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While there is a lot of focus on the Clown Car Circus of the Republican Party caucus here in Minnesota, it must be pointed out that this shows only half of the insanity.
According to the Minnesota Secretary of State site the Republicans in their straw poll supported Rick Santorum by 44%. This was big new nationwide. Or at least it was with the corporate media and some “progressive” sites. Santorum received almost 23,00 votes. Not so much mentioned was Ron Paul coming second with about 27% or a little over 13,000.
What has been missed almost entirely is the other side of this story.
In Minnesota Barack Obama received a little over 97% of the votes while “uncommitted” garnered almost 3%. Which one could assume shows the unanimous support for president Obama. Except for one more factor to look at. Only 3477 participated in the straw poll for the president. For the entire state of Minnesota.
In neighboring Wisconsin we know about the story of Aldous Tyler, a Wisconsin resident and Darcy Richardson both not even being allowed to be on the ballot. This was not the case in Minnesota but it must also be pointed out that many progressives and social justice activists seen the futility of opposing the Democratic Party machine here in Minnesota.
Many of them obviously did as I did. Vote for the only anti-war candidate in the “major” parties, Ron Paul. Others like Alan Maki caucused and supported “uncommitted.” Some, like friends of mine caucused with the Green Party, whose choice and numbers are not available of the Secretary Of State website. The Minnesota Independence Party declared that they would not caucus for any presidential candidate. Obviously many simply did not bother to engage at all. The local Minnesota progressive communities are filled with folks who have openly declared that they are done with the Minnesota Democratic Party.
Here is my prophesy. There is going to be a major shock coming from Minnesota in the next election. Despite the attempts to make some campaigns here invisible or to smear them in a variety of ways, people here are starting to see where we are really at. This is Minnesota. The state that has elected people who were neither Democrats or Republicans. We are not just talking about Governor Ventura either.
Minnesota highway 55 is also named Floyd B Olson highway. Governor Olson was elected and won two terms. He was an open, avowed Socialist and ran under the Farmer Labor Party.
Expect change, real change from Minnesota. Real hope, not Madison Ave manufactured hope, sponsored by Goldmann Sachs.
As the below video by Rage Against The Machine shows how it was in 2000, we know that it is just as true, or even more so now.
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test- or is it testify?
Grin
I love this song.
Why don’t people do a better job either documenting just how corrupt the Democratic Party in MN is; or else, do a better job making such documentation well-known?
There’s a huge mismatch between the unending complaints about the Democrats, that we can read on progressive blogs, and the degree to which progressives have shown that they are willing to engage the Democratic Party machinery, to straighten it out. (This is not the same idea of a lone, idealistic progressive running as a candidate, by him or herself, though doing so in conjunction with an aggressive reform group would be relevant.) Progressives did not embrace the sort of intervention described by FDL’s Rayne in her “Angry Left” series.
Progressives would have a much better excuse for doing so, if they could point to documentation that showing that ‘taking over the Democratic Party from below’ (plus running reform candidates) is a near hopeless task. Such documentation would lay out the details of sabotage and obstruction carried out by Democratic apparatchiks.
You say, ” many progressives and social justice activists seen the futility of opposing the Democratic Party machine here in Minnesota”, but when did they put up any sort of sustained fight to do so? Has it occurred to you that, collectively, they just might be politically lazy?
If you read Bruce Dixon’s piece,
Moving the conversation forward — our plan in Georgia, you certainly get the idea that he and co-activists made a sincere, sustained effort to work in and through the Democratic Party. What I’m telling you is that the details provided in your diary are too scant – practically non-existent – for you to make a similarly strong claim wrt MN Democrats.
If you establish that the Democratic Party, in a given area, is likely too corrupt to deal with, then it advisably becomes your mission to educate residents of that area of that corruption (not just say so); and that they need to coalesce around a new party.
Since not everybody is going to believe just how imperious to reform the Democratic Party is, what you really want to do is invite people who still have faith in the DP, to engage it as Rayne has suggested; and to document their struggles. Otherwise, we’ll be having these sorts of “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” arguments, regarding whether or not the DP is hopeless.
Such arguments and claims get boring, because
a) unlike Bruce Dixon, most of the people saying it’s hopeless didn’t try (and if they did, it wasn’t in an aggressive manner; trying to work in and through the Democratic Party is one thing; being loyal to the Democratic Party, to the point where you allow people to think that you’re going to support any bozo who makes it into a general election, just because they have a D after their name, is another thing; loyalty is a stupid strategy)
b) to whatever extent people did try (say, like Bruce Dixon did), they didn’t document the results of their effort (unlike what Bruce Dixon did).
There are these dirt cheap things called wikis, nowadays. I can’t think of any good reason for not documenting the dirty tricks and obstructionism of the Democrats, except perhaps frivolous but expensive lawsuits designed to suppress such accounts. (Democrats resorted to large numbers of lawsuits against Nader in 2004, to suppress his campaign. Wouldn’t put it past them.)
Oh dear Metamars. You just opened this up. Now while this conversation is not needed by progressives here in Minnesota (who have tried this, some for decades) I can rest assure you that it will come forth. I will gladly do so very soon. I also happen to know that Alan Maki can testify even more than myself. However, right now I have to go help a destitute older widow who is being evicted from her home on Wednesday.
That takes priority. I just came to visit to check for responses.
Oh and to Pheonix Women. While you deleted responses from Alan Maki and myself from your articles, I can rest assure that we will not.
Progressives do not censor political views and are willing to engage in fact filled debates. Democrats in Minnesot-ah, not so much.
Many are reaching the conclusion that the democratic party is beyond redemption in more states than just Minnesota. Nationally and state wide in states such as Georgia the democrats have gone out of their way to rudely insult their base to an extent far exceeding their polite language for republicans.
This ranges from the top all the way down. Among the names Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Press Secretary Gibbs have called people who called for Obama to keep his promises are “whiney f***ing retards” and “sanctimonious purists who won’t be satisfied until the pentagon is destroyed.” There are many more examples. No apologies are ever given and no such language is ever used against republicans, blue dog democrats, or bankers. It now seems to be standard democratic operating procedure to call those who want Obama to keep his promises names, make up provably false claims based on OFA’s propaganda, and end with some more name calling. Of course, any reference to facts or reciprocal name calling is out of bounds and unreasonable.
Metemars, if you read Bruce Dixon’s articles in his Black Agenda Report at http://blackagendareport.com/, his central point is that Obama and the democrats nationally are beyond redemption. Some of us have tried to change the democratic party only to be marginalized for decades and for the last three years insulted and treated as the real enemy.
If the democratic party wants to sell its soul and throw its lot in with bankers and the religious right wing, it is welcome to do so. However, it has burned its bridges with many of us not just for 2012, but perhaps forever. The real significance of this article is that the range of those who believe the democratic party is beyond redemption extend far beyond Minnesota.
I think the important fact, which metamars perhaps missed, is contained in the following paragraph:
“In Minnesota Barack Obama received a little over 97% of the votes while “uncommitted” garnered almost 3%. Which one could assume shows the unanimous support for president Obama. Except for one more factor to look at. Only 3477 participated in the straw poll for the president. For the entire state of Minnesota.”
This is happening in all these ‘races’ – that is, there is no huge groundswell of support for either side of the duopoly. Which the media do their level best to disguise.
I did see that, but don’t see how your post is related to mine.
My point is that I don’t see any sort of prominent effort to
a) centrally document the way that the various Democratic Party groups suppress reformers
b) teach the public about specific case histories of this sort of corruption
c) embrace something like Rayne’s “Angry Left” program, for those lefties who haven’t given up on the Democratic Party.
Let’s say that I’m thinking of running for Senator from NJ, as a Democrat. I’m a genuine reformer – I’ll lose before I sell out my principles. However, my ability to get elected is not just a function of my own sincerity (plus bank account). It’s also a function of how corrupt the Democratic Party is in NJ, in terms of suppressing my candidacy.
WHERE IS THE WIKI THAT I CAN CONSULT, OF OTHER PEOPLE WHO HAVE SOUGHT OFFICE AS A NJ CONGRESS CRITTER, TO SEE WHETHER OR NOT I SHOULD CONSIDER A RUN AS A DEMOCRAT TO MAKE SENSE, OR NOT?
Where are the books, where are the websites? There’s no question but that the Democrats are corrupt. What I want to know is, essentially, how corrupt, in my district or state, and in particular how corrupt in terms of suppressing the candidacy of a genuine reformer. What party apparatchiks are going to make up lies about me, and feed them to sympathetic ‘journalists’? What are their names? Etc.
Considering all the progressives who have argued to give up on the Democrats, and go Green or other 3rd party, you’d think that they would have sought to catalog this information. Just reading a few sentences in a diary, that is here today, and gone tomorrow, is not the way to go about this. (Nothing wrong with a transient blog entry, but I’m looking for something more substantial.)
Rayne pointed out that one desired goal for her “Angry Left” program was to create a researchable, institutional memory of the Democratic apparatus.
Whether you want to dump the Democrats, wholesale, OR reform them, you want to create a documentary infrastructure to support your efforts.
I’m not seeing either effort, which is not good. I just took a quick look at amazon, searching for “dirty tricks by Democrats”, but there seems to be nothing, on the first page of hits, that goes into the
Democratic party machine wearing down and obstructing reformers within the Democratic party.
I don’t know if there are case histories inside Indispensable Enemies. However, even if there are, we still need a state-by-state “guide”.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but creating and maintaining such a repository of information, would help progressive 3rd parties like the Greens, immensely. (Assuming the documentation illuminates the depth of corruption that is there.) They could tell prospective supporters, “Don’t just take our word for it. Read our wiki, and then ask yourself whether there’s a prayer that the Democratic party will every be reformed.” I write this, even though I believe that even a severely corrupted Democratic party could be severely reformed. But not everybody will have the patience of a Rayne, e.g., and thus will say “Screw them, it’s easier to build up a 3rd party”
To clarify, here: I’d prefer more extensive documentation than what Dixon provided. Also, openleft (where Dixon posted his diary) is a moribund website, not a centralized repository of ‘dirt on the Democrats’, which is what’s really needed.
However, I’ve no doubt that Dixon was unusually persistent, and principled. Hence, he’s exactly the sort of person you want to supply content for a centralized repository. Even if he didn’t want to be bothered doing more extensive writing, his openleft diary still rose to a level sufficient to be included in a repository.
Please see my comment, below. Dixon makes perhaps the most compelling argument for not bothering with the Democrats, that I’ve ever read. Even so, by not having his account in a central repository, it’s impact will be a tiny fraction of what it might be, otherwise.
I’m aware of Dixon’s diary, because I was regularly following openleft when he posted. 800 pound gorilla dailykos gets 2 million distinct visitors per month, but that is a tiny sliver of the left-leaning electorate. I’ll guess that Dixon’s diary received no more than 1/10 of dailykos’ monthly, distinct traffic, or 200,000 readers. (Probably, the true figure is more like 20,000, but I’m guessing.)
If you want to make deep changes in society, you need to figure out how to reach larger numbers of voters, than that.
Please note that I wrote about the need to not only accumulate knowledge of Democratic Party corruption, but to also propagate that knowledge.
Here’s an example. After a week when women were being asked to give up healthcare, what is Senator Klobuchar’s top priorty?
“Klobuchar Introduces Legislation to Ensure Memorial Rifle Squads Can Keep Their Preferred Ceremonial Rifles”
http://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/newsreleases_detail.cfm?id=335967&
Where she stands on healthcare we know not.
I predict the D’s will run her for President for she has mastered the are of standing for nothing.
Greenbell
Thank you. Although that is just an example (albeit of the many) of just how useless my opponent, Senator Klobuchar is. I have people in our campaign doing opposition research on Klobuchar and finding LOTS of very very bad things she supports and lots of very good things she does not support.
It does not point to just how useless her party, the Minnesota Democratic (DFL) is. That will come. In answer to the general question of the hows and why the Minnesota Democrats (and yes by extension the Democrats nationwide) are.
That information is coming. I know of a vast source of information on this topic myself. I know lots of other progressives in Minnesota that have their information and knowledge.
Time is a factor here. So much info and I still have to help that elder crippled woman being evicted from her house. Then on to work with CUAPB (Police Brutality group) and Occupy MN.
Perhaps our other progressive Pheonix Woman can give some input on the Democrats. Or is she too busy just slamming Republicans and Green Party selected officials.
Having said, it is my own studied opinion that the Democrats in Minnesota, as an institution are indeed, beyond redemption.
“people here are starting to see where we are really at”
If true…..Happy days are here again.
Folks forget the GOP & DEM party…It’s only revolutionary,if we vote for a third party people.