Dino Rossi

[prole]

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.

[j_b]

Best article last week:

The Real Reason Obama Has Let Us All Down

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/26-14

 

excerpt: But if you choose to see this as another fairytale – of how one man who seemed like a Good Prince turned out to be a Traitor – you will miss the point, and the real need for change. This is not primary a question of individual failings, but of the endemic corruption at the core of American politics. The facts are not hidden. If you want to run for national office in the US, you have to raise huge sums of money from corporations and very rich people to pay for the adverts and the mailings that get you on the ballot and into office. These corporations will only give you money if you persuade them that you will serve their interests once you are in power. If you say instead that you want to prevent anything destructive they are doing to ordinary people, or tax and regulate them, you will get no money, and can’t run.

 

As the Wisconsin politician Ed Garvey puts it: “Even candidates who get into politics with the best of intentions start thinking they can’t get re-elected without money. Senators get so reliant on the money that they reflect it; they stop thinking for themselves, stop thinking like the people who elected them. They just worry about getting the money.”

 

Barack Obama knows this. In 2006, he said that taking money from the rich is “the original sin of anyone who’s ever run for office” in the US, and it ensures that “Washington is only open to those with the most cash.” There’s a term for this: legalized bribery. It is so naked that corporations routinely give to both sides in an election: Goldman Sachs, to name just one, gave to both Obama and McCain to ensure whoever became President was indebted to them.

[tvashtarkatena]

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.

 

Not buying into Nader-scam doesn't exactly equate to being wonderfully satisfied with the current administration's progress, but you knew that already, didn't you?

 

Or not.

 

In any given election in Merika, one has the choice of voting for the a) greater or b) lesser of two evils.

 

Not voting, or throwing your vote away on some self aggrandizing autocratic assclown like Nader equates to choice a), plain and simple.

 

You don't really need to be too terribly smart to understand the simple arithmetic of elections.

 

But, yeah, cling to the idea of human perfection and that magical revolution of rainbow unicorns that will someday enlighten us all, en masse, and make everything all better, all at once. Why not? It's kept the Evangelical movement going strong for quite some time now.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[j_b]

what scam?

[tvashtarkatena]

See what I mean? LOL

[tvashtarkatena]

Railing against our current system, however well-deserved, doth not a reform program make. It's hard, slow work, and you have to work with people you don't like or agree with to make it happen, and it never happens completely the way you want it.

 

None of which satisfies the progressive's primary motivation: the need to feel good about themselves.

 

Hence, the notable lack of any meaningful participation in a system that is, simply put, so very far beneath them.

Edited November 1, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[tvashtarkatena]

So progressives: suck it.

 

Us boring, moderate, stupid, everyday, unenlightened folks will continue to do the work that might soil your need for purity, within the system we've got.

 

Nope, the revolution really won't be televised.

 

Sorry.

 

 

[prole]

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.

 

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.

Edited November 1, 2010 by prole

[Nitrox]

Railing against our current system, however well-deserved, doth not a reform program make. It's hard, slow work, and you have to work with people you don't like or agree with to make it happen, and it never happens completely the way you want it.

 

None of which satisfies the progressive's primary motivation: the need to feel good about themselves.

 

Hence, the notable lack of any meaningful participation in a system that is, simply put, so very far beneath them.

 

Voting for the same corrupt politicians year after year is just as foolish as not participating.

 

 

[j_b]

I don't understand this. Didn't Bush get pretty much everything he wanted (wars, tax cuts, new bankruptcy laws, extremists on the supreme court, etc) even though he never had a filibuster proof majority? Did one Democrat in the senate step up to contest the 2000 coup d'etat? How does it not show that Nader was right about the Dems in congress?

 

For the record, your vile attacks on Nader are disgusting. Nader has accomplished more for average Americans than the entire political class in Washington.

[j_b]

There were millions of Americans in the street in 2003 to protest the march to war against Iraq. Where were the fucking Democrats?

[Peter_Puget]

I don't understand this.

 

This should be your tag line! More true words have never been written.......

[j_b]

what an important contribution that was. Thank you PP.

[Nitrox]

Nader is a hero goddamit! Corvairs woulda killed billions of children and kittens if it weren't for him.

 

 

[j_b]

we certainly won't ask from regressives to appreciate the role of consumer advocates like Nader since they spend most of their time trying to dismantle regulations and agencies designed to protect average Americans against corporate greed.

[tvashtarkatena]

There were millions of Americans in the street in 2003 to protest the march to war against Iraq. Where were the fucking Democrats?

 

Presumably one or two might vote Democrat from time to time.

[j_b]

To be sure, many of the protesters were Democrats but where was the political leadership? What did the Democratic party do with this unusually massive mobilization to show people weren't fooled by the lies at that moment? They did nothing.

 

but I note that you didn't touch the post preceding the one you answered.

[G-spotter]

In a two-party state the far left and far right are not the issue. The middle swing votes are the issue. If the Dems veer a bit more right as the Tea Party takes the Repubs into the extreme right, then they will control the middle and ensure their own victory.

 

It's only if both parties veer to the extremes and the middle becomes disaffected that the far right becomes able to win.

[j_b]

The GOP is far right and they have been winning while most Americans are on Obama's left. Most people who don't vote (often the majority) are liberals. It is 30+ years of moving to the right by the Democratic party that has enabled the far right.

[tvashtarkatena]

The GOP is far right and most Americans are on Obama's left. Most people who don't vote (often the majority) are liberals.

 

kinda hard to gather data on people who aren't giving it, no?

 

Just sayin...

[tvashtarkatena]

i would say, more accurately, that the majority of people who don't vote are lazy fucks.

[j_b]

The GOP is far right and most Americans are on Obama's left. Most people who don't vote (often the majority) are liberals.

 

kinda hard to gather data on people who aren't giving it, no?

 

Just sayin...

 

who needs baggers when we have Democrats like you.

 

This very weekend there was an article in the LA Times about a poll that showed just what I said. Opinion polls on most issues (wars, taxing the wealthy, minimum wage, SS, etc) show a majority of folks on Obama's left. 2/3 of those who criticize the health care bill say it doesn't go far enough. etc ..

[j_b]

i would say, more accurately, that the majority of people who don't vote are lazy fucks.

 

and you'd likely be wrong. The demographics that vote the least is disenfranchised youth. Youth is the demographics most consistently on the left.

[j_b]

"Voter turnout in this season’s primary elections was low for Democrats across the nation. In fact, a CBS special report found that the Democratic turnout in Oklahoma was the lowest on record. Conversely, Republican turnout is very high nationwide and Republican turnout in Oklahoma set a record high."

http://capitolbeatok.com/CustomContentRetrieve.aspx?ID=3525827

 

but now they are predicting the highest voter turnout for a mid-term in history? I think Oregon is expecting >70% turnout.

Edited November 1, 2010 by j_b

[j_b]

The middle swing votes are the issue. If the Dems veer a bit more right as the Tea Party takes the Repubs into the extreme right, then they will control the middle and ensure their own victory.

 

Whatever the outcome of the mid-term elections the myth of a "middle swing vote" will be the main message pushed by the corporate media, and DLC Democrats to provide cover for austerity in the form of attacks on Social Security, medicare, unions, pensions, etc while they keep on with the warmongering. A sure recipe for letting people know their voting doesn't matter.