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Nietzsche said:
“When we look into the abyss, searching for monsters, the abyss looks into us as well.”
Right now we are staring the abyss in the face and there are indeed monsters there. This abyss is the elections this fall. The chance that radical Republicans will take over the House and perhaps the Senate has grown. The affect of constant lies from Fox News and Talk Radio have energized the Republican base. The limp leadership from the White House and from Majority Leader Reid has demoralized the Democratic base.
The passing of many of the Lefts long term wish list items, barely and with tons of ridiculous and galling compromise has created a situation where the Right is fired up and the Left is angry at its own leadership. The conditions are in place for a wave election and the wave is not likely to go the way that we Liberals are going to like in any fashion. . . .
It would be one thing if we didn’t have a clear cut difference between the parties, but it really is very stark. The fact is the Republicans have embraced their inner radical. The proposals that their marquee candidates are espousing would, in any other time, force them into ignominious defeat. Now they are accepted and even pushed by their “Know Nothing” base.
Black is white, up is down in the radical Republican base these days. Somehow the TARP bailout is the fault of the president elected two months after it was enacted and not the sitting president. Somehow tax cuts which have contributed hundreds of billions to the debt and to our deficit need to be preserved and paid for in reductions in social safety net programs.
We are in a situation where the possible Chair of the House Ways and Means committee is pushing a deficit reduction plan that not only does not reduce the deficit it continues and accelerates the transfer of the tax burden from wealth to work. Rep. Paul Ryan is the man who will try to make this a reality if Republicans retake the House this fall.
The craziness goes much further though. Rep. Darrel Issa is already saying that he will unleash a flurry of subpoena’s to investigate the Obama Administration. This is not because there is any evidence of wrong doing (unlike say the last Administration which lied us into a trillion dollars worth of war, captured and tortured people world wide, provided tons of no bid contracts to companies which had direct ties to the VP or outed a CIA covert agent for political reasons). It will be the late 90’s all over, though of course this time the economy is in the crapper and there are no adults left in the Republican party to curb the excesses.
All this is before we get started on the Constitutional nonsense. The radical Republicans are just dying to take a red pen to the founding document of our Republic. The good news here is that the process is so long that even if they manage to pass, say a repeal of the 17th Amendment’s direct election of Senators, getting it past the States will be a near impossible task.
All this leaves out their neo-Hooverite ideas about how to bring the nation out of the worst economic crises it has seen in eight decades. Those of us who are just barely hanging on with unemployment can rest assured that it will end and there will be no support from the Federal government. After all, we’ve got to make sure that folks like Tiger Woods and Wall Street traders don’t have to pay any more in taxes. Putting a roof over our heads or food on the table must take a back seat to them being able to save a few hundred thousand more dollars, at least that is what the radical Republicans think.
After a bad accident we often think “If I had only done X”. Well, we all know what the X is that we have to do this cycle. We have to work our asses off to get Democrats elected. I know there are lot of folks reading this who are rolling their eyes about now. I can’t really blame them, the Democrats have not done a good job with the large majorities we gave them in 2008. They have been weak-kneed and lily-livered in the main. Worse if we help them to hold on to their majorities they are not very likely to learn the lesson that being too moderate, that by being too willing to compromise and being unable to reign in their own more conservative members is the reason they are in trouble.
Yet they are our best, and really only hope. The choice is between them and the denizens of Crazy Town. For all that we would like (desperately love) to have a more affective and liberal Democratic caucus, the way they are now is so much better than what we will get under the Republicans we have to support them. If there were a viable third choice at this point we could probably take it. The thing is this is binary, it is either what we have with the Democrats or what we will suffer if the Republicans take over.
It is time to step up for your country. This is not an intellectual exercise, this cycle is going to decide the course of the nation for the next two years, at least. We don’t have a margin for error. If the Republicans can enact any of their agenda, the consequences will handcuff the next Congress and probably the one after that. They have made it abundantly clear that they will do nothing to for the vast majority of the people. Their idea of liberty is being free to starve in the street because your job was outsourced and you have to compete against 5 other unemployed workers for a part time minimum wage job at Staples.
This is not about holding our noses, though there will be an element of that. This is about keeping bat-shit crazy people from running the country. If we can hold on to majorities in the House and Senate, things will not get actively worse. That is not the case if we lose control.
So, there is the abyss, the monsters are there and they are nuts. They have told us in no uncertain terms what they will do if we let them out. The choice is ours. We can bitch our majorities to death and pay the cost or we can avoid a catastrophe. The way to do that is to get out and work for a campaign. Pick a candidate and do everything you can to make sure that a Democrat wins in your Congressional District or in your Senate race. Talk to all your Democratic and Independent friends and neighbors. Badger them to vote and vote for the only sane group of leaders in this contest.
There is always the chance that we will lose anyway. There is that chance in any election, but if we get out and work, bust our asses for the next 62 days, we can say that we tried to keep the nation from self-destructing under the pressure of a political party that has lost touch with reality and given in to radical reactionary policy. Don’t let the abyss find monsters in you. Act now and for the next two months to prevent your country from falling to those who will not act to help you or the vast majority of the nation.
The floor is yours.
[Photo: Looking into the Abyss (source: What What via Flickr)]
145 Comments
As it happens, I wrote an extended response on Monday-
The Big Fail
I understand from the WSJ that they’re intending to dangle a bright shiny new stimulus.
Better get off your asses and do it quick losers.
You almost had me convinced Bill, give the corporate dems one more chance to sell us out to the highest bidder.
The Banana Republicans may retake power this fall because Americans like winners not weak inefective democrats. Give Americans what they want, they deserve what they get.
Yes, it’s an abyss but just saying that the reason to vote for Democrats is because the Republicans are worse isn’t going to cut it with the moderate republicans, independents, left wingers who has been told to suck it up. It won’t be heard by the everyday person who has been treading water for too long that doesn’t read the Internet.
The President needs to do something really radical at this point and tell Congress to get off its collective ass and back him. The President and Congress, as I see it, has nothing left to lose because if they don’t act soon, they are going to lose
Bill,
I understand and respect your opinion, but you should be delivering it to the independent voters because, like the proverbial swingman, Justice Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court, they will determine the outcome of the midterm elections. A substantial majority of them voted for Obama in 2008, assuring his victory. They are just as disgusted with him and the Democrats as we are, if not more so, and even if we show up, hold our noses, and vote for the Democrats I doubt that we’ll make up for the switch by independent voters voting for Republicans.
Just so you know, I live in Kentucky and I will be voting for Jack Conway, the Democratic candidate running to replace retiring Republican Senator Jim Bunning. The Republican candidate is the awful Rand Paul.
My Democratic vote for Representative in Congress is a waste of time because the Republican incumbent will win in a landslide, so I’m going to vote for myself as a write-in candidate.
Silly me, believing Jason Rosenbaum was no longer writing here. It appears in fact that he is, under the pen name, “Bill Egnor.”
Seriously LOL! So true! More sycophant faux poseur support of sellout Dims.
I love this line from
Jason, err Bill’s column:I’m gonna like it just fine. The more of those lying, chickenshit, DINOs that fall, the better. I’m hoping that Phonygold, Boxer, and a bunch of others go right down the tubes. Used to be that DINO’s applied to Blue Dogs, but for me it’s now come to mean supposed “progressives” who really are corporatist BluePigs.
Bill,
The abyss contains many monsters and while you look at one, another is creeping up behind you. It has been creeping into the progressive movement for at least 30 years. Nader battled against it, but they put him away in the late 1970s. Since then, a few true progressives in congress have fought it tooth and nail, but since Obama came to power even that pathetically small resistance has faded. The monster that will put the crazies into power is not the crazies themselves, but the Democratic Party as it swoons to the hypnotic music of the plutocracy. You know what Truman said regarding the choice people make between a real Republican and someone who acts like one, right? Well, it applies in 2010 just like it did in 1948. The people will go out and pick the genuine article not the pretender. Who is to blame? I can’t blame the voters, I have to blame the faux Democratic monsters that have been creeping into the Party for years. Their present manifestation is Obama and Emanuel and Pelosi and Reid and the supporting cast of the Conerva-Dems and the moderate Dems and even the progressive Dems who watched as the winds for change completely deflated from the Progressive Movement. We can’t let the Dems win on the basis of their performance or they will keep doing it until all we have is a house full of monsters eating our very souls.
Amen to this, with one exception. TRUE Lefty independents will not help the Republicans regain power any more than they would vote for this kabuki version of a Democratic Party. Here I go, up on the “don’t vote” soapbox again…
Remember motor voter? Remember how the GOP opposed it – until voter turnouts got so low they had to act? Not voting is an opportunity to cease validating an invalid system. Rather than vote for either branch of our UniParty, or the even more clueless teabaggers, doesn’t it make more sense to make a statement by refusing to participate?
Instead of those little “I voted” stickers they hand out at the polls on election day, I’d like to see a few hundred thousand that say, “I refuse.”
When things get this bad, each vote cast, whether for those we perceive as the lesser of two evils or not, is one more reason we give those in power to believe we don’t think the system is broken.
When will we wake up and boycott elections?
When moving a heavy mass, sometimes it’s necessary to contribute energy during the right time of an oscillation and let it rock back a little before the final shove to send it moving out of it’s nest.
I’m no longer allowing myself to be prodded into voting against my own best interest and principles by the chicken little sky is falling, “the nazis are going to get you if you don’t vote for the democrats” argument.
Time to try something else, this last time around was an epic bait and switch. Never again.
It’s bat-shit crazy to keep voting for “Democrats” who betray us every chance they get.
The corrupt two-party system is the Abyss. Can we quit jumping into it?
Yes we can.
“Radical Republicans” – now there’s a term that’s seen some wear-and-tear. Not that I disagree with how you’re using it here, but it’s sad how history works sometimes.
For what it’s worth, my completely anecdotal experience with many young left-wing non-voters is that if the largest Democratic majority we’re likely to see in decades didn’t get us a guaranteed basic health plan that is 100% public coverage – and especially since reconciliation was off the table to pass a public plan but hopped right back on the table again once the defanged bill’s future looked perilous – why the hell vote for the Democrats in national races?
Democratic kingmakers fought tooth-and-nail to get the law passed, they point to the law as the reason we should vote for them in 2010 (and ridiculously claimed the law would muster public support for Democrats in November once it was passed with all its benefits shoved years into the future), they have no organized agenda to push for a public plan, and young, disillusioned voters are still supposed to believe that the party has a serious intention of pursuing its own platform on health care. Why? Why would they believe this?
As a previous article here demonstrated, if the Democrats could have peeled off most of those who opposed the law from the left from the ‘opposition’ category (an unchanged 13% from late March, in the last days of debate over the bill, to August), they’d have been able to trumpet almost 50/50 support/opposition to the bill, instead of being subject to Republican attacks based on better numbers in the opposition column. And today, they’d be able to trumpet MORE supporters than opposition to the law going into November, instead of unchanged levels of support and a slight decrease in direct opposition.
And to be short, I don’t believe that a public plan would have decreased support for the bill in any substantial way, given the support/oppose numbers in that polarized time vs. the ‘don’t know’ folks, and I certainly believe that Democrats could have captured at least 10 of the 13 points of left opposition with a public plan. I don’t think there would even be any significant opposition to the bill in March or the law in August from the left if there was a public plan. It’s strange to see how 13% can make all the difference in shaping the story going into the election, and how myopic the Senate majority leaders and White House were in judging this 13% as a meaningless and fickle fringe. That’s your base, mates.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I will refuse to vote. I will vote if I have to crawl to the polling place. The GOP has forever hoped that citizens will stay at home and I WILL NOT!
In my mind, if they are an incumbant, they are outta there! PERIOD!
They’ve had their chance. They messed up repeatedly and shown the world they can’t work in a representative government. No need to send them back.
IF…they had passed a public health plan like we wanted this CAT FOOD Commie-ition crap would’nt be happening. If they had given the US a public health plan, the Medicare costs would be mute. Instead, they rolled over and played the GOPterra game. It’s pitiful really.
Amen.
We will not get accountable, representative leaders if we are unwilling to make a clean break from the corrupt, corporate-controlled ones we have now. We must clearly, irrevocably demonstrate that our support for those now ensconced in this dysfunctional system – AND our WILLINGNESS to vote for those now seeking to REPLACE THEM and become ensconsced themselves – has run its course.
The teabaggers are convinced – despite Dick Armey being behind the whole thing from day one – that they are on the precipice of real change, just as we progressives convinced ourselves of the same thing two years ago, despite someone named Clinton being involved.
Again I ask: When will Americans wake up and boycott elections?
Give the political class all the rope it needs to hang itself. They baited us with healthcare, now they threaten us with fucking up social security. Go ahead MF’ers do it. See what the electorate does to you after that.
You believe this because the Democrats have told you its true. If the GOP really wanted voters to stay home, they would not have finally signed on to motor voter.
There is nothing that scares an elected official more – regardless of party – than the knowledge that their “election” was by default. Voter turnout of less than 20 percent in a general election will send that message loud and clear.
Really?? did you just write that? Let’s count the ways the democrats made things actively worse:
Bank Bailout- Check
Institutionalize bank bailouts- Check
Negotiate free trade agreements with more countries- Check
Force people to buy expensive insurance- Check
Approve 57 of 59 MTP removal permits in the first month- Check
Fail to regulate gas and coal industry- Check
Help BP cover up Oil Spill- Check
Set up a catfood commission to plunder S.S.- Check
Escalate the war in Afganistan- Check
Clear cut in our national forests- Check
Target Americans and civilians for killing without due process- Check
I have got to say Bill you are the Democratic Party’s idea of a wet dream.
Although I agree with all of the above comments, have written the same on innumerable blogs. I’ll be voting Democratic in the midterms, as I’ve voted Democratic for the last 40 years.
Why? Because even after repeated betrayals from the Democratic party, they’re simply not as crazy as the other side.
I understand why Democratic voters didn’t turn out in the 1990s and gave us a Republican Congress after the Dems voted their jobs overseas.
I sorta understand the Naderites, although they may have given us George Bush round two and this recession/depression.
But each turning away, gave us Republicans who did even more to destroy this country, the corporate Dems learned nothing from the lesson they were given, except how to compromise further with Republicans.
So, with a heavy heart, I’ll be voting Democratic this fall.
I can’t bring myself to give ‘em money, or phone bank, so I’ll be doing my part to throw us down the abyss.
But I’m not really the problem, the Democratic politicians through bone-headed, heartless corporate giveaways in the face of real suffering in the American people have driven us to the very edge of the abyss.
People without jobs, healthcare, and homes generally don’t vote for those who could have helped them, but didn’t.
Idealists generally don’t vote for those who have lied to them, and then spit at them.
They’ll stay home, and the truly desperate and those who’ve drunk the Koolaid will vote Republican for “change.”
Which we will all get in spades, if the Republicans take over Congress and Obama does his usual number, and “compromises” on some very ugly legislation that will further devastate this country, despite being impeached by the same nutball Republicans.
My vote won’t help them toss us into that abyss, but my vote doesn’t really matter when the Democratic politicians have themselves driven the voters away through their own cynical political machinations.
You know what. I know the difference.
“You believe this because the Democrats have told you its true. If the GOP really wanted voters to stay home, they would not have finally signed on to motor voter.”
NOPE! I don’t believe it because somebody told me. I believe it because my eyes see it. I live in the south and I can tell you they like nothing better.
“There is nothing that scares an elected official more – regardless of party – than the knowledge that their “election” was by default. Voter turnout of less than 20 percent in a general election will send that message loud and clear.”
Nope. They don’t care! As long as they win is all that matters. They don’t have to worry about the voters till the next election.
Seriously, I disagree with you. However, you have your way and I have mine. I will not be swayed into not voting. It is one of my last rites as a taxpayer. I spelled it that way because we may be on the endangered species list.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans intend to take us to the same destination, one will get us there in two years, the other in one year, either way we’re going to the same station and we’re fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.
We may be terrified of what they are doing, and have been doing to us, but they have no shame or fear, and not one of them intends to spend even a moment worrying about what we want, or how our lives are going.
Exactly the point I was making Juday. Malcontent and Rusty want to be nihilists and say that it is all one. Well the evidence is pretty dammed clear, there are worse things than the weak and ineffective Democrats and they are staring us in the face.
That is ridiculous conspiracy theory. Really, you think that the Democrats want to roll back things like the changes to health insurance, changes to wage protections, that they want to change our 14th Amendment? These are all avowed priorities of the Republicans.
That’s just nuts. Don’t you see the level of misery you are condemning millions of your fellow citizens to? I will grant that there is a chance that things will get so bad that they can radically change, but the level of suffering you are betting (and it is just a bet there is no surety) makes this premise shocking in its callousness.
George Carlin put it Best,
Write your self in if there are only democrats and republicans on the ballot, but don’t vote for a democrat they are part of the problem.
Boycott elections? Republicans depend on you to do that. Historically they’ve always been able to turn out their base, whereas Dems peel at any reason or none. Nader — whose campaigns have been given millions of dollars in free ads and other help by Republicans — took seven times as many votes from Gore as Buchanan took from Bush in 2000.
Where does this trace to? Why do righties vote in greater fervor than lefties, especially far lefties?
One reason is that many of the bigger forces in the Communist and (to some extent) Socialist wings of the left see democracy as merely an enabler for capitalism; rather than vote for incremental change, they want to “heighten the contradictions”, to use Lenin’s phrase: In other words, they want the righties to win elections and make things so bad, so unbearable, that the masses finally rise up in revolt (under the leadership of the waiting Communists, of course).
That’s why the German Communists of the early 1930s had “Nach Hitler, Uns!” as their motto. That’s why Nader and his closest associates, when they were among friends, admitted that they wanted Bush to win in 2000. (And in 2004.)
It didn’t work for the 1930s German Commies, it didn’t work for Nader in 2000, and it won’t work now. “Heightening the contradictions” by allowing righties to rule unopposed never ever works.
Yup. I remember 2000. All too well.
Sure, if what you want is to be sure that the Republicans will be able to ruin the nation some more, do that.
This is not about liking what the Dems have done. I think they have done a medium crappy job. It is that the alternative is so horrendously bad, for me and the nation that there is an imperative to do something to prevent it.
Maybe you have the means to ride out a full on Depression, maybe you live in another country and it doesn’t matter except intellectually, but for me it is a matter of the utmost seriousness and choosing to sit out when the writing is on the wall as to the results of that action is not a choice I can make or even sit by while others make it.
Funny how the Republican base sees the differences more clearly than you do. If there were no differences, why would they care who wins? They knew better in 2000, and they know better now. But refusing to vote is a long-time self-defeating far-lefty non-strategy.
Here’s what is “nuts”:
Voting against one’s own best interest, I.e willingly pulling the lever (or touching the proprietary software icon on the privatized voting machine is more apt these days) to help elect the very individuals who will be laughing at you and taking you to the cleaners.
The “insurance reform” debacle that only served to cement the current Insurance Cartels and ensure their profits did it for me. Now you want me to end up in six months saying, yep, I did it again, there goes social security and I put the assholes who did it in office? Nope. They might get there anyway, but I’m not going to be suckered into pulling the trigger on the gun pointing at my head. That’s not callous. Thinking you’ll be making a difference by rewarding criminal behaviour is definitely counterproductive though.
One of the main reasons we got 8 years of Bush was the meme: “There’s no difference between Republicans or Democrats, I’m voting Green/Nader/not.”
So the election became close enough to steal.
Do you really believe Gore would have lead us into Iraq and Afghanistan, ignored Katrina, and created an abyss of a deficit by massive tax cuts to the uber-wealthy?
I’ve been on this planet 60 years and I knew from experience that “No difference between Democrats and Republicans” was a lie, and a dangerous one, at that.
As it proved to be.
“Punish” corporate Dems by not voting for — or working for — any Democrats and you get shithouse crazy rat Republicans, and corporate Dems who will be happy to “compromise” with them on shithouse rat crazy legislation.
And both of ‘em will be thrilled, absolutely thrilled, you didn’t vote.
Oh really? You think all your reps are pure evil?
The Democrats brought this on themselves. You say the choice is stark. I think the choice is stark too. I just have a different choice in mind. Anyone who votes for either a Democrat or Republican is voting for corporate policies that will send this country into depression and keep it there. Anyone who votes for either of the main parties is voting for kleptocracy. They are voting for endless war, domestic spying, and looting until there is nothing left.
This is just a recasting of the “lesser of two evils” argument. Many of us are past that. Democrats don’t represent me. They work against all the issues I care about. Democrats may own your vote. They don’t own mine. And if they give me no affirmative reason to vote for them, screw them.
Do you really believe that they will follow through on those positions once they have effectively used them to regain power? If they actually addressed them, then the issues would not be available in later elections.
Case in point is abortion. The GOP has campaigned against abortion ever since Roe v. Wade, but they have done nothing of substance about it (on a national scale). It took a “Democrat” (the sitting President) to install the strongest national restrictions on abortion since it became legal.
Right, right – It’s the Nader voters’ fault that Amazin’ Al gave away his double-digit lead in the polls in a one-month span prior to the election.
Denial, apparently, ain’t just a river in Egypt, but also the predominate characteristic of party-line Dems.
In fact, part of the reason Gore got hosed was because so many self-styled “smart lefties” bought into the bullshit memes pushed against Gore by the corporate media.
The left tried that in 2000. Didn’t work then, won’t work now. (It didn’t work in 1930s Germany, either.)
Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.
On the economics? Are you kidding me? Hell yes! That is the whole freaking problem in a nut shell. Culture war issues are a distraction but spending and safety net programs, yeah, I have watched the last 8 years and I am 100% sure that they will.
We are already doing too little to get the economy back on track. Republicans really will try to keep the tax cuts for the top 2% and they will try to cut them more. The Republicans of today are far more radical than they have ever been. This is why it is so critical that we don’t let them gain control of the House or Senate.
Try again, buddy. I didn’t say that and you know it. But thanks for falling for corporate media bullshit about Gore.
Haven’t seen one in congress do the right thing wrt the occupations, the wall-street gifts, or healthcare yet. Haven’t heard any messages coming from any candidates to that effect either. Status quo indeed.
I am not sure what pure evil is, but voting for the IRAQ and Afgan war are pretty close to it in my book.
Its in your interest not to let the Republicans contuinue to transfer wealth upwards. That is in my interest too. Sheesh! You act as though Democrats have not been the ones that have been working for change for the better. That the outcome is not all we had hoped is a real problem, but without the Dems we’d still be subsidizing the banks in giving student loans, we’d still have insurance companies using pre-existing conditions to deny coverage, we’d have women who find that after 20 year of work they were paid far less and have no legal recourse.
Dems aren’t perfect but they are not the wrecking crew that Republicans are. If you can’t see that then you have been blinded by your ideology,.
This is exactly right, Phoenix – and you’ll note, it is EXACTLY what happened in 2008! For the prior eight years righties DID make things as bad as they could get, and NO WAY were the Republicans winning the White House that year. At all. Would not happen. So, imbued with the hope he told us to have, we elected a Progressive Democrat – or so we thought – only to lose on…
The public option.
EFCA.
DADT.
FinReg.
And his administration is only half over.
At what point do you stop towing the party line and start thinking for yourself?
Voting for the lesser of two evils, is still voting for less evil.
I’m mad as a wet hen at President Obama and the Democratic Congress, yet even I can recognize that.
Mal, why is it that you can’t believe that people like Phoenix Woman and myself haven’t come to our positions on our own? I don’t doubt that you have weighed the evidence and come up with yours that way.
Majorities in both houses and the presidency and we suffer innumerable undeniable BACKSLIDES. And I’m blind? LOL So the repubs can do all this with minorities? Stop pretending there is a difference.
More on how Al Gore was trashed in the run-up to 2000 — and how even many smart lefties fell for it:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201003090009
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh060107.html
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120302.shtml
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh022503.shtml
Oh and very nice. You must be some kind of super genius, you found me out. I started writing at the Ox-down Gazette a whole year before it became the Seminal just so I could have a sock puppet for when I left.
You know your arguments would have a lot more impact if you didn’t start off being a jerk and casting aspersions on people that disagree with you.
Let’s make a gentlemen’s bet, Bill. Obama extends the Bush tax cuts to the rich. If I’m wrong, I’ll hold my nose and vote Democratic in 2012.
Obama has continued and/or expanded Bush policies. You are being really schizophrenic. Bush policies in the day were bad and we all were urged to vote against them. Now you are saying let’s support Obama and the Democrats even though they support everything we used to say we were against. You seem to be twisting and turning every way you can to avoid the obvious. Those of us who opposed Bush and the Republicans now oppose Obama and the Democrats. We oppose them for exactly the same reasons. You on the other hand are all over the place. What you don’t understand or refuse to understand is that the abyss is coming. It will come under Republicans. It will come under Democrats. Our only means out of this trap is to reject both parties and try something new. Sure you will say third parties never work. No doubt that is why we still have Democratic-Republicans and Federalists.
You almost got it right. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for EVIL.
Backslides? What the hell,Hoss?
You really think the credit card reform, health insurance reform, financial reform, the Lilly Ledbetter law and the other things we did would actually have passed under Republicans? Really?
You’ve let your anger blind you.
You didn’t say it – but your linky did.
No. First off your bet is a crappy premise. It assumes that the president controls all legislation, he does not.
But more importantly, the issue is not 2012 it is 2010. None of the things you want to see happen will come form a Republican controlled Congress, none. Some of what you want might come from the Dems. That’s the big differential. It is all about trying to get your agenda passed.
Maybe you don’t know anybody who has been killed in the Iraq and Afgan war. My heart won’t let me vote for a democrat who voted for the Iraq and Afgan war fundig. The wars are just intellectual arguements for most people, but they are real for a lot of us. If Americans don’t consider hundreds of thousands dead bad enough not to vote for a democrat or republican, then I don’t know what is.
I know I won’t.
So, you think that if you have a choice of death or having your legs cut off that there is no difference since they are both evil? That is a high school argument.
whaaaahhhaaaaaaaht EVER.
Invoking 2000 is BS. The left by and large supported Gore. A few went with Nader. Gore ran a godawful race. He then proceeded not to fight for Florida. He delivered the country to George Bush. Try to get your history right.
And besides this is all irrelevant. Again the Democrats may own you but they don’t own me. If you are willing to vote for them no matter how they work against your causes, that’s your affair. Just don’t ask us to drink the koolaid with you.
The wars are horrible. However you are condemning those who fought in them and lived to worse conditions by your insistence on looking at that one issue. When you talk about the governance of your nation you have to have a broader focus.
You will be hurting veterans who did their job by letting Republicans gain control.
You’re selling pure bullshit. If the “things I want” could not be won by a (supposed) Democratic majority of 60 in the past two years, when would be be?
But whatever you do, Bill – don’t stop believin’. Or is that “Don’t stop thinkin’ about tomorrow”??
This
You don’t understand what “heightening the contradictions” is supposed to entail. (One of the problems of Communist emotional reflexes outliving the intellectual impetuses that birthed them, apparently; people who’ve never read Capital will be all “let’s punish them by not voting for them” and not understand why the Marx of the 1850s (or the Lenin of the 1920s) thought this would work to trigger revolt.
But that reminds me: Remember how the campus protesters went after LBJ over Vietnam? And helped give us Nixon? That was another effort at “heightening the contradictions”. And the first thing Nixon did — besides continuing a war LBJ had tried to end, but was stymied by Nixon’s sabotage — was set to work trashing the Great Society (aka New Deal II) Johnson had started to set up.
Please don’t bring up the health insurance profit protection act, it really stresses me out, plus it’s the premium example of backlside so it only hurts your argument. Same goes for “financial reform.”
Credit card reform and Lilly Ledbetter? Is that all you’ve got? That’s like prescribing tylenol and a sip of water for a heart-attack.
Translation: You know you can’t beat my argument, so you don’t even bother. Thanks for the tacit admission!
Apparently – like Obama – the word “veto” has no meaning for you.
No, you’ll be hurting everybody by keeping the corporatist enablers in power.
That OR the fact that NEOCON LIEBERMAN would have been a heart-beat away from the presidency.
My Obama scandals list has 184 items in it. It chronicles what this Administration has done and has not done, what he fought for and what it did not fight for. You can go read it anytime you like. The Lilly Ledbetter act and stem cells is about all Obama and the Democrats have in the plus columen. My list details the minuses. You cite things like the great healthcare sellout and joke financial reform as positives. This just goes to show how next to nothing you have to defend Obama and the Democrats. What are you going to do next? Start talking up Obama’s surge in Afghanistan?
~~~There are no purity tests here. Keep the temperatures down, or consider a brisk walk around the block.~~~
I am stunned. You really think that getting more Republicans in will reduce the number of corpatist enablers in Congress. Sorry that math does not work.
Your mastery of political thought is impressive. Wish I could say the same for your comprehension of political REALITY. Once again I’ll state…
The public option.
EFCA.
DADT.
FinReg.
And his administration is only half over.
…and then ask…
At what point do you stop towing the party line and start thinking for yourself?
Yes, as in “Who do you want to be looted by, Democrats or Republicans?”
Don’t you get that you have zero chance of getting anything you want from Republicans? You are saying you’d rather be sure that none of your agenda is enacted than take a chance that some of it will.
Nihilism, plain and simple. Enjoy it, you guarantee that you’ll always be malcontent.
Don’t you get that we have zero chance of getting anything we want from Democrats?
Don’t YOU read what I write? I am advocating a broad-based boycott. I don’t want THESE Democrats, THOSE Republicans. You can tell me they are different all you want, Bill, but the proof is in action. That something like the Gulf would have occurred under JFK – let alone lasted as long as it did – is inconceivable, and you know it. Don’t try to tell me these Dems bear ANY resemblance to the proud tradition they are failing to uphold.
I’m a registered independent all my life, I worked my ass off to turn NC blue in 2008, and in exchange this president, this congress have turned their back on me. I will never vote Republican, and at the moment, despite your boosterism to the contrary, I see no difference between voting Democratic and voting GOP.
And I think what irks you most is knowing I’m just one of millions who feel this way.
Bill, I think some would make the argument, however fallacious, that a few years of nihilist cleansing would be better in the long run. I’m not in agreement, but that seems to be their calculation.
Only someone with a Dark Soul would call me a nihilist.
I’m not a nihilist, I’m just telling the truth about the “Democrats.”
It’s not math. It’s strategy. Like I said earlier let the stupid republicans hang themselves. Also let the corrupt, and useless democrats dry up and blow away. They’re working toward the same ends.
Just keep putting that two-party system noose around your neck, Bill.
The scaffold is yours.
It’s not nihilism. If the Democrats lose big in November, it is their own fault. The responsibility of a party, any party, is to offer voters a positive rationale for voting for them. If they can’t do that, they don’t deserve our votes. Republicans don’t represent my views. No one here says well vote for them anyway. But when it comes to Democrats, this old tribalism kicks in and the argument is made well vote for them even if they don’t represent you. Again those of us who opposed the Republicans and now the Democrats are being consistent in the application of our principles. It is you who say vote for Democrats even if they act like Republicans who are not.
Wasn’t it Nixon who ended the War?
And Henry Kissinger got a Nobel Peace Prize too!
See, the parties really AREN’T that different after all!
The answer to your question regarding corporatist “enablers” and Republicans is “No.”
However, let us rephrase that question: Do you really think (or believe) that getting more Democrats in (Congress) will reduce the number of corporatist enablers?
(I would ask that you cite actual, real evidence, Bill, not merely partisan hopefulness.)
DW
Fear and loathing in lefty land. Why do people on the left wonder why we never win? It’s because so many are ready to buy into the bullshit idea that we have no choice but to vote for the dems.
Insted of fighting for what we are supposed to be about we must sell out to try to maintain what little we have. This is a recipe for, the death of a thousand cuts. It is better to die for a cause than because.
Nixon won because he ran on a, law and order platform, and Nader would have supported Gore if Gore adopted an anti-neoliberal platform. The Right is correct when they call dems weak, they don’t stand for anything.
Nixon “ended” the Vietnam War by getting pretty much the same deal with North Vietnam that his staff screwed LBJ out of getting four years earlier.
So much for Nixon’s “Secret Plan” to end the war.
We (the US) got into this fix because Repubs controlled the Presidency for 20 of 28 years prior to Obama; controlled the House for 12 straight years ending in 2007; and controlled the Senate for 10 of 12 years ending in 2007. Dems have now controlled the Senate, loosely speaking, for only 4 straight years, not enough time even for every Senator to stand for election.
Not too long ago, Karl Rove was talking about a permanent Republican majority in this country.
Dems have had 4 years! Is it already time for the Left to quit? To throw in the towel? To be looking for a place, as they say in boxing, to lay down? Armey and Gingrich and Jeb Bush and Limbaugh and the usual cast of nutso characters didn’t quit.
Do Lefties have the stamina and the endurance? Is the Left crumpling in light of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party?
Repubs are in this for the long haul. Lefties, not so much.
You do realize it was Clinton and Rubin who got rid of Glass-Stegal? You do realize it was Clinton who signed NAFTA into law? I think most would agree that those two things did more to damage the economy than anything the republicans did.
Okay, go ahead and get out the vote for the Dems. And assuming you’re successful?
Remember the pain and despair of your worst college hangover?
That’s what your head is going to feel like when the Dems slash your Social Security and reinstate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
It’s interesting that we got more change from Nixon, EPA, Clean Air, than from any democrat we elected after him. Nixon was no enviornmentalist he signed these bills because he feared the power of the Left, no one fears the Left anymore.
You don’t really think (or believe) that the Dems stood up and opposed the Repub’s destructive legislation and unconscionable behavior do you, gvandergrift?
“Four years”? What were the Dems doing the rest of the time?
Let us consider.
You will remember that something VERY important was taken “off the table” by a Dem Speaker of the House? Yes?
You do remember that MOST Dems signed onto the endless, GWOT and the expensive and destructive use of “contractors” to “wage” those wars? Yes?
Or do you suggest we forgive and forget, as Obama would would have us do with these “policy differences” between he and Bush … as Obama and Sunstein would have it, “looking forward”? Would that be a “yes” or a “no”?
(Frankly, it does not seem that there is much difference in “policy”, between the R’s and D’s, when it comes to war, torture, and the rule of law … among other things.)
DW
Oh dear, hopeful, that is not the sort of “evidence” that will bolster Bill’s contentions that the D’s are better and more honest than the R’s.
I saw a list of the fifty wealthiest Senators and Congress critters the other day. A list of those who are not substantially more wealthy than the rest of us would be much more useful in these times, given that they might, possibly, better “understand”.
DW
no, no, no, no, no, no, and Hell No. The only way to break the stranglehold that the Corporations and ultra-wealthy have on the Dem Party’s leadership like the DLC, New Democrats, Blue Dogs and Obama is to utterly DESTROY their credibility and have their failed country club Rockefeller Republican lite philosophy be flushed down the commode with them.
The reason Independents voted for Obama in 2008 was because he campaigned on progressive values and used imagery and rhetoric that promised change. The reason the Public Option polled so well, Wall Street’s bailout is so unpopular, and Obama and Democrats popularity is in free fall is not because the country is conservative or centrist or even moderate. The country is far more progressive than the asshats in the media or DC pretend, and us “rubes” know when we’re being lied to. After 8 years of Bush we have no more patience for any other hucksters. Obama should have understood that, and the fact that he chose to be the second coming of Herbert Hoover instead of FDR will be his and the Democratic Party’s undoing unless they quit sucking the Neo-Liberal Corporate tit.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.
One last question, Bill.
Do you think, or believe, the Dems will repeal the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy?
Straight up. Yes or no?
DW
Hey, Bill — HuffPo’s latest headline, linking to a McClatchy story:
Dems Unlikely To Repeal Bush Tax Breaks For Wealthiest Americans.
(Sorry, couldn’t get link to work.)
Tell me one more time how much we have to gain by re-electing Dems.
For the record all the Dems need to do is nothing. By doing nothing, the tax cuts will expire and everything goes back to Clinton levels
Why take away money from the rich bankers when we just gave it to them? Seems kind of silly.
LOL!!! I’m going to have to be very careful victorturex, just what questions I ask Bill.
I am certainly glad I did not ask Bill about Iran. Or about Social Security.
(I am certain we shall, sooner rather than later, learn what the lesser weevil Dems have in mind regarding those things – I doubt we shall like the “outcomes” but we will be assured, repeatedly, that things could and would be worse … even sooner with the Repubs in charge …)
;~DW
Good luck with that one, DW! I already offered Bill a bet in a prior comment: I said if Obama repeals the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, I’ll hold my nose and vote Dem in 2012.
Bill wouldn’t take the bet.
Bill and Phoenix Women have (apparently) left the building.
There are times (many), dakine01, when the Dems, seemingly, believe in doing nothing (impeachment, principled opposition to lies and torture, for example) and other times when they apparently feel compelled to do something … anything whatever, however destructive to the rest of us.
The BushCo tax-cuts, it would appear, fall into the latter category. For some “reason”.
DW
Who thinks McCain would have closed Guantanamo and prosecuted Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the war criminals?
Which Dem issue will be more likely resolved to your liking with Palin or Romney and a Repub Congress after 2012?
Which Dem issue will be more likely resolved to your liking with a Repub Congress after 2010?
Lesser of 2 evils or best among the alternatives?
Which candidate in your lifetime was perfect?
In a practical sense, what is there to gain by going into sulky-pouty mode?
Ah, themalcontent, perhaps Bill might venture an opinion?
His silence would fairly shout, don’t you imagine?
DW
So have you contacted anyone and told them that for once doing nothing is preferable?
Who thinks McCain would have closed Guantanamo and prosecuted Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the war criminals? I don’t, but neither did the dems so what is your point.
Which Dem issue will be more likely resolved to your liking with Palin or Romney and a Repub Congress after 2012? Repeal of the individual mandat of health insurance.
Which Dem issue will be more likely resolved to your liking with a Repub Congress after 2010? Prosecution of Obama’s war crimes. The Republicans have shown that they will at least prosecute the executive branch.
Lesser of 2 evils or best among the alternatives? What alternative?
Which candidate in your lifetime was perfect? Never asked for prefection voted for Nader twice.
In a practical sense, what is there to gain by going into sulky-pouty mode? who is sulky and pouty just don’t like the democrats and republicans.
You just don’t get it, do you. Yes, there will be more corporate enablers because more Republicans will be in Congress. That’s what Republicans are. They represent the values of Wall Street, and they’re not ashamed to do it. Democrats are supposed to represent Main Street and they have done an absolutely shitty job for the last 30 years because the current leadership of the party of Jefferson and Jackson (I’m talkin’ to you, Bill and Barry) admires corporate thugs like Reagan instead of real Americans like FDR, Truman, JFK, or LBJ- who fought the power of the rich when they had to.
Most Americans are just a paycheck away from financial ruin. Many are already destitute. The middle class, the backbone of our society and economy, is disappearing. Within a few years we may become a highly stratified nation with a majority of folks poverty-stricken and a very small number of obscenely wealthy persons, not unlike Mexico, Brazil, or Russia. Most of us know this and find it unacceptable. That’s why we voted for Obama. We simplistically believed the Hope and Change, and Yes, We can horseshit. That he and the Dems in Congress have sold us out at every opportunity to the Corporations that are bleeding this country dry is unacceptable to everyone who knows, like Obama said during the campaign, “that this nation can do better”.
At some point, dakine01, those elected to represent the people ought to be able to figure it out, don’t you imagine, that is to be able to actually think about things from some perspective beyond their own lucrative lobbying future?
Then again, many, too many of “them” in Congress are already among the very wealthy.
But yes, dakine01, I have suggested that there are times to act and times not to act.
Again and again.
So, frankly, dakine01, I do NOT blame myself for what is wrong with Congress, do you?
DW
In an unexpected development, Lefties and Tea Partiers (Becksters) find themselves in agreement: the biggest problem in this country is too many Dems in Congress. In fact, the only real problem facing this country is too many Dems in Congress.
Dang. Politics surely does make strange bedfellows.
All I was asking is if you’ve commented to your current representatives about letting the Bush Tax cuts expire.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
But you seem to be implying that I was accusing you of something by asking the question.
And maybe I was. As this is a current question that has no bearing on what you may or may not have done in the past.
Oh he gets it, steveo, he gets it just fine. He just doesn’t want to acknowledge it. Both “parties” have a vested interest in continuing to appear in opposition (until after the midterms, anyway), and Bill and his ilk are more than happy to help.
Dakine01, Congress has certain responsibilities, which they have failed quite utterly to rise to. There comes a point when it is rather pointless to urge reason and common sense when those being urged to such “extremes” despise any who question their Gawd-given right to plunder and pillage.
Frankly, it does not matter what Congress does or doesn’t do when the trajectory is ever downward and destructive of civil society, what does matter is what the people will choose to do.
Congress will continue dismantling the social contract, aided by an ever more powerful “unitary” Executive and a bought and very vengeful SCOTUS.
The Dems and Obama had a mandate for substantive and desperately needed change, the like of which I have never witnessed before in all of my sixty-three years, both have behaved with total disdain of the reality of the rest of us, thinking only of themselves and their corporate masters.
Change, real meaningful change, is STILL necessary, and it will be up to us, you and I and everyone else who cares, to “do” that change.
Everyone knows money in in the election process is perhaps the most serious “problem” we face, in terms of change. Congress could, at any time during the past decades have chosen to do something about this problem, as the “rules” are currently set up, Congress and ONLY Congress can make the necessary changes to those rules to get money out of electoral politics; they have not AND they will not.
What has to change first is the expectations of the people, and one of those expectations must be to realize that doing the same thing, again and again, and expecting different results is not the course of wisdom.
DW
Bullshit, gvandegrift, and I’ll thank you to stop drawing correlations that aren’t there. Nobody here agrees with Glenn Beck on anything, of that much I can assure you. It’s not that there are too many Dems in Congress. It’s that there are too many CORPORATISTS in Congress, and that means Republicans too. All of them, of both parties. And if you think the teabaggers are some sort of alternative, you haven’t been paying attention. Not Any. At. All.
This is perfectly put. Perfectly.
And this is where you and I have to part ways.
I’m not ready to give up yet on the idea that Congress can be made to see that they have an interest other than with those who have the money.
This is why we have to stay up on top of them. They whine about “deficit spending” while at the same time make moves to increase the deficit by extending these tax cuts. And if you really think that what Congress does is meaningless, then I truly feel sorry for you.
Though I do not really need your sorrow, I appreciate your concern, Dakine01. You’ve my sympathy (and my hope) that you CAN effectively reach these “Representatives” of the people, whom I have found to be duplicitous and self-serving whenever I have spoken with them. Some, like Dodd, pretend to “get it” but really are only playing the “game” until retirement and the real big bucks arrive. Others, like Kucinich are compromised and rendered toothless, having only a small bark left to their occasional use …
What Congress does can ONLY matter if they do what is needful, what is necessary to the well-being and true “security” of the people.
If Congress continues on its merry and destructive way, then the people will have to react.
Our myths are killing us and our willingness to “believe” absolute bullshit is confusing and demoralizing us.
I do not regard you, Dakine01, as anything but sincere and most-honest in your hopes, desires, and endeavors. Others are, more simply, partisan believers, and through their “endeavors” a significant part of the “confusion”.
DW
Seconded. Very well said DW. By the way, how’s your recuperation coming along?
Looks like Halloween has come early. When an argument boils down to “boo!”, it is pretty much on its last legs.
I’ve moved on. The Democratic Party can either catch up or not. It’s just not my problem any more.
Oh and one more thought, just throwing it out there for the staying home folks…
While I agree that voting for representatives that range from merely unreliable to hopelessly corrupt to unapologetically criminal is indeed worthy of putting your feet up on the coffee table, I do think that the time has come for the public to put its democratic efforts into ballot measures.
Direct democracy clearly has its drawbacks, but representative democracy isn’t exactly a banner success either.
The parties need us, even if they think they don’t. They may or may not come around someday, but I think we the people might still get somewhere via ballot initiatives (obviously with the caveat, that the courts function as a backstop to unconstitutional crap like Prop 8).
Recovering … slowly, much to my grumpy, curmudgeonly frustration, phred, at least another month or two of no “serious” physical activities (mowing the lawn and such like …) but I am allowed to drive, which is much appreciated progress.
I like your suggestions @ 118, because it is, really, always, up to us.
And direct, or “participatory” democracy is where “we” must “go” or we shall always be in thrall to wealth and unrestrained (and brutal) power.
“Money” is society’s most-dangerous “drug”, as Lewis Mumford cautioned, and limitless “power” its most “potent” (and dangerous) “aphrodisiac” as Kissinger once proudly crowed.
DW
Sorry to hear it is going slowly, but I’m seriously impressed you are driving again. Glad you aren’t too skittish to get behind the wheel : ) However, if you expect the least littlest bit of sympathy from me for weaseling out of mowing duty, forget it! ; ) Other “serious” physical activities might be another matter, though ; )
At any rate, I’m positively cheerful about November. When something is well and truly broken, you fix it. When it’s merely battered and beat up, you put up with it. Things are broken. We have to fix them. The challenge is in the “how”, but at least a lot of us are thinking about it now and we will find a way.
I too, regard the “educational process” to be coming along rather well, phred, unsettling as it may be for some.
For more than forty years, I have waited for an awakening, and I do see people rubbing the sleep out of their eyes and opening their minds.
Once we solve out “political” and “economic” problems, on a systemic level, then we can begin to concern ourselves with the state of the environment and the “condition” of the human family – all of it.
Always good to “see” you.
DW
This load of crap again. John Kerry took 100 times as much money from Republicans in ’04 as Ralph Nader did.
One of the main reasons we got 8 years of Bush was the meme: “Gore/ Kerry is entitled to your vote, and so they don’t have to do or say anything for you in order to get it.”
In 1930s Germany the SPD and the KPD could have created a coalition government, but they didn’t — because the KPD was directed from Moscow and refused the coalition.
In 1930s Germany the voters elected von Hindenburg as the “lesser of two evils,” and then at the end of January, 1933 von Hindenburg appointed Hitler.
Here’s a list of evils.
I’m sure the media have done bad things to Al Gore. The problem with Al Gore is not limited to the disciplinary structure into which Al Gore enters.
All this effort for a few people here. Look, your politicians are failing you. The campaign strategy is failing you. “Obama has a big resume,” the Democratic faithful chant with one voice. It’s not winning in the polls. I thought the point was to ask, “what can we change about this picture?”
What mandate did Obama have? He received 52.9% after 8 years of solidly Republican rule against the fossil McCain and his obviously unqualified running mate. Johnson (61.1%) had a mandate. Nixon (60.7%, 1972) had a mandate. Reagan (58.8%, 1984) had a mandate. Johnson had 68 Dem Senators and 295 House Dems in 1965-66.
You and Bartoo misinterpreted the 2008 election. Whose fault is that?
Are you saying you’re neutral between corporatist Dems and Tea Partiers? No dog in that fight?
republicans have been talking to the base emotions and fears of voters. It’s working.
Boycotting this coming election seems like a fine idea, but of course we will only do it half-assed. Half a boycott isn’t a boycott. Could we be more confused as democrats?
I’m sorry, but you’re nuts. We’re bound to have that misery anyway. The only difference is that the Republicans are going to annoy us more than the Democrats will. Have you not been reading the headlines lately? We’re seeing that bigotry and violence now, and the Democrats won’t stand up to it. They might as well be part of the mob, for all the good they’ve done by giving lip service to those assholes.
Until the Democrats decide that they’re going to do what’s right for the people who work for a living, and the people who want to, there’s no difference between these parties that makes a difference.
What’s more, the longer progressives continue to vote for the lesser of two evils, the more the nation’s politics will drift to the right. Politicians never work to please people they don’t have to please. People who will always vote for them are people they don’t have to please, and right now progressives do exactly that. Their support is unconditional, and therefor they have no power to influence anyone.
The 2012 election is on November 6, only 26 months from now. I wonder who progressives will support for Prez?
Chomsky? Greenwald? Krugman? Bloomberg? How much money has each raised? Running for Prez ain’t cheap. Who has the gravitas, the credibility, and the cash? I wonder if somebody will primary Obama? Doubtful. Who might primary the incumbent Prez?
Talk is cheap. Who will bell the cat?
Nobody. The consensus “progressive” strategy is: 1) Praise the President’s resume, 2) blame Glenn Greenwald (or Jane Hamsher) for everything, 3) campaign harder. Firepups who disagree are summarily kicked out of the club.
Tragic, isn’t it?
Hmmm …
Many thoughtful observers, even here at FDL, have noted that many “things” and conditions are as bad as they were under Bush, indeed some are far worse.
Whose fault might that be, gvandergrift?
(BTW I shall stick with my “interpretations”, even as you are stuck with your own.)
DW
Nope, no dog in that fight. The solution will come from outside of established parties, and regardless how it bills itself, “Dick’s Armey” (the Tea Party) is just an Overton window-based effort to move the GOP and the Democrats farther to the Right.
And the established Left (Dems) are falling for it.
Mandates are relative to the political realities of the time, and compared to the prior two elections, Obama’s mandate was huge and undeniable.
He has utterly squandered it.
In a practical sense, what is there to gain by going into “thank you for the crumbs and not beating me with the barbed whip this time, I’ll be good and keep washing your feet” mode?
Let’s assume the mid-terms are bad news for the Dems.
If they can’t figure out how to block legislation and Obama can’t figure out how to uncap his veto pen, the abyss is theirs for the taking.
I agree with the malcontent: Perfectly stated.
LOL!!
Then let me read-word it so as to make it more clear;
So even if I agree with you that the Democrats, and by extension, Obama’s intent was not to continue in the same direction as the Republicans and Bush, they’ve done precious little to actually impliment the change they promised.
I’m particularly sorry to hear you bring up the Health Care reform bill as if it was an actual accomplishment, my healthcare cost just went up by more than 30% with no end in sight.
The fact that the Democrats don’t intend to screw me doesn’t change that fact that they are doing just that.
No, Hitler was not interested in a coalition with the communists; he’d already promised his industrialist financial backers on February 20th 1933, that he would strangle the communist and the labor unions, and after the Reichstag fire on the 27th that’s just what he did.
He called for new elections which happened on the 5th of March, he didn’t pick up enough seats to make a 2/3 majority, so he locked those communists who hadn’t already been arrested out of the assembly to keep them from voting, and convinced parliament to hand over much of it’s power to the executive branch and it was all down hill from there.
Hitler did a little Kabuki thing about forming a coalition after being named Chancellor, but with no intention of actually making any compromise.
Hitler, in this sense was an early adopter of the unitary executive tactic which has been such a success recently.
The minutes of Hitler’s secret meeting with a couple dozen industrialist financial backers is well documented and those documents include his speech promising to seize control regardless of the outcome of the elections of March 5th.
It was at that meeting that Hitler demanded and got the financial backing of these men who thought they could control him, but would find they were riding the tiger.
Don’t boycott elections. Just boycott the legacy parties.
Democrats and Republicans ruined the country. Why anybody would vote for them is beyond me.
What workingclass said.
Vote third-party or write-in. If there is a truly progressive Dem (action and deed), vote for them.
Not voting contributes to the perception of public apathy. If the Dems (and Repubs) see the disappearing vote going to a third alternative, maybe the message will be clearer. And maybe not, but at least you are doing something that makes it harder for them to deny.
I’ve voted D for 40 yrs. It’s over. I’ll never vote D again. I really don’t like being bait and switched. Obama is a fraud, I personally think he was groomed to destroy the D party from within . He’s done everything possible to piss off the base and now comes the whirlwind, indeed! He’ll probably be happy to work with his party ( the GOP) in Congress after they take over again. I can already hear him saying something like he’ll do whatever they want because it’s the will of the people. Of course when the will of the people placed him in office that group of people could go to hell as far as he’s concerned. If the public is stupid enough to put the Gopers back in so be it. I won’t vote for anymore Corporatist candidates period.
You are correct that not voting is seen as apathy. But it won’t be if we give it a name (boycott), make it official (call for one by all lefties this November), and state our goal: retaking the Democratic Party.
I’ll throw this gauntlet down in detail – and why these midterms, right now, are the perfect time for it – here, over the weekend. I hope you’ll join in the discussion.