him, this isn't good enough. I am a liberal, Badnarik's a conservative, my vote for him must be wicked and twisted in some way. In BigDaddy's own words, there is nothing in Badnarik's platform that I would agree with, therefore my vote for him is worthless. This is BigDaddy's version of democracy, where you can only vote for your own kind, you can only vote for someone on the basis of agreement in core issues, and such concepts as leadership are not things to consider.

And I still don't understand it. You would think this could be something we could agree with, something we have in common. I'm glad BigDaddy voted for Badnarik. But for the life of me, I don't understand where he thinks my vote is somehow lesser than his. I would have thought, a liberal voting Libertarian, that would be a rallying point for him, to show there are reasons why a liberal could and should vote for conservatives. If he were truly a champion for all things conservative, you would think he'd think this nothing but positive.

But BigDaddy is not a positive person. He is petty. He puts partisan gameplaying over principle. Everything I just told you on why I voted for Badnarik, I told BigDaddy already, and apparently, this wasn't good enough for him. Again, I am a liberal, voting for a conservative, I must have some deep shady reason for doing so. As such, this becomes a GOTCHA in BigDaddy's mind.

I would like to believe, in these partisan games and petty party bullshit games that have ripped through American politics and have become more brutal with every passing cycle, the intent is to get more to vote your way. Deep down, I would like to think, when Mduminiak bashes a liberal, he's doing it because he is trying to show conservatism superior to liberalism, not simply because he is political bigot who is aroused by browbeating liberals and calling then names. While this belief is slowly eroding, I still would like to think, at the end of the day, partisan hacks are really trying to get their guys elected and are merely going over the top.

It's candidates like BigDaddy that help erode this belief, that partisan bullshit tactics aren't to get your guy elected, but to fill some deep-seeded need to kick someone, for whatever reason. We no longer live in a world where you can call an African-American boy, or a woman a broad, or even a homosexual a faggot. The hate in a bigot has to take some form, and politics is one arena where such bigotry, under the cloak of blind loyalty, is actually rewarded. As such, BigDaddy has no integrity. You would think, a liberal voting conservative, should be something he would welcome. Instead, he thinks it's a GOTCHA.

It is such a big GOTCHA to him that it's on his little list, the first thing you see on his profile, the thing he takes the most pride in.

I still don't get the part where I am supposed to tell BigDaddy, okay, you got me, I'll come clean. Do any of you? I voted Libertarian. Should I have consulted with BigDaddy first? Should I have asked for his permission before I voted? Christ, if he really voted for Badnarik, wouldn't you think he would be trying to talk others into voting for him? If he wanted Badnarik to be President, why in the world would he want me to NOT vote for him?

For as much animosity as there is between me and the collective Hard Right, their candidate-du-jour is Fred Thompson, someone I wouldn't vote for if a gun were pointed at my head. But let's just say, for the sake of argument, I woke up one day, my soul conveniently ripped out of my body, and I believed Thompson would make an excellent president, and I wrote with the same lovey-dovey tone that I did concerning Badnarik. Do you truly think a cheater like Kempite and a monkeyboy like Mduminiak, for as petty of people as they are, would tell me I as a liberal shouldn't vote for him? More than likely, they would say, yeah, you stupid liberal, even you came to your senses, and if Public Liberal Number One can vote for a manly man like Fred, surely the rest of your socialist brethren can do the same.

Not BigDaddy. Never think him ever capable of setting partisan gameplaying aside, even to find some element of common ground. Instead of considering our mutual vote for Badnarik something to build respect upon, he, in some twisted way that only dogs understand when they lick their own nutsacks, he considers it a GOTCHA.

Someone out there care to enlighten me and explain how he GOT me?