prole

That, and I was still undecided until a few hours ago. So my vote is extra important.

I'll start quitting tomorrow. I have to drop off my ballot tonight- STRAIGHT FUCKING DEMOCRAT BABY!!

I just quit driving for life. ONE LESS MASSIVE OIL SPILL!

Is this like when some people we're saying the Gulf oil spill was my fault because I drive a car and it later turned out to be a botched Halliburton job and poor regulatory oversight?

No. Hold your nose and vote Democrat. But don't expect a different result and don't think that the Democratic Party is ever, ever, ever going to implement any reform that will undermine its shared stranglehold over the process. That means no meaningful campaign finance reform, no electoral reform, no representational reform, etc. Those, by their very nature, will have to gain traction and find expression outside the two-party duopoly. Perhaps, tea partiers, left and right, will begin to see the untenability of the status quo.

See Green Party platform circa 1999 comment above. If we want elected representatives to actually represent their citizens and not treat their time in office as payback time to their donors, we've got to change the way elections are run. One dollar/one vote is not free speech, it's influence peddling and corruption pure and simple. Getting the money out is step one, we're going backwards.

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and you'd likely be wrong. The demographics that vote the least is disenfranchised youth. Youth is the demographics most consistently on the left. Disenfranchised youth? More likely youth doing what youth does... trying to get wasted, laid, or both. And speaking of Germany... [video:youtube]

Meh. Have the Mariners made any moves yet?

1. How does your preferred economic policy differ from mercantilism? The question is, who cares? If someone jumped every time a Hayekian fruit-loop like you cried "mercantilism!", Germans would still be picking through the rubble of WWII. The same goes for Japan and later the Asian Tigers, and now China. The capitalist state can, does, and should at the very least intervene in the economy on behalf of its citizens to deal with market failure, administer public goods, deal with externalities, regulate, etc. Furthermore, as far as I'm concerned, capitalist states should formulate industrial policies that promote safe, sustainable growth that actually benefits it's people. All countries have industrial policies that, I'm sure to you, just smack of "mercantilism!" (CAFE Standards, nooooo!). The U.S. government has certainly has one (as Dick Cheney Energy Task Force can attest to) it's just been geared to redistribute wealth to the rich, plunder the treasury, and allow corporations to run roughshod over workers in the name of almighty competitiveness.

Putting your typically bombastic horseshit about mercantilism aside, the advanced industrialized countries that have done best during the recent expansion of the capitalist global economy are those countries with coherent, forward looking industrial policies, like Germany. Unlike the Great American Globalization Junk Show & Demolition Derby wrought by a political class entirely captured by corporate cash and casino economists, these countries have managed to maintain their middle classes, remain competitive, and keep their democracies intact. Not surprisingly, they also have strong unions. Why don't you go peddle your crap to recent high school graduates on the comments section of the Stranger, Jay.

Yes, Krugman's been harping on it for over a year. It didn't happen, it's not going to, and it's going to be a slow motion disaster. Is the broad Left (Democrat, progressive, radical) prepared for that? The Right certainly is, they've got their "Satan", "illegals", "commies", etc. to draw on. As I've said before, "gay weed" (the extension of civil rights to every corner of social life) is important, but the Democratic Party is fully implicated in the economic, environmental, and political crisis gripping the country. Beyond the voices in the wilderness (Krugman, Steiglitz, et al), where is the analysis, the program, and importantly, the narratives capable of speaking to people's real needs? Democrats aren't losing because progressives are lazy, it's because the Party has accepted neoliberal corporate capitalism implicitly, followed its dictates to the letter, while doubling down on marginal wedge issues alienating what should be its base (working people a.k.a. Tvash's "morons"). Yes, it's the economy stupid and the Democrats haven't been an opposition party in that regard in thirty years.

Where are they going to come from? Buying other countries' shit in exchange for our IOUs isn't happening anymore. Get it? IT'S DONE. What's next?

Make no mistake, given Democrats and Republicans' current ideological framework, "getting the economy roaring again" means intensifying the assfucking that working people are already getting.

That's a laugh. Gay Weed, the Final Battle for Civilization

Well enjoy becoming another burnt-out husk of an Democrat activist who put their faith in a system that was rigged against them from the get-go. The good news is you've already found the martyr (yourself) and the scapegoat (your own people) for your suffering.

Not buying into Nader-scam doesn't exactly equate being wonderfully satisfied with the current administration's progress, but you knew that already, didn't you? Or not. If you actually listened to or read the Green Party platform and what Nader was actually saying during his campaign, you'd know the primary focus was on encouraging local Green Party candidacies, and building momentum for grassroots referenda on campaign finance, election reform, and more participatory, democratic governance structures (i.e. proportional representation). All geared toward building the long-term movements and structures capable of challenging corporate power and the two-party stranglehold on the American political process and none of which are part of any Democrat platform, anywhere. Liberals didn't seem to get this at all (the Texas school board recently did) and Democrats were (and apparently still are) happy to pooh-pooh the whole thing under a narrative that benefits the Party, namely "we're the lesser of two evils, take us or leave us, remember Nader". Instead of getting led around by the nose and then getting kicked in the balls after every election by the Democrats in the name of "pragmatic realism", we should be revisiting the planks of a platform and a practice that are the only solution to a very sick, very corrupt political system.

If Obama hasn't already disillusioned any liberals contemplating the prospects of a "progressive tea party-style insurgency from the left", the freshman class of soon-to-be (if not already) coopted Tea Party candidates should provide crystal clear lessons in the structural realities of the American oligarchy.

...And the only people dumber than "centrist-independent swing voters" are those who think they're going to "change the Democratic Party from the inside".

"Moderates" and "centrists" are even bigger imbeciles than the hard-right.

This is an important insight. The reality of crisis and ungovernability for them is far too disturbing. Politicians and technocrats lack both the analysis to address the nature of crisis and the will to address it squarely. Western politicians either blindly continue to believe in the technocratic administration of life-support to a terminally ill patient, are hanging on for dear life through wedge issues enabled by the 24-hour politicoinfotainment echo-chamber, or are simply and openly robbing us blind. My "fresh ideas" comment is a sick joke, the political class as a whole is utterly clueless as to where to go or how to get there at any level.

What would you suggest we export other than our debt (and our blisteringly stupid consumer culture, of course)?

Well, I'll probably be a little disappointed next week, but I admit I'm looking forward to the newly-elected Republicans bringing some fresh ideas to Washington!