Mike Malloy

[greyowl]

One by one we have seen the most left leaning representatives forced out if voting is even to be believed anymore. At one time we had Cynthia McKinney, Alan Grayson and Russ Feingold. All of whom were outspoken in their defense of the interests of the average working American. The middle 50% so to speak. Now we can add Dennis Kucinich to the list of names of those who spoke the inconvenient truths that party faithful didn't want to make a fuss over. They know as we all do that the party leadership is up to their neck in the exact same sh!t the Republicans were doing 4 years before. One by one they have been forced out along with other lessor known names by the party that we are told time and again we have to vote to keep in power. And my question is why? At what point does the party become so offensive to you that you can no longer support it? I ask myself that as I look at the country around me and the multitude of people willing to once again commit us to another 4 years of corporatocracy.

I know we all want to think that the last 4 years have just been a misunderstanding between us liberals and the Democratic party. That they really do value our values. But then what are we to make of the writing on the wall when the candidates we value most highly are targeted and systematically forced out? Could there be a more obvious your issues are not welcome here sign for us? And I am fine with that really. I came to that conclusion myself nearly 8 years ago now. I just hope this latest move signifies to those liberals left on the fence that there is no place for them in the Democratic Party. Not for any real change, incremental or otherwise. We could dance this dance for another 20 years and the only difference would be the further rightward shift of the Democrats. Perhaps even further right than the Republicans are currently.

The game plan has been drawn. The likely narrative laid out by the faithful MSM. Obama will win. Romney will lose. But fear not, the Democrats in an effort to be the gracious winners that they are will continue to bend over backwards to the demands of our corporate overlords and through hard work with the Republicans will craft new legislation to move us further along towards a universal serfdom for all but the chosen few. We need to build our party of opposition and one would have to be crazy at this late date to think that it will be the Democrats. We need to really start supporting our 3rd party candidates for every seat possible.

I'm tired of the excuses how 3rd parties cannot make it except when they do. I'm tired of seeing Greens capture less than 1% of the vote in national elections because people have been brow beaten into not splitting the vote. At a certain point I think we all have to own the way we vote. It doesn't matter how bad the other guy is if the guy you voted for is pretty darn bad all on his own. Everyone who votes this way is responsible for the rightward shift of the Democratic party.

We could do worse is how we got here. We can always do worse. That's the beauty of that outlook. No matter how bad a situation is you could always add a few more bad things and guess what? It would be worse! It doesn't mean you tolerate the slightly less worse scenario because of that universally true fact. Or at least it shouldn't.

If you want an opposition party. If you want to see a conscience return to the Democratic party one day. You among us who quiver in fear at the possibility of a big bad Republican President need to take a hard look at what your party has become.

Believe it or not any of us for no reason can be forcibly taken from our homes; our families.... and held indefinitely, tortured or even summarily executed without a judge, jury or trial. Obama has expanded this new power to committees and agencies under his jurisdiction. After all he is a busy man and doesn't have the time to make all those life and death decisions himself. This is where we are at right now under a Democratic President with a Democratically controlled Senate. Where are we going to be in another 4? And what the hell do I have to fear from A Republican Senate or House or Executive if this is the kind of sh!t that the *peoples* party enacts? Would it be too much to at least throw a few house seats to the Greens? Or do we need to wait for the corporate media to give you permission?

P.S. Not that Dennis will ever see this but its hard not to point out the irony after he played his go along to get along role in the HCR bill. I guess bowing to party pressure and against everything he stood for didn't keep him safe did it? Maybe its time Dennis looked toward greener pastures where he can be enthusiastically supported as a leader and not a lapdog. And long past time we found the will to collectively support these *longshots* as they are our only hope of turning things around in the long run.
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Time to go Green.

[Don Smith]

Back in '08, I heard Obama sound like a leftist New Dealer. Very good on the stump, helps as a lawyer, too, one would suppose. I remember LBJ sounding like Lenin, proposing a "Great Society" of free education, health, a fulfillment of FDR's vision.
Didn't buy it then, don't buy it now, been Green for years.
P.S. Kucinich is one of the old style demons kept just outside for appearance' sake, he is unfashionable as an opposition image, as most here in the redwhiteandblue have forgotten that rights are inherent, rights do not come as a boon from the state.
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" A bayonet is a tool with a worker at both ends."- Lenin
Patriotism is a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
-Thoreau
"Information is the currency of Democracy." Jefferson

[NeonLX]

Yup, that Overton Window has been slid way over to the right...thanks to the "Reagan Revolution" and the well-funded right wing noise machine's efforts over the past 3+ decades. Democrats are now about where the republicans were when I first started disliking them intensely (didn't want to use the word "hate", but it's tough not to when remembering Tricky Dick).

Say--Speaking of Nixon, he almost looks positively progressive from the vantage point of 2012, don't he?
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Blindly following failed leadership is NOT patriotism.

[greyowl]

At first when I heard of Obama I like other people was like who is this guy and where is this tremendous wave of enthusiasm coming from? Given that I was pretty involved in politics well before Obama it was shocking how just out of nowhere he appeared. People talking him up to me who generally had no political opinions on anything. Your typical uninformed straight party ticket voters were emboldened somehow. It really is amazing the mob mentality a little advertising and promotion within the MSM creates. For or against candidates.

But as you rightly point out people no longer possess an understanding of rights and the importance of them let alone the definition of inalienable. Even when our politicians commit blatantly unconstitutional acts the vast majority of voters let it slide and have instant amnesia. Or worse they acknowledge an understanding and share our concerns but still vote for the assumed lessor of 2 evils. A point that could be debated at length given the gifts that keep on giving via the legacy Clinton gave us among other betrayals.

The last 30 or so years have been an astonishingly transparent view of the class war. Its been a surreal experience to see what has unfolded in that time.
_________________
Time to go Green.

[Don Smith]

The old saw is that one no longer feels as if they are in the country in which they were born. I will go one step further, the country I remember loving never existed. I was told of a people that left bloody footprints in the snow of Valley Forge, a people that bled to end slavery, a people believing that under the law, all are equal.
Like the shadows upon the cave wall, these vistas of my native land are an illusion, shared wisdom with the other tribal members.
My hope is that a just society may yet come into being. this one sure as hell ain't it.
_________________
" A bayonet is a tool with a worker at both ends."- Lenin
Patriotism is a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
-Thoreau
"Information is the currency of Democracy." Jefferson

[greyowl]

I think most of us grew up with our share of myths and legends. Thanksgiving....Christmas being two common ones that come to mind. Our country was never as free as we thought it was nor was beyond he reproach of legitimate criticism very rightly earned within the world. I guess the biggest difference is that the tactics and methods previously reserved for other lessor countries have now been deployed against Americans en mass. American Exceptionalism my ass. American hypocrisy more accurately. As long as I get to ride the wave see the rest of you suckers seems to be the prevailing attitude of the rich today. Lip service isn't even paid to the left anymore from Democratic Party leadership.

I tend to feel that to some extent we may be reliving the shift people experienced from the middle 18th century agrarian society of some stability to the poverty induced despair most Americans sank under during the Great Depression. The curtain was pulled back and people were put in their place much to their chagrin by the upper classes and there wasn't much effort to conceal that fact.

For some reason the idea of socialism just didn't seem so crazy to our grandparents and great grandparents after enduring those hardships. Nor was there the kind of grossly arrogant assumed ownership of the voters that is presumed today. The thought of a 3rd party when needed did in fact inspire and create them.
_________________
Time to go Green.

[Don Smith]

That's right- the Socialists were very strong in the U.S. and in the industrially developed nations of Europe before WWI. Again, the call to patriotic action broke the left, both for their failure to oppose the war,(a lesson yet to be brought home to the Democrats), and their failure to avoid being defined as traitorous atheists.
_________________
" A bayonet is a tool with a worker at both ends."- Lenin
Patriotism is a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
-Thoreau
"Information is the currency of Democracy." Jefferson

[greyowl]

I think enough good things happened out of the New Deal that people said close enough. And I can even understand that when you think about the unprecedented gains made vs what people had before. That little leg up made the middle class possible. I would be floored if as a society we had managed to pass anything even remotely like that in the latter half of the 20th century. Instead we fight over whether its moral to execute, imprison and torture people without due process. I have been told its all good since cops already shoot and kill people without a trial so its not really a change. After all what do I know? War is Peace and all that.

So even though the people were lulled into complacency and later with threats intimidation and even imprisonment they at least had a common sense solution to a common problem. What do you do when your party becomes so corrupt it no longer speaks for you? Make a new one that does.
_________________
Time to go Green.

[Don Smith]

Many moons ago, a question as to the "best" form of government was posed.
Popular wisdom answers were the response, with the wealth and liberty of the United States the standard.
No form of capitalist industrial society could have failed here, the wealth of resources guaranteed a new European style power.
I might listen to the Democratic Party the day after they make an official examination of the use and effects of depleted uranium .
_________________
" A bayonet is a tool with a worker at both ends."- Lenin
Patriotism is a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
-Thoreau
"Information is the currency of Democracy." Jefferson