Anarcissie, December 2 at 7:28 pm Link to this comment

ardee—I was thinking about professed ideology, not tactics.  When I read the national Green Party web site, I didn’t see anything I thought proggie Democrats would disagree with.

I believe I see the confusion here. You are seemingly speaking about democrats while I am speaking about Democrats. Of course progressives find a home in the platform of the Green Party, just as small d democrats no longer find one in the Democratic Party.

When the Republicans rode the tiger far to the right, the DNC/DLC led Democrats moved immediately rightward in order to suck up the votes of the centrists now abandoned by the new extremism of the GOP. By doing this they abandoned much of their traditional base, a base that is just now beginning to see their ouster and ,hopefully, respond by moving towards a real progressive party, the Greens.

When you speak of “professed ideology” I believe we find a dichotomy. You base your position on the speeches while I base mine on the actions, or lack thereof. Obama, as a perfect example, when studied only through the medium of his speeches, is a dyed in the wool old fashioned liberal. When judged by the actions of his administration, and by those of his party ( after all he is the titular head thereof) he is , charitably, a centrist, perhaps further right than that even. When judged by his continued war mongering, renditions and tortures he is Bush with a brain.

ardee—I was thinking about professed ideology, not tactics.  When I read the national Green Party web site, I didn’t see anything I thought proggie Democrats would disagree with.

I thought it clear, Anarcissie. Allow me to repeat:

“Not even close. However, considering that the Progressive Caucus has been silenced within the Democratic Party, as has the Black Caucus as well, they haven’t been saying anything.”

The difference being that the Green Party speaks to the Progressive agenda while the Democrats remain shamefully silent and even more shamefully absent from the battle.

ardee—What differences do you see?  Remember, we’re talking about the proggies, not the Democratic Party leadership.

Anarcissie, November 30 at 7:55 am Link to this comment

The Green Party says the same things as the progressive camp of the Democratic Party, but the difference is supposed to be that the Greens actually mean what they say.

Not even close. However, considering that the Progressive Caucus has been silenced within the Democratic Party, as has the Black Caucus as well, they haven’t been saying anything.

Yes, the “progressive” liberals are always saying they want clean and fair elections, good government policies with people’s candidates seated, but they keep voting for the corporate money manufactured corporate party policy implementing Democrats.

It is the (D) dedicated corporate party loyalty of millions of liberal voters that has made people’s candidates unelectable.

Jill Stein for President:

http://www.jillstein.org

Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=1

The Green Party says the same things as the progressive camp of the Democratic Party, but the difference is supposed to be that the Greens actually mean what they say.

Lafayette, November 29 at 2:25 am

Actually your beloved Democrats have become a right of center party, have silenced the black caucus and the progressive caucus within it.

The fixation that both parties have on corporate funding, and have you heard anyone within that party to which you sell your soul, or at least your common sense, call for campaign finance reform, makes a third party a necessity.

@Lafayette:
Your progressive agenda dovetails very closely w/Dr. Jill Stein’s of the Green Party.

Do you see it that way?

—-

@DornDiego:  Don’t be fooled by Mr. Ed and his labels. 
In truth, the Center has widened by moving both left and right. 
Perry is neither radical nor fascist.
He is becoming increasingly unlikely as the Republican nominee.

Last night I finally heard a commentator, MSNBC’s Ed, use the word RADICAL to
describe what the mainstream calls conservative.  Perry is considered conservative
when he advocates eliminating two… no, 3, or is it 4? ... departments of the
federal government.  His audience is full of conservatives who cheer when
someone is executed.  It’s considered conservative for Mitch McConnell to
advocate paralyzing the federal government in order to defeat Obama, and for
FAUX News to air repeatedly the advocacy of lunatics who think Thanksgiving is a
religious holiday, and on, and on.  Smart people who make a living by living their
lives in public have written or said that the center has moved right… and okay, it
has, but it’s been moving in that direction for so long that there is no longer a
conservative movement.  It’s a RADICAL movement. 
And the question might be: Is it Fascism Yet?

the problems in u.s [joblessness, warfare, lack of healthy food, etcetc] and in other
parts of the world are caused by the structure of governance; subsumes, also
jurisprudence, ownership of production, ‘schooling’, individual ownership of
information/knowledge, etc], privatization of armed services, police, ‘free’ speech,
etc.

the structure itself was set up by an extreeme and very unjust and warlike idiology
which i chose to call “personal supremacism”

and as long as this ideology prevails, we cannot expect any improvement such as
no more wars of aggressions [called missions, etc], better nutrients/healthcare, etc.
in fact, we shld be bracing ourselves for even worsenings and because at least three
factors: planet getting poorer, warmer, and because of supremacist ideology.

this bodes unwell also for sacerdotal class as it may lose billions of pious people
and so lose their own lucrative and privileged status.

make no mistakes about the ideology of the supremacists: sacerdotal class is being
used just like the rest of us and when no longer needed in centuries to come they’d
be also persecuted or put in jail if they wld not abandon their ‘teachings’.

so, it beats me why ‘religions’ are digging their own grave?

as for nader, he seems to be unaware of what i just said. he, seems, wants to put
patches on the old pants in just right places and thinks the pants [supremacism] are
ok.
time wld tell whether he or those who want to change the pants are right!

American voters have been conditioned to expect money and corporate advertising to make the person a candidate… a conditioning that ensures that Money always wins.

To succeed, non-corporate people’s candidates require natural persons to sensibly support them — on the issues — rather than mindlessly supporting the money manufactured twin creations that corporate persons decide should be the only candidates allowed to be electable.

It has not been the people’s policies candidates who have failed.

It has been the voters who have failed, by their obedient refusal to vote for candidates who were not corporate money manufactured.

The people waging revolutions in other far more physically repressive nations make easy and effective use of the internet to organize people’s resistance to their global market-state representing regimes, while corporate state forged mental chain controlled Americans remain so totally dependent upon the corporate controlled media (like Fox and PBS) to “both” sides instruct them in how they must corporate state compliantly vote, by “intelligently” choosing only between corporate party candidates.

Actually intelligent voters would provide the grassroots support for natural persons standing in resistance to the continuum of corporate control that the corporate party’s Republican and Democrat teamwork preserves and protects.

It would be possible for America to have a democracy, if it didn’t have so many Democrats.

Jill Stein for President:

http://www.jillstein.org

Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=1

@David Cyr:

Jill Stein has time to make her case and build both her credibility and support, but needs to start crackin’ now.

This WGBH show is her biggest media outlet so far, or am I mistaken?

One of the commentators here makes a good point: just announcing that you’re running for president doesn’t make you a candidate.

http://www.beatthepress.org/taxonomy/term/1947

We do need a choice for those of us who are Left of Center.  The Democrats do not offer one in most contests.  I’m really tired of hearing that Corporatist governance from Democrats is on the Left, and that Obama care was anything more than a huge gift to the drug and insurance industry at the cost to America of continuing the developed worlds worst performing system.

IDEOLOGY IS AS IDEOLOGY DOES

EJD: Some of my middle-of-the-road columnist friends keep ascribing our difficulties to structural problems in our politics. A few call for a centrist third party. But the problem we face isn’t about structures or the party system. It’s about ideology

Well yes, but those “structures” come from ideological viewpoints of how the American society should function.

A third-party system could work in only one way. It cannot get elected on its own - just ask Ralph Nader.

It has to be a wing within the Democrat Party, that proposes Progressive Values to which other Dems can also attach themselves.  The Dems must get rid of the BlueDogs who deserve to be on the other side of the divide - thus obtaining a Center-Left political stance.

The Dems ARE a centrist party, they just don’t know it. The ideologues are amongst the Rabid Right desperate to maintain the status quo out of some warped notion that God ordained that the American economy should be Darwinian.

The sad fact of the matter is the Left does not exist as a major political faction in America. Come to Europe - I’ll show you Social Democracies that foster progressive values.

WHAT PROGRESSIVE VALUES?

Try these on for size here.

Moderation….the holy grail of independents….the new version of hope and
change….tried on for size to measure the reaction…

To find out what can be used to win this election

What’s being said is that for Obama to win next time his campaign staff has identified
two problems he must counter.

First, the very real possibility of a third party that would take substantial number of voters
away…the other in rebranding the the Democratic party and President Obama to counter
the betrayals of those that voted for hope and change but ended up dissolute, angry,
and depressed.

People who are losing everything no longer have patience for a politics of words only,
they need action, not reaction. Without action our future will be dire.  I would’t bet on
bullshit cutting it this time.

The Democratic party and the Republican party depend on Wall Street for money, to get
that money they must abet wall streets larcenies.

QUOTE, E.J. Dionne:

“A centrist third party would divide the opposition to the right wing and ease its triumph.”
________________

The depraved Democrats are always attempting to appear to be somewhere left of the far Right neoliberal policies they produce in their corporate party partnership with retrograde Republicans.

A “centrist third party” would be just another corporate party faction providing yet another false alternative to vote for yet another set of corporate money manufactured candidates to get the same corporate state policies… another “same shit” option half way between the corporate party’s Republican faction and the corporate party’s Democrat faction that vote together for more war, less healthcare, and no care about the accelerating climate change’s effect upon future generations.

Jill Stein for President:

http://www.jillstein.org

Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:

http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=1

I think a two-party system is fine, the problem isn’t
the two-party system it’s the CORRUPTION!

Even if we had “ardee fartee’s” green party what’s to
stop that from being corrupted? Nothing. It’s not a
different party we need…. there isn’t any “pure party”. That’s the
epitome of ignorance,arrogance and phantasmagorical thinking. While they like to
imagine their purity, the fact is they are not.

If you believe there’s a pure party just join the Republicans! They’re “pure” just ask ‘em! The green party is “pure” just ask ‘em!

Re: oakland steve

Your comment: “If you consider yourself a progressive and you find yourself nodding in agreement with E.J. Dionne, check yourself into rehab.”

I thought about that but I have a RATIONAL fear that I could accidentally check in to a Bachmann-type Clinic, and that scares me more than being in any type of agreement with Mr. Dionne.

Most electoral districts have been drawn for an easy win to the incumbent. Whichever party dominates your district, the actual winner is determined in that party’s primary. Register with that party & vote for the most moderate candidate. Then in November, if you want smaller government, vote Libertarian, if you like environmental protection, vote Green. Haven’t seen a good Socialist Labor candidate in a while.

What utter nonsense!

“Progressives have already made clear that they are willing to increase revenue and cut Medicare costs. The Obama health care law did both, and it was attacked by Republicans for doing so.” 

Is it always necessary to mince words about raising taxes by calling it “revenue?”  On Truthdig, I’d have thought one might speak plainly, but this piece is a prime example of an establishment hack earning a buck by pulling his imaginary punches.

“Cut Medicare costs” means cutting funding.  Period.  There was no change to the prohibition on the federal government negotiating prices with the pharmaceutical industry; there’s no relief from the citizen’s inability to legally buy subsidized drugs from Canada or Mexico.

The very idea that he cites “the Obama health care law” at all, reveals his lack of progressive credentials.  That piece of crap, from the first day of Ben Nelson’s hearings when not a single advocate of single payer was included in the advisory committee; and RNs and MDs who protested the insurance and big pharma industry hegemony in that process were arrested and removed from the public hearing room, was funded and written by industry lobbyists who had already bought the souls and votes of the committee and the great majority of both parties.

It was a complete sell out.  We knew it then.  We know it now.  And yet Obama and his shills speak of it as reform. 

If you consider yourself a progressive and you find yourself nodding in agreement with E.J. Dionne, check yourself into rehab.  You need help.

“A centrist third party would divide the opposition to the right wing and ease its triumph. That’s the last thing authentic moderates should want.”
—EJD

Not necessarily. 
A strong Green Party, sure. 
But Ron Paul running as a Libertarian or Palin as a Tea Party spinoff?  That would help the Dems. 

I like the idea of a 3rd (or 4th) party. 
Would be nice having more choice.

2 things to keep in mind, though:
1) As a Centrist, I might or might not to vote for that 3rd party candidate. 
2) Even Shenonymous has refered to herself as a type of Centrist, so we Centrists cover a lot of ground.

A moderate Democrat is: 

*  Someone who speaks out against war but votes for it. 

*  Speaks out about the plight of developing nations but does
nothing to stop the proliferation of small arms around the globe.

*  Speaks out about the plight of developing nations but does
nothing to promote small business abroad and does nothing to stop
the contagion of corporate slave wages abroad. 

*  Speaks out about education but does nothing to improve education. 

*  Speaks out about the environment but does nothing to change
energy policy and always votes for war over the environment. 

*  Pisses down our backs and tells us it’s a warm spring rain. 

*  Speaks out about the abuses of big business but does nothing to
stop businesses from betting even bigger. 

*  Pisses down our backs and tells us at least it’s not Sarah
Palin’s spring rain. 

E.J. Dionne, compared to the rest of the tripe out there, you’re a
good man and I appreciate your efforts.  But you’ve been swimming in
the fish bowl a bit too long.  You’ve bought into the myth that a
conservative democrat is actually a moderate democrat. 

We live in a world, Mr. Dionne, where being opposed to a perpetual
state of war is considered far left. 

We live in a world, Mr. Dionne, where scientists are afraid to give
the latest hard news about the ecosystem because their funding will
be cut. 

We live in a world, Mr. Dionne, where scientists have told us that
at or around 2050 the natural resources simply will not support the
number of human beings and mass starvation will result.

We live in world where pointing out the ecosystem supporting human
life is rapidly dying is considered naivete. 

No, Mr. Dionne, sadly, your profession is a huge part of the
problem. Your profession has been bought and sold by multinational
corporations and well meaning men such as yourself can no longer
tell the difference between reason and idealism, between
progressives and conservatives, between moderates and war hawks. 

In your terms, a “moderate” third party does not exist, because in
your terms “moderate” means debating quietly and meekly while the
country fights perpetual wars and destroys the ecosystem. 

We’re going off a cliff, Mr. Dionne. This is not the time for
Orwellian moderation.  It’s time to slam on the fucking brakes and
bail the fuck out.

gerard - right on.  It’s really pretty simple. Reagan
promoted “trickle down” and a “high tide raises all
boats.”  The Midas group among us picked it up,
preached it, and convinced the brain-dead among us of
its truth.

Today, the Midas group runs the government and
therefore the country.  Their ‘ideology’ amounts to no
more than how can I keep my wealth/how can I increase
my wealth. (If they got a better deal from Democrats,
they’d be Democrats.)

“deficit of reasonabless”? and in u.s constitution or system of life? no, of
course not!! dionne just picks on some unreasonable people; however, he
does not pick on unreasonabless of judiciary, army echelons, WH,
congress, MSM, cia agents, etc.

and its the system that guaranties that there always will be
unreasonabless in america and that some school children will [and later as
adults]  be always left behind along with lament about this fact.

no, dionne, i aver that such phenomena appear insoluble and
unchangeable as long as the system lasts.
one has to first of all change the EXTREME REALITY AND EXTREME REALITY
SHOW that u.s system represents or keep on mending the old pants as
does MSM, ‘liberals, assortment of ‘educators’ other ‘democrats’. tnx

E. J., it is a “structure problem”.

The structural problem is that our former country has been fully ‘captured’ by the global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, which hides behind the facade of its modernized TWO-Party ‘Vichy’ sham of faux-democratic and totally illegitimate government—- just as the Nazi Empire tried to hide behind the cruder, first-generation, single-party ‘Vichy’ regime that that EMPIRE had installed in the ‘captured’ country of France c. 1940.

Alan MacDonald

A ‘centrist’ third party would be to the left of the current Democratic Party.

Sorry about that Mr. Dionne. That was entirely too harsh (or was it?)...

Arrghh!!!

@ Ardee

It is true (believe it or not). Some people are actually having discussions about a “centrist” third party.

It is unbelievable, but that is where a number of successful, well-educated, morons seem to be focusing their mental masturbatory energies. I think it has something to do with deficits and debts and “entitlement spending”, but just how much more “centrist” you could possibly go than Obama I can’t imagine.

When I really want to bludgeon my poor little brain with Thor’s mighty hammer, I contemplate what it means to be an “authentic moderate” from Mr. Dionne’s point of view, and what kind of future he might see in it for the rest of humanity.

A Democratic Party hack echoes the same trite and false positions we see, time and again, from our own coterie of such hacks here.

A centrist third party would divide the opposition to the right wing and ease its triumph. That’s the last thing authentic moderates should want.

I am unaware of a “centrist third party” though there is probably one out there somewhere. What “authentic moderates” should want is a halt to the rightward slide of the Democratic Party that has resulted in a Tweedledee or Tweedledum choice at the polls.

A Green Party presence in the Legislature, and I understand how long and difficult a slog that is going to be, would keep the progressive agenda alive there, and that, Mr. Dionne, is what “authentic moderates” should want.

Let’s look at the record, starting with the congressional “super committee’s” failure to reach agreement on a plan to reduce the fiscal deficit. It’s absurd to pretend that we can shrink the deficit over the long term without substantial tax increases.

It is absurd to ignore the costs of war and crime on this economy, both of which have been major causes of our deficit. Fiscal responsibility takes a back seat to large campaign financing as bribes to allow price fixing and outright criminality.

No matter how hard policymakers try to trim spending on Medicare, its costs will go up for many years simply because so many baby boomers will be retiring between now and 2029. Moreover, employers will keep cutting back on coverage for their workers as long as the price of insurance continues to go up.

As long as Democrat and Republican alike slobber and drool after the campaign checks from Big Pharma and the Health Care Industry in general we will see millions without health care, prices continuing to soar, and the rest of the industrialized world outstripping the USA in longevity, health of the population and a citizenry quite happy with its own governance.

The bugaboo of higher taxes is a propaganda ploy to keep us from demanding better of our government. Yes, many nations demand much higher taxes from its citizenry. yet provide services that match or even outstrip the high cost to taxpayers. We here have been led by the nose for far too long by shallow thinkers like Dionne.

“Progressives have already made clear that they are willing to increase revenue and cut Medicare costs. “

Those are corporate sellouts not progressives and everyone knows that except you E.J.  You cannot stand against the massive spirit of disgust you engender by lying for dollars.

EJ Dionne, an establishment hack who gets lots of coverage inn the corporate corrupted media, talking about “moderates” as in those moderates over there.

Now that is funny.

So why does EJ Dionne get “ink” here at Truthdig, when he already gets all that other coverage in the corporate media?

Oh wait- establishment hack. Never mind. I just answered my own question.

Guess that is just one more Truthdigger Of The Week award down the hatch.

Grin

Telling The Truth, In A Time Of Universal Deceit Is A Revolutionary Act-  George Orwell

Who killed moderation?  The neo-cons who proposed that the 2000s should be the “American Century” and that America should dominate and manage the world.
Then came the reactive, constricting policies to back it up—military conquest, domination of the economy by punitive capitalism and concentration on military production, and the tight control of the people’s education, civil liberties and political power by fear and intimidation.
  The regimentation necessary to promote two or three “wars on terror” at the same time in an effort to to monopolize energy sources, and the refusal to pay attention to growing domestic problems like exporting of jobs, domination of unfair banking systems and irresponsible Wall Street trading are all the very opposite of moderation.
  Lack of moderation is not primarily the problem of the 99%; it is the 1% whose behavior is immoderate.
To the degree that politicians have been fattening
at the corporate troughs, the government is also immoderately selfish, secretive and abusive.
  The vast majority of the people are inclined to be moderate and reasonable. They need to reclaim their balance of power, but they don’t know how to do it.
The Occupy Movement is a step in that direction. May it succeed, using creative non-violence instead of punitive force, of which we have all had more than enough already.
  The radically defunct economic system and the top-heavy governmental system both have a great opportunity to return to a healthier moderation by recognizing the openings and opportunities that the Occupy Movement represents and is trying to bring to life.

What an atrocious article. It begins with a call to arms against right wing ideology which would only serve to strengthen it, and then ends up showing exactly why moderates are failing us (safety net programs on the chopping block). Moderation and bipartisanship have been the bigest problems in serving corporatism. Your collegues were right, it is a structural problem and also one of ethics. Until we address that issue, nothing else really matters.

“Radical” means reasonable in US politics apparently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYXVD7uBU2s&feature=player_embedded#!