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I don’t consider myself a Trotskyite, but sometimes I sure do like those Trotskyite editorials over at the World Socialist Web Site. Patrick Martin has a great one today. I’ll post a few clips and the link to whole thing, and then an analogy of my own.
<snip>
In its banality, hollowness, self-glorification and unadulterated lying, Obama’s address was typical of those delivered by the politicians of the two corporate-controlled parties that are vying for power in the 2012 election.
Ouch.
<snip>
To call either Tampa or Charlotte a political convention amounts to false advertising. These assemblies decided nothing and discussed nothing. The delegates served not as representatives from states and regions across a vast continent, but as spectators and props in a political infomercial featuring appearances by politicians and celebrities.
<snip>
Obama’s speech was a fraudulent exercise in which he postured as a defender of the “middle class,” linked himself to Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, and proposed … precisely nothing.
Succinct, concise, to the point, and accurate.
<snip>
And the conclusion:
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party represent different wings of the capitalist ruling elite. They compete over who will control positions of power and influence, but are in agreement on the fundamental question of defending the wealth and political monopoly of the financial aristocracy.
While corporations and billionaires dictate policy and make or break candidates through the vast sums they funnel into the coffers of the two parties and their affiliated “super PACs”, the political system becomes more and more removed from the working people, who are permitted to vote November 6 but have zero influence over the decisions made in Washington.
And here’s the link to the entire article:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/sep2012/obam-s07.shtml
So. Which wing of the ruling elite should Americans vote for? We’re told that we should choose the lesser of two evils and shut up. I see it as akin to a farmer and his wife arguing over whether the fox or the coyote should be chosen to guard the hen house.
Fox or coyote? To hell with that choice. I want the loyal hound dog. Unfortunately, our sociopathic elite does not appreciate such quaint concepts as loyalty to the common good. Not profitable, you see. And if you don’t see, then you are somehow UnAmerican. Don’t believe me? Just tell a Democratic loyalist you are voting Socialist or Green, or a Republican loyalist you are voting Libertarian or Constitution Party.
The reactions are remarkably similar. And have a nice day.
18 Comments
Dog and Pony Show…seen hundreds of them…ho hum…..time for a nap.
recd’
Duh.
Political conventions have been informercials ever since the Republican Convention of 1968. The effect of televised coverage. It the Socialist Party had a widely televised convention, they too would put on their best behavior, paper over their differences, and try to appeal to the widest audience through propaganda. Fortunately most third parties are small enough or have fragmented enough not to have the sorts of differences that are hidden under the surface of big-tent parties, are not obligated to tightly control their rhetoric, and have decided to appeal to those with specific values and principles or those who might consider them, and do not have to appeal to an audience that is only lukewarm to them.
Where you vote dictates your electoral strategy this year. If you are in Okahoma, for example, you cannot vote for or write in Jill Stein, for example. You can vote for the folks who are on the ballot or not at all. New York and California most likely have the widest range of choices but your vote gets lost in large numbers. The folks who have the most power to put a third party imprint on this election are in small states that can mobilize enough voters to put the electoral votes in play.
Interestingly, no one has done a web site that is a reference to which presidential candidates are actually on the ballot at the state level in all 50 states.
Politics1 gives the full range of candidates who are running.
Recommended.
The Constitution Party and Green Party of Georgia and Tennessee have together sued in federal court for more third party access. This unites the democrats, republicans, and status quo who all say they do not want the competition.
You start off being dismissive, at least I interpret “Duh” as dismissive, then focus on the importance of political conventions themselves, which misses the entire point.
Then you imply that voting third party(which really wasn’t the point of this post, either), should be carefully targeted according to which state the voter is voting in.
The point is that the two big conventions amply illustrated that there is only one ruling elite in this country that control both the major political parties. People like you who belittle other perspectives are nothing but enablers of the current system.
IOW, running dog lackeys of the corporatist fascist regime.
See, I can be dismissive, too.
My dismissiveness has to do with the impression that this is a sudden insight. There is one ruling elite in this country. They occupy both parties and have since Andrew Jackson and southern planters created the modern Democratic Party and corporations captured the farmer-labor movement that spawned the Republican Party. That has been pretty well established since the first person noticed that “FDR saved capitalism” and Harry Truman used the Red Scare to suppress the left.
Once you grasp that insight, and I don’t think that many folks reading FDL have missed it, the question is what are going to do about it. And that requires acting politically, something the left a hundred years ago knew how to do. And something that has become more difficult but not impossible since the amputation of the left in the 1940s and it’s reappearance in the 1960s.
That requires political strategy and, politics being primarily local, that means having localized strategies. And if you pursue an electoral within-the-institution strategy, it’s aim has to be giving you more influence after the election than before the election or people will not judge it to be worth their effort.
The current system can well absorb people who are satisfied with calling it out or making a statement. It really gets testy when people set up camp or actually start doing things locally. And it tries to co-opt change when there is sufficient power to affect it through its own institutions. And it gets taken apart when the laws that structure political relationships change, and it doesn’t matter whether that happens slowly or rapidly just so long as they change.
Outside of that context the conventions are just a bad TV program watched half-heartedly by roughly 20 million people for each. Out of a voting population of 150 million or so.
Yep, I’m a real running dog lacky of the fascist regime.
Highly rec’d!
Well said!
Excellent post Ohio Barbarian.
I find it unfathomable how anyone not directly or indirectly involved (I mean getting a paycheck), from/with the Democrats would go to the trouble of attending the DNC…..unless they came to protest.
That scares me more than anything, the enthusiasm, the excitement, the giddiness, just outright begging to be screwed by Pres Obama and the Democrats.
If what I think happens comes to pass (and I think it will); Pres Obama wins, Dems keep the Senate and maybe add a seat, maybe even take the House again.
If that happens, I want these folks to remember who they voted for when the Dems cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, when they DON’T raise taxes on the rich, when they implement good ole Simpson/Bowles!
Hell, word is that Pres Obama is looking at Erskine Bowles for Secretary of Treasury….Erskine friggin’! Bowles! Lol!
You can’t make this stuff up folks.
And Rham Emanuel on that stage, while in his home state teachers are prepared to strike over his shoddy treatment of them.
Just disgusting,pathetic and sad to see that DNC crowd.
When they should be objecting to this nonsense they are clapping.
When they should be turning that farce into a sit in, they are on their feet giving standing ovations.
And we wonder why Dems have ZERO respet or consideration for their ‘base’.
“My dismissiveness has to do with the impression that this is a sudden insight.”
Your impression is in error. The fact that the Democratic and Republican parties are just different wings of the American ruling class has been known for over a century by any American with a brain. But much of the time, one or the other wings would actually do something that substantially improved the standard of living for at least a large minority of the entire population.
The Two Party But Not All That Different electoral system at least sort of worked so long as one or the other actually took away some power and wealth from the most powerful and wealthy Americans and then redistributed it in ways that most Americans, well, LIKED.
There is no sudden insight on my part. You’ve read my posts as I have yours, and you’re not stupid, so you already knew that.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the WSWS, so that must be it. If you were, you’d know that the WSWS has been saying there is no essential difference between the Democrats and Republicans, or between Corporate America and union leadership for that matter.
So, no “sudden insight” there, either.
Thanks for reminding me about WSWS. There is too much political stuff, and good political stuff, on the web these days.
You’re welcome. Thanks for the Politics 1 link. And I wish I knew why there was no web site listing all of the third party candidates by states where they are on the ballot.
Gee. Now who would have an interest in maintaining that status quo?
Thanks, Senator. Erskine Bowles! The Cat Food Commission guy? Sec. Treas.?
On the bright side, if there’s anyone who could make Timothy Giethner look good in retrospect, it’s Erskine Bowles.
Maybe Obama is paying his childhood friend back in the form of a not-THE-most disgusting Treasury Secretary Ever historical fact for future Trivial Pursuit players.
And then Geithner can go back to a nice, cushy consulting position at Goldman Sachs.
…X 2
…and thank you OB for another spot on myFDL diary.Recommended.
Recced. Just came back here for a breath of fresh air after reading a thread on the “democratic” website bashing Occupy Charlotte. Vicious hippie punching.
Rec’d, of course.
–George Washington’s farewell speech
Rec’d
I’ve been watching modern socialism unfold in Venezuela over at… http://venezuelanalysis.com/
…but I’ve yet to see an article at WSWS referencing Venezuela.
You’d think that it’d be a subject of interest to the readers there.
Why the disconnect between WSWS and Venezuela? Anyone?