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cann4ing, August 18 at 2:15 pm #

My differences with Nader have never pertained to his substance; solely to his tactics.

I think Nader could be far more effective if he joined Progressive Democrats of America; helped build a grass-roots movement to take the Democratic Party back from the corporatists who now control it, advancing real progressives over corporatist stooges in 2010 Congressional and local elections and then entered the Democratic primaries to run against Obama in 2012.
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Are you familiar with the history of Nader’s entry into the political arena?

If you were you would understand that, prior to running for office, he approached both political parties requesting the insertion of several items into their respective platforms.The Democrats rebuffed him and the GOP wouldnt even meet with him, thus he ran for office, not with the hope of getting elected, but in order to put his platform before the American people.

You are correct in your assertion that the Progressive agenda will never come to fruition as long as there is not a coming together of the several factions, the putting aside of ideological differences in order to advance the general policies of liberalism and populism.

I believe this cannot happen as long as the control of media, and thus the propaganda arm of fascism, is working daily to keep progressive ideas and ideals from the general public, and distorting and demeaning them incessantly.

The older I get the more I believe that Jefferson was correct in his assertion that revolution may be necessary every so often…..

My differences with Nader have never pertained to his substance; solely to his tactics.

I think Nader could be far more effective if he joined Progressive Democrats of America; helped build a grass-roots movement to take the Democratic Party back from the corporatists who now control it, advancing real progressives over corporatist stooges in 2010 Congressional and local elections and then entered the Democratic primaries to run against Obama in 2012.

This would create a tactical advantage as it would remove the chiseling but effective claim by corporate Dems that a vote for Nader is a vote for a Republican.  Also, if Nader were make this a very public approach, it would increase pressure on Obama to be a bit more receptive to progressive legislation between now and the next election.

For too long, corporations have controlled both parties and the media.  It is far more feasible to first capture one of the two major parties before making a viable effort to put government into the hands of the people.

Sepharad, August 18 at 12:24 am #

ardee, I’ve never worked within the Democratic party per se, though I’ve worked with Nader groups. I’ve also looked at and sometimes believed in the illusion that we can build a new populist movement.

Illusion? No, resoundingly no. There is a populist sentiment already within our culture, 70% of us want a single payer health care plan, is that not an expression of said populism?

I personally believe that populism is where the real answers and only legitimate power lie. But I’ve also lost faith in the ability of any group to grow big enough to take on the Dems and Repubs—partly because they continue to split the numbers and partly because their leaders have egos the size of little suns: can you imagine the Naderites and McKinneyites and Kucinichites would ever cooperate enough to elect one person? Look at the squabbling between Hillary’s people and Obama’s fans.

Why, sepharad,have you met Nader, or McKinney or Kucinich to be so certain that they have such ego? Or perhaps ego is what it takes to sacrifice the piles of money available to those who leave law school and enter private practice instead of public service? Nader is not poor but he certainly could have been a managing partner of a prestigious firm and be worth tens of millions more. Politics is always a contentious business, lets stick to issues shall we?

Until that millenium, when the independents put aside their huge egos and figure out how to get all their disparate supporters to field one candidate and one platform, there is not much we can do other than try to drag the autopilot of the Democratic party out of its far-right mode, and we can only do that if we organize on issue by issue and let the Dems they can’t keep ignoring progressive liberals or next time we will not vote for them, hoping that the Republicans will $render life such a piece of drek that the Democrats will have to accept major changes to the left or go with a revolution.

This may very well be happening today, over the health care debacle in fact. This issue certainly exposes the raw nerve in our system that causes pain to so many so that the few can benefit so greatly. I will continue to work for third party presence at the national level.

I believe that even five Senators representing populist voters could have taken a firm stand and perhaps even swayed the debate, if not popular opinion, and early in the process so that the ponderous ship of state could have been swerved to the correct course.

It feels so impossible to rally the progressives. Reminds of an “Entmoot” from the Lord of the Rings. :—D

It [uniting/rallying progressives] is a very rare occasion (usually after a few years of a Democrat in the White House). We debate and discuss everything ad infinitum, bringing tons of baggage (years of long neglected issues). There are some great leaders: maple, oak, birch… however this leads to a splintered effort when what is needed is a “tree”. We continually put up with those who would chop us down and exploit us to fuel the fires of industry. Sometimes I feel like Merry and Pippin talking to a bunch of pragmatic Ents when they told Treebeard: “but our friends will die” or something like that when they took three days to discuss the attack on Isengard.

Of course there the obvious tree-hugging, which I whole-heartedly embrace. :—) I wonder if there will ever be a “last march of the Ents”.

“Of course, it is likely enough, my friends,” he said slowly, “likely enough that we are going to our doom: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later. That thought has long been growing in our hearts; and that is why we are marching now. It was not a hasty resolve. Now at least the last march of the Ents may be worth a song. Aye,” he sighed, “we may help the other peoples before we pass away.”
The Two Towers: “Treebeard,” p. 90

“such a piece of drek that the Democrats will have to accept major changes to the left or go with a revolution…”

Sepharad—lets go with the later…ok? ; )

Straight to Plan B, no “incremental changes”

McKinney/Nader/Kucinich “fans” actually have a new, unique vision of the uS, (at least some of them do) whereas , I dont believe that most run of the mill Dems do (people who thought Bill did well just wanted a female Bill in Hillary—now we have an Af Am Bill—they liked “Bill” until he dissed Obama blah, blah, blah—conservatives one and all!...)—-it would be a candidate worth the Left’s fight, for a change. (it wouldnt have to be one of those three candidates)

MarthA—Reforming the Dem Party has ‘not been tried”? Are you out of your mind, or 16 yrs old??

Why should they “reform”? They have everything they want and live lives few of the unwashed masses will ever imagine? Neo-liberals pound the blogs and airwaves with ‘how much worse it could be” and stick it in sheeples heads, that, if we don t put up with Obama s’ crap , we will just end up with Bushies forever!!

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy…dont you WANT to do better, as a country?? They will give you whatever shit you will take!!

USAns seem to have a bottomless pitt when it comes to eating the duopolies’ shit—the rest of the world thinks we are crazy…and they may be right.

Way to go, Cann4ing.  I always thought you were honest, just knuckleheaded, like most lawyers.

ardee, I’ve never worked within the Democratic party per se, though I’ve worked with Nader groups. I’ve also looked at and sometimes believed in the illusion that we can build a new populist movement. I personally believe that populism is where the real answers and only legitimate power lie. But I’ve also lost faith in the ability of any group to grow big enough to take on the Dems and Repubs—partly because they continue to split the numbers and partly because their leaders have egos the size of little suns: can you imagine the Naderites and McKinneyites and Kucinichites would ever cooperate enough to elect one person? Look at the squabbling between Hillary’s people and Obama’s fans.

Until that millenium, when the independents put aside their huge egos and figure out how to get all their disparate supporters to field one candidate and one platform, there is not much we can do other than try to drag the autopilot of the Democratic party out of its far-right mode, and we can only do that if we organize on issue by issue and let the Dems they can’t keep ignoring progressive liberals or next time we will not vote for them, hoping that the Republicans will $render life such a piece of drek that the Democrats will have to accept major changes to the left or go with a revolution.

amon, I suppose I was too fixated on ending the Bush/Cheney flirtation with fascism during that “last go round.”  I’m beginning to think that Obama is worse than even his detractors observed during the campaign.

The best assessment of the man I’ve seen is John Pilger’s “Obama is a Corporate Marketing Creation.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C62KAmMzu0E

M.B.S.S.,

How can you know there is no reforming of the Democratic Party, it hasn’t yet been tried?

To reform the Democratic Party it will take a majority of the whole common population to do it and all would have to join the Democratic Party so that they would be able to vote in the Primary Election process; then systematically, each person could be removed that votes against the common population.  It really could be done, as long as there is a legitimate vote count, but unless everyone signs up as a Democrat to test the process, it will be difficult to test the process to even guarantee whether or not the vote count is legitimate.

As long as the common population is kept divided between two parties, it will be much more difficult to defeat the system that is working against the common population.

well..well, ernest.  i couldn’t imagine something like “the more gifted corporate Democrats, for example Barack Obama…” coming from u during my first go-round at TD.  it brings to mind the keynes quote about changing when the facts change…altho i do think the tendencies, if not the “facts”, were apparent during barackstar’s campaign.  you’ve made my day, fella (ha!...i guess i’m easily pleased)

ardee,

If you think the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats can’t be voted out you had better think again.  The only thing that would keep the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats from being voted out is if the voting system is corrupted so that it doesn’t register the actual vote, otherwise they are history.  If the voting system continues to be corrupted, then the only alternative is mass revolution and blood shed for the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION to prevail.

sometimes it’s nice to come home to truthdig and read comments from people who see our corporate oligarchy as it is. 

sorry dem partisans, the locals are right.  you are harming this country with your “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” b.s.  sometimes the good just isn’t any good.  sometimes it’s the same ol’ business we’ve seen forever and a day.  there is no reformation of the democrats, or primary challenges, that are going to fix things at this point.  there is only dissolution and demolition.

Check out “Wing Nut Mobs Provide Cover for Obama/Baucus Health Care Betrayal”

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7360#more-7360

“As the corporate media misdirects focus on brown shirt-like disruptions at the town halls, the real ‘death panels’—- the corporate profiteers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians—- hammered out a pseudo-reform package that will perpetuate a corrupt, dysfunctional and deadly health care system which kills more than 18,000 Americans each year simply because they can’t afford coverage and countless more when carriers refuse to authorize vital, life-saving procedures…”

Earthian- I also supported Sheehan in the Pelosi race and was astonished by her getting less than 20% of the vote in a progressive district that included Castro district.  Do you have any idea what went through people’s minds to make them prefer pelosi to sheehan.  It seems to me that this is striking example of people identifying with their own oppression.  With identifying with power rather than people.

However, the Dem party is hopeless for precisely the reasons that Ardee gives.  It is a top down vehicle that is more threatened by leftists than by Gops.

I wonder,Sepharad if you have ever worked within the Democratic Party? My own experience in grassroots community efforts shows plainly the futility of any attempts to reform said party.

The candidates, especially on a state and national level, are chosen by fiat from above, thus attempts to put forth populist candidates remain futile. The national organisation controls everything, the money, the “stars speaking on behalf of candidates, the entire process in fact. The entire election process, by its very dependence upon tens of millions of dollars to gain a single seat in the Senate for example, is tightly controlled and not subject to the wishes of the rank and file.

If you think that some popular uprising within the party is even possible perhaps you are simply unfamiliar with the workings of two party politics. The only time the local organisations are even noted is when calls for money and time are requested. No suggestions from community based groups gain traction as both the Dems and the GOP are top down organisations.

This is why I ,and others familiar with the process, call for a populist movement that builds a party wherein the power is concentrated within the local communities and the top is listening to the majority. Calls to vote out blue dog democrats is absurdity when one understands the inside process.

Martha, even though it now seems that we are losing our public health plan option—to me, the most important issue assuming the economy doesn’t go belly up—I think you’re right about the need to reform the Democratic party, or more to the point MOVE the party farther left. I’ve sometimes thought (and posted) that we need a few more major parties to give everyone a choice, but the danger there is that Blue Dogs, Independents, Libertarians and Republicans might still go for the center-right while the varied degrees of left-leaning folk and their parties would be without much clout. (Something of the sort happened to Israel, when the majority vote-getter Tzipi Livni could not prevail over the far-right Bibi Netanyahu in forming the government because the far left parties (including the one I favor, Meretz) wouldn’t join Livni, seeing her and Labour as too centrist, and what they ended up with is a right-wing government. A disaster.)

You correctly reminded us that Social Security, Medicare and Voting Rights Act all came from Democratic Presidents. We have to let our local, state and national Democratic leaders know that if we’re going to sit at their table, they’re going to have to do better on progressive issues. Like public health. It might be that one reason they don’t take us more seriously is that they see progressives as the loony left scattered in other little parties to make a point rather than as integral to the Democratic party’s councils. Just read in the NYTimes that, for example, Obama’s neighborhood organizations have been less than active in responding to the need to get people out to the town hall meetings. If they think that all we’re good for is chanting election year mantras—“Yes We Can”—they aren’t going to take our policy preferences seriously.

Chris Hedges, in this article, is accurate about the problems and the goals. He’s right about Obama. And Nader. And I normally like the thinking he demonstrates. Hedges is a true progressive.

But his proposed means to achieve our goals is tactically flawed.

He says:

“we live in a corporate state where our welfare and our interests are irrelevant, we are in serious trouble. Our last hope is to step outside of the two-party system and build movements that defy the Democrats and the Republicans.”

This is flawed either/or thinking.

Cindy Sheehan’s campaign, which I supported, is a clear example of the futility of operating entirely outside of the Democratic Party. It was an ideal test case. Nancy was unpopular in a very progressive district having defied a get-out-of-Iraq referendum in the district. Cindy was a very well known true progressive. But she abandoned the Democratic Party, and abandoned the Green Party, running as an independent.

She got 17 percent of the vote. Nancy got about 71 percent.

The root of this article’s flaw is Chris Hedges’ assumption that the Democratic Party is monolithic—one thing. It isn’t. There are corporate Democrats. There are true progressive Democrats. And there are others. Hedges offers no scenario for the 2008 election other than the prospect of McCain/Palin winning if we did what he suggests. And Hedges offers no scenario for actually achieving the goals we have: a non-violent, constitutional progressive revolution that brings public policy to match public opinion, which is largely progressive.

We don’t have to abandon the Democratic Party and rely wholly on the Green Party and movements outside the party. The Democratic Party, the party of Jefferson, the oldest political party in the world is a container, and of the two we have, the more amenable to progressives. Instead of the either/or, ineffective thinking Hedges offers for moving our agenda forward, I suggest that we can think more inclusively, and more broadly when it comes to electoral tactics.

Progressives can *both* support progressives in the Democratic Party, *and* can join the Green Party. I’ve supported both consistently where I live.

We can *both* pursue movements, as we should, *and* we can pursue electoral politics supporting and promoting progressives, especially promoting progressives against corporate Dems in primaries. We can *both* start or build our progressive caucuses in state Democratic Parties, *and* we can build our Green Party.

The flawed either/or thinking Hedges demonstrates will not move us forward far enough. Both/and thinking is what we need, leading, potentially to massive actions: a growing Green Party; a swelling of progressives in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and in State Progressive Caucuses in state Democratic parties; a huge, coordinated, robust movement for change; and ultimately, a non-violent, constitutional progressive revolution that overtakes the corporate regime by implementing the progressive agenda.

SturatH,

ardee is one of the subjective sophists on this blog, although a poor sophist, he deliberately tries to shut down meaningful dialog any which way he can.

StuartH, August 16 at 2:11 pm #

Meanwhile, Stuart, in this reality it was you who damned with faint praise the third party movement, who said that ,once elected, third party folks cannot cope with the process, and, by doing so, showed your true colors as a sad democratic loyalist, blind to the failings of your party.

I am sorry you have failed to obfuscate enough to hide the fact of your poor attempt to propagandize.

Night-Gaunt,

I never would have thought that that song, “Onward Christian Soldiers Marching As To War” would have become a mantra for occupation of small countries, but the Church as a whole doesn’t appear to care, it appears the church as a whole actually think democracy is being given to these small countries, by the U.S. attacking them, without cause, and killing enough of their people to bring them into submission, which is sad.

Nader is right as usual, and there are many examples to indicate this capituation of the Democratic Party to “Republican” principles and actions, despite the sporadic actions that sometimes give us respite.

Among the most obvious of the foreign policy capitulations to the “fascist-business-as-usual” is the Obama administration’s refusal to rebuke and cut off aid to those currently ruling Honduras since the coup’ de tat.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s callous remark about Manuel Zelaya’s attempt to return to Honduras as being “reckless” is could not have been more revealing about her true nature than if she had openly kissed and embraced Dick Cheney, or even cheerfully waved a swastika flag.

Then there is the Obama administration’s championing the “rights” of corporate entities like GE in third world countries. Independent journalist, NITYANAND JAYARAMAN, on this recent manifestion of Obama to give support to Union Carbide-like Bhopals: “Like his predecessor, President Obama is pushing India to guarantee that the Union Carbides of the nuclear world suffer no losses regardless of the role that may have been played by their equipment or technology in causing . . . disaster.”

(See http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=cr010809a_time.asp)

ardee:

“Get off your high horse, you haven a clue as to my history of activism and only , yet again, refuse to grapple with your stated hypocrisy and support for the Democratic Party that has moved far to the right, where you are, no doubt, quite comfortable.”

The only thing that is real here is some text. 

However, your over the top response to it, doesn’t actually help or make sense.

If you stand back a bit mentally, you could use the opportunity to cure the “haven’t got a clue aspect.”

Much of the problem with a forum like this is that we can’t see or know anything of each other.

What you have to do, unless you just want to get off on screaming vague and meaningless epithets at other people, is to try and construct more of a scaffold in which there can be a meeting of the minds in the middle.

The sort of caustic idiocy that comes across is basically very ugly and not at all likely to make me or anyone else think you have anything other than some kind of emotionally overwrought condition. 

This is not a fight.  This is a discussion.  Not only that, but I bet we substantially agree on at least some central assumptions. 

I have seen a lot of people approach the political arena through blind rage and the result usually is that they get more and more frustrated because people don’t respond well to that, and they end up emotional wrecks who can only refer to their own bitterness in the end.  I’ve seen this happen to dozens of people.

Two is company, three is a crowd, unless you want a threesome that is. Yes three or four whatever the populace wants and sees as viable for them. Open it up like it had been until the recent period starting 50 years ago. Now they are sclerotic and ossified in their hermetically sealed coffins. Impervious from the outside. Only a few stragglers on the inside can make a little difference. They are few and far between.

We are given the choice between the real doves the doves that strike like serpents and the serpents on fire. Hard to discern which is the real deal and which is the fake deal.

As long as the two parties have insulated themselves from the bulk of the population who want new direction and new ideas we won’t have any good change. We have, however, plenty of bad change as the Christian Supremacist Corporate Party moves on with their Great Commission to remake the USA and the world in their blood soaked image. “Onward Christian soldiers, marching off to war…”

The reason Liberals are having difficulty is because of the sociopathic Texas Republican Dick Armey’s Freedom Works ORGANIZED SOCIOPATHIC RIGHT-WING POLITICAL CONSERVATIVE SOPHIST PROPAGANDA being spewed all across the nation by his Republican followers, who even though are on government run Medicare want PRIVATE CORPORATIONS to run their Medicare, talk about the Right using any hook or crook, one would never have thought people who call themselves Christian could be lower than a snakes belly, but these Republican deceivers are following Hitlers Play Book to the “T”.

Re: By Leefeller, August 16 at 11:38 am #

Leefeller,

If you are satisfied by the status quo, that is your prerogative. But please don’t try to justify your attitude by attacking anyone who offer different prespective and offer suggestion for change.
It doesn’t help your point view if you express it in a disjointed and incoherent drivel.

Twos company and three a crowd, we hear noise which is quite loud.

Proposed change would mean the same, differences being divided by three why not four?

Third party someone else to blame,  change for change, the new bane.

Arguments for, arguments against, others are sitting on the fence.

What say you,  pick a party and call it blue
Another we will call it red, dosn’t need to have a head

Now something quite different, we will call it green.

This feeling of change, why does it feel like a good dose of mange?

Others know all of course I don’t, supposed to make me feel like a dolt.

Colors all so nice, vote and have a slice.

elisalouisa,

The SOLUTION is to use the Primary Voting System provided by law to REFORM the Democratic Party, the ONLY party of the two that has ever done anything of benefit for the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION. I am committed to REFORM of the Democratic Party.

StuartH
You sound like you are in lala land. Get over it! Excuse me, that is so Republican.  Obama had the opportunity to make a difference right from the beginning. Few Presidents have had that. Obama could have required transparency as to the bail out money going to Wall Street. Obama could have demanded that bonus money to CEO’s in companies receiving bail out money be immediately halted.  In line with his Health Care Agenda he could have increased funding for investigation of fraud in Medicare. Yes, he cannot personally do these things but he can bring such items to the foreground and twist some arms so to speak. Obama has cooperated with Wall Street and tried to appease AMA and the Insurance industry. He should have taken them head on. Not only did he not do this but he has cooperated and agreed to their demands.  His Town Hall meetings are a gimmick and a laugh. Another thing, how do you know what people on this board have done as to activism and participation in the Democratic party? To me this Board has provided the missing link as to what is really going on in this country and the solution is not lifelong commitment to the Democratic Party.

StuartH, August 15 at 4:41 pm #

I can feel the heat of the anger through the computer screen.

No, honestly you cannot. What you do is sublimate and attempt to subvert the criticism of your status quo position

Don’t stop being angry.  But don’t let it be out of control so that it burns you out too quickly.  That happens to an awful lot of people.

More horseshit , sound and no fury signifying nothing.Nice job?

Can’t stand people who counsel patience and long term endurance?  Fine.

No, what I cannot stand is the dishonesty you posted that sparked my initial response. You smarmily pretend support for the third party movement while disdaining those who participate in it.

Use your anger.  Get motivated.  Do something beyond posting angry messages on discussion boards.

Get off your high horse, you haven a clue as to my history of activism and only , yet again, refuse to grapple with your stated hypocrisy and support for the Democratic Party that has moved far to the right, where you are, no doubt, quite comfortable.

To me, having actually tried it, those caustic and impatient citicisms of the Democratic Party don’t usually come from much real world experience with the people who really live out there in the community that have to be engaged with for any real traction to be made in any direction.

Perhaps it is really just the language.  These boards to tend to bring a certain style out in everyone.  But it comes across as the visual equivalent drinking bad bong water.

An entire post that says nothing, diminishes opposition to your position without any attempt at fact or rationale. Who the fuck do you think you fool?

I read, time and again, meaty, weighty and quite factual criticisms of the action, inaction and lack of cohesion of the party to which you support irrationally.

Leefeller, August 15 at 10:16 pm

A post that criticizes those who offer solutions without offering any of your own seems rather silly….

Perhaps the third party movement is a symptom, perhaps it is a panacea, perhaps it is something more important. Either way it is a suggestion for change, what are you selling?

Don’t you understand, Stewart, Obama is leading the country in the same direction as Bush; the policies are going in the same way despite the rhetoric. Because he is financed, media’d and managed by the same ruling class.  You can get your poitical kicks by supporting one faction of the power structurre but in doing so you are supporting war, inequality, destitution and a police state.

So some believe they have the cats meow on what should really be done, the evangelical mentality is so endearing it brings a tear to me eye! Yes the answer so simple, having it on the tips of their collective tongues (Folk Truthers cats tounge, Mousey). Obama is not doing what one surmises some say he should do, because he is wrong and does not please one with the warm hugs of love so beloved like the comfort receeved from all those past presidents and Congresses. 

Arguments are many and varied, we need a third party to solve all our problems, a third rail focus, a quick fix for all those ills built over so many years on solid foundations of opportunism, so nice to know.

All One need do, is become Green, Red or Blue the differences are so clear it causes pain to keep the focused Mona Lisa like smiles, as one lives and goes through a life of glee, knowing everything is solved.

Well, that last comment was kind of high school snark wasn’t it.  As I thought about it, it seemed like an example of the kind of thing I usually argue against.  Calling names and engaging in adolescent snarkiness should enter into it when the problem is to understand something difficult to get your mind around and come to grips with it. 

I think that it is hard to read posts in this environment because we all think that it is about having our fun at our own keyboards.  We don’t expect to have holes in our arguments pointed out.  That just seems so unfair.  But, going back to re read and re-consider and maybe going outside for a while helps. 

All we have here is a bit of text, which might represent us a bit, but a lot is left to the imagination, which may or may not be a good thing…

I can feel the heat of the anger through the computer screen. 

Don’t stop being angry.  But don’t let it be out of control so that it burns you out too quickly.  That happens to an awful lot of people.

Can’t stand people who counsel patience and long term endurance?  Fine. 

Use your anger.  Get motivated.  Do something beyond posting angry messages on discussion boards. 

To me, having actually tried it, those caustic and impatient citicisms of the Democratic Party don’t usually come from much real world experience with the people who really live out there in the community that have to be engaged with for any real traction to be made in any direction.

Perhaps it is really just the language.  These boards to tend to bring a certain style out in everyone.  But it comes across as the visual equivalent drinking bad bong water.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a Green Party.  For a few who tried running for office as Greens that I have talked to, I found they were caught by the difference between the kind of rhetoric that might get one elected in some districts; and what happens when, as local elected officials, they find out the true nature of responsibility for making decisions based on the legal authority on the table in executive session.  That contradiction has to be overcome before there can be a viable third party.

So,StuartH You are both for the growth of the Green Party and against it because, once elected they are, in your opinion, unable to engage in the political machinations that make our system effective??????

I have not heard such confused and sophomoric defense of the Democratic Party and the sick and sad system they function so well within since, well, since I stopped reading MarthaA.

Nor, in fact, have I read such pompous and arrogant dismissal of the entire Third Party movement as unrealistic since I stopped debating High School students, having of course graduated from that level.

Your support of the Democratic Party is a defense of the status quo. It also, in its tone and tenor , is an insult to thinking Americans seeking to repair a desperately ill political system.

The failures of Barack Obama to lead, to change the course of this nation, to take charge of his own damn party in fact, has been enumerated many times, and by more eloquent posters than I would hope to achieve. Your Party, that you hold so dear and inviolable, has dissolved into a bickering, squabbling mass that cannot vote as one bloc on any issue of major import.

In an era when the GOP has moved so far to the right as to be a less than significant force in today’s politics there now exists a vacuum precisely because the Democrats lack the leadership, the will, or the independence from corporate paychecks to fill that void.

Sorry Stewie but your allegiance outweighing your astuteness is showing.

StuartH,

On your answer to Folktruther and me you went in all different directions, but ignored the main important point which that the Democratic party had joined the Republican party in serving big money/corporations and abandoning labor and the common folks giving them only rhetoric and make believe posturing and theatrics without any substance whatsoever.
You blame the so called gronala activists for lack of commitment to the party, but didn’t these “granola activists” campaigned and worked hard for Obama. What was their reward? Bailing out the crooks of Wall St. and a credit card “reform” bill!
Where is the CHANGE. It is exactly the same W Bush policies camouflaged again with make-believe bullshitting that amount to nothing. Look at his pathetic spiritless performance in the health care “reform” debacle, he and the so called conservative Democrats. Definitely, this is not a reform at all. 
You wrote:“So I think the struggle, through the Democratic Party is well worth it”.
Struggle for what? If the situation is deteriorating,  do you keep doing the same thing again and again? That is the definition of insanity.
With past struggle the Party , nevertheless, kept moving toward the right until in some instances it is to the right of the Republican party during election campaigns??!!

Folktruther:

Having actually gone out into the precincts to work for progressive policy reform that is worth struggling for, I feel I have a right to stand on that experience.

Over the years I have seen an awful lot of people whose strong opinions about how things work come from listening to those who justify not doing anything by cranking out lots of fashionable negativity. One can become quite popular that way on the party circuit.

A lot of people, even people who get on community boards and committees, approach politics from the standpoint of waiting for someone else to do something so they can then show how clever they are by lacerating those efforts with cutting wit and perhaps gathering votes against constructive action. 

Unfortunately, there are as many people on the left as on the right who are only too eager to play that game.  That’s the real problem with making any kind of progress, at any level of governance. Seems to just be in the human genome.

Real effort takes putting one’s ego on the line and committing oneself to getting real, usually in the attempt to figure something out with people one disagrees with.  It’s a stage of adulthood that all too many never achieve.

Politics is very difficult, that’s why we all find it compelling, yet frustrating. It is at least a substitute for swords and axes.  We spar instead with words and structural bylaws and the effort to gain a majority around proposals. 

There are some of course, who wish for the muscular idea of using guns.  In talking with friends from places from El Salvador to Eritrea, I know for sure that the sort of community organizing that I have been involved with would have gotten me lined up against a wall and shot a long time ago. 

So I think the struggle, through the Democratic Party is well worth it, as imperfect as the Party is and as annoying as our general reality (and other people in it) can sometimes be. 

I wouldn’t mind seeing a Green Party.  For a few who tried running for office as Greens that I have talked to, I found they were caught by the difference between the kind of rhetoric that might get one elected in some districts; and what happens when, as local elected officials, they find out the true nature of responsibility for making decisions based on the legal authority on the table in executive session.  That contradiction has to be overcome before there can be a viable third party.

There is always the difference between cold hard reality and responsibility and the easy opinion spouting from the comfort of freedom from consequence.

StuwartH- Thank you for posting your vacuous inanities.  However TD3 did not personally insult Martha, even though she is a well known dingbat.  He merely called her a Dem partisan, of the same stripe as you, although more interesting.

the reasons your ruminations are valuable is that it illstrates the historical cretimisn of the Dem activists. Loyalty is the primary consideration in the Dem cadre, and politics is entirely focused on winning meaningless elections.  The cadre is so old now that it is dying off, finally, as the Dems go further and further to the right.  You can’t stop or even critique this trend because you have been trained as the amen corner to Dem candidates.

The main enemy, for you, is the Gop candidate, whose policies you largely espouse.  Since the US elections are largely rigged by money, media and rules, with the poorer of the population not voting, you would therefore support a banana slug if the Party put one up for election.  This is what you consider Committment.  If the Dems donned swastikas and goosemarched down the street your criticism would be-That’s no way to win elections- and vote for them anyway.  Good Old Fashion Dem Loyalty.

You simply don’t realize, or want to realize, the harm you are doing the country.

Trudigger3 wrote:

“With the election of Jimmy Carter we have the NEW Democratic Party. The Party of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), the Clintons, Rahm Emanuel, Axelrod and Obama.  That NEW Democratic Party abondened labor and the common people and bluntly declared that it is for business and free trade.
Your friend Obama is rolling exactly on the same tracks W Bush was rolling on. What is he doing different from W Bush??  It is the same ole, same ole.
MarthaA,  wake up from your partisan trance.”

OK, first, MarthaA doesn’t deserve personal insult.  That’s downright Republican.

Secondly, the truth is more complex.  Plenty of people who are active in the Party struggle on to assure that the Democratic Party of the future keeps faith with the best aspects of its history.

During the ‘80s and ‘90s there was a general drift in which a lot of people who now call themselves progressives were not interested in political involvement, for a variety of reasons.  I remember working elections during that period and a term was coined for liberals and leftists who were unwilling to back up their passionate rhetoric with any sort of commitment: “the granola factor.” 

One of the things I saw during that period was the rise of computer facilitated skillsets such as demographic data analysis, cross tab matching of voter databases (public records of raw data from the courthouse) with phone records and mailing addresses, polling, producing TV commercials and other media, and strategies for winning elections based on professionalizing these services.

This specialization began to cost money, especially at the national level.  Millions of dollars were spent - on city council races. The campaigning that had been done by grassroots folks focused primarily on their own precincts and towns, was not done that way so much any more. 

WIth the lack of participation by young progressives and the grassroots becoming elderly, and with the rise of computer skilled professional campaigners, the emphasis shifted to TV commercials and direct mail and phone banking. 

Obama brought in a new generation of skill sets centered around a return to grass roots campaigning combined with interactive internet-based participation. 

We have not seen this trend fully mature.  In the fullness of time, the old Democratic Party will reassert itself.  Those who are quick to become cynical have to reflect on how the TV era has affected everyone’s nervous systems.  The sound bite era seems to have created an expectation of instant gratification and a plot line that must be resolved in a half an hour.

What is really and truly needed is some deep meditation on how long real progress really takes and what sort of deep and true and lifelong commitment might really be required. 

Republicans are the ones who lose perspective and lose their temper over almost nothing.  Democrats are wiser. That is because the “big tent” draws people who believe in social justice, ending racial prejudice, economic equity, working to reduce or eliminate poverty and fairness between the classes.  Why have we not totally succeeding against these conditions?

Actually there has been a lot of progress, considering how intractable these conditions are, and how dependent real change is on changing consciousness across an impossibly large population.  The problem is not to be frustrated by what hasn’t happened already, but to find some place to engage one’s life energy and passion, and make a commitment. 

It is easy to figure out that there are things to complain about, not so easy to figure out how to create solutions and then work for them.  The Democratic Party has many flaws, but it also has a lot of people who do the latter rather than wasting a lot of time sounding off.

We may be going nowhere with Obama but Obama is certainly always going somewhere including obsolete town hall meetings. There was a time when such meetings were affective. Now they can easily be set up by either party.  A few basically “angry at life” less than knowledgeable people can take center stage and have a major influence on such an important issue as health care. Another thing, who is minding the shop while Obama is gone?  The Presidential advisors should be fired.

folk..i hope u don’t see my list of political reforms as being part of “the usual Dem approach to historical crisis.”  parliamenterianism, proportional representation, IRV and mandated free time on MSM for political parties are meant to open up the political process and ultimately loosen the duopoly’s grip.  i really can’t see any Dem party hack being very thrilled with any of these reforms.  and u are right; the power to actualize these proposals just ain’t there (of course, that doesn’t make them bad proposals)

we both seem to see a good deal of obsolescence in our political institutions and processes.  u advocate revolution, i still hold out some hope for reform.  we also probably have differing ideas on what factors in political economy have lead to our current crisis.  u seem to see it in socialist vs capitalist terms, i’m tending toward the view that allowing private banks to create our money supply gives a select few an enormous and unfair advantage over most of the populace.  my ideas about this are pretty un-formed…i really should spend less time on this internet thing and read stephen zarlenga’s “the lost science of money.”

anywhoo, folk, u is one guy i don’t mind gettin’ into a spat with.  u treat people fairly and don’t seem to have a mean bone in your body…all the best

Amon, you DON’T share my displesure with the condition of the US.  It will not respond to heavy duty tweakage.  Its economic and political systems are obsolete.  What is needed is a revolution and a new form of power system.

This will not be achieved by a laundry list of reforms.  As economic inequality continues to increase, the current power system can only be maintained by increasing violence.  In the final state a militarized police state.

Most americans don’t want to know this. Most americns don’t want to know how corrupt and oppressive the current power structure is, and it is being covered up in the learned and mass media.  this must somehow be communicated to the population.

It’s a difficult historical problem because although the Bushites were incompetant with regard to policy, they were extremely adept with manipulating Americans in the Marketplace of Ideas.  Whose truth instititions are owned or in other ways controlled bythe ruling class.  Putting Obama in power as a public face was a brilliant public relations coup.

A laundry list of reforms is the usual Dem approach to a historical crisis, even when there is no power to effect them.  The population must create new power forms in the coming period, and this involves a developing a truth consensus subversive the mainstream American truth.  The historical problem and solutions must be simplified so the population can understand them.  But the first task is for people to understand the historical problem.

truedigger3, August 14 at 4:41 pm

We do not always agree, but on this you are, in my opinion, exactly on the mark. Things change, that is really the only constant. If we do our full duty as citizens we must recognize change, especially when it is for the worse.

MarthaA wrote:
“When the Democratic Party was in power Medicare was established, when the Democratic Party was in power Social Security was established; when the Democratic Party was in power Unemployment Compensation was established, etc.  anything of benefit to the common population”
____________________________________________________

This is the PREVIOUS Democratic Party. That party of Rosevelt and LBJ died and was buried a long time ago.
With the election of Jimmy Carter we have the NEW Democratic Party. The Party of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), the Clintons, Rahm Emanuel, Axelrod and Obama.  That NEW Democratic Party abondened labor and the common people and bluntly declared that it is for business and free trade.
Your friend Obama is rolling exactly on the same tracks W Bush was rolling on. What is he doing different from W Bush??  It is the same ole, same ole.
MarthaA,  wake up from your partisan trance.

truedigger3,

“Now, there is no REAL difference between the Democratic and Republican parites. These are two names for the single party we have in this country whicd is the big Money/Corporate party.
The difference between the two parties is in rhetoric and it is all in make-believe and theatrics, exactly like professional wrestling.
Both parties are for serving the ruling elites and not the common people.”

Truedigger3 you apparently have succumbed to sophist propaganda of Republican rhetoric and think innovation is hopeless.

You are correct to a certain degree, but there IS a little difference, the Democratic Party at least expediently pretends to represent the common population; whereas the Republican Party don’t even pretend to represent the common population.  When the Democratic Party was in power Medicare was established, when the Democratic Party was in power Social Security was established; when the Democratic Party was in power Unemployment Compensation was established, etc.  anything of benefit to the common population to make their lives easier has come from the liberal wing, the innovative wing, the Democratic Party, as neither conservatives nor Republicans do anything for the common population, never have and never will.  Again, the Republican Party doesn’t represent the common population and DOES NOT HAVE TO PRETEND.

The Democratic Party has a “mandate of expedient pretense” to representation of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States in the making and enforcing of law and order in the government of the United States in order to prevent REVOLT and OVERTHROW of the government by the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States; who, in fact, do not have a seat at the table of government to make and enforce law and order that is in the best interest of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION of the United States as a Class and Culture; this “expedient pretense” makes the Democratic Party vulnerable to political reform by the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION as a Class and Culture.  Got that?

If there are those in the Democratic Party that offend the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION as a Class and Culture, it is up to the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION as a Class and Culture to pluck them out, much the same as the Bibical entreatment to pluck out that which offends you [“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:”—Mark 9:47 and “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”—Matthew 18:9].

WE THE PEOPLE of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION must endeavor to pluck out and REFORM the Democratic Party, rather than just to whine about that which offends the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION as a Class and Culture.

There are differences between the parties and it is easily seen in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s story about “The Conservative” found at this website:  http://www.emersoncentral.com/conservative.htm

Because there is real difference between INNOVATION, the Left, and CONSERVATISM, the Right; if we as a people of the common population that constitutes a whopping 70% of the entire population will not roll over and play dead, INNOVATION to the whole population will return, it is up to the people of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION as a Class and Culture.

folk…elisa asked u what the simple, holistic (now really, why do they have to be holistic) truths were.  u told her that conceptual inventions associated with american social science now allow us to formulate simplifying conceptual structures that convey the simple truth, in words or math symbols.  ok, i’ll take your word for it and assume that american social science has come up with conceptual inventions that allow those in the know to convey the simple truth or truths. well, CONVEY THEM!!

u know, i share your displeasure with the present state of things, but i find your thoughts on doing something about it clouded in amorphous, academic jargon.  why not just keep it simple.  the american political system needs some heavy-duty tweakage.  there’s a whole laundry list of reform proposals out there—-parliamenterianism over presidentialism, proportional representation over winner take all, instant run-off voting, free media access of contending political parties to MSM before elections, reduction of the power of the senate (the present system gives small states too much power)  also, the founders of this country were wise enuf to include in the constitution the idea that the people thru their representatives should issue money and control its supply.  we as a people have abdicated this responsibility and are now paying the price for it.  these reform ideas/tools are all out there and i really think they provide a sounder approach to needed change than a social scientific “truth system” that will alter people’s consciousness.

truedigger3, August 14 at 6:19 am #

As this latest effort from you is certain to gain you entry into the MarthaA hate club, I welcome you as one ““republican sophist” to another….

MarthaA wrote:
“the economic crisis was caused by CONSERVATIVE RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS REPUBLICAN greed “
____________________________________________________

After all what is said and done and happened lately, you are still insisting on repeating the same partisan nonsense.
Now, there is no REAL difference between the Democratic and Republican parites. These are two names for the single party we have in this country whicd is the big Money/Corporate party.
The difference between the two parties is in rhetoric and it is all in make-believe and theatrics, exactly like professional wrestling.
Both parties are for serving the ruling elites and not the common people.

@ chris hedges.

thanks for this article.  if it wasn’t for you, and glenn greenwald, and a few other voices out there, i think i’d lose all faith in the media.  keep chugging my friend.  people are beginning to open their eyes, and more importantly, their hearts.

What is happening to our world today is not some strange phenomenon that’s not understandable, as some people on this blog claim, the economic crisis was caused by CONSERVATIVE RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS REPUBLICAN greed for POWER and CONTROL with the help of the dufus CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS who want to also rule the world.  When you misplace Christianity and seek POWER and CONTROL through CORPORATE government, you get FASCISM, that doesn’t concerned itself with anyone or anything other than MONEY and CAPITAL, and more MONEY and CAPITAL at the expense of the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION, which is not a WIN/WIN situation for the Left.

Elisa, we are living at a time in history when it is both politically and technically feasible to transform our worldviews of reality.  This occurred in the history of the natural sciences during the great scientific revolutions.  Simple truths that are now famous, such as THE EARTH MOVES ABOUT THE SUN, or that PEOPLE EVOLVED FROM OTHER SPECIES, transformed the way we think about and perceive people.

Such a conceptual revolution is now possible in social science.  The obstacle, however, is ideological.  It isn’t possible to tell the simple truth about people without subverting the inherited misconceptions that the Educated classes have imposed on the population to legitimate their power.  The simple holistic truth about people, formulated from a world historical perspective, subverts the Western worldview that has legitimated capitalist Democracies the past few centuires, and has disguised the homicidal imperialism of the White Man.

As the Western tradition disappears down the garbage disposal of history, it can contribute a worldview formulated from the perspective of the past, present and future persons of the earth.  conceptual innovations associated with American social science allows us to formulate simplifying conceptual structures that convey the simple truth, in words or math symbols.  The historical problem is that the Educated do not want to hear them buecause it subverts the worldviews that maintain their power.

Folktruther:
Excuse me, If I want to read them and further digest them.

Folktruther: The time now is to work out alternatives to the current neoliberal econmic system and rigged Democratic electoral system, both of which are obsolete.  This involves telling simple holistic truths to Americans that they don’t want to hear.
********************************************************
Don’t stop there.  Please tell us these simple holistic truths and then I will tell you if I want to here them.

elisa

e&co;- Contrary to your assertion, mpires ALWAYS fall from within.  class struggle reaches a point where the people support power less and less and the powerful cannot exert enough power to mainstrain its committments. The obvious corruption leaves only violence as a public option, and power can’t sit on bayonets.

The US is currently overbalanced militarily, the money used to maintain current expenditures not available for future expenditures.  The US is rapidly losing world power and has no leadership future.  The US ruling class wants to steal as much as possible and no longer cares about the future.  They steal in plain sight, and govenment, and Obama, obliges them. 

The population is turning away from public policy because they see not viable option within the present power system, and are not ready to transform it.  The time now is to work out alternatives to the current neoliberal econmic system and rigged Democratic electoral system, both of which are obsolete.  This involves telling simple holistic truths to Americans that they don’t want to hear.

Excellent piece.  Two things I’d have liked to see addressed.  First, American complacency in the wake of the Obama election, because everyone figured things would return to pre-Bush world (never mind that pre-Bush world was no great shakes either, let alone that no President in history has given back powers stolen by his predecessor - the very issue that those of us who wanted Bush and Cheney before a jury have been concerned about).  Second, empires rarely fall from within.  All the forces described in the article are the very reason why citizens won’t stand up.  (Vietnam and Civil Rights were aberrations that we can only hope become more normal than aberrant in the future, but it would be foolhardy to count on it.)  So that leaves external forces, and we better hope that when it comes, it comes in the form of a Gandhi standing up to the British Empire, rather than Hitler stealing Europe to try to create a new empire, the Homeland / Fatherland.  Considering all the ties with German Nazis among the Old Boyz Club, I’m not hopeful. When you consider that we helped create the International Criminal Court based on our framers’ principles, and then refused to join it (thus protecting impunity and refusing accountability) it is all very disheartening.  And exemplified in the Justice Department’s shilly shallying on something so inherently and openly evil as torture and “pre-emptive” war and the war crimes embodied therein.

Hmm.  Let me say it for the third time, TD3.  I AM AGAINST CUTTING MEDICARE, AND THE NOTION THAT SOCIAL SECURITY IS A PONZI SCHEME IS GARBAGE.  But Dem leaders now hold both of those poisitions.  A reason why I am against Dem leaders.

Crossword of the day;

As repugnent Glen Beck is, if he were in Drag, who would he remind you of on TD, as an illusion, from the other side of the spectrum? Picking the right name will be like holding your breath and turn your face blue!

In 2006 it was found that an 273 people die every day, on average, due to our medical for profit system.  About 99,645 deaths per year and that is way out of date. I don’t think suicides are counted.

We have our death panels but their in board rooms we never see and have reports on. Their accountants tell them what is worth paying for and if you die because of it that is just the price of doing business. Yours and my price is our lives for their blood money. I wonder what god’s they sacrifice all of those bodies and souls too? Anubis or Arkulla?

Folktruther wrote:
“My daugther’s adopted grandma is a long time Dem actist who went to school with the Senate majority leader.  She is already strongly stressing the need for cutting medicare and characterizes social security as a Ponzi scheme. “
____________________________________________________

Folktruther,

Please stop repeating that nonsense about that Social Security is a ‘Ponzi scheme’ and the need to cut Medicare.
On what basis you are spreading that faulty opinion.? You are repeating the same liberiterian/ultra conservative drivel so that they can channel the savings as more tax cuts for the super-wealthy.
Who made your daughter’s adopted grand ma an authority on SS and Medicare. What agenda has thas senate majority leader??!! These two programs are the best run programs in the government and many people their livelihood and health care needs are depening on them.
Instead of cutting Medicare to help balance the federal budget , why not ask doctors, hospitals and Pharma to tone down their runaway greed. Why not roll back Bush’s obscene tax cuts for the super-wealthy.
If you cut Medicare, how do average senior citizens handle their health care needs??!!

Purple Girl obviously puts too much faith in the Democratic Party who were also happy to crush out their OVERLORDS’ troubling concerns inherent to the platforms of REAL REFORMERS like Kucinich, Nader & McKinney.  Its charming that she’d believe that someone offering a real platform is somehow ‘working for the other side for offering alternatives to bullshit platforms.

If Americans are happy to put up with a 2-party system where THEY MONEY BUYS OUT THE POSSIBILITY OF CHANGE & crushes the opportunities for alternative platforms…
well, then you get what you deserve & what you’re willing to support…

Support the “Big Democratic” platforms negotiated from their corporate backers… & you’ll GET EXACTLY WHAT THE BIG CORPORATIONS ARE WILLING TO LET YOU HAVE.  You didn’t think because YOU aren’t negotiating with your candidates during their election cycle, that the lobbyists are idle??

free podcast discussing the naïveté of Americans trusting social programs to heavily privatized & lobbyist-dominated 2-party system:
interview with Theresa Amato on her new book:  Grand Illusion:  “The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party System Tyrrany”

if someone is dumb enough to believe THAT DOING THE RIGHT THING & VOTING FOR REAL REFORMS IS FUTILE, then they can go right ahead & nail their other foot to the floor…

Perspective.

The Jeff Farias Show: streams FREE & LIVE Mon-Fri, 6-9pmEDT

FREE podcast

No, no Elisa, I expressed myself badly.  What I meanst to say is that my dauther’s grandmother, who went to school with the majourity leader and is a long time Dem activist, argued in FAVOR of cutting Medicare, as Obama does, and for considering social security as a Ponzi scheme.

I am against both those proposals, as is my daughter.

“The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama.”

That is NOT true!!

You are really making me mad here this morning, Chris Hedges, I almost spilled my coffee.

First of all, how long has Obama been in office?

Secondly, go outside of your own world and ask a kid on the streets of Trenton how he feels about Barack Obama being in the White House.

The Obama presidency has significantly altered the issue of Race in this Country, and not a moment too soon!!

(obviously)

Join us and we together shall put economic pressure on the companies that give money to conservatives in both the Democratic and Republiklan party and we will get the progressive legislation that we demand.

Go here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/liberaldemocraticpartyusa/

Meanwhile….down in Texas, there is something going on that will affect the future of everyone in America, beginning with our schools.

If you connect dots,  the red faced, purple rage coming from the right wing as everyone reverts to their worst high school behavior is an expression of energy being poured into subverting education.

It isn’t a conspiracy, if you consider conscious intellect and strategy.  But it is emotionally a reaction to the progressive potential of the time we are in.

Having grown up in central Texas, I have seen deep and profound resentment towards progressive reforms from the sixties such as civil rights and women’s liberation and the whole history of whatever really has been accomplished.  Hell, I used to hear a lot about how solar energy was akin to communism. This energy has not abated.  It was called forth under Bush and wants its “rightful” place in power.  They feel like they never really got what they wanted under Bush but they got close enough to get really adrenalized. 

You might be mildly amused.  But, consider that while people are unmotivated to do anything about it, the Texas State School Board has 7 out of 15 members who are promoting Creationism and rewriting not only science, but social studies textbooks (to revision the Constitution as being fundamentally more about evangelism as a state religion.)  Don’t believe this?  Google and read.  The most recent thing that happened was that the legislature passed a bill requiring the Bible be taught as literature.  Also, Gov Perry appointed a Creationist to chair the Board.  The nation’s textbook publishers are very much influenced by this because the State of Texas buys a lot of books.  Therefore, every school district in the nation has a measure of impact from this. 

There really needs to be more focus on what is going on in that arena.  Consider that the kids being influenced under that system are going to be the voters of the near future.

Will they be electing people more progressive in the future or more like Palin?

That is what is at stake.

As always, its fascinating to watch the amount of spin and total bull$#!^ the Dems throw about to try to cover the fact that whenever modern Dems are elected they govern just like Republicans.

Dems who want the nomination always pretend not to be Republicans, because that’s what Dem voters in primaries actually want.  Then, Dems always pretend to be for ‘change’ from Republicans in general elections.

But, the one thing we’ve seen throughout the Clinton-Obama era is that once elected the Dems are happy and willing servants of the rich and corporations just like the Republicans are.

Its no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 20 years that the Dems are cutting deals with the health insurance and big pharma industries while leaving single payer supporters locked out of the room.  Or that they are now willing to jettison their phony ‘public option’ proposal in order to make sure that a bill that favors the health insurance industry becomes law.

It has been incredibly obvious for some time now that if you really want ‘Change’, then voting Democrat is not the answer.

And the one thing you can count on is constant attacks from the Dems at anyone like Mr. Nader or Ms. McKinney who dares to point that out.

Folktruther:My daugther’s adopted grandma is a long time Dem actist who went to school with the Senate majority leader.  She is already strongly stressing the need for cutting medicare and characterizes social security as a Ponzi scheme.  She is a Responsible Democrat, you see, explaining the ways of Dem leaders to the people.
****************************

A dangerous thing to tell a young woman, you are basically telling her to think for #1 first and not concern herself with the needs of others.  Also, you are telling her she could do better in private investment which is not true for we do not know how things will be years from now nor do we know if she unknowingly would be investing in a REAL Ponzi scheme.  Social Security has many benefits, not just retirement benefits. There is no fraud involved as in a Ponzi scheme. Is insurance a Ponzi scheme? That is what Social Security is, only it is publicly owned. Many people do not like this. Same with Medicare. You want to cut down the costs of Medicare? Check if services charged for by doctors and hospitals are really provided.  Also check as to pricing. You might be surprised. Why is this not done? Again, follow the money, campaign contributions and kick back.

ardee…i don’t how long you’ve been around TD, but i get the impression u haven’t caught purple girl’s complete act.  she’s went on a couple rants where she’s identified the boomers as the worst generation ever.  like any generation, of course, we’re a mixed bag.  she actually has some faith in her forty-somethings like barackstar and even timmy g(!!!)  i’m someone who doesn’t always identify with left positions, but when purple girl began a sentence with “Face It Lefties, we..” my stomach began to turn.

No, Sepharad, I don’t think the Dems are sabatoging the president’s public health option, I think they are supporting it.  A half assed proposal that will nto solve the medical problem or insure all the people.  So they have to manage and manipulate the population to prevent the public pressure from getting too great. So they got a room that held only half the number of people who showed up.

My daugther’s adopted grandma is a long time Dem actist who went to school with the Senate majority leader.  She is already strongly stressing the need for cutting medicare and characterizes social security as a Ponzi scheme.  She is a Responsible Democrat, you see, explaining the ways of Dem leaders to the people.

Ardee, Purplegirl, like some others of us, is a very imaginative speller.  Many of us fight the schoolbook theory that their is only one write way to spell a word.

Purple Girl, August 13 at 3:22 am

One is free to assassinate the character and distort the works of public figures as one wishes. But, amidst the distortions and inaccuracies one might have the courtesy to spell his name correctly..

psmealey, I hope you’re correct. I voted for Obama though Hillary was my primary preference, and don’t think he is the class traitor some see. It could be that until now—the public health option—he has really underestimated his enemies and likewise overestimated his own persuasive powers.

“Yes, We Can” is not enough to defeat the truly evil—or possibly just sociopathic—greedy bastards who don’t care whether most of us live or die as long as they get their bonuses, their astronomical salaries, their pharmaceutical monopolies and their power to defeat the public’s needs as nonchalantly as a toddler sweeps the pieces of someone else’s chess game off the board and onto the floor.

There is still that guilty pleasure and sense of relif when the President of the U.S. opens his mouth and doesn’t say something embarrassingly stupid or venal in front of the entire universe. That’s not nearly enough. But it’s something.

Folktruther, I was impressed that you went to a Dem health meeting; suspect many commenters don’t bother. What bothers me—if I read your post correctly—is that you seem to think the Democrats deliberately ordered a too-small room so the spill-over would be exposed to the same old insurance/ama lobby speakers? Do you really think the Dems are so far gone that they are actively sabatoging their President’s public health option?

(No, I didn’t go to our local health meeting because its very large hall, according to our local Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey’s office, was already booked to overflowing and she was collecting comments from people who would otherwise have come. But then, as her aide said, she’s preaching to the choir here.)

Nadar Plays for the other side!!!He’s the epitome of a Red herring for Liberals and progressives.
Please tell me of any substantial thing Ralphy boy has done since Seatbelts and Covairs.
Ralph Nadar is a great consumer Advocate and liberal- but is not a great communicator or leader- his election results are testiment enough.
Considering the last few decades of Deregulation and Consumer Fraud and endnagerment- one could surmise Nadar doesn’t even really do Consumer protection very well.
While The Repugs have lured voters in with Greed and Priviledge,the contenders on the Left have promised Unicorns and Toothfairies for the last few decades.
Face It Lefties we have an element inthis country that will never allow ‘Walden’s Pond’ to exist. They can’t even recognize the oxymoronic phrase ‘God and Guns’ as related to their claimed Religious philosophy(Jesus Never Used a weapon to promote his ideas).
Nadar can’t make changes,because he Can’t get Elected ANYWHERE! If Nadar actually gave shit about the direction of this country, why the hell hasn’t he even tried to become a Congressmen or Senator???
Nadar only shows up for the ‘Big Job’interviews, takes enough votes away from the Dem to throw an election. W stole the ‘00 & ‘04 elections with the help of Nadar!
“Progress” comes in methodical steps forward,not waves of a magic wand.
Do you think merely because Nadar is White the Far Right Fringe would be reacting any differently to change???
Nadars Theme song should be 10 yrs Afters “I’d love to change the World” (“But I don’t know what to do, so I leave it up to you”).If Nadar wants to service this country- perhaps he should start by applying for an ‘entry level’ position first.

Your right, as usual, KDelphi.  There are things that Obama could have done dispite his position as a wall street puppet to mute the US descent into barbarism.  He could have stopped torture, arbitrary imprisonment, spying on the US population, decreased war instead of expanding it, not instigate the coup in Honduras, ete, etc .  Instead he is just continuing Bush’s policies.

Martha, you are a dingbat.  The time for a president to do something is when they assume office and their power is at its peak.  It dribbles away afterward.  Obama has speant his political capital etending and expanding the wars on Iraq and Afpak, and has done nothing to support Change You Can Believe In. 

Progressives have been punked.  You are too deluded to notice it.

This evening I was at a Dem health meeting.  The room was too small and the remainder of the people went outside the libraray to listen to doctors and insurance agence speakers against the health program.
This was not simple incompetance, but a fear of mass arousal by the population it is the Dems function to control.  I have not doubt they will sell out the population on that too, blaming it on the Gops.

TD3…i do recall barackstar’s voice being full of passion once.  when the wright brouhaha came up and threatened to derail the O-train, his voice was full with passionate indignation at the reverend’s criticism of the US of A. have u noticed too, when he gets involved in a complex sentence and takes his time to gather his thoughts, the little wave of self-satisfaction that flits across his countenance when he completes the sentence in gramatically correct fashion?  the content of what he says, which is usually a balancing act between contended views, seems to give him less satisfaction than a gramatically correct sentence.  harry truman he ain’t.

Uh, diamond, did you say—

“...even more horrifically allows the fascists back into government”?

Do you actually believe that fascists come and go depending on which political party gets elected? Talk about believing in the tooth fairy.

Truthdigger3,

Yes, I miss the emotional high pitched fingernails on a chalkboard Pailn already, or the sapy Bush smile while he is inserting the knife. Yes Obama’s voice not being animated means he is not sincere, how could he not raise his voice like Robbie the Robiot “Warning” “Warning”.
Also, his eyes don’t twitch as much as they should.

Works real well in Europe when the Greens and other liberal parties get enough votes in Parliament to be a swing vote.  Guess they are far too smart to do that here.

With all that talk about Obama, one thing is obvious which that he has no conviction or passion about any issue.
In any interview, or town hall, no matter how critical or important the question is, he answer with the same , slow, monotone, flat and passionateless voice.
When he talked about the “death panels” in NH, insteaad of vehemently objecting to the misinformation and false fabrication of that, he went on in his monotone voice saying that he “does not agree with that” without any indignation or even raising his voice even just a little bit.????
This is one example. Another example when he objected to Myrell Lynch huge bonuses just before it collapsed. Exactly the same perfomance.

I don’t think he really want any serious health care “reform”. That “reform” will end up as government give away to insurance companies and medical/pharma complex and the current system will remain with all its problems and shortcomings.

Obama doesn thave to work magic—he just has to be headed in the right direction and he is not

ardee—youre right.

But then, I wasnt happy with Obama during the campaign , either. He always seemed very conservative to me. But, I admit, even I have been disappointed. I expected completel reversals of Bush-era spying, wiretapping, torure, GITMO, etc.I expected a better, more public health care reform. I expected better nominees than Geither and Summers, for sure! I didnt expect such an increase in military spending. I expected the “stimulus” he would do to do more for the poor and communities.

It wasnt much to expect, but it was “better than Bush”-now, its not…it just has alot of faux liberals convinced that he will “eventually do the right thing”...tell that to the mother whose kid died today because he didnt get hospitalized in time or the mother whose kid died today in a drone attack.

Obama’s soothing voice just sounds like a drone overhead to me now..

Folktruther, et al,

There’s nothing liberal about what has been going on in this country; but RIGHT-WING EXTREME CONSERVATISM.

Don’t get so down in the mouth with Obama, he hasn’t been in office long enough to have performed any magic.  Obama was set up relatively well by the CONSERVATIVE EXTREMISTS that preceded him.

Obama has now been President a little over 1/8th of his term, and it is far too early to be making any decisions on how his term will end.  Public Health Care will surely have been added as a part of President Obama’s repertoire, so to speak, on completion of his first term, which will be a god send for the 70% MAJORITY COMMON POPULATION.

KDelphi, August 12 at 4:48 pm #

“Folktruther has got it right.

I hate to say it, but, lets say Nader was president tomorrow—what would he do differently with the vast army of the well-heeled around him?”
.....................................

Obviously Nader would, if elected President ,be trapped in the same system as Obama, and without the support of either party to boot.

But the point in voting Nader, or McKinney for that matter, is not to get them elected but to break the trap of the Duopoly that works for the corporation and not the individual.

Every vote for a Democrat, or Republican for that matter, is a wasted vote no matter how well intentioned that candidate may be. Obama may very well be as he seemed to be during the campaign, but he is powerless to act if even he wished to do so.

When the system is systemically broken one must step outside the box to fix that broken box. ( Metaphor nightmare). Perpetuating the broken system is no way to fix the darn thing. When both parties know for certain that almost half the electorate is going to vote for them regardless what impetus have they for change?

Why care about democracy? It’s the compassion and fairness for all that matters. This is the heart of the matter, and it’s a much deeper issue than most politicians are willing to address, if they even could. They know that they’d be out of office quickly if they did. Perhaps even hung on a cross. Standing up for what is right and good is right and good. But first, I gotta get right and good myself, eh? That’s what gives standing up for what’s right and good its power.

<a href=
“http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090810_nader_was_right_liberals_are_going_nowhere_with_obama/#259801”>you haven’t intentionally said anything worth amusement</a>
unintentionally?
oh yeah, we’re good.

Folktruther has got it right.

I hate to say it, but, lets say Nader was president tomorrow—what would he do differently with the vast army of the well-heeled around him? I am not being a smart alec, I would hope that he would use executive powers to change some things—but would he?

I’ts not rhetorical, Naderites…hey, I gave him $5 in the last campaign and $5 each to McKinney and Sp-Usa candidate before I knew that they had sold out!

Obama isnt really worth any real progressives time anymore.

What would McKinney do differently?

Lastly, why, then cant Obama do these things?

I repeat: how utterly silly the humourless really are.

When he was on “Real Time”, Oliver Stone said that during his time in Vietnam the only soldiers who maintained their sanity were the ones who took drugs.  Many of the others lost their minds or were otherwise ruined by the experience.  Drugs may be all that’s left to us now.  Americans will go down into slavery and serfdom without a peep.  They would revolt only if the slave quarters did not have cable tv.

On the right or or on the left, it seems Americans still want a benevolent autocrat to save them.  I’m not surprised by Nader’s juvenile, black and white take on this, but I am surprised by Hedges’s.  I thought he was smarter than that.

Obama’s first directive is to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution.  Beyond that, if you were expecting radical change from the top-down, you live in the wrong country.  Other than during times of crisis, precipitous change has NEVER come from the President of the United States.  War, economic shock, civil unrest, these were the drivers that made Lincoln, FDR and LBJ act as they did.  Otherwise, they likely would have maintained the status quo.

I voted for Obama, and fully expected him to behave as he has.  I expected him to try to be all things to all people in before his first true test, and try maintain the old regime as long as it was possible to do so.  The reason I voted for him was not because of this (because that’s what we were going to get whether he, McCain, or HIllary had won), but more because of the unknown, the looming disaster that I am certain awaits us (the nation, the world).  I think that when Obama gets pushed, he does the right thing.

Obama came in with the economy on the verge of collapse, the military exhausted and the far right wing seemingly itching for armed insurrection.  All of those factors are still very much in effect 8 months later.  Nevertheless, I know this is not going to please most progressives, but he has moved further and faster than Clinton did in his entire first term.

I think he sees the possibility of calamity looming, but he is very cautious not to make the move the precipitates it. 

I think that perhaps, once it does happen (whatever it is), things will move in an entirely different direction, and most of us will be relieved if not overjoyed that Obama is our President and not Hillary or (heaven forbid) John McCain.

To put it a little less dramatically, progressives don’t have enough seats in the house to pass any moderately aggressive legislation, they are still outnumbered by regressive forces within their own party.  As for “democrats” selling progressives out again, the basis of that claim is faulty.  Until they control the leadership of the party, Progressives will have to take what they can get.  Because to piss and moan from the sidelines hasn’t really worked out that well.

leftcentrist.com

If you mean me then you are on the wrong track. I did not imply censorship except for those who wish it for themselves only. I would just like the full use of the vocabulary we have. Nothing else. If you are fine with what you have good for you. A “fascist state of mind” does include limiting the language. You should hear those pious warmongers curse a blue streak a parsec wide!

There are many uses for fuck, not all of them pleasant. Being fucked up isn’t good nor fucking someone over for something. So maybe a wider use of the available words could overturn that fascist limited language. Don’t use their terms is far more affective than general epithets of anger. Really.

Nader is still right!!

live in a fantasy world if you must

perhaps you should save your indignation for *actual warcrimes & corruption*, not pouting that language doesn’t live up to your fantastical expectations?

garsh diddily darn, if there aren’t people who think the RAPE of the World & its international citizenry by the United States InvestorClass is somehow the *LESSER CRIME* than the language of allegory…

ah, but there we have censorship: where whinging is their only art form & only means to exert influence over others.

I enjoy a good fucking:  perhaps more folks should try it.
then maybe the squeekingly uptight be more interested in the analysis of ACTUAL EVENTS, not drilling down to complain you don’t like the terms by which it REALITY is expressed

IF RAPE isn’t the proper analysis of DROPPING BOMBS, RAPE OF UNION ORGANIZERS’ FAMILIES, TORTURE, EXTORTION & CORRUPTION of global societies, I’m really not sure which you’d prefer…

somebody call me a TeleTubbie -preferably the purple one!- to explain it for me… there be an indignant huffing & puffing by the Censorship Gallery who needs everything drawn in crayon before its ‘acceptable’ to their precious bubble of intolerance… we don’t need facts, we need Reality defined in terms that don’t alarm us!

If YOU have a problem with the way others speak or act:  THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM.
But ignoring facts & ideas because they aren’t wrapped in your preferred presentation?:  THAT’S EVERYBODY’S PROBLEM.

My interpretation & expression of events & ideas doesn’t require me to internalize your self-censorship.

Given that the US flies THE SAME PREDATOR DRONES ALONG THE BORDER OF MY NATION THAT YOU USE AGAINST the ‘Un-Americans’ of AF’PAK strikes me as JUST A TOUCH MORE VIOLENT & THREATENING THAN THE LANGUAGE I USE TO FUCKING POINT OUT THE IMPERIAL USES OF WHINSEC.

enjoy your fascist state of mind.