Not much can be done about the two-party system because the U.S. has a winner-take-all system.  You get nothing for coming in second, third, or fourth.  That is why third parties are such failures in the U.S.  The U.S. doesn’t have a parlimentary system.

One shouldn’t remain idle between elections.  That is what the ruling class wants.  That is true even in parlimentary systems.  Between elections is the time for letters to the politicans, letters to the editor, street action, etc.  It’s actually easier now than it used to be to organize, because of the Internet.

u know, P.T., it’s all fine and nice to say that we should organize.  but where’s the meat?  u organize to create power to contest other power.  in a democracy this hopefully can be done peaceably thru the formation of political parties.  but what do we have in this country?  a political duopoly reinforced by a mainstream media that turns huge profits from that duopoly every election cycle.

as i see it, we, as a people, have to do a couple of things.  we have to open up the political process…easier ballot access for other political parties, proportional representation, instant run-off voting, mandated access of all political parties to the public airwaves before elections, a more inclusionary debate format, etc.  secondly, we have to democratize the power of money creation by taking it out of the private banking cartel known as the “federal” reserve.  it’s become quite apparent that they’re jobbing us and have no interest in the common good.

Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, tends to take the path of least resistance.  His default position is whatever position the elite wants.  To get something different is going to require pressure from the public—that means organization.

E. J. Dionne happens to be on the telly just now. He’s prolixing blithely to the effect that Obama may be willing to go along with the Republicans on “certain issues like foreign policy” (dear reader, that, of course,  means, that Obama will “stand by Israel”, which is all the f**k that E. J. Dionne cares about), and we should all just get used to it. I’m so blipping tired of E. J. Dionne, the Israel-first “progressive” who gets to tell “the left” what we must learn to live with, as Obama disappoints again and again, and always in perfect agreement with Dionne’s notion of “centrism”.  F**k you, E. J. Dionne, F**k you to hell.

P.T.

Your posts are sooooooo far from what I’m talking about I suggest you stay in your universe, and I’ll keep to mine.

Max, YOU misunderstand power and know even less about macroeconomics (take a course).

See my list.  Those things weren’t gifts from heaven.  They were fought for.

Let’s see your list.

“He’s committed to the view that the nation state is a hopeless institution and that we must devolve into more peaceable bio-regions, and he may be right.”

The Balkan solution.

P.T.

Methinks you misunderstand power.

“Demand”!?! And how are you demanding, pray tell, lest I misunderstand what you mean by “demand”?

Please, be specific. None of this Obama double talk.

Max, as for what demands have been yielded, among my favorites are Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and the eight-hour day.

I’m sure you have your own list of favorites.

P.T.  i’ve been down the road you’re on with max before.  he’s committed to the view that the nation state is a hopeless institution and that we must devolve into more peaceable bio-regions.  and he may be right.  but i just don’t see him lighting a path to get there. and like i said in a response to tao recently, the breakdown of our nation state will probably lead to a road warrior situation instead of a peaceable one. 

personally, i have some hope that power structures at the nation state level can be democratized and the common good will be possible.  but hell, i’m hedging my bets.  i’ve bought gold and silver recently and a gun is next.  i just wanted to live out my life as a peace luvin’ hippie, but….

Max, you misunderstand me.

Power yields nothing without a demand.

P.T.
No my apologies, you mis-understand. I’m not looking for someone to SAVE me. I’m on a mission to wake folks up who think Obama is such person.

If I’m not clear, perhaps, it is the irony of my tone.

Best to you and your hunt for the great savior. Some day your prince will come (just need to put a little fire under him/her).

Max, sorry, but there is no man on a white horse to save you.

Power yields nothing without a demand !!!

P.T. Didn’t you hear Obama the Party is Over.

What about that don’t you get? Let’s push a little harder?

No, there are answers, but there not in Washington DC with BAARRRAAAACCKKK obama. (I know he’s got that covered to “It’s not me, you all have to do it at the grass-roots…” while he spends trillions…where’s the geni…spend your way out of depression…print that money….

P.T. you keep pushing…keep that fire going.

By the way, what are you doing to keep that fire going? I mean it’s your solution to our problems, so you must have some where we can go. I suspect, it’s on your PC. Send a little email or instant message to the O man and voila!!!

The problem is those who say that Obama is hopeless.  You’ll get nothing that way.  There has to be pressure from below.  Power yields nothing without a demand.

Elite opinion is beginning to shift.  That can be seen in the person of Lindsey Graham.

Amon Drool,

Think you got him pegged.

Along with the whole fascade is this achilles heel thing…O’s got no backbone. No instinct for nailing it.

He went against old man McCain/Bush just hung on him till the fight was over. Ya know what I mean? He didn’t throw a punch, he just stayed with him keeping the jab going, never getting hit, offering nothing more than a “I’m Not Him”. And so we got spineless (no fight in him) Obama; and soon his little crowd will diminish.

Not only is this not the 1930 when Americans didn’t have a TV to drug them into irreality, when they actually had to face one another on picket lines, on soup lines, on unemployment lines. When all the homeless weren’t some “category” we got use to; but down and out, neighbors. Now Americans can just hide and seek; getting their unemployment check in the mail…still driving their SUV to the market. Watch game shows and “reality tv” and hunker down, hoping Obama will do something about their foreclosure….

When the pain is great enough…then REALITY will hit…hard….will Obama be looking for the exit?

while mr. nodramaobama seems to have had a soothing effect on mr. e j, mr. drool ain’t feelin so good.

from the article: “what clearly didn’t work well was treasury secretary tim geithner’s effort last week to lay out the administration’s bank rescue plan.  obama offered no apologies.  he argued that geithner will keep working on an approach ‘over the next weeks, months, probably through the end of the year,’ because there is no ‘painless quick fix here.’ “

yeah, yeah…we all know that any fix to our banking system won’t be painless, but maybe it can be quick; and maybe, with the whole world economy spiralling down, it HAS to be quick.  barackstar tells us that timmy will be working on an approach probably through the end of the year.  there’s a growing chorus of voices from the left, right and center who feel that nationalization will be the inevitable outcome no matter what, so why not get it over and done with now?

an observation about barackstar’s spell over many intelligent people:  sam smith, over at progressive review, last fall recalled a conversation he had with a lawyer.  the lawyer felt that obama probably dazzled one and all in something called moot class back in law school.  as i understand it, the point of this class is to elucidate a contended issue in all its complexity…to view it from all possible angles.  the lawyer said that obama does this as well as anyone.  but he also said that he wasn’t sure obama had the stuff of an effective lawyer who could take one of those viewpoints and drive it home decisively to win a case.  there’s a lot of us who feel that barackstar, with his eloquent framing of issues and amorphous long range pragmatism, isn’t rising to an occasion that calls for decisive action.

Obama doesn’t have a problem. The only ones with a problem are the ones that keep believing this dude is something other than what he is (my god doesn’t anybody see what he’s DOING!!!

What really gets me about O is he’ll say things like “the party is over”. And then go and spend a trillion on friggin banks!!!!

Do you all know where the phrase The Party Is Over comes from? Read Richard Heinberg. When he said it’s over he meant it’s OVER!!!

But Obama like most faux Dem progressives wash and coopt these phrases for those who want, sooooooo deeply want to believe in the almight OBAMA. And in this corner for all the deaf, dumb and blind…at 155 lbs at 6’2” is the people’s choice, the ENVELOP Please. It’s BARRRRRRRACCCCKKKKK OOOOOOOOBAAAAAMMMMMMMAAAAA…OOOOOOOBAAAAMMMMMAAAA….OOOOOOOOOBBBAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAA!!!!

Obama’s problem is that he is shooting himself in the foot and doesn’t seem to realize it.  He is listening to the wrong people—Wall Street types.  Trying to save the insolvent banks is a failure.  They need to be nationalized, management replaced, bad loans written down, and the banks then sold off—as was done in the savings and loan meltdown years ago.  Without that, he is going to fail.

“Slowly we turn, Step by step” to regain control of our country away from the Corp Monarchies and Religious Zealotry.
It’s taken a long time to ingrain these UnAmerican Doctrines into US, it’s Going to take sometime to remove their cold Dead Grip from our Socio Economic neck.
It is Good to see some Republicans willing to shake off the Rigormortus of the Corp- Religio carcus. Not only Snow, Collins and Spector, but also Gov’s Arnold & Crist. Even Steele seems to be defying the Repugs Status Quo. Are these the only ones who recognized they lost the ‘middle’ in the last two elections. Seems most Repugs are steering even harder into a Right turn spin out.McCain Dares use ‘Generational Theft’ after racking up a historical deficit for two ill fated and unnecessary Wars. Not to mention when Americans think of our ‘Kids’ we have two young girls living in the WH.Does he think such a phrase doesn’t also remind US he was willing to leave his ailing first wife for a heiress- and shoved his kids into the shadows on the campaign trail. What the Hell does McCain know about Kids? He had to latch himself to a woman who was more concerned about her political career than her Unborn child or her oldest daughters privacy. Sarah laid them both out to be sacrificed for her own ambitions.
Pres Obama may not be able to turn US back to entirely face the Light, but he has helped US begin to turn away from unenlightened Darkness of the last 30 yrs of the Corp Monarchy and Religious Inquisition. Only fools think a wand can be waved and all will be right in the World- Simpletons who have no concept of just how complex and ingrained this Heretical and Treasonous Doctrine has infected our Country and how much Time & effort will required to unravel it in a Responsible, realistic method.
Ya gotta Know you’re doing something right when the screaming MeMe’s on either side of the Continum are having a Temper tantrum- Reality eludes them both.

President Obama, not all 8,000 US banks are bankrupt, and the Swedish model works. A reasonable percentage of US banks are currently insolvent and before their managers do more grievous harm to the economy, large insolvent banks should fall under temporary receivership, be reorganized and then resold to private interests. FDIC interventions on small failed banks are very successful, 28 FDIC trouble free interventions on bankrupt banks so far in 2009, this tried-and-true process should be scaled up for large failed banks.

Japan’s lost decade of the ‘90s is a direct result of the government’s use of taxpayer money to protect politically-connected failed banks and corporations from bankruptcy; sound familiar: Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, BofA, AIG, GM, Chrysler. Corrupt US politicians, i.e., Schumer/Dodd/Frank/Geithner/Summers, in order to protect their bonus-baby, welfare king, Wall Street bankers, are condemning Americans to the same disastrous “lost decade” fate.

Every day it seems more and more true—-a once-in-a-lifetime leader.  We are damn lucky to have this guy.  Not so sure he is lucky to have us, especially those mindless GOP trolls in the House.

Poor Barry! He thinks that preaching sacrifice to the american people is going to get the recovery ball rolling. Little does he realize, we are a nation of saps! We addressed phoney presidential election in 2000 not by expressing our outrage and marching on washington to protect our Constitution. No, we buried our heads in the sand, remortgaged our homes, ran up our charge cards and bought a bunch of stuff we didn’t need.

Now we need stuff, but we have no money, or credit to but it with.

Face it Barry, we are, after all, americans. We want to pull out a charge card, buy some asperin and lie down for a couple of hours. And when we wake, It will all be better! You cannot preach sacrifice to americans. Everyone else is supposed to sacrifice for us.

E-E:

Tell us again how Ralph Nader really was elected President.  You’ve made the same unsupportable argument at least 20 times. It’s not worth debunking it yet again—you’ll just wait a week and post it again with the same false premises.

Ralph Nader is not President of the US. Nor is he he ever going to be.  All the cooking of statistics isn’t going to change that.

Understand this: Ralph Nader will NEVER get 60,000,000 votes for President.  Never.  As in “Not Ever.”  Even Rupert Murdoch can’t change that—his day of changing an election ended in 2004.

And 60,000,000 is the minimum threshold one needs to get to in order to be elected under the system that has been in place since the election of James Madison.

Yes, a learner indeed, and a bad one at that. He uses hype words without any intent of those meanings, just catch words to fool the ignorant who hear those simple lies and do not hear his intended actions…OCCUPY AFGHANISTAN!  90,000 troops “more” and “unmanned planes” attacking Pakistan’s borders?

How can anyone call these actions PEACE?

CHANGE? From Bush? 

Worse invasions, not less.

And, this was “elected” by a majority RULE for an agenda mandate?

I say no it was NOT what the majority who voted for this claimant who I believe is entirely unworthy of any candidacy whatsoeve, what accomplishment has he EVER achieved to net any national limelight?

But, the corporate corrupt media wanted the public to believe only TWO CANDIDATES were VALID-INCUMBENTS- and that was a FAT LIE.

We are 100 million non-partisan registered voters and 62 million in the combined two parties at the registered “declared” voting affiliation.  24 states do not register party. (82 million voters non-partisan total plus 21.3 million in the 26 other states)

A Presidential election is not restricted to INCUMBENTS ONLY…by definition CHANGE DUE is supposed to HAPPEN.

I heard Obama’s military red ink declarations of intent and told myself the best thing to do is follow Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice, “Speak in the affirmative; emphasize your choice, by utterly ignoring all you reject.”  I rejected the media frontrunners as clearly bad.

Obama knows no proper Constitutional respect for proper leadership of AMERICA on track anymore than Bush did, and, it appears to me, he is WORSE as a few others have said also.

Certainly I voted for Nader and affirmatively focused on getting the word out that Nader was on MOST STATE BALLOTS, AND FOCUSED ON MY DUTY AS A MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEER FOR NADER, to tell people in Massachusetts Democracy means the BEST wins, and the information of the need to “believe” he can win, was partly to undo the lie of two party rule and the Democrats have Massachusetts all sewn up, no, the Democrats are a MINORITY, they are 36% of the registered voters and the Independents are 50% of Massachusetts.  (Also more than either party, nationally.)

THE MEDIA FORCED TWO PARTY INCUMBENCY as if it was wanted. 

Obama won corrupt voting results.

50 states, state by state can void the uninformed results and net the contest due where the truth of Obamas and his invasions will be forced into the limelight and is unmanned unconscionable weapons against sanity will be brought to his proper demise for all time. Restore the election shown as ballot power democracy in our U.S. Constitution where people as a nation choose for a nation, not a party contest.  It is not a party contest.  It is for a leader to win a national mandate of approval for their ability to lead on track, not increased off track!

How much red ink military?

Where does any sanity fit into the invasions tendered by Obama?

Nowhere.

Spare the Middle East any more offensive insults.

Practice peace and democracy and stop the red ink and red blood NOW.

Diplomacy means reason and talking if you are civilized, and offer humanitarian aid, not weapons and interference and claims of broker and red ink offensive weaponry.

You do not get peace with unmanned planes against a country who is not offending this country.

When it comes to heads of state, and people allow an incompetent into office, the people have to do the orderly removal with sanity. A 50 state void and valid informed new election should be demanded for democracy required.

The people can stand up against Obama’s insults and offensives—he is NOT representing PEACE and NOT Honor, and NOT Safety, he is ILLEGAL and an OFFENDER and not worthy, but should face challengers and let the truth of the people show in a REAL AND VALID ELECTION.  Void him as invalid, and force truth.