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I have another story to write but until then, this quick but important one.
While the corporate media, most “progressive blogs” and yes, even the front page of FDL fawn over and focus on the three ring circus of the Republican nomination, there is another as yet untold story. No I do not mean the story where the Democratic Party in Wisconsin illegally kept Wisconsin resident Aldous Tyler or Darcy Richardson off the ballot for the Democratic Party primary. A horrifyingly under-reported story yes but no not that story.
Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is running for president. Here he is interviewed in the Real News. Given that Rocky Anderson is being completely ignored by the corporate media and the apparently 501c3 Industrial Complex funded “progressive” blog land and Rocky’s central message, the term Real News is appropriate.
Rocky Anderson for President
33 Comments
If we progressives just complain about Obama, focus on Romney or Santorum etc and ignore this campaign, repeating what happened to Ralph Nader in 2004 and 2008, then we have lost the right to complain. Complain about corporate money in elections. Complain about wars, empire, foreign policy. Complain about the death of our Democratic Republic.
This is it folks. Help this campaign now.
Look,I agree with you….I am not shocked,that even here at FDL,where most of the key players who put up diaries(Jane,Jon,David & others) have recognised that the Dem Party is corrupt and is essentially a Corporate party have payed no attention to Rocky Anderson’s campaign.
Here is the candidate(Rocky Anderson)who is championing most of the things progressives want and yet we get diaries about the gasbags in the GOP who are running for the Presidency & not a peep about Anderson.
Is there any wonder,why progressives have not had any significant legislative victories in the last 15 yrs.Until progressives recognise & champion their own…all those so call progressive orgs will continue to be stomping fodder for the Corporate DNC.
I’ve done a fair amount of research on Rocky Anderson and I hope to be able to vote for him.
Thank you.
We have to start getting honest here. The Democratic Party is where progressive politics goes to die. Those who only focus on the evil Republicans are in fact promoting the Democrats as a savior solution to the evil Republicans.
The Rocky Anderson campaign (and yes the Jill Stein campaign) are possible rallying points, organizational tools to start to retake back (or indeed to make real) our democratic republic.
After the blatant betrayal of Obama and his party to the corporate power structure, if we simply focus on Republicans or just complain about Obama, then we have lost the right to complain. If we by our own inaction make Rocky Anderson invisible and concede that political space to the Democrats then we have lost the right to complain.
We need to be that upfront, honest and realistic in our assessment of where we are politically in our nation.
Oh and we can be rest assured that some folks want these kinds of political ideas and discussions to disappear as quickly as possible.
It is up to us progressives to make sure that does not happen.
Royal Oak
What state do you live in?
Oh yes and H/T to Independent Political Report for this story.
It stuns me that I had to find out about this Real News interview from a Libertarian leaning Third Party site.
So
Let’s get ‘er done.
Support, promote Rocky
Or stop complaining
One thing I like about both Michael and Rocky is they recognize the true enemy is the republican-democratic Uniparty, not other third party efforts. It is my belief that the Uniparty plants people to take pot shots at other third party candidates to keep us divided and focused on the republican clowns. Though I wish Darcy Richardson all the luck in the world and will vote democratic if he wins the nomination, I think that is unlikely. Win or lose, if we want a future we should all band together at some time and vote third party instead of Uniparty. The issues just cannot get any clearer.
NPA
Ditto- right back atcha
Thanks
“Those who only focus on the evil Republicans are in fact promoting the Democrats as a savior solution to the evil Republicans.”
There is a ritual aspect to Republican bashing among Democrats. Former and especially recently former Democrats still have the habit. There is a rhetorical question among some Alcoholics Anonymous groups. What do you get when you sober up a horse thief? The answer: A sober horse thief.
Michigan
Recommended.
The Democratic Party has made it clear it stands for corporatism, war, and the police state. It has divorced itself from progressive principles and any notion that it is the party of the people.
As a consequence, Democrats now embrace the very things they condemned during the previous administration as getting Dems elected trumps principles they once loudly proclaimed.
If Rocky or any other third-party effort gains momentum, I’m guessing that those seemingly obsessed with reporting on the Repub “clown show” will have no problem diverting their resources to tearing down any third-party effort they perceive might be a threat to the Dems.
The thinking of many seems to be that, principles be damned, everything possible must be done to get Dems elected. Otherwise, that other right-wing party just might get elected!
Great interview.
I love the way he answered the first question, and called “political contributions” what they are: bribery.
Hey Michael,
Nice job. You’re gettin’ good at this. The problem is that electoral politics no longer matter……..so you are still behind the eight ball. The Revolution is “all” now, Viva La Revolution!
As an aside……..ask anyone.
I concur with this pov and this comment you made above AltID
Barack Obama’s WH campaign hacks/handlers evidently with Barack Obama’s having cleared it are snuffing any and all D Party primary competition/opposition. Is this due to Barack Obama’s poor and abysmal WH record as the D/DINO POTUS since 2009? About wanting to suppress any democracy actually seeing the light of day within this so called Democratic Party?
So very much of what ails the USA here in 2012 in our national politics,policy formations and governance crimes and mockery of Rule Of Law for Rich/Poor alike stems from R vs. D flimflams which 535 Americans in Congress and 1 in the WH seem all in on very often.
Some serious stuff in the air these days as to how fast and far the USA is failing and falling down.Partisan driven mindlessness of the R vs. D brigades is not moving the ball up or downfield. It may be keeping the D and R party hacks/consultants/think tanks and Shady Money Politics gag and bag types in a cushy lifestyle but it is not working for the rest of us Americans as we waver at precipice edge.
Mortgage Debacle Cover-up,the ceaseless undermining of SS/MC and what Iran is being set up for by Obama and this D Party run WH are on the Ds. Barack Obama is the POTUS here and now. Has been since Jan.20,2009. Not Mitt . Not the Ricks.Not Newt. Not John. Not Sarah. Obama has a WH record. Less smoke and mirrors please. More light of day please. Some plain honesty would be a real change.
Americans have some real and deep problems.
Americans need some real and deep solutions.
Fictional POTUS Andrew Shepard gave a speech in a movie back in 1995 that POTUS Obama should sit and listen to a few times. Or more.
See ” An American President ” Wikiquote/ 1995 film
Directed by Rob Reiner Written by Aaron Sorkin
Michael Douglas,Annette Benning,Richard Dreyfus in lead roles
Barack Obama is the President of the Untited States.
Barack Obama — Do what is right for the 99% and we can and will help with setting the 1% to a more equality themed state of affairs. Lots more of us. Is it all about the $$? Then know the $$ is ours(99%)as well as theirs (1%).
Find some character and act on it.
A profile in courage needed here and now.
Thanks Fellow firebaggers.
We may not have made any of this to the front page but despite the attempts of some Dem apologists types, we are #1 on the recommended for now. So the article and conversation are still visible.
Robert- from you Sir that is high praise- So my response is
Tiochfaidh Ar La
Our Day Will Come
Ann Irish Revolutionary Greeting
I would vote for Rocky, he’s a man with real principles, and his actions have always (to my recollection) backed up his words. Don’t know much about Jill Stein, but I am very familiar with Rocky.
workingclass
I hear ya. In fact I have a commercial idea for them.
Do you suffer from BPDS? Battered Progressive Democrat Syndrome? Then leave your abuser. Do not listen to the lies, the promises.
Come- join us in recovery. Join with Rocky Anderson
Your president
FYI
Scarecrow of firedoglake was mentioned by Bill Boyarsky on TruthDig. It was an article castigating the liberals who are chastising (read that telling the truth) Obama.
I commented and thanked them for advertising firedoglake. Where articles about Rocky Anderson are (gasp) allowed!!!!!
As the saying goes
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then you win.
That wasn’t his best interview, but he sort of came around at the end.
Having a potential spokesperson in the WH for real change will help raise awareness about why something more revolutionary will be needed. And I still haven’t given up on electoral politics. Giving up on electoral politics 100% seems like a recipe for disaster to me.
Hey Michael,
Slainte!
I won’t even consider supporting Rocky Anderson (beyond my 1 measly vote) unless he articulates how he intends to use his candidacy to build up something more long-lasting than his political career. If, after a likely loss, he takes his marbles and goes home, saying “Well, I tried.”, that is not going to make much difference.
I’ve seen this sort of stupidity, before, and it’s not impressive. Dennis Kucinich, who had deep connections to the Progressive Democrats of America, did not use his campaign to boost the PDA as an enduring force for reform. Who knows how much they might have grown, had Kucinich thought more deeply about the opportunities his candidacy afforded him! Maybe it’d be 10x as big! They’re a weak organization, being unwilling to throw any Democrat under the bus*, but they do some good, especially, I believe, fighting for single payer.
Is Anderson using his campaign to de-legitimize the Democratic Party? I’ve argued for trying to reform a deeply corrupted Democratic Party, but this goal is compatible with de-legitimizing it. De-legitimization need not be presented as a permanent state.
IMO, as progressives have failed to de-legitimize the Democratic Party (especially and including Obama), they are in a poor position to attract a large following into a new third party. (Implicitly de-legitimizing the DP, within the niche world of a few blogs, doesn’t count. I’m talking about the masses.) It’s not like Obama and his Dem buddies haven’t provided a large numbers of items to use against them.
I had argued for an ‘Operation Expose Obama’, over a year ago. The idea (in spite of the name) was to expose Obama + the Dems + the Republicans. There’s still a crying need for such activism, but since it wasn’t done earlier, there is not already the fertile soil prepared for a reform candidate like Anderson.
I think any enthusiasm for Anderson is deeply rooted in the hope for a messiah. At least Jesus had a plan – to be resurrected from the dead. What is Anderson’s plan, after his likely electoral demise? To be a footnote in Presidential electoral history, like Kucinich?
Methinks I should write a diary entitled “Rocky Anderson, the craving for a messiah, and the continuing failure of progressives to electorally organizes.” While progressives clearly need to generate lots of new, aggressive leaders, it’s nonsensical to me to put more faith in a messiah than in a process that puts growth and strategy as priorities.
* they had, at one point, made noises about throwing healthcare traitor Max Baucus under the bus, but that effort appears to have evaporated.
I think those of us planning on voting for him were going to plan on doing the movement-building work ourselves. The candidate is just a starting point (and I find him slightly preferable to Jill Stein.)
If you write a post, about this, can you describe your decision making flow-chart with how you think you’re going to vote in 2012? Like “Voting/Not voting is better than so, and so and so is better than so and so”? And how practicality with realistic election in 2012 figures in for you, as well as future movement-building potential?
Also, I do think the uniparty needs to be widely recognized as illegitimate. Totally. It really is a fraud, and an intentional one at that at the Big Dog level.
Unfortunately, the country is lost. The viewpoints on blogs like this are an extreme minority in this country. People like Rocky Anderson and Jill Stein will not be allowed to debate anyone on anything. Obama and mainstream Democrats are so far to the right, republican pres candidates can’t really outconservative him on anything at all so this nonsensical contraception issue was invented out of thin air. There is honestly nothing left at all. I live in Idaho so my vote is completely meaningless which means I will gladly vote for Anderson or Stein or whomever just because it affects nothing. NOt sure who will even be on the ballot. Anderson may as he is a Mormon which gets lots of brownie points here.
He said he left the LDS over overt racism back in the day.
Our country and perhaps much of the world may indeed be lost for decades. After it crashes and burns it will be useful to have an “extreme minority” ready with the right ideas to get back on track.
I share your frustration that this may be a lost century and have no illusions about putting things right in 2012. I am very fortunate to have enough retirement and be old enough so I won’t have to live through the worst of it. I just think we owe it to the next generation – which we are now presently screwing – to try something.
Well, I doubt that I’d go to the trouble of a flow chart. In terms of the point of my post, and my proposed diary, it’s not really necessary (though I’ve written a great deal on voting strategies, so it’s not a bad idea, from that point of view.)
Assuming there’s a serious constituency for movement building beyond election day, amongst Rocky Anderson supporters, it’s surely occurred to them that Rocky Anderson becomes a more compelling sell, to the voters, if they know he’s not going to disappear on November 3. (Perhaps to reappear during the next election cycle.) Well, did they put this question to Anderson? If so, what did he say? Inquiring minds would like to know – or, at least my mind.
Pushing the meme of the uniparty is a very good thing. But again, if Rocky Anderson pushes this only during the heat of the election cycle, is he really all that concerned about it?
Of course, the Republican Party should be de-legitimized, also. In many ways, it should be even easier to de-legitimize them. For one thing, they often don’t even bother with populist rhetoric (unlike some Dems, who will talk the talk, during election season, but then play footsy with their corporatist and bankster buddies the day after.) For another, the data on ALEC that I’ve seen indicates that it’s overwhelmingly a Republican project (by about 9:1, Repub to Dem). Thus, de-legitimizing the Republicans as wanting to sell off America’s commons should be easy, to anybody with a platform.
E.g., Obama could single-handedly do major damage to Republicans by making knowledge of ALEC well-known to the American public, and (rightfully) pinning it on Republicans.
So, why doesn’t he? AFAICT, for the same reason that the Republicans, who could have severely damaged both Obama and the Democrats, by exposing Obama as the sleazy liar that he is, as per his backstabbing deal with Tauzin. And that is: they are in bed with the same agencies. The Republicans want their mega-dollars to keep flowing in from the healthcare sector, just like the Democrats. And Obama wants to sell off the commons to private interests, just like the Republicans.
Uni-party, indeed! You might want to check out How you, too, can figure out that Obama betrays the 99%, and works for the 1%, first and foremost.
I wasn’t meaning a literal flow chart.
Just, like, your personal thought process for your vote in 2012.
Regarding everything about movement-building…I wonder if part of the progressive problem is also that we know we’ll need a global movement to really be effective. I’m dreaming big today. #OccupyGlobalization. Occupy the world bank.
Progressives also need to really embrace marketing. (I think you’ve written on that before.) Maybe part of our problem so far was that we weren’t thinking BIG enough. Only big, massive changes WILL work. Which might be part of why OWS has taken off like wildfire….now THAT’s a big idea.
Another point of Rocky making a point that he’s not going away after election day: some voters, who are liable to political messiah-ship (which I believe is a function of our innate tribalism), can be woken up from any delusions that political campaigns, absent serious, sustained recruitment, probably in addition to building large-scale social movements, can save us. Anderson could serve as a role model of what a serious, public minded citizen should look like.
BTW, I’d appreciate it if Justice Party supporters did research into the success of Latin American movements, that have SUCCEEDED in reducing the gap between the 1% and the 99%. As we can see, Greece is going from bad to worse; and I’ve heard the the movement in Spain has only had tangible benefits in the countryside. I.e., their legislators have still not come, around.
If Anderson + Justice Party get a better handle on the successes of Latin America, then they can use their knowledge to compel Americans to join them. Hopefully, Anderson will lay responsibility on the 99% (and not blame everything on Dems and Repubs, who only managed to screw us so badly because we, collectively, allowed them to), but give them a more plausible guidebook for embracing their responsibility.
While individuals, like Obama, have more power than any of us little people, as individuals, collectively, we have more power than Obama. This conviction of mine is also incompatible with messianic approaches to national rectification. This idea commonly finds expression as “You get the government you deserve.”
Laying continuing responsibility on the 99% will also relieve Anderson of some unnecessary psychological burdens.
The one 1% are individually smart, but collectively much smarter. And they have been coordinated, like ants. But the 99% can have a much greater collective intelligence if we have a place (we need a MESSAGE BOARD, with sections and sub-sections, where old threads can be bumped) to gather, too.
We could have one board for studying latin movements, another for banking reform, etc.
I don’t find blame useful either way outside of motivating people (and getting your hate on at predatory bankers etal has it’s uses, as well as “personal responsibility.”)
Well, I’ve already written about that, a few times, especially ito the Presidency. But it’s sort of irrelevant, because it’s what you can get collectives to do that counts.
I’m working on something that will allow people to discover and act as collectives, at the local level. Hopefully, Nancy Bordier will come through with a vote bloc technology application that collectives, organized for various purposes, can exploit to muscle through their political desires.
The more captured by Big Money our Congress becomes, the more important it is for citizens to cooperate, at the voting booth, to give corrupt incumbents the boot. I expect supplicatory approaches, that don’t threaten the political power structure, to become even less effective, going forward (absent voting collectives.)
I hear Michael. It seems sometimes we are our worst enemy. We spend an inordinate amount of time bashing obama, dems, and rethugs, while spending not nearly eqguivalent time supporting candidates outside the box.
The blog world is a niche world. Dailykos get only about 2 million distinct visitors, per month. I’m not aware that they function as any sort of ‘opinion leaders’, either.
Thus, I would say that there’s insufficient informed bashing of Republicans and Democrats, that makes it before the eyeballs and ears of the unblogged masses. Of course, the unblogged masses are aware that things are not peaches and cream, though they probably have a somewhat more optimistic viewpoint than blog readers. (The last part of the previous sentence is a guess, on my part. I’m assuming an “ignorance is bliss” dynamic.) But I expect them to know far fewer details than blog readers; and furthermore, to be so lacking in details that they have less confidence in, and tendency towards, pointing to specific betrayals by both D’s and R’s. (Both known in great detail, as well as reasonably assumed. Both sins of commission, as well as omission.)
Of course, the Fox TV set is a breed apart. In their world, the D’s and liberals get 90%+ of the blame for, well, just about everything.
Of course, people should concern themselves with the positive, also. But the power structure is dominated by bad-faith players, of both the D and R variety. Yet, the public still sends bad D’s and R’s back to Congress, each and every election cycle. If they knew more details about just how bad the D’s and R’s are, would they be so willing to vote for incumbents? Would they be so willing to ignore politics to the extent that they have no choices but the choice presented in a general election?
I can’t know the answer to this question, but I prefer to be optimistic. The important thing is to get a firm answer to these questions. That implies a massive outreach and educational effort.