What I meant “from the bottom up,” was in relation to how we vote by first dissolving the two party system. Remove all of the benefits they get so that we can have a level field to do so. So it isn’t the money and the access which restrains all the other parties from supplanting the moribund two party monopoly. It is obvious they are both long past their time. It is the system that needs remaking from the bottom up and top down. We have numerous parties and at least three of them maybe five could do well if they had an equal chance on the networks, for it is advertisement that shows the rank-and-file that said party has a chance. Reread my previous posts here on this matter.

Night Gaunt
There are already plenty of established parties out there. You are telling me the Greens and Democratic-Socialist and New parties just don’t fit you at all? If many of them could combine and pool their resources and start from the bottom up with mayors and eventually governors it might break the monopoly but advertisement and wide media access is crucial. And our enemies know it.

To me starting over to build up th infrastructure of yet another party is a waste of energy when there is so much to work with. Maybe you should look into all of the parties that fit you point of view and see if you could work on organizing them into a hybrid. That makes more sense to me and cuts down on covering the same ground again. Why keep inventing that which has already been perfected? Conservation of your energy and time.

...................................

Where on earth to you get your supposition that I reject current third parties? I have posted, and on numerous occasions in fact, that I register Green precisely because I believe in the third party movement.

No me, Obama was the other candidate of the shadowed cabal that is orchestrating this whole ugly farce as we continue on the road to perdition. By they to sweep the Republic out to replace it with a theocratic militaristic corporate state.

We have been suffering from a hidden revolution since 1980. From the way I evaluate it they are very close to their next phase. Trashing the economy and making our Republic non-viable. Then they will swoop in with a friendly hand (claw) to save us from utter desolation to live in their clean, regimented, hierarchal, rigid, stratified society. Most will take that hand which it will be better that neo-barbarism and they know it.

IMO, we don’t have time for bottom up.  That’s why I suggest a huge melting pot of greens, indies etc including the net roots and storming the CM with sheer numbers.

We have to change how the primaries work.  And that means starting with Iowa.  If our nominee can take IA, we have a chance.

Of course, you may be talking about keeping Obama on. I’m not.

So far the only thing I can see to be done, Ardee is to start from the bottom up. However the only reason why Jesse Ventura became governor of Minnesota is that he was allowed access to the state wide televised debate. Without it he would have lost. There are already plenty of established parties out there. You are telling me the Greens and Democratic-Socialist and New parties just don’t fit you at all? If many of them could combine and pool their resources and start from the bottom up with mayors and eventually governors it might break the monopoly but advertisement and wide media access is crucial. And our enemies know it.

To me starting over to build up th infrastructure of yet another party is a waste of energy when there is so much to work with. Maybe you should look into all of the parties that fit you point of view and see if you could work on organizing them into a hybrid. That makes more sense to me and cuts down on covering the same ground again. Why keep inventing that which has already been perfected? Conservation of your energy and time.

Too bad we are really out of time. Just minutes or seconds (figuratively) till the end of the Republic as we know it.

Night-Gaunt, May 28 at 1:27 am #
So go ahead and waste time creating yet another party. You won’t have the national access necessary to have a chance. The two party monopoly keeps any real change out. So it isn’t the parties it is the system. Why is it so hard to understand such an elementary thing as that?
.....................

But you gotta start somewhere. What you suggest, and I do not defend our sick and sad system, seems to lead to no solutions whatever. At least working to build a presence in our Legislature that owes no obeisance to the corporatist rule is a start.

Have you an alternative?

Matter of opinion:

Would it not seem, even in a mass movement with high ideals and goals of noble causes to start, in the end opportunists, the predators who step on others to obtain their goals will take over and the cycle would begin all over again? 

If one looks at the cross section of posters here then other places, if they are any indication of what may be, can one even hope for change in an enlightened direction?

Firm control by the special interests or plutocracy will be enhanced as things get worse, for the divisiveness will divide the people even more.

Fear and hate seem to work so well for the plutocracy.  Bring out the differences, name calling using labels just look at the mass media making a big deal over Obama and Chaney debating how safe we are or not. 

Britain has a three party system, they seem no better for it. If little countries like do seem more benevolent towards their people, it is in the smallness and social makeup, it could be said our country as a melting pot is melting.

You’re right about the system, Night-Gaunt.  So the question is, is it possible to change the system, or should we just give up?

What would happen if a huge populist movement actively backed s/o the CM didn’t like?  Would what happen if in IA,  the Peace* candidate won?

What if we just *refused* to vote in the primaries for the CM candidates.  We’d have to be prepared for IA first.  It could be done if a massive amount of people were organized.

How and who to organize?  A person?  A group?  The ACLU?  I would think there would be many ways to do this.  And we’d have to get behind one candidate…....

“I think a third party would be good for our country. We could rally enough support from both parties to make a real change in the U.S.”—dano1950

Don’t you understand? The other parties are out there but the system is rigged to keep them out. So go ahead and waste time creating yet another party. You won’t have the national access necessary to have a chance. The two party monopoly keeps any real change out. So it isn’t the parties it is the system. Why is it so hard to understand such an elementary thing as that?

The cabal has control over the two parties, and I think the Libertarians too, so that it appears to be a democracy when in fact it is a sham. Any other parties are ridiculed or ignored mostly. Just an occasional appearance on the Sunday talk shows. How many voters watch that besides me?

Obama is just another agent of them. Doing his job, following his orders just like Cheney. Pawns in the game. Believe it or not just look at how they operate and what best fits the profile of their actions and get back to me.

“Two Sides of the Same Çoin” by Sibel Edmonds, who has a new blog devoted to whistle-blowers.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7172

I think a third party would be good for our country. We could rally enough support from both parties to make a real change in the U.S.

These ideas are but a few that would turn our economy around immediately.

Give people 50 years and up an early retirement.They could still have a check and benefits at their normal retirement age. This would create millions of jobs in our workforce.

Give those people a one million dollar pension tax free with three requirements. They have to buy a house and pay cash for it. They must buy a new American made vehicle and pay cash for it. They must pay off all mortgages on their homes and property. Banking crisis , unemployment problems and auto makers problems all healthy again.. Makes too much sense, doesn’t it.

Bring modern mass transit systems into our cities,towns and communities. Electric trolleys ,bus, and monorail systems that link towns as our aging bus lines once did.  It’s a start in the right direction.

Åctually, Åmon, you used the good cop/bad cop term which I re-worked in my words.  I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth. 

Is it too paranoid to think that cheney and Obama might be working together?  Ås you mentioned, Amon Drool, they appear to be two sides of the corporate state coin.  Cheney’s fascism makes Obama’s preventive detention look positively democratic.

Amon Drool,

Two points of view seems to be the illusion, in reality there may only be one point of view, sort of like good cop bad cop.

Cheney doing his thing right now seems a good illustration.  It seems to be planned divisiveness, the programed us and them.  Plutocracy seems to be real and in control, two party system is only for effect.

Change, hope and fear all working to divide the masses.

“For the left, which is unhappy about Obama’s decisions on such issues as preventive detention, Cheney’s outlandish explosion was a reminder of how much better Obama is than the guys who came before. While civil libertarians grumbled about parts of Obama’s speech, much of the left concentrated its fire on Cheney.”—E.J. Dionne

Maybe such concentration on Cheney is being done just for that reason. Why he is doing it in the first place. Show an ultra bilious extreme while the moderate voice implements those extreme measures. It is certainly working on Dionne. It isn’t working on me.

“And in the next phase of his security efforts, Obama hopes to bring civil libertarians and moderate conservatives to the same table to work out rules on detainees. These would be more protective of their rights than Bush’s were, but tougher than the ACLU might have in mind.”

I wonder what passes for ‘moderate’ these days? Mike Huckabee? A slight modicum of protection means nothing if they aren’t treated under the Geneva Conventions and the Bill of Rights. That is an American issue not ‘left or right.’

“Tacking slightly to the left” is a joke if you already are deep in fascist territory. How left do you mean anyway? Like the cosmetic changes to the military tribunals? Window dressing doesn’t change how wrong it is in the first place.

Obama isn’t ‘Bush, light’ he is just a smiley face on the hammer head instead of a smirking one, the hammer is still there. You are given anesthetic as the arm is amputated. It just feels better when they do it. The point is it is still being done.

Response to C Curtis Dillon

Dillon, you note the need for significant change, rather than tinkering.

I believe Obama has listened to the wrong advice and, on the biggest issues, made the wrong decisions.

Those of us in the middle class who helped fund the ‘miracle’ of his election won’t be there in the next election for good reason - our money has gone to fatten up the financial industry, the health insurance industry and the carbon producers. Simultaneously, our individual worth and incomes have fallen, our fortunes have not recovered, and our future taxes have been diverted from public services to private debt service. Significantly, our faith in ‘Change We Can Believe In’ has been shattered.

Candidate Obama was elected based on ‘Change We Can Believe In’, but President Obama acts as if change is not possible: no real savings in health care – not an economical single payer, but an added government payer; no end to meaningless war, just a change of locations and continued squandering of national wealth and credibility;  free cap & trade ‘coupons’ to fatten corporate bottom lines; no relief for the middle class, just the same old Republican welfare for the wealthy and trickle that never seems to find its way down. 

We really did want real change.  But the administration’s choices continue to hurt people and hurt them deeply, with no real change in sight. 

Unless policy directions, strategies and tactics are quickly corrected, in the next election, the Republican ‘argument’ (no matter what it is) will be made against a backdrop of failed Obama economic policies and an inability to pass desired and needed legislative initiatives. These failures will make the Republican arguments seem persuasive, no matter what they are. 

Lofty exhortations to patience dont pass muster; the financial institutions didn’t have to wait patiently to be bailed out by this administration; deals for cap & trade to pad industries’ books with another ‘asset’ were made quickly, and the single payer option was rapidly ‘hustled off to Buffalo’.  All these moves, endorsed and/or orchestrated by the Dems and Obama, are evidence that the they can act very fast indeed: when they want to.  Simply put: the preserving the well-being of the wealthy warrants quick action; the condition of the middle class is not a priority.

Republicans understand middle class hurt is real and middle class patience is not ever lasting. 

I wish President Obama had had more faith in those who elected him, believed a grass root constituency could be relied on for support for real change, believed citizens could comprehend their own best interests as well as corporations comprehend theirs, believed he could actually rally a nation to change, but he seems to have opted for the moneyed and entrenched, to lavish our wealth on the powerful and let the middle class pay for it in lost services, higher inflation, and diminished savings and retirements.

When this administration was elected, we faced endless and pointless war, huge deficits, a disastrous health insurance system, a rapacious financial system, declining purchasing power and an un-fair tax structure. We believed Obama a leader who could reverse these disastrous trends; instead, his decisions are hastening the decline of the middle class and accelerating the nation’s downward spiral.

As Obama has said, “If we were starting from scratch,…” But, when change in the status quo is required, as the President’s actions confirm,  the system will merely be tweaked to serve the entrenched private sector interests to the detriment of middle class. 

As you said, Dillon, America needs a major overhaul, not a tune-up; without a viable middle class we will fallen from our ideals, deprived our children of opportunities and a viable future.

Thank you for your posting.

the worm

Leefeller: “a third party would only be a change in dancing partners, not in politics?”

are there only two points of view?  isn’t the way to change things in a democracy done thru parties acquiring political power?  hasn’t the current dem/repub duopoly done all it can to limit the political process to it’s own organizations?

most TD’ers are frustrated with the present incompetent duopoly.  we don’t know exactly what to do about it, but we vent and share our thoughts.  and then there’s a certain TD feller who mocks us with his complacent hooterville hokey-isms.  better to go down fighting against the unjust…even if u don’t have a perfect vision of the just.

Probably so, Leefeller, but I’ve voted third-party since 2000 (Libertarians) and never regretted it; though, to be sure, were Cynthia McKinney on last year’s ballot in Georgia, I’d have voted for her.

Agreement as seen from most posts below, is just around the corner.  Sort of like victory in Iraq.

Politics with it’s predatory rules requires fancy dancing, most posters here, seem to have their own personal agendas for what needs to be done, special hand selected issues of preference.

It seems Obama has danced with every poster on this thread, not quite the Texas Two Step nor the Fox Trot, instead sort of a moon dance, while at the same time stepping on everyones toes. 

A third party would be only be a change in dancing partners,  not in politics?

tahitifp, May 25 at 8:14 pm #

First, thanks for the kind words ..Secondly, as to the matter of third party solutions to our problems I personally see no other way short of violent revolution to rid us of the corporate control of our governance.

Obama’s responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution and to do what’s right, not worry about what the media will do/say if he releases the photos.  People already everywhere know about the photos.  Our soldiers have been in dire trouble ever since first photos have come out, maybe even before that.

We never hear about our MIAs, do we?  I don’t for a minute think they’re all dead.

Obama says he wants to keep us safe.  What happened to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Folktruther and ardee, I couldn’t agree more.

During the campaign, I often referred to Obama as a “people pleaser.” I think that his true calling was that of a preacher, since he seemed to project all things to all people - or rather, people projected their hopes and dreams onto him.  He is very artful at spending a long time saying contradictory things in such a way that people are totally supportive.  Or saying nothing definite in 5,000 words. 

He’s certainly not a progressive and his preventive detention idea is more gulag than anything resembling democracy.

What is this “Third Way?”  Everything but the Constitution and the rule of law? 

On another blog, there’s a link to Bill Maher saying that the repugs are dying out, the dems are morphing into repugs and he suggested a third party. What are the realistic possibilities of that being successful?

Tropic Girl,

I really liked your post.  One thing I would point out, however, is it’s not just Washington that’s the problem. It’s that the Washington media and therefore the national and local media drowns out you and your neighbors. 

If Obama releases pictures of torture, for example, and the next week an American GI is captured, tortured, killed, and the people who do it claim they did it because of the pictures, President Obama will be in a shitstorm the likes of which he has never seen. 

Every news media outlet, national and local, will turn over the microphone to every rightwing nutjob on the planet.

This is what Obama must contend with, not just whether what he is doing is right or wrong or even how we as individuals perceive it, but how to deal with a corporate media that is run by a bunch of profit piranhas, who will tear him to pieces when he makes a mistake and will always give the far right their say, no matter how far from the truth, stupid, and malevolent their “say” truly is.

Uh, guess I should have added in my statement that Diem was a sorry rat bastard, too.

Uh, let’s get one thing straight. 

LBJ was a jerk and a moron, but he didn’t go into Vietnam with guns blazing. 

Good ol’ Ike sent the first American money and personnel to Vietnam to buttress the South Vietnamese government. 

Before that ol’ salt-of-the-earth Truman ignored Ho Chi Minh’s peaceful overtures—in 1945.


Kennedy came along and had a chance to stop the whole thing before America went crazy, but instead decided to let a CIA facilitated coup go forward that killed Diem, a South Vietnamese leader who was attempting to negotiate a truce.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/index.htm

Three weeks later Kennedy lost his head.

All that savage, uncouth, corrupt, murderous moron LBJ did was start shooting the guns that were already there.

Let’s hope Obama does something a little better than any of them.

Kesey Seven

What Dionne, a fake Progressive, does not say is that Obama is isolating the left as well as the right.  In order to continue the Bushite political revolution of the War on Terrorism, neoliberaalism, and a population depowering police state, he is moving to the center of the POWER CONSENSUS, far to the right of the POPULATION CONSENSUS.  And he is using fake Progressives like Dionne to jusstify and legitmate the consolidation of Bushobamaism.

This cannot be done while increasing the monstrous class inequality that has occurred over the past three decades without institutionalizing a police state.  What he is attempting is an DEMOBILIZING police state, different from the MOBILIZING fascism of pre-WW2. The aim is to keep the population in their homes rather than in the street, while continuing to take money from the population and giving it to the rich.

While increasing the economic devide, he is also catering culturally to conservatives: more religion, more torture but done by client-states, more neoliberal cant, more stand up comedy while he systematically breaks his campaign promisies and promotes violence and brutality at home and abroad.  With the Obama cheerleaders like Dione running interference.

And if this doesn’t work, there is always martial law and the prisons and concentration camps.  Or a combination of the two strategies.

True, PT, but don’t forget how Obama screwed all the centrists and progressives too in dropping “single-payer” from the health care debate. It’s not even on the table, and then the cheerleading e-mails asking my support for the Obama Plan! Yeah, I want to subsidize our betrayal with a contribution. But only to politicians who support single-payer. We are the only nation suffering from this corporate moneymaking machine a.k.a. “American health care.”

Obama’s timidity in confronting Wall Street and bankers will be his undoing domestically.  The (not nationalized) insolvent banks are a bottomless drain.

Considering the high popularity he had when he entered office, I think gay marriage and the bail outs have shown people that he may not be what they thought he was.

I cannot believe that the rush to give out trillions of dollars was thought out on anyone’s part. I remember reading somewhere that it was pretty much a Hail Mary.

The people should have been better informed, options should have been laid out, clear accountability and transparency.

It made Obama look like he had been portraying himself as an outsider, when he was nothing more than a go-for for Wall Street.  I do not see him living that one down.

As time goes on, it seems the Obama-sweep of the White House was a coup d’etat that began with either possibly Reagan or Clinton and is in Phase IV with Obama. 

Bush ok’s the first phase of the abolishment of both the constitution and our status as a capitalistic society (ie stimulus package) Obama is completing the process into full socialism.  Once our government took over the banking industry, goodby capitalism, hello socialism.

It seems that the Obama face is used to diffuse the world outrage that Bush created and now the good-cop/bad-cop routine has taken on a new meaning.

Protecting the NeoCon administration from accountability for their crimes, and taking the same positions in court, isn’t going to satisfy anybody to the left of gasbag Limbaugh.

I think you’ve pegged it right, Ardee; the president wants to please everyone, and if you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one.

Of course, if he tries to please just the Demos, the Repubs could find a rallying point on which to re-energize themselves and recover first control of Congress (as in 1994), and later regain control of the White House.

It’s not easy being president of the USA ... 

A thoughtful piece. How refreshing to read a review of the Obama Political Project.

ACLU has failed to prove the Release of those additional tortures to the General global public is what those depicted in the photos want. Have they asked what those who’s Civil Liberties they are claiming to defend feel about the mass desemination of these, at minimal, Humiliating pictures?
Or are they in their rush to Self Righteous indignation once again disregarding these detainees civil rights, to privacy?
As Americans we may think some of these techiques are merely humiliating- but from an Eastern Cultrual standard they may be considered far more egregious- depicting these men as lacking Bravado, undermining their strength and authority when viewed esp by women.
We as a nation often worry Rape victims will be ‘raped’ again by the judical system and it’s tendecy to depict Rape victims as ‘loose’ or immoral, thus allow the perpetrator the ‘shade of doubt’ as to the guilt of forced violation. could we as a nation in our morbid, insatiable desire for access to all evidence, being committing that same transgression? 
As for indefinite detention- we as a nation do this on a regular basis. Grnated the convicted get a Trial, but are required to satisfy the Parole board that they do not pose a continued threat to the public- often repeatedly denied, aka Charlie Manson. And why should we release someone who has no remorse or who still holds ideation of violence and mayhem- exhibits a Clear and present danger if released.
Let’s finally admit there are those on the Far Fringe Left who are as much Blind zealots to their Dogma as the Far Fringe Right. Willing to demand we ignore facts and disregard logic to satisify their Self Righteous doctrines. In fact we must also admit the Far Fringe Left often works in unison with the Far Right Fringe - just using different philosphies to justify their stance. “For Every Action there is an Equal or Greater Reaction” and that is the symbiotic relationship between these two groups. Case in Point- Far left’s ACT UP claims the Reagan admin is ignoring AIDS because it is a Gay Disease- thus handing the Religious Right moral Justification to deem it a Judgement and therefore ‘God’s Will’. When in fact AIDS was (is) a Human disease- since we all have blood. So not until it entered the Blood supply was Reagan Forced to address it.AIDS hit Africa before SF- so it was originally always a global human concern. ACT UP pushed back research funding instead of helped encourage it, allowing it to ultimately reach pnademic portions.
So now they demand the release of these add’tl photos which may appear bengign to most Western Observers- strengthening the claim it is ot torture and inciting more backlash from the Muslim World who sees them as even more humiliating and degrading.It is foolish to rush head long into areas of culture, mores and customs you do not fully understand- merely so that You may appear the Champion of Righteousness. I would at least like to hear the thoughts of those within that culture explain how they may view the world wide media release of these photos within the Mulsim world and by the Detainees, their families and their communities.Would they cause more harm than good in the attempt to build a bridge of mutal respect, because it would be viewed as ‘Raping the victim twice’ to merely satisify curiosity ?

Not to mention what is going to be Obama’s health care-reform disaster, simply because he is more interested in the voices and the empty promises of the corporatists that got us into that mess than the people.  As long as he is going to listen and take his cues from the for-profit medicine bunch there is no way there will be meaningful reform or a less-expensive system, and we will all continue to suffer.

Obama seems to be attempting to be all things to all people, a strategy doomed to fail as he will just be nothing to no one. I can certainly appreciate his efforts to be an inclusive leader, especially after the last eight years of exclusionary , secretive, agendized and narrow governance.

But this nation needs a real leader not a popularity contest. This nation needs someone who can pull us back from the corporatist run governance we see everywhere. How can this well intentioned author still believe Obama to be building a liberal establishment when, from the first, he has appointed conservatives to important offices, given away our treasury to the very men who demolished our economy for personal gain, escalated and widened the farcical “war on terror’?

Would the retention of Robert Gates be seen as the building of a liberal establishment? The appointments of Summers and Geithner? Sorry Mr. Dionne, but I believe this nation needs a leader who decides upon a course of action regardless of its popularity, regardless of what the opposition requires and then fights for that course, in the halls of Congress and in the media as well.

If that is indeed what you see Barack Obama as doing then you must also see that he is far from a progressive because he throws an occasional bone to the left.