Forget Third Parties – It Ain’t Gonna Happen: Hijack The Democrats Instead
Huge numbers of Americans are disgusted with both the Republican and the Democratic parties right now, and are hungrily clamoring for a third alternative.
I know, I know - imagine that! What’s not to like about one party that stands for greed, murder and destruction, and another that stands by for greed, murder and destruction?
Nevertheless, somehow things are not going so swimmingly in the world of American partisan politics. The arch-Republican in the White House has job approval ratings in the mid-20s and sinking. The former Republican Congress, equally regressive, was tossed out on their ears, losing control of both houses last year. Not to be outdone, the Democrats who gained control of Congress as the expression of an angry public demanding change have spent the last seven months responding to that mandate by doing … well, virtually nothing. Now their standing in public opinion is slightly lower than Bush’s.
So it comes as no surprise that tens of millions of Americans are fed up with both parties and anxious to find something else that they can not only vote for in good conscience, but can actually win. I, too, have shared that dream, have voted third party, and have even volunteered for one during a presidential election campaign. Remember Barry Commoner? Remember his candidacy for president as the leader of the Citizen’s Party in 1980?
Yeah, well, I rest my case. Third party alternatives to hopelessly nihilistic Republicans, hopelessly equivocal Democrats, and the hopelessly self-serving lot of them make total sense except for one small problem. They can’t win.
Not literally, of course. Technically, a third party could win. It’s just that they don’t, and, short of some dramatic changes in the future, that will continue to be the case - that is, they won’t.
I don’t dispute the circular determinism in a statement like that, which is no doubt the first response in the minds of those advocating an alternative to the two bankrupt political parties now running (and ruining) the country. It’s quite correct to argue that continuing to believe that third parties can never win, and that a vote for one of them is therefore ‘wasted’, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s absolutely true that this is the first impediment to the success of a third party in America, and one which by definition must be resolved before any such party can possibly succeed. But what is too often left out of the discussion are the additional and quite enormous obstructions which are waiting right behind this first one to block the rise of a new party to power in America.
To begin with, there is the country’s ideological diversity. Compared to other democracies, ours has been historically pretty muted in this regard, though the range of popular ideological positions has increased somewhat in recent years, particularly as the Republican Party migrated from the center-right to the far right over the last few decades. But the comparative diversity of ideology in America relative to other countries is not really the point here.
What is the point is that the degree of diversity we do have is prohibitive to a successful third party arising in the United States. Unless one is contemplating the rise of multiple new parties to viability (and here we’ve transitioned from hope to fantasy, I’m afraid), the resulting difficulty posed by this ideological diversity is pretty plain to see. Lots of people, for example, are disgusted right now with George Bush and his co-conspirators in the mainstream of the Republican Party. Most loathe him from the left, thinking he is an arrogant fool who is destroying virtually all the political values they hold dear. But others loathe him with equal intensity from the right, largely for the crime of not destroying those values fast enough. Between the Harriet Miers nomination and the immigration bill debacle, no small fraction of the sixty-five percent of America currently reviling the president are cavemen even more regressive than Bush (which may seem unimaginable to progressives, but is quite literally the case). And in-between are those of the angry middle, who are seriously disgruntled, but are reluctant to lean very far in either ideological direction for a solution to their unhappiness.
What’s the relevance of all this? Well, try to imagine a third party with a presidential candidate that could be viable. Some of the current crop of disaffected voters would be happy to vote for Ralph Nader to replace Bush, but many others would equate that to living under Mao. Likewise, many of those wishing for a third party, complete with its own presidential candidate, would be delighted if someone like David Duke carried their standard. If it is imaginable for progressives that it could ever get worse than Bush/Cheney, this is certainly it. Then, of course, in the center you have the Ross Perot sort of voter, who is dissatisfied enough with existing choices to entertain alternatives, but not something ‘fringe’ in an ideological sense.
Put all this together and you have a sufficient critical mass for precisely nothing. Except perhaps maintenance of the status quo. Thus, one huge reason that the rise of an alternative third party in the United States is highly unlikely is the insufficient support for a single specific alternative, even when there is substantial general support among the electorate for some other option beyond the two parties. The idea is great in theory, and even more compelling when a significant cohort of the public says they want a third party to vote for. But unless you see redneck-pickup-truck-with-a-gunrack-driving-god-fearing-Georgia-crackers voting for Angela Davis, and unless you see long-haired-herbal-tea-drinking-Berkeley-lesbian-housing-rights-militants voting for John Bolton, forget about it. Maybe someone like Mike Bloomberg would get a healthy number votes if he ran in 2008, but the former Republican would get few from the left, nor would the Jewish mayor of New York City get many from the right.
So, after the vast bulk of voters have cast their lot once again with either Republicans or Democrats, the remaining dissenters - even if they are large in number - will dissipate their potential impact across a panoply of choices. Some will vote Green Party. Some Libertarian. Some Reform Party. Some the other Reform Party. Some Constitution, Natural Law, Populist, Taxpayers, Socialist or whatever other party is on the ballot. Even if all of the votes for these alternative parties in aggregate amounted to a numerical challenge to the Democrats and Republicans (and they are currently very far from doing so), the individual share of each of these various representations of different ideologies would completely dissipate any substantial impact, and likely any impact at all, like the air going out of a balloon.
Those are two monumental obstacles to the potential success of a third party in this country, but we still haven’t even discussed what amounts to the biggest - namely, our electoral system. The term refers to the mechanism by which votes at the ballot box are translated into parliamentary delegates (or members of Congress) in a representative democracy. That might sound painfully straightforward and obvious, but the methods available for doing this are anything but, sometimes producing (far more painfully) obscure and mathematically complicated schemes which voters sometimes don’t begin to understand. Don’t know whether you prefer the Borda count over Bucklin voting, the Condorcet method, Single Non‑Transferable Voting (affectionately known as SNTV), the Gallagher Index, the Sainte‑Laguë or d’Hondt methods (or perhaps you are all about the cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping method, instead)? No worries, neither does just about anybody else. This confusion is not a good attribute for an electoral system to possess, but there are many other factors to consider as well, and polities are frequently experimenting trying to find the best system (none are perfect).
The question of electoral system choice may seem mundane in the extreme, but the consequences are enormous. Arguably, one of the factors which brought the Nazis to power was the flawed electoral system of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s first (and, obviously, tragically failed) experiment with democracy. But even if a given system doesn’t crash that badly, another of the consequences to the choice of electoral systems - and one which is highly relevant to the present discussion - is the number of viable political parties which they tend to produce.
All the multiple variations of electoral systems can be boiled down to essentially two types, plus a third and increasingly popular form, which is simply a hybrid of the first two. One of the two types is known as proportional representation (PR). Among other attributes, it can have a satisfying simplicity to it and, more importantly for our purposes, it tends to encourage the existence of multiple parties that are at least moderately prominent in a given system. That is because the basic principle, as the name implies, is that each party is awarded a number of legislators in parliament that is proportional to the vote it receives in a single polity-wide election. Therefore, even a small party which could only garner, say, six percent of the vote would nevertheless gain representation in the legislature. In fact, it would have six percent of the seats, which would be likely to mean, depending on the size of the body, more than thirty representatives (most lower houses of parliament - the ones with the most power - seem to be about 500-700 members in size). And, since there can be a certain (virtuous or vicious) cyclical quality to the growth or demise of political parties - such that having representation in parliament makes it easier to gain more of the same, and not having it makes it harder - this system is good news for small parties.
But there are also certain prominent downsides to PR, as well. First, progressives should remember that it wouldn’t only be lefty parties benefitting from this system in America. Where PR produces Green parties in parliament, it also produces the National Front. Second, so many parties usually means the necessity of coalitions to form governments, and that often means instability - coalitions break apart, and governments fall in-between elections, sometimes frequently. Too much instability and enter the Nazis, stage right. And, on top of all this, even PR systems have a tendency to produce two major parties alternating in government (usually in coalition with one or more smaller ones), anyhow, which somewhat defeats the purpose if our goal is get a third party to govern, not that America is anywhere remotely near converting to PR, anyhow. No one is even talking about it.
The main alternative electoral system to PR doesn’t tend to suffer from these maladies, but also doesn’t typically produce many small parties in government. This is the district model, and the way it works is to divide the polity into geographical districts and hold simultaneous elections in each. There are many variations possible on how to identify a winner from those separate mini-elections, but in the United States we use a plurality criterion. Do you have one more vote than anyone else in your district (even if you have far less than a majority, as would likely be the case in a district with multiple candidates)? Congratulations. You have a plurality, and you’re going to Congress.
It’s easy to see why such a system is hard on third parties. Let’s say there was a prominent third party in the United States - I’ll use my buddies the Greens, since they were kind enough to name their party after me! - and they won perhaps twenty-five percent of the vote nationwide, in a Congressional election cycle. A very respectable showing, no? But, of course, there is no national election, per se - only a bunch of simultaneous district contests (435 for the House representatives, every two years). Nevertheless, for the sake of exposition, let’s say that the Greens got 25 percent of the vote in every district. Let’s also say that in half the districts the Democrats get 40 percent of the vote to the Republicans’ 35 percent, and vice-versa in the other half. In a PR system, the Greens would be awarded 25 percent of the seats in the House for this showing. Under the district model, however, such as is practiced in the United States, their twenty-five percent of the votes translates into precisely zero seats in Congress (arguably disenfranchising one-fourth of the electorate).
(By the way, the presidential election works essentially the same way, and would even were we to eliminate the Electoral College. You can’t readily split the presidency like you can a parliament, so only one person can claim the prize, leaving voters for all the other candidates holding the bag, even if these losing voters represent a majority in total - as was the case, for example, in 1992, when Clinton won the presidency with only 43 percent of the popular vote.)
What does all the foregoing discussion ultimately mean? The bottom line here is this: One, we’re not likely to change electoral systems in America any time soon. Two, unless we do, it will continue to be enormously difficult for any third party to gain enough traction to achieve viability, let alone to govern. Three, even if we did opt for PR, there are serious downsides to that system as well (a hybrid seems to be the best alternative, in which half of the legislature is chosen using the district model, and the other half using PR - Germany, Italy and other democracies employ this method), not least of which would be the concurrent rise of some nasty gangs of parliamentary thugs on the rabid right who could make Cheney’s little GOP horror show seem tame by comparison. And, Four, even though it would likely provide representation in Congress, PR would still probably not bring a third party to power, except possibly as a junior partner in some sort of coalition government. Such a party would chronically occupy the role of a small fry swimming among big sharks, though it might have some improved chance over decades’ time to rise to greater prominence.
In short, for reasons involving ideological diversity, electoral mechanics and more, the third party path is not the solution to the present crisis of democracy in America, especially from the perspective of forwarding the progressive agenda.
If you’re dubious about the above theoretical analysis, feel free to try on the empirical one instead - it’s even more grim. Here are two statistics that more or less say it all. There are 535 members of Congress in America. Guess how many come from a third party. The answer is zero. Not a single one. Doesn’t that suggest rather infertile ground for such a plant to take root? But if you’re still not convinced, how about this, then: When was the last time the United States experienced the reshuffling of the party structure such that a new party rose to the level of sustained viability? The answer is about 160 years ago, with the birth of the Republican Party. That, in a country which has only had political parties for about 200 years. In other words, this country has had two primary parties vying for power for almost its entire existence, and the last time even the name of one of those changed (but not the number of them, which has essentially never changed) was 4/5’s of our history ago. I, for one, would argue that the ground for our multiparty plant has gone from infertile to downright toxic.
But here’s where the good news comes in. If the above description sounds like rather an inconceivable degree of stability for a political system spanning that many decades and myriad crises, that’s because it is. And it is this observation that brings us closer to the true remedy for our problems. How could such a rigid two-party system - of the same two parties, no less - survive against all the powerful changes, strains and pressures of the last century and a half? And these are considerable. Such a laundry list would have to include, minimally, the Civil War, Reconstruction, industrialization, immigration, expansion, imperialism, civil rights movements for minorities, women and gays, the national rise to global prominence, the Cold War, about seven major hot wars and two impeached presidents, just to get started. Why the incredible stability of the party system, then? The answer is that the American political system doesn’t tend to adopt new third parties, and it doesn’t implode from the pressures of frustrated change, because what it does instead is to accommodate various political aspirations within the malleable shells of the existing parties.
A look at either one of them amply demonstrates the point. The Republican Party was born as essentially the political vehicle for the anti-slavery movement, when the existing parties failed to provide an outlet for that rising sentiment. Could today’s regressive GOP amalgamation of robber-barons, religious troglodyte foot-soldiers and nearly outright racists possibly look any different from the party of Abe Lincoln? Indeed, the GOP of today would have been reactionary even in Lincoln’s time. So what happened? How could the party of emancipation become the party of kleptocracy? What happened was that the robber-barons stole it and morphed it, growing increasingly clever over time as to how to employ nationalism, jingoism, imperialism, racism, sexism, external bogeymen, general fear and cultural backwardness in order to line up sufficient votes, augmenting those of the richest two percent of the country, necessary to form a viable party. The examples of this are as endless as they are depressing, running from red scares to race-baiting and back again. More contemporaneously, suffice it to say that not for nothing did Karl Rove arrange to place gay marriage initiatives on the ballot in eleven states for election day 2004. (My personal fantasy is to find every fool who voted for one of those but now hates Bush and shake them vigorously by the shoulders, yelling in their faces, “Are you happy now? Isn’t it great that there won’t be any gay marriages in our crumbling excuse for a country?”)
Ahem. Uh, where was I? (Please stop me before I fantasize again.) Ah, yes - morphing parties. Similar to the GOP experience, it was not so long ago that the main component of the Democratic Party was the Solid South of white voters below the Mason-Dixon line. It was FDR who turned the party into a much broader coalition that came to include the working class, union members, Jews, Catholics, intellectuals, liberals, urban-dwellers, immigrant communities and more, as well as the white South. It was LBJ (fully knowingly, and with lots of help from the likes of Nixon, Reagan, Atwater, Rove, Bush I, Bush II and the rest) who alienated white racists, both North and South, by pursuing various civil rights agendas, principally concerning race.
In short, both parties look a lot different today than they once did, and that happened largely through the efforts of activists seeking to achieve precisely that end. And this, it seems to me, remains the only viable solution for the progressive community today - not a continuing hopeless quest for a prominent third party that has a very low probability of materializing, especially given the institutional and ideological obstacles described above.
What progressives need to do today is what regressives began doing forty years ago. We need to seize the party closest to our politics and take control of it, marginalizing DLC types like Clinton or Lieberman into irrelevance, just like the old Gerry Ford centrist wing of the Republican Party was shoved aside by the radical right. We must become the parasites that infect the host until we eventually take it over completely.
It would be lovely if there was an alternative, but to my mind the above concepts and historical precedent amply demonstrate the improbability of a third party rising to power. Moreover, even if one did eventually arise, in the meantime we continue to risk producing the Nader 2000 effect - such that following our best instincts splits the left-of-regressive vote and succeeds only in empowering the worst alternatives. (For example, imagine a race in 2008 between Clinton and Giuliani, with Gore running as the nominee of the Green Party. Clinton and Gore would collectively receive far more votes than would Giuliani, but Giuliani would be the next president, even without the Electoral College effect.)
And let’s not kid ourselves, way too many Americans presently worry if the Democratic Party is too liberal to govern, not whether it can become progressive enough. A large part of that has to do with the complete collapse over the last decades of the progressive message and especially the Party, in the arena of public debate. The American public is going to have to be deprogrammed and reprogrammed after decades of regressive Moonyism (including by the Moonies themselves). That is a separate issue, albeit one which is much better addressed by an ideology that has the benefit of a solid institutional platform from which to operate. But the point is that a third party to the left of the Democrats would not at present be anything like an easy sell. Far easier to win by turning one of the only two alternatives available to voters into a progressive party (especially when the other one has become reprehensible in the extreme).
All of which leaves two questions. First, can the Democratic Party serve that function, or is it hopelessly lost, a permanent captive to its corporate masters? I know of no evidence whatsoever that Paul Wellstone or Bernie Sanders (an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and an avowed socialist, for chrissakes) have been ostracized by party elites or subjected to attempts made either to force a change to their politics or to drum them out of the party. Ditto Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters, John Conyers (or, should I say, the Congressman formerly known as John Conyers), or Henry Waxman. Howard Dean was something of a threat to the status quo party hacks in 2004, it’s true, but my guess is that that was mostly because it wasn’t yet hip at that time to be anti-war, and they feared that a Dean candidacy would take down the whole party with it (which, no doubt, must be why they brought in a real fighter like John Kerry to go up against Rove and the GOP). Anyhow, nowadays Dean is chairing the damn thing, so their resistance to him can’t have been that intense.
All of which suggests to me that the party is ours for the taking if we want it. Given enough Wellstones, we can own this thing and shape it into a force for true progressive change. And if you still require additional evidence that it can be done, just remember that it has been done - twice already (or even three times if we count some of Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy ideas). Both the New Deal in the Thirties and then the Great Society in the Sixties were periods of substantial and meaningful progressive flowering in American government, even if they weren’t ultimately everything we might have wanted them to become (and let’s not forget that we are dealing here with the most politically backwards populace amongst all the Western democracies). Moreover, and again following on those models, the ascension of a relatively progressive president such as perhaps Al Gore could help expedite this process from the top down.
But then comes the second question, could a progressive Democratic Party win? Again, it seems to me that both history, contemporary conditions and loads of polling data provide a pretty compelling affirmative answer. That it has happened twice suggests that it is certainly possible. That polling data consistently demonstrate the public tending to favor progressive positions on almost every issue put before them, despite decades of unanswered regressive brainwashing, is further argument that this is possible. Finally, Americans are growing increasingly anxious today as their prosperity, their empire, and their sense of security are diminishing right before their very eyes. These conditions are likely to grow more, not less, acute, particularly as Baby Boomers transition from being net contributors to the welfare state system back to being net recipients (never underestimate the depth or the power of Boomer selfishness!).
Such insecurity-inducing scenarios radicalize politics, if that’s not too strong a term, pushing the electorate either to the right or the left. One of those alternatives has just recently been tried. Its chief exemplar now has Watergate-level job approval ratings, which will only get considerably worse in the ensuing months. It is true that the public could theoretically be persuaded to turn further still to the right, but you don’t much hear those voices out there clamoring for that direction amongst the political class. Even the few remaining droolers like Bill Kristol who advocate for something idiotic like bringing Bushism to Iran now that it has demonstrated its wonderful virtues in Iraq and Afghanistan are increasingly being sneered at like the laughable but still dangerous morons they are. The right-wing experiment in American politics is a complete and utter failure, of course, but more importantly it is increasingly recognized as such. It has totally come a cropper in terms of public opinion. This is 1932 all over again. No more Hoover, no more Bush. The country began its retreat from this horror show in 2006, and would have started even earlier had not John Kerry been such an abysmal presidential candidate. It is now turning decisively to an alternative somewhere to the left of the current GOP, as it more or less must. The only question (further national security ‘emergencies’ aside, of course), is what will be there for it to turn to, and how far down that path we go from here.
Personally, I don’t give a damn about the Democratic Party (which for decades has almost never failed to disappoint anyone possessing any progressive expectations for it), or any other party. In fact, I share many of the concerns about the general pernicious effects of partisanship that the Founders held - though I also recognize that, as a practical matter, it’s pretty hard to envision doing national politics in a polity of 300 million people (and politically lazy ones, at that) without the organizing benefits and programmatic shorthand that parties bring to the table. While I don’t care about parties, what I do care about are policies. Do we have healthcare, or not? Do we rescue people after a hurricane and flood devastate their city, or not? Do we act like an predatory empire, or not? If the Democrats can deliver the right policies, then fine. If we need the Greens to do the job instead, hey, that’s groovy too. If we have to import SWAPO from southern Africa to get it done, then whatever. Heck, I’d even vote Republican (gulp) if they somehow miraculously managed to stumble into some good politics (though that’s probably about as likely as Dick Cheney volunteering to become a soldier). I could care less about the label and the organization, as long as it delivers progressive policies for the country.
As a practical matter, though, a third party - let alone a viable leftist third party - is extremely unlikely to develop for all the theoretical and historical reasons outlined above. Our mission, therefore, should be to capture the Democratic Party and lead it toward a series of increasingly progressive (and already publicly popular) legislative accomplishments, starting with ending the war and providing universal national healthcare coverage. It won’t be that hard to do, and we can thank the Dark Side in part for creating the best conditions in half a century for this opportunity (just the same, though, I think I’ll pass on sending a nice note of gratitude to Mr. Rove). After all, it’s not exactly like avoiding unnecessary wars, providing healthcare and quality education for all, pursuing economic justice, or saving our little planetary spaceship from the threat of global warming are such radical ideas that would be hard to sell.
I share the sentiment of many in the progressive community that the Democratic Party is, with a few notable exceptions, a cesspool of ambitious sell-outs, ready to mortgage any policy position or principle in service to their own petty personal gratifications. It would be wonderful, for that reason, if we could just nuke the thing and move on to something else. Wonderful, but not possible.
Fortunately, there is another alternative. I say we hijack it instead.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers’ reactions to his articles (mailto:[email protected]), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
Yawn. How many times have we now heard this same old tired refrain? Just work within the Democratic Party to elect some hero or heroine?
It won’t be the people ‘hijacking’ the Democratic Party, but rather the people being hijacked. We’ll never make progress in this country with this strategy of retreat from building political parties not controlled by corporate donations, as advocated by Professor Green.
“Between the Harriet Miers nomination and the immigration bill debacle, no small fraction of the sixty-five percent of America currently reviling the president are cavemen even more regressive than Bush (which may seem unimaginable to progressives, but is quite literally the case).”…
Finally, someone with the intellectual honesty to admit that Bush’s low approval ratings aren’t due to a leftward shift, or due to Americans upset with far-right politics. No, of the nearly 75% of the population who disapprove, not all of them “woke up”.
I’ve said this many times to my friends and a couple of times on here - the scary fact is that many of the people who hate or disapprove of Bush do so from a perspective even further to the right of Bush/(the “caveman”, the author of this article referred to). We are talking about unabashed fascists-nationalists, neo-Nazis, racists, extremely fundamentalist Christians, anti-Semites, and philo-Semite Zionists(what a bunch of misfits, LOL) who hate Bush for not bombing Iran(or maybe for threatening to bomb Iran), or “screwing up” the Iraqi occupation by not being “brutal enough”. To some of these folks, Bush is an “ultra-liberal”, and possibly secretly affiliated with the communists, to their minds. The racists of course hate Rice for all the wrong reasons. Trust me, you don’t come across them very often, but they are out there, just listen to some right-wing talk radio for 20 minutes if you want your skin to crawl(compared to right-wing talk radio, especially short wave, Fox News is “ultra-liberal”).
In a word: no.
If we accept that the Bush administration is the most criminal and loathsome ever, then reform of the tepid enablers is an inadequate response to an extreme situation.
To vote for Democrats that have participated in the dramatic rightward shift is to vote against one’s interests and, frankly, against civilization. When your vote supports policies and values diametrically opposed to yours, it becomes a farce. Long-term internal reform is an inadequate response to this problem. Making the vote into a farce is too great a price to pay.
If my ideas about civilization are dismissed a priori by my colleague, then tough. I will not sell out to Bush enablers any more than I will sell out to Bush. My soul costs more than that.
A professor should value ideas over realpolitik. What a shame that this one has trouble with that.
We now live through historical singularity in this US of A. So all politico as usual does not work, as well as all logical arguments Professor David Green so eloquently presented here. At the same singularity almost 150 years ago GOP was born.
Next time, in 1932, Democratic Party managed to live through the singularity; but compare Democrats of defeated Confederacy with FDR Democrats will give a good pose to deny plausibility of the third party in the USA.
So, I thank Prof. Green for his piece but vote for Democrat? Not even in the next life.
As Howard Zinn famously put:
“When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them…Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress.”
How true that quote is. Why do we put our faith and trust into elected officials when we all should put faith and trust in each other?
Yawn is right. CommonDreams, why do you keep publishing this kind of article when it’s clear that your readership is far more progressive?
As for Green’s argument, I’d say the major flaw is his conception that the political spectrum is best represented by a line and that most people are loathe to stray from the “angry middle” of that line. The political spectrum is just that: a spectrum of different approaches and collective positions. And the two major parties in the US don’t even come close to exhausting the possibilities within that spectrum.
One of the very reasons those people in the “middle” are angry is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are expressing or addressing their genuine concerns–and when someone does, they respond. Case in point: my entire family voted for Nader in 2004, despite the fact that they comprise a Republican, a conservative Democrat, and a few undecideds. My mother happened to catch a Nader speech on C-SPAN and she wouldn’t stop talking about it–she said “He makes so much sense. I’d never heard anyone say those things before. If only people had a chance to hear what he’s saying, I bet they’d vote for him.” And she was right.
As for “hijacking” the Democratic Party: it’s not only doomed to failure, it’s doomed to drain the energy out of every progressive cause–just as selling out to the Democrats in 2004 effectively destroyed the antiwar movement, at a time when they Iraqis needed us more than ever. I was disgusted to see it happen then, and I’m deeply disappointed now to see how few of those who threw their support to Kerry have come to terms with their mistake and (more importantly) vowed never to repeat it.
RE: INCOMING…PRO-THIRD PARTY - TWO VIEWS
The third party question is central to commondreams’ posters. Not just whether to vote third party - it appears most will - but the greater purposes of a third party vote.
Two preliminary comments:
1) this article represents an editorial weighing-in by the commondreams editors - whereas, to represent their readers and a central topic of argument, they should also include pro-third party arguments; and
2) this is THE main issue dividing commondreams readers - not so much whether to vote third party, but why. For one group, it is the only strategy; for a second group, third parties are one approach, that can be combined with other activist approaches that involve either directly pressuring the Democrats through other organizations, working within that party, or using third parties to pressure and negotiate with Democrats.
As I stated in another post laying out the two positions:
baska July 26th, 2007 9:30 am
“…the underlying split on this website’s threads concerns the third party question: not whether to vote third party (a majority will), but the purpose of a third party vote:
a) as an alternative to a hopelessly corrupt and unchangeable Democratic Party, with the goal of a new progressive majority; versus
b) as a way of articulating the views of a sizable minority with the goal of halting the rightward trajectory of the Democrats and forcing their platforms left.
In other words - both groups agree on breaking w/Democrats, withholding votes, and going 3rd party, but for quite different reasons.
If___ Will Rogers, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, JFK, Moses, or anyone else came back to life and any of them were a third party candidate___ they would lose.
The electronic balloting with no paper trail would insure that. It will be another president, (if there is an election ), who will take their orders from the powers in the shadows ___ those who really rule all of us.
It’s big money. ___ That is how it is and we have allowed it to happen.
Sigh. Didn’t get further than the title yet. Afraid I’ll be too pissed off if I read another long list of excuses, rationalizations and apologies.
Where is RichM? He always is spot on in his analysis of these tired strategies.
To read or not to read..hmm…to read or not to read…
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.” –Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789
Support secession movements. It is the only way out. It may appear hopeless now, but in the coming years if we get the ball rolling Vermont, and then maybe a few others will follow.
The truth, which Professor Green doesn’t address, is that the political system has been hijacked by corporate money, which maintains its control, not just through its billions of lobbying and campaign dollars, but through its ownership of the fourth estate. As long as the drones are mesmerized by the media, which tells them that Hillary Obama is a flaming Liberal, Edwards a dangerous Lefist, and Kucinich (who’s that?) is a non-entity, then progressives don’t stand a chance in hell –in or out of the Democratic Party.
Until we put that into the equation, this argument will go nowhere with me.
Interesting but dumb. There are only two viable solutions to any of these problems, 1) electoral reform that gives voters in all elections, federal, state and local the option to vote for “none of the above”, accompanied by 2) a meaningful, sizeable stripping of power, money and resources from the Federal Gov’t and a return of same to the States. The reason we have impasse, gridlock and gov’t of the worst solutions to every problem is because the country is too vast to be governed effectively from a centralized federal governmental system. The problem gets worse with the increase in population. The only workable solution is to downsize and redistribute back to the States where voters can effectively exercise oversight and control. The only way to kill the lumbering, ineffective and bumbling beast the the Federal gov’t has become is to starve it of the trillions paid in taxes to it every year and keep those dollars at home in the States from which they originate.
“Support secession movements. It is the only way out. It may appear hopeless now, but in the coming years if we get the ball rolling Vermont, and then maybe a few others will follow”
We fought that war 140 years ago, and we lost. You made us stay, you can bet we’re gonna make you stay.
Evelyn Smith July 27th, 2007 12:35 pm
“The electronic balloting with no paper trail would insure that. It will be another president, (if there is an election ), who will take their orders from the powers in the shadows ___ those who really rule all of us.”
Evelyn nailed it. That’s why Congress put this issue on a back burner. This is an oligarchy run by $$$$ not a democracy.
As Woody Allen once said, “It’s like deja vu all over again”.
We’ve heard arguments like Professor Green’s so many times that I don’t know why he wastes his breath recycling them. And I don’t understand how he or any other intellectual trained in political science can make such fatuous claims with a straight face.
I won’t rehash all of the details of my post from yesterday: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/26/2785/ But as I said there, there is one major, all encompassing political party in America, the Corporate Party. It is comprised of two factions: Republicans and Democrats. Republicans raison d’etre is to advance every goal of the Corporate Party with no regard for the 90+% of Americans who reap no benefits from these goals. But the Corporate Party is quite rational, calculating and looks carefully to the long term. It knows that unfettered capitalism/corporatism, imperialism and neo-fascism, while in its short term interest would eventually spark a popular revolution. Hence, the Democrats exist to solidify the Corporate Party’s hegemony. Whenever, Republicans go too far, pushing the populace to the brink; Democrats come forward as a viable alternative and, once in office, grant minor concessions to the populace…just enough to satiate them and thwart any major resistance. Once the Corporate Party’s hegemony is again secure, Republicans return to power.
I agree with Professor Green that America is a two-party system. We are a Presidential, winner take all “democracy” and this will not change as long as either faction of the Corporate party is in power. So no, THIRD parties cannot be successful. What I want, what I and so many progressives are working to build is a SECOND party. A party that genuinely represents the workers, minorities, the LGBT community, the environment and the peace movement.
Make no mistake about it, the Corporate Party knows that four more years of the Republican faction in power would be incredibly risky. They need a Democrat in 2008 to pull the populace back from the brink of openly revolting. This is why the GOP is lagging badly in its strongest talent: raising money. I have little doubt that the Democrats will win the Presidency in 2008, probably under Hillary. She’s the ideal candidate, willing to shill almost unequivocally for the Corporate Party, but appealing enough (and just enough) for “progressives” to keep them complacent.
The problem with many on the left is that they cannot plan for the long term. We were told in ‘04 that we MUST vote for Kerry because Bush is so terrible. We were told in ‘06 that we must vote Democrat this time to win back Congress. Now we’re told that we must vote Democrat in 2008 to win the Presidency; then, real change will happen. Right… And when President Hillary throws the populace the requisite breadcrumbs and no more we’ll be told that it’s because the Democrats Congressional majority is too small, so we must vote Democrat in 2010. And on, and on, and on.
Enough! Time to think about the long term. No, a genuine progressive-workers-peace party will not win the Presidency in 2008 or 2012; nor will it win probably any Congressional elections in 2008 or 2010. And that’s fine; we should be thinking about 2016, 2018, 2020 and beyond. The time to start building the party is NOW. As I said in previous posts, Ralph Nader is the only person I see with the tenacity and intransigence to lead this movement. He has taken more abuse and vitriol than most people could stand without giving up. And yet he hasn’t given up. He needs our support. If you haven’t yet, please sign this petition:
http://www.draftnader.org/petition.html
And thanks for listening to my tirade. :-)
nwfisher,
I live in Vermont and secession would be interesting. However….. the Second Vermont Republic, the organization leading the charge is associated with racist organizations like the League of the South and also has some non-native Vermonters on their steering committee with questionable pasts associated hate groups. This is the case and I don’t want these guys in charge of a meaningful movement which could take root. As long as the Second Vermont Republic gets rid of these people on their board, then don’t expect much to come from here.
Just a little FYI of our situation up here.
Did anyone actually finish this article? I’m deeply involved in these issues, as an officer of the Oregon Green Party, and I started skimming half way through. It’s too bad - the issues are vital.
Oddly enough, he completely omitted the real alternative to our real problem with the electoral system. The real problem is plurality voting, which, as he noted, makes it possible to win an election with a small minority of the votes, as Bill Clinton did the first time (thanks to Ross Perot). The real solution is Instant Runoff Voting (or Preference Voting). Even that has a number of variations. I won’t go into the mechanics, lest you all start skimming this, too. If you care about our democracy, look it up. In short, it counts voters’ second (or even 3rd) choices to reach an actual majority - every time. It allows us to vote for the candidate we really want without the danger of “electing” the one we really don’t want, as plurality voting forces us to do. It is presently in use in two American cities and several other countries.
Back to the real world: the big problem with our present electoral system is that it fails very badly. At some point, like the present, the voters become so disgusted with the status quo that they vote for other parties anyway. At that point, you get officials elected with far less than a majority. If it’s a 5-way race, you can “win” with 21% of the vote. Not exactly a mandate. But it’s a huge opportunity for “third” parties.
In fact, there are countries with similar electoral systems with very strong third parties. One is next door: the last Mexican election went to a candidate with only 38% (if that) of the vote. There were two at that level, so without a runoff they nearly came to war over it - and may yet. In Britain, with a parliamentary system exaggerating the effect, Blair was “re-elected” with 35%. The Liberal Democrats, their third party, may well win next time - with a similar minority. 3-way split. It happens. It happened here, in 1996. And it’s going to happen again, in spades.
What about Prof. Green’s solution? It’s been tried. I’ve been hearing calls for a progressive “take-back” of the Democratic Party for at least six years now. They even had some successes last year. And the result? The Dems, with control of Congress, just stuck their thumb in progressives’ eye and twisted it. If you’re reading this site, you know what I’m talking about - but don’t forget their deal with the Bushies on “free trade.” It isn’t just the war, it’s imperialism. The message is very clear: not a chance.
And the question is: when do you stop beating your heads on that brick wall? I don’t even know just how the party apparatchiks control the results so thoroughly, since I’m not an insider. It’s probably mostly the money. But the lesson is crystal clear.
Now, next year. At this point, Bush is polling under 30%, and the Dems in Congress are at 14%. Is this telling us something? Well, yes, and alternative parties are coming out of the woodwork. It isn’t just the Greens, experiencing a resurgence from our low point after ‘04: the Libertarians are, too, as real conservatives flock out of the Republican Party; and then there’s Unity08 and Bloomberg, preparing to make a run up the middle with a billion dollars of his own money. Anyone can buy the presidency for a billion dollars, and Bloomberg is an effective politician.
That’s a 5-way split, with more to come. It’s going to be a very exciting year. Come join the Party: we need you.
That’s GPUS.org, or in Oregon PGP.org. Or just start a chapter and then find us.
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still and pursue the same object. The last one of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.” –Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824.
Interesting comment by Mr. Jefferson, “…or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still…”, or more appropriately, since Mr. Jefferson couldn’t have envisioned the extent that monopolistic power has taken over the governmental process, Gore Vidal expressed it more succinctly: “…the United States has only one party — the property party. It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican.” Mr. Jefferson warned us of this, but I’m positive he didn’t envision the full manifestation of what we live with now.
I agree with Green’s logic, but removing corporate control would be the hardest part in making a Democratic takeover worthwhile. Is it possible?
As usual, Green has written an amazingly well thought-out article. However, he is indeed utilizing the theory that all political problems must be ultimately solved by political - as opposed to social - action plans.
Still, there is one thing he has hit on here that a lot of us idealists and revolutionaries seem to not comment on enough. What if a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination did step up who actually did put forward the posits that we hold so dear? What if a candidate came forward who was actually willing to challenge free market capitalism head on? Dig? What then? Do we just say “hell no, do Democrat will ever get my voice?” I’m not sure that’s the smart way to go in a country that has been so utterly ruined.
I guess I’m saying I totally agree with one part of the his argument, that parties don’t mean squat in this country. What does have meaning, for me at least, is policy and action that comes from the voice of the people. I don’t think mob rule is smart - ala Gravel - but I do think that a President that actually operates from a position of representative of the people is desirable, no matter what party they are in. I’m not sure I could include the Republican, Libertarian, or like parties, because their platforms quite clearly are against what Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of, and anyone who would run under those platforms should not be trusted.
So what about that? Would we, the idealists and the would be revolutionists and the like, throw our weight behind someone who really spoke for us, even if he or she was a card-carrying Democrat?
Oregoncharles: You just posted a very good, a very intelligent and an informative blog. You wasted your time.
It is not who votes for whom, it is how the votes are counted. With the electroic voting with no paper trail now, the party with the best computer hackers will win. If a third party managed to have the best hackers, the election would be declared null and void and the Supreme Court would elect the next president. That couldn’t happen?___ Hmmmm.
Afterthought:
It isn’t just the presidency. Those poll numbers, and people’s deep disgust with the Demublicans, will ricochet down through all the partisan races. It’s going to be wild, and a great many incumbents are at risk. This is once in a lifetime. Things will stabilize, and we need to make our mark now.
Ross Perot cost George HW Bush re-election.
Ralph Nader cost Al Gore election.
Our ‘winner take all’ system of Democracy ensures third party candidates can be spoilers only: ironically hurting the candidate who most agrees with their position.
I don’t know why that is, other Democracies allow for third parties to become something more constructive, but not here. We need constitutional reform, but until then, a vote for the Green Party is a Republican vote.
I would support a ‘genuine progressive-workers-peace party’ ala Nader08, but only if they promised NOT to run any candidates. Instead their purpose would be to throw support to whichever traditional candidates did the most for campaign finance reform and true multi-party reform of our Democracy. Finance reform has to be comprehensive, you cannot throw the ‘corporate influence’ out of just one party.
Great article
baska: There have been dozens are articles published on CD that are pro-third party. Sorry, I just really needed to go to bat for them on that one.
Evelyn - and everybody:
Excellent point. I’m a little spoiled, since Oregon’s mail-in balloting puts everything on paper. (I recommend it highly.)
Most important: voting mechanics are a LOCAL issue. Elections are run by COUNTIES - right there next door to you. Go talk to your county elections administrator, find out what they’re doing and why. If you don’t like it, talk to your county elected officials. Take some neighbors along - enough to represent a lot of votes. If they like their job, they’ll listen. It’s the biggest impact you can have.
The next level is the state secretary of state. That’s pretty close, too, in most states, and another elected official.
First we need to take all private money out of politics, until we take that action, the government will always be owned by the rich. It used to be that we would have middle class organizations that would balance out the rich (like unions) but Reagan and beyond (including Clinton) has ripped holes in our right to assemble. Next we need to find a set of principles we can all agree on and stick to them. Then we should do to the neo cons what they have been doing to us for the past 35 years
Ilike the idea of a national strike
RE: PRO-THIRD PARTY ARTICLES?
“CRCox July 27th, 2007 1:28 pm
“There have been dozens are articles published on CD that are pro-third party”
Dozens? Where the topic is front-loaded and included in the title, where the brunt of the argument is focused on the viability of third parties - not an assumption, or something implicit in the argument, or a secondary or parenthetical note? That appear at the top of the ‘daily-pick’ list?
Well, OK - I humbly submit that, perhaps, I’ve overlooked this.
So help me out. Link one.
RE: NATIONAL STRIKE? GET REAL…
Bladerunner July 27th, 2007 1:23 pm
“the first thing we need to do is have a national strike.”
Uh-huh. First thing? Right now?
And how many of your fellow workers are prepared to follow you in this action?
And for how long?
And at what cost to themselves or their families?
And for what transnational agenda of what third party, organization, or existing movement?
A National Strike is long overdue. We need to shut this country down until everyone connected to this regime is removed.
As for “hijacking the Democratic Party,” forget it. It was hijacked a long time ago and we don’t have the dough to unhijack it. We need to build a progressive alternative.
A national strike is a great idea, and some day in the future it may be the impetus for a radical restructuring of our political, economic and social framework in America. Alas, I don’t so it happening anytime soon.
RE: NADER COST GORE THE ELECTION? EVIDENCE, PLEASE…
ubrew12 July 27th, 2007 1:28 pm
“Ralph Nader cost Al Gore election….a vote for the Green Party is a Republican vote.”
Evidence, please. Thanks in advance for arguments AND links suupporting your assertion.
Why don’t they say, ‘Hijack the republican party.’ Same chance of it happening.
The democratic party wants us to vote for them out of ‘fear,’ just like they did the last two elections.
Anybody but Bush is not enough of a reason for me to vote for them. I voted independent the last two presidential elections, and I don’t regret it one bit.
I do regret that the democratic party leadership still don’t get it. Or maybe they do, maybe they are even more sinister and we are just naive in thinking that they are a little bit better than the republicans.
Which party do you think is betraying their supporters more? I think it is the democrats.
www.NotOneMore.US
“I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don’t want, and get it.” - Eugene Debs
“Heck, I’d even vote Republican (gulp) if they somehow miraculously managed to stumble into some good politics…”
Teach both parties the lesson they so sadly need to learn: vote Ron Paul, and toss out as many GOPathologicals as possible in both Houses. Blues in the house, Paul at the helm, checks and balances restored, out of Iraq and lots of other countries, respect for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
That’s the “independent” choice. Although he’s running on the Red tick, he’s a solid libertarian and the furthest thing from Cheneybbush out there.
Despite Prof Green’s sophistication, eloquence, and his awareness of the Dem Party’s deficiencies, the perspective he lays out here is dangerously & poisonously wrong.
To recycle an argument I made here last month, there is really no such thing as “hijacking the Democratic Party.” This is because a great deal of care has gone into insuring that the party will remain impervious to any attempts to change it. The consultants, apparatchiks, pundits, elected officials, & big donors who make up the party’s controlling elements are perfectly well aware of the pesky idealists on the fringes who would like to “change” the party. You can be absolutely certain that they will allow such change only over their collective dead bodies.
But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that by some miracle a bunch of antiwar activists (& assorted others) managed nonetheless to “take over” the Democratic Party. In that case, the very first thing that would happen is that all the big donors would quit, en masse. The big donors come from big companies; all are corporatists, they are all doing nicely under the status quo, & would be unlikely to support a party suddenly proposing the serious reining in of corporate power. As the hypothetical “takeover” of the Dem Party progressed, the media would be shrieking hysterically that the party is being captured by “wild-eyed radicals and communists.”
In other words, the idea of “taking over” the Dems may sound nice — but only as long as you don’t really think about what it means. In practice, it suffers from 2 “little flaws”: 1) the people who control the party would never let it happen, & 2) even if it actually began to happen, the media would be at its throat, and all its funders would be supporting Republicans. Before anyone starts hawking the “let’s-just-hijack-the-Dem-Party” line, they should have answers for dealing with these 2 little problems.
Wow, amazing commentary. No wonder I am becoming addicted to the comment section of Common Dreams! I must say that I am really conflicted right now. There are such good arguments from multiple sides.
Green did indeed totally miss the corporatist side of things. However, that is not what the article was focused on. It was focussed on the an argument against putting our faith in building a third party in a system that is built around NOT allowing a third party - indeed a system of the “lesser of two evils”.
As unfortunate as it is “ubrew12″ pretty much hammered the nail on the head here folks.
I would ad this: There are only two real options to reforming the system of voting we have in this country, and therefore our socio-economic values. One, elect the most progressive legislature and executive we can and push them CONSTANTLY, until we get the reforms that are needed. Two, do whatever we must in order to cause the entire system to fall down around us, so that we can rebuild it from the ground up. “Bladerunner” might have it right.
The Clintons pretty much have the whole thing tied up as their own personal vehicle for political power.Yesterday I read somewhere that they were actually doing endruns around DNC policy in an effort to subvert fair play. No surprise. Seems they damn well traded the Democratic party to the robber barons for funding and triangulated on all issues as a strategy to diffuse the Right’s power, thereby moving the Right to futher extremes. I don’t know if this trend can be reversed when Neo-Libs put more effort and spew more venom in opposing the Progressives(while co-opting their identity) than they do in challenging the excesses of the Right. More often then not they are compicit and bow to the same task-makers from AIPAC to Wall Street. In fact, Pelosi has been responsible for back room deals weakening campaign finance reform, and Hillary Clinton admonished Feingold to “live in the real world” regarding reform. I don’t really think the Democrats want to see changes that might personally influence their power broker connections–even if it mean they have no real connection with their constituents or the issues, except for promises at election time that we all know are bullshit.
You say:
“And let’s not kid ourselves, way too many Americans presently worry if the Democratic Party is too liberal to govern, not whether it can become progressive enough”
Operative word being “liberal” but on ALL the issues, Iraq, healthcare, environmental issues–even gay marriage–they are all the old liberal positions that the majority supports.
The problem is even Democratic sites and organizations bully progressives–and, something I have really been fired up about lately, even progressives, apparently reflexively smear their own by adopting Right-wing (DLC) views that they are only in it for their ego. Isn’t that the same as Clinton who postures as some Neo-con in foreign policy although the entire country now recognizes what a disaster it is. Who is she speaking to in triangulating on the Right’s criminal deceptions?
RE: DEMOCRATIC PARTY - IMPERVIOUS TO CHANGE?
RichM July 27th, 2007 1:47 pm
“the [Democratic] party will remain impervious to any attempts to change it.”
It is not impervious to change - since the 1980s, it has moved significantly right.
To address the question of whether it is impervious to a shift to the left, it is important to ask why it has moved right. What is your view?
Face it, the amount of money one has equals the amount of political rights one has. This is what American democracy has degenerated to. The rich pay less taxes, serve less time for crimes committed and have free speech. The poor pay and pay, are scapegoats for crimes and have no representation or voice in American culture.
The current political system only represents the interests of a few at the expense of the many.
A third party, multiple parties is the only way to get a representative democracy. The U.S, needs a parliamentary system. The current system is old, outdated, unresponsive and doesn’t match the values of today’s society.
RE: DEMOCRATIC CORPORATE DONORSHIP - IN THE PAST AND NOW?
RichM July 27th, 2007 1:47 pm
“let’s assume…that by some miracle a bunch of antiwar activists (& assorted others) managed nonetheless to ‘take over’ the Democratic Party. In that case, the very first thing that would happen is that all the big donors would quit…The big donors come from big companies; all are corporatists”
Do you believe corporations have always co-supported the Democratic Party? Equally? Have you followed shifts in corporate donorship to the Democratic Party, since the 1980s? Just curious…
Thank you Oregon Charles. That is very good advice.
I have another suggestion also, and will waste my time typing it.
We should have an electon tax. (oh oh, another damn tax). Every person who is employed in the U. S, would be taxed one dollar a week. That money would be used for political candidates use for all of the congressional eletions, congress, senate and presidency. NO other monies, private, personal or any contributions could be used for their campaigns. ___All grass roots campaigning.
To run for the presidency, any candidate would have to personally collect a thousand petitions in their own state and win a primary election in their state in order to be eligable for recieving any of the election cash. The visual media and drive time radio would have to donate at least ten hours of free prime time a month, all year long, for each elected state candidate and all newspapers would have to offer equal space in any editorial pages.
That is the basic idea, the many minor details would have to be worked out and agreed upon by each of the States governing bodies and then a final vote on a constitution of the subject, by the fifty state governors. The constitution would become a federal law and never changed except by a vote of a two thirds margin by the congress of the U. S.
Congress persons and senators could only serve two four year terms. The same as the president.
That program would bring this nation back to a true democracy.
Third Parties…it ain’t gonna happen??? Well, yeah, I guess if you don’t want it to happen. It’s all too apparent that from David Green’s viewpoint, it is much easier to just try to bandage the wound rather than perform a risky operation. The Democratic Party is deaf and mute to the American progressive. Read this for equal time…
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2007_07_26.shtml
PS Prof. Green, progressives have bought your tease for too long with NOTHING to show for it but kicks to the groin and slaps across the face by the Dem leadership. It’s time to move on.
Hijacking the Democratic party still does nothing to teach Americans how to count past 2. The universe will still be divided into good/evil, right/wrong, exalted/debased, white/black. There will still be calls for hearing “both sides of the story,” as if stories had only two sides.
“Green” does us a disservice in talking about the history of third parties but not about the history of progressives within the Democratic Party.
I tilted at windmills in the D.P. in the late 80s-90s, and watched the party elite “disappear” attempts to include Living Wage and solidarity resolutions into the party platform, and saw the party faithful rally around the leadership to shut out progressives. The same has been experienced lately by Palestinian solidarity activists, who see their resolutions disappeared, or by Kucinich supporters who see their anti-war candidate endorse a pro-war candidate and their anti-war signs taken from them in the 2004 Convention. The Democratic Party isn’t Democratic.
A professor should consider the history: look that the most recent high-water mark of progressives reforming the Democratic Party: Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition in 1984 and 1988. In 1988, the Rainbow Coalition united a broad spectrum of progressive activists around a number of social and economic issues, drew huge crowds and raised hopes. With such a grounded insurgency, the Rainbow pull 29% - 29%! of the Democratic primary vote in 1988 - orders of magnitude higher than Kucinich.
But in the end, the Rainbow achieved SQUAT, and none of the ideas that rallied the Rainbow activists became a part of the Democratic Party. I shouldn’t say the Rainbow achieved SQUAT - it did do one thing: it hood-winked progressives into the Democratic Party for another generation.
In response the Democratic Leadership Council has tightened up their act, and politicians like Bill Clinton turned ‘triangulation’ into an art form.
When did Labor make its progress? In the 1930s, before it became wedded to the Democratic Party.
When did the Civil Rights movement make its progress? In the 60s and early 70s. After the Gary Indiana convention and the movement of civil rights activists into the Democratic Party, progress slowed and the reaction began.
Every election cycle the Democratic Party holds progressives hostage with tales of fear like the original post. And every election cycle the Democratic Party moves just a bit more to the right, until the politics of Clinton look farther to the right than the politics of Nixon (EPA? Nixon. OSHA? Nixon. Pulled troops out of Vietnam? Nixon. Appointed the judges that decided Roe v. Wade? Nixon. NAFTA? Clinton. 8 years of sanctions, bombing, withdrawal of weapons inspectors and the ‘worth it’ deaths of 100,000 iraqis? Clinton.)
The system is broken. Progress happens outside of it, not within it.
Yeah, more nonesense by the true believers. Highjack the Dems like ending the Iraq war, Impeachment, voting reform mandates…as nauseau… dream on…
I will agian be voting for Nader; hopefully he can knock Clinton or one of the other corporate candidates out like he did in Florida in 2000.
RE: “a vote for the Green Party is a Republican vote.”
That is simply false. A vote for someone is a vote for someone.
The Democratic Party does not enjoy a proprietary claim on my vote or anyone else’s. It does not enjoy default status. To claim it does is the most arrogant presumption. It is the presumption of ownership and entitlement. It is pernicious and anti-democratic.
On the other hand, all too often a vote for Democrats is a vote for Republican policies.
How bizarre that it doesn’t occur to Democratic advocates that the party needs to earn the votes that it gets.
Useless propaganda. Infiltrating the Democrats is just as impossible as infiltrating the Republicans, they are controlled by corporate power, it’s not going to happen.
What Cindy is doing what needs to be done. Run as an independent.
Do you or don’t you accept that the present system is corrupt. If you do accept that the present system is corrupt, then the natural conclusion is that the two-party system is corrupt and, therefore, it should be trashed.
People are creature of habit. For too many years the Americans have been used to voting either Republican or Democrat. More often than not, reasons given for voting for either party has been: My father always voted Democrat, or our family always votes Democrat, or I always vote Republican because I think they have class (even though it’s third class!). Another reason that shows people are creatures of habit is that they keep voting for the same fossilized incumbents year after year, after year. Laziness to do some investigation before voting is another reason for my loving American friends.
It’s hard to break the habit, particularly when the system erects almost insurmountable barriers for third parties to exist. If you tried the Republican, and they screwed you up, and then you voted Democrat, and they too screwed you up, you got to go to the third party. It’s just common sense. In fact, I don’t so much like the idea of a third party; I’m a multi-party animal.
If you are a disenchanted Democrat or Republican—which you must be unless you are one of the evangelical Rapture creeps–the next time you go to the voting booth, please, please, PLEASE, vote for some new faces. They will not be as bad as the present crooks in the Congress, BECAUSE:
It is much easier for those groups who usually elect your representatives for you to make secret deals with the incumbents than with a new face that you just planted in the Congress because of your votes.
re: National Strike.
The closest we’ve had since the 30s was May Day 2006, when millions of immigrant workers honored a day of worker’s protest that began in the U.S. in 1886.
People that support the idea of a National Strike should get themselves involved in immigrant labor struggles like Smithfield or local protests at INS centers. That’s the closest thing we’ve got to a ‘movement’ today.
And don’t go alone - bring whatever group you’re in along for the ride. Is there a more hopeful and more necessary struggle going on in the US today? Well, okay: immigrant rights and healthcare for all. Pick one and get busy. F- the democrats.
I was living in Minnesota when Jesse Ventura was elected Governor. He won over Hubert Humphrey’s son and (now-state senator) Norm Coleman. Nobody thought he could possibly win. I don’t even think he thought he could win, but he did it. I, for one, voted for him. I remember a lot of people joked about it and teased me because I had a Jesse Ventura bumper sticker on my car and a sign out in front of my house. I think one of the reasons he won is because people, in general, were sick of the regular politicians and looking for something new. When he won it was a really big shock to both Democrats and Republicans. He just happened to come along at the right time in history, and without spending a fortune on his campaign, won the majority of the votes. I know it’s really no comparison to a Presidential campaign, but it’s not entirely out of the question, either. Maybe right now at this time in history, people are ready to look “outside the box”. I know that both Democrats and Republicans are sick and tired of the politics of the past 7 years. Maybe now is the right time for another “Jesse Ventura”. I don’t mean him, literally, but someone different from all the others. I, myself, would love to see Dennis Kucinich run as an Independent. It’s obvious the Democrats won’t choose him to run. But, who knows, he could be the next Jesse Ventura and whip them all.
It’s absolutely amazing that such a painfully long article could manage to offer absolutely nothing of substance.
There are NOT two parties in America. There are two false fronts for the same monster. The political system in this country is nothing more than an extension of the corporate marketing machine. It exists for the sole purpose of maintaining an illusion just like any other sales campaign.
There is only a fascist regime, which is the natural offspring of capitalism, which has learned to pretend to be a democracy. We have now reached a point where the charade is really no longer necessary. Very soon the hammer will drop and so will all pretense of a civil society in America.
Don’t worry about voting. It’s not an option we have any longer.
Welcome to the North American Union.
Fight or accept total subjugation. These are the only choices we have.
[email protected]
RE: PRO-THIRD PARTY ARGUMENTS
newageartist July 27th, 2007 2:07 pm
“Third Parties…it ain’t gonna happen???…It’s all too apparent that from David Green’s viewpoint, it is much easier to just try to bandage the wound rather than perform a risky operation. The Democratic Party is deaf and mute to the American progressive. Read this for equal time”
Not good enough, bub - the Green Party link points to Democratic inaction; but it does NOT support your assertion that the Democratic Party is - necessarily - “deaf and mute to the American progressive,” nor your view that work to reform the Democratic Party must - necessarily - fail.
If you want such an ARGUMENT - to provide “equal time” to Prof. Green’s ARGUMENT re why U.S. third parties cannot be effective - see Michael J. Smith’s website:
stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
Stop Me Before I Vote Again:
Dedicated to the deconstruction of the Democratic Party.
‘The American Left may not be much, but it won’t be anything at all until it ditches the Democrats.’
And see Smith’s recent anti-Democratic Party counterpunch article:
http://www.counterpunch.org/smith06212007.html
June 21, 2007
“Flanders Fields; Aronowitz Strikes Out
Who Among Us Will Step Up to Destroy the Democratic Party?”
By MICHAEL J. SMITH
QUOTE:
Yawn is right. CommonDreams, why do you keep publishing this kind of article when it’s clear that your readership is far more progressive?
END QUOTE
Why? Could it be because CommonDreams is STILL drinking the Dems’ koolaid and thinks that the Dems are something that they are clearly not?
For many (most?) people it is extremely difficult to deprogramme that party-line thinking that one was programmed with as a child by one’s parents or guardians.
A child is usually programmed with at least two very engrained factors:
1. A belief in god, which is usually the christian fellow.
2. Political party-line.
Try deprogramming either of these two engrained things in most people.
Good luck with that!
baska (1:54 pm) — WHY have the Dems moved right?
- Yes, you caught me wording things poorly. I stand corrected, & actually meant just what you said: “impervious to a shift to the left.”
The 2-party system is basically an instrument of class rule. It’s a mechanism that gives society’s ruling echelon virtually total political power, yet conceals the nature of this arrangement under the guise of “democracy.” It facilitates ruling class control, & is driven almost entirely by ruling class interests.
Since about 1970, the US global economic position entered into a long decline, contrasting with the 25 yr long post-WWII prosperity boom. This basically translated into a steadily increasing pressure on the US capitalist class. Things had been easy for them in the gravy years when we were king of the hill in everything, but since the early ’70’s, the game became intensely more competitive & difficult. A natural response by the ruling class, under these conditions, is to seek to shift the burden of tougher economic times onto the backs of the general population. This kind of thing leads to ruling class clamor for union-busting, deregulation, removal of constraints on wealth accumulation, corporate subsidies & tax breaks, & so forth.
Our rulers were also very frightened by the popular domestic hatred of the Vietnam war in the late 60’s, & other social gains, like Civil Rights, gay & women’s movements, etc. Elites felt challenged by these developments, & began feeling that the USA was suffering from “an excess of democracy.” They felt “Enough is enough!,” & wanted to clamp down and reassert their own class power.
So, these kinds of pressures and fears of the ruling class translate themselves through the 2-party mechanism into a rightwards shift — which essentially just means making life easier for the rulers at the expense of the rest of the population. Since both parties are really just instruments of ruling class interests, both moved to the right.
Yes. Exactly.
In 2000 I canvassed for Kucinich - from door to door, something I had never done in my entire life. After he caved in to Kerry, I stepped back.
So far I am disgusted with the Dems (I am being diplomatic here). Based on their track record I’ll vote for them ONLY OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!
Hellooooo Ms. Pelosi, Hellooo Conyers…. Impeachment still off the table?????
RichM you’re absolutely correct.
Let me add: immediately post WWII the U.S. had un-damaged industrial capacity and available workers to ensure economic prosperity.
25-30 years later, Europe and Asia re-built and encroached on U.S. economic success.
The shift right was an attempt to control control global commerce. Ideas like “the world’s sole superpower”, the “U.S. won the cold war” and “a global war on terrorism” are meant to reinforce this control.
The 2 parties support American global economic dominance, perhaps Americans do also. But with inexpensive labor, energy resources and raw materials located outside of America, U.S. policy is to control those resources.
I think Green has forgotten how much of the population does not vote, and what the income disparity is between those who do vote, and those who dont.
Bush winning 30% of the electorate, and Kerry taking slightly less does not show me a 3rd Party could not emerge to energize those who have been disenfranchised by the lack of options. Sure, as he says, there are many fascists and far far far right wing groups in the US. But they, for the most part, vote. The trick is to getting those who have no options in our current political system, and to give them one.
“Our mission, therefore, should be to capture the Democratic Party and lead it toward a series of increasingly progressive (and already publicly popular) legislative accomplishments, starting with ending the war and providing universal national healthcare coverage. It won’t be that hard to do, and we can thank the Dark Side in part for creating the best conditions in half a century for this opportunity”
This is a fantasy because the Democrats are NOT responding as any kind of real opposition. Sure they are mouthing the words and trying to promote the perception that they will bring the troops home- until you read the small print. Their “universal healthcare” plans, another sham deliberately portrayed as what it is not while still pandering to the insurance industry. And it is the same down the line. Their general stance is that Bush made a mess of things, but, given the opportunity the Democrats would do things differently and succeed–not that the premise was flawed, if not criminal in it’s inception.
What is it going to take–what will ideal conditions be for the opportunity to take the party back from the New Democrats who model themselves as Republicans to define the center ground–because having them win it back from the Republicans is no gain.
The comment by Ubrew12 above is the one I like the best:
“Instead their (a unified progressive, peace, worker party’s) purpose would be to throw support to whichever traditional candidates did the most for campaign finance reform and true multi-party reform of our Democracy.”
That’s the bridge issue in its essence: multi-party democracy with money eliminated via public funding of elections. Bravo Ebrew12.
Real progressive electoral reform, which Green dismisses, is THE key bridge issue between progressive Democrats, progressive independents and Green Party members. This is the issue that can unify progressives with a common purpose for the long-term.
Elaborating on Ubrew12, it is important to note that Green misses a key point: he says “no one is even talking about” proportional representation. But Nader, Kucinich, the Green Party all support proportional representation. It is part of the collective progressive platform. Heck, New Zealand went from a US-type single-seat-district-winner-take-all system to a multi-party system in the 1990s. It isn’t hard for them to understand. We could do that. They did. Ubrew12 figured it out.
The article misses this obvious option and fact of electoral history and instead descends into either/or thinking. EITHER we must have a third party OR we must hijack the Democratic Party. Green picks one side of that dichotomy: he says a third party can’t work, so hijacking the Democratic Party is the only alternative. Of course, others disagree in the posts above, ALSO engaging in either/or thinking.
Both/and thinking reveals other options: progressives need to build a means of making decisions and organizing to BOTH build our national progressive party–the Green Party–AND infiltrate and hijack the Democratic Party.
Progressives think alike on policy but differ on tactics and strategy. So both/and reveals possible solutions: both the Democratic Party AND the Green Party; both short-term AND long-term; both incremental change AND radical change.
To create such thinking and the resulting plan would take progressive political unity with real decision-making authority that we do not now have.
The details of how progressives can unite politically to make needed plans–Democratic Party progressives, independent progressives and Green Party progressives–is another matter, but in history many groups outside the US have done this under similar circumstances. The ANC in 1912 is one. And there are others.
Pooh on this soooo-tired, antiquated, self-deluded rationale for supporting the Democratic Party, a truly anti-progressive, anti-democratic machine that has demonstrated time and again it’s complete lack of concern/respect for progressive, human, social, peace, and justice issues.
A third party WILL succeed BUT not until one of the existent parties is rendered completely irrelevant to our political process. Abandon the Democrats as they have abandoned us and watch as the party withers into history. Then, when America at last wakes up to the inevitable and unavoidable realization that there is only one party in this country (a fact long-obscured by the two, advertised versions of the same corporate party) they’ll demand a new party that represents their interests — finally!
Where has Mr. Green been? You cannot hijack the Democratic Party anymore than you can hijack Exxon-Mobil or Lockheed Martin.
Is he really that naive or does he think we are?
Ik heb enkel bijna dit artikel gelezen. De Amerikanen nood zal zich tegen hun Regering verzetten. Ik herhaal, DE AMERIKANEN MOETEN ZICH TEGEN HUN REGERING VERZETTEN. Derde partijen zullen in de VSA niet gekozen worden tenzij sommige individuen hun idee terzijde op welke noden zetten voor de prijs van een derde partij gedaan worden. Zal dit gebeuren? Vermoedelijk niet. Ik bewonder Ralph Nader veel meer dan George W. Bush. Hij liep in de 2000 verkiezings en verloren. De reden is omdat de VSA Fascisme is dat als Democratie vermomd wordt of Democratie vermomde als het Fascisme echter weg die een te bekijken het kiest.
De europese politiek is veel beter dan Amerikaanse politiek omdat in Europa, burgers van Europese naties komen eerst meer dikwijls dan in de USA. De meeste naties in Europa hebben meer dan twee politieke partijen in zijn respectieve landen en nemen socialistische ideras in vele gevallen aan en doen heel goed onlangs. Zeker is Europa mcuh menselijker thans dan de VSA naar hun eigen mensen is.
Forget for a moment the current existing “Third Parties” (Greens, Peace and Freedom, etc.) forever impotent as their basis of formation is recruitment to a complex set of ideas, beliefs, knowledge, etc. of which most ordinary people are kept in ignorance by corporate controlled media.
The elements of the new “Third Party” already exist in the thousands of organizations and individuals who have overcome the “bliss” of corporate enforced “ignorance”.
The “party members” of our new “Third Party” are to be found in the thousands of activist groups and in the MILLIONS of people are aware that CHANGE is now essential.
We read about these people every day in COMMON DREAMS, or hear about them listening to DEMOCRACY NOW! This new third party membership is to be found among the MILLIONS of members in the trade unions who understand that union membership is not enough in combatting corporate power, especially as living wage jobs disappear overseas, are outsourced, etc.
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE realize now that GLOBAL WARMING IS DESTROYING THE PLANET due primarily not to just “human activity” but to corporate plunder of the planet’s resources.
These people now realize that the Bush/Cheney will do nothing to stop GLOBAL WARMING if it affects business profits, even the profits of the most destructive polluters.
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE today realize that the WARFARE in the middle East will never end as it is driven by corporations seeking maximium profit. regardless of the death to hundreds of thousands, destruction to cities, destruction of entire countries. Millions now realize that the Project for the New American Century means global destruction of people and planet all for the greed of a tiny minority.
MILLIONS OF WORKING PEOPLE unable to secure a “living wage”, have no health insurance, a destroyed public educational system, poor and unaffordable housing etc.
They often don’t vote because the realize the true nature of the corrupted two party system doesn’t give a damn about working people and their survival needs.
2 MILLION people whose lives have been destroyed by drugs, mental illness, poverty who have ended up in the “prison-industrial” complex, without hope for any positive help or treatment or future life.
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE who have no realistic access to any mass media that explains WHY all these things are happening.
A new “third” party that speaks to the needs of the people (and not to maximizing corporate profit) must be created now.
My hope would be that all the people and organizations that have struggled alone on these many problems of living will come together and contribute their knowledge and resources to create this new party.
My hope would be that the Cindy Sheehans, Ralph Naders, Dennis Kucinich,etc. and the millions of activists would come to this realization and act upon it now. November 2008 is not far away but we can do it!
The status-quo of corpoate domination of U.S. society and the planet cannot continue. The survival of humanity is at stake.
Why try hijacking anything? We have the simplest of ideas to change the political landscape at our disposal.
Just push for INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING (IRV).
IRV! IRV! IRV!
This cuts to the old business question, why start a soft drink company when you can just by Coke or Pepsi? They’ve got the brand name recognition, the infrastructures, the bottling plants. They have revenues and profits all over the place.
But what if you don’t want cola???????
I’ve been active on and off with the Greens for over a decade, and I’m starting to warm to the idea of focusing on promoting the Ten Key Values non-electorally, and pan-electorally. Prosletyze them outside of the Green Party. I think there’s an agreeable audience among progressive democrats, many church groups, etc. They’ll be in fairly tight agreement with the ethics, values, etc. But you’ll run into opposition when you mention the phrase: green party.
Indeed, I’ve come to conclude lately that electoral politics are simply a way to keep people divided-and-conquered, and are an essential ingredient in getting middle America to consistently vote contrary to its own class interests.
I’ve written elsewhere that we need Range/IRV, clean ballots, widespread cleanup in campaign finance, and a unicameral parliamentary system (the senate is contrary to democratic representation, granting abstract “states” — neither square miles nor population — equal representation). These reforms may actually be prerequisites for third parties to really take off. And the catch-22 is that it requires the corporate parties to make the change. So it’s a hopeless detente, more head-banging, the politics of dysfunctional co-dependent protest.
I like to approach the Ten Key Values and Green Party as a horse & carriage problem. But it’s become increasingly clear to me that the Green Party is a vehicle, perhaps one of many, to pull the Ten Key Values along. And since it’s going nowhere it’s become an albatross around our necks.
As a result, I think we need to focus on victory through attrition. Every race, every open office, regardless of party, should have people in the caucuses, primaries, etc. with a progressive/tkv-ish input.
Indeed, let’s hijack the Republican Party also. A party is only what its members make of it. They were hijacked by the religious-right. Why not by progressive populists next time around? Would be nice to see the Republicans and Democrats arguing such that both had excellent and ethical solutions, trying to out-do one another for greatness rather than corruption, graft, etc.
QUOTE FROM JEREMY:
My hope would be that the Cindy Sheehans, Ralph Naders, Dennis Kucinich,etc. and the millions of activists would come to this realization and act upon it now. November 2008 is not far away but we can do it!
END QUOTE
Jeremy, I can hope about a lot of things but I’m also a realist. What we have now with these shit for candidates (excluding Sheehan) is what we are going to have.
Considering the way things are going with Rove and Cheney installing their dictatorship and the illegitimate Bush regime essentially already having unofficially dissolved congress by making them irrelevant and ignoring them, you really think there will be an election in November 2008 for us to even be concerned about at this point? What signs or indications have you seen that Bush/Cheney plan to leave in 2009?
In a recent speech Bush referred to “MY GOVERNMENT.” That’s the language a dictator or monarch uses. Does that sound like someone who has any intention of leaving in 2009 to you? It sure doesn’t to me.
F.Y.I., DENNIS KUCINICH “has no illusions about the Democratic Party” (I’ve actuially heard him say this publicly). He knows better than anyone how corporate they’ve become. He stays in there to get a modicum of national attention on the issues he raises. And I’m sure other truly good progressives like Waters, Waxman, Lee, etc, stay in the Party because it’s where they have the most power to change things. Who introduced IMPEACHMENT resolutions against Cheney? Who’s been going on TV every chance he gets to make people understand that the way to stop the occupation is to stop funding it? Kucinich.
As the article points out, we’ve got some serious yahoos in this country who need some education on these issues, and I don’t care if they get it from someone in the Dem party, or another party, but with the horrible media we’ve got, it takes running for president to get any hearing at all.
So, I agree we need a revolution, but where does it start? I say: Unless you can find me someone else running with a better record of standing up for economic justice and against corporate power and war, you’re a hypocrite if you don’t BACK KUCINICH IN THE PRIMARY and back him hard.
Then we need a back-up plan if he doesn’t get nominated. What’s yours?
I don’t have one yet, but it sure won’t be voting for one of those ‘frontrunners’.
The arguments for a third party remind me of that old joke: “How do you make a killing in the stock market? First, get a million dollars…”
The hard part is glossed over. But there is no shortage of discussion of the difficulties of the alternative. People know how hard it is to take over the Democratic Party, maybe like scaling Mount Everest, so the solution must be to wave a magic wand and automatically create a viable third party. Professor Green was trying to explain why that is much more difficult, like scaling a 50,000 foot mountain, but many CD commenters cannot accept it (the grass is always greener, or the ill-defined distant challenge is always easier).
I know the fantasies are allowed to build on each other and reproduce without resistance in part because there are no images of threatening figures, in the back of the mind, casting dark shadows on such unlikely events. The corporate media outlets, who act as the gatekeepers for corporate America, do not commonly bash third parties, and rarely even bash left-wing Democrats like Kucinich. Why? Because they are not perceived to be a threat. If they became a threat, if Kucinich or the Green Party started polling well, look out for some world-class bashing, possibly unprecedented in media history. John Edwards took a baby step to the left, and he got hit with a ton of bricks. The sky would fall on Kucinich or some Green Party candidate for president if they polled above the single digits. And if they ever hit the 30s, they could be looking at a fate like Wellstone’s.
Democratic politicians, just like virtually all politicians, are common self-interested human beings. They want money and power. They will respond to forces that offer them both. Progressives can force them left with rewards and punishments, though it is difficult and is a long grind. However, the coming economic difficulties for most Americans should grease the skids in the leftward direction.
It does no good to dream big when the prospects are so grim.
BigChange,
“We” are not going to be voting our way out of this disaster especially when these easily-hackable and easily-rigged electronic voting machines are now saturated all over the nation.
The reality is that Kucinich has as much chance of being nominated as I do by the pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-imperalistic, Bush-enabling Dem Party. That’s just wishful thinking. No matter how “hard” “we” push for him.
Again, “we” are not going to vote our way out of this disaster on a fraudulent system and I notice that no one wants to think about or talk about the possibility that Bush/Cheney aren’t leaving in 2009.
As a previous person said: NATIONAL STRIKE
A LONG NATIONAL STRIKE ***MIGHT*** do something. But I don’t see the sheep about to do that for fear of losing what job they do have.
MILLIONS and MILLIONS taking to the streets in every city and town across the nation ***MIGHT*** do something. I don’t see the sheep doing that either. Most people can’t be bothered.
Politics as usual ended in 2000 with the stolen election and if anyone thinks that voting on a corrupt voting system is going to change anything, you’re living in delusion and denial.
I have to agree with Kivals. A third party sounds like a good idea, but it won’t happen. The system is rigged to two parties from the fundraising to the district system in elections. There is no way a third party can do anything but take votes from the other left party, in this case the Democrats.
I think though, that if the Democrats get a good scare from us, then they are going to have to be more responsive to the left. I think that is what the beauty of Cindy running represents. If they don’t respond, they loose and next time they will have to move to the left to regain the seat. This is exactly the right tactic to use… Move left or we will MAKE you move left.
National strike. Enough said.
baska: I’m not going to search the archives for you. However, I’ve been reading Common Dreams since at least 1999, and whether or not the title had anything to do with third parties or not, there has been a great deal of journalistic positing about third parties. Ralph Nader, Peter Phillips, Dennis Loo, Robert Jensen, and on and on and on. Just because it is not “front loaded” doesn’t mean it’s not being addressed. That said, you are probably right about there not being an overt attempt to represent both sides of the issue, or however you might want to say it. Anyway, that is a myth in journalism anyway, whether opinionated or not, that every side of the issue has to be represented. What has to represented is the truth to the best of the journalist’s knowledge - arrived at by investigation and interview - or if it is an opinion piece, the argument should be well laid out. Perhaps you should take it up with the editors that you think more third party politics should be published. Perhaps there just isn’t as much written as you think.
Green makes many good points but his comparisons with party takeovers of the past neglect to analyse the effects of massive party funding.
“It won’t be that hard to do, and we can thank the Dark Side in part for creating the best conditions in half a century for this opportunity”
It will be nigh impossible to do without placing limits on donorship.
Ditto! National Strike. I love the idea. In fact, a series of national strikes, all focused on different issues. We need to make the machine stop on a regular basis until those in power and those trying to move themselves into power take notice of just how big the wave of dissatisfaction is in this country!
Let’s examine this statement by kivals (4:06 pm ) “Progressives can force them (the Dems) left with rewards and punishments, though it is difficult and is a long grind.”
Why should anyone believe that progressives would be strong enough to “force Dem politicians left,” when the corporate oligarchy that controls the entire US government is pushing in the opposite direction? And when the Dem politicians themselves were only elected in the first place because they were good at sounding like they’d “fight for the interests of the voters,” while in reality, they served the interests of their big-money donors?
The discussion here is analogous to a large number of slaves (that’s us) discussing the idea of either rebelling or escaping from our cruel & ruthless masters. There will always be some slaves who say, “Nah, it would be nice to get away, of course — but let’s face it, they’re just too strong for us. Let’s just submit. We have no choice.” Anyone who winds up (like Prof Green or kivals) suggesting that the best we can do is fall in line with the Democrats is really counseling surrender.
There are different excuses one can make for surrender, of course. The very lamest of these, and the one for which there’s the least historical support, is the delusion that we “can work for change within the Democratic Party.” That’s just something people say when they’re unwilling to fight for their own interests & their own dignity.
Go to your local Democratic or Republican caucus next time around. Encourage your progressive friends to go as well. Make sure that one of you becomes a state delegate. If done in a sufficient number of precincts you can have real sway at the state level who gets party endorsement.
I was a state delegate for the Democrats myself once and remember an idealistic would-be senator speaking at North St. Paul High School (place I graduated from). Paul Wellstone.
Is the vote rigged at the party state convention? Well, let’s assume the worst and say it is. But let’s say that more than 50% of the delegates are in sharp support of progressive candidate X who mysteriously got far less than 50% of the votes. You then make a procedural move to count the votes openly.
That’s how bottom-up democracy works, folks…
kivals says: “Progressives can force them [Democrats] left with rewards and punishments?”
Your vote is a reward.
Your denial of that vote is a punishment.
If progressives offer democrats undeserved rewards why then should the party seek to earn what they can get for nothing? How many times are progressives going to help elect candidates who promptly ignore them after election? If you want to force the party left, make them earn that vote and until they’ve earned it deny them that vote. Teach the Democrats that they cannot win without the progressive vote and that they will not get that vote until they’ve earned it.
bigchange says:
“you’re a hypocrite if you don’t BACK KUCINICH IN THE PRIMARY and back him hard.”
I did that in 2004.
I was a Kucinich delegate to the Texas Democratic State Convention; I was working like the dickens to “take back” the party. It was impressive to see the progressive resolutions that not only made it to the state convention (many of them taken directly from Kucinich’s platform) but passed (in Texas) onto the national committee. What happened? The party leadership dropped those resolutions, refused to give them a hearing and gave us John Kerry as a candidate.
This is going to happen again. Sorry. But I’m not doing it again.
I greatly admire Kucinich for his stand; I understand the increased visibility he has as a Democratic Party member vs. third or independent. But he remains an anti-war candidate in a pro-war party (there is inherent hypocrisy there with which to wrestle — as much as admire him). As such he will not garner the nomination. The time and energy spent campaigning for Kucinich while he remains inside the Democratic Party, helps the party because it keeps much time and energy from campaigning for Democratic Party alternatives. I’ve come to believe that it is hypocritical of me as an opponent of war to help, in any fashion, a pro-war party.
The party leadership couldn’t do anything like that if surrounded by progressives among their own ranks.
Look at it this way. Let’s say there’s 100 people in a room and the leader is a pro-war corporate shill. The 99 others can’t stand him. Which is easier? Toss him out of the room, or get all 99 out of their seats, find a new room, schedule a meeting time, etc.
I mean at some point we must be willing to blame widespread voter apathy and disengagement. Let’s focus on stocking the 99. Last one out is a rotten egg..
Thank you Redgeek for telling the readers the reality of the situation.
I worked on the inside of the Democratic Party in California as an anti-war activist in the early 90’s. All of us who made it “into” the convention (and that’s another story) were treated as pariahs and were, for all intents and purpuses, completely shut out.
You think you can get on the “Platform Committee”? Ha!! No way, unless you happen to be wealthy and or a long-time insider who has showed his bona fides as a true “go along to get alonger”.
The Democratic Party is truly disgusting.
I would also remind everyone to recall the election of Jesse Ventura as Governor in Minnesota. Remember how at the beginning he was the laughing-stock of the Republican and Democratic Party stalwarts? But as time marched on he pulled just enough Democrats and Republicans away from their bases to win!
And then there’s slime ball Lieberman! He couldn’t cut it as a Democrat. Lamont would have won the election in CT had Lieberman not pulled his “I’m running as an Independent!” stunt. He pulled just enough Republicans away to win. And now his freakin’ vote in the Senate is right up there with the non-executive Cheney’s!!! He and Cheney rule the Senate!!
So, my feeling is this: With a strong Independent ticket (I love Nader personally, but he’s too hated by Americans who really don’t understand that Gore lost the election due to political ineptness, choosing Sen. AIPAC “Whiner” Lieberman as his running mate, losing his own state then not raising total HELL when John Bolton barged into the room in Florida and announced, “I’m with the Bush/Cheney team and I’m here to STOP THE COUNT!”), I believe the United States is ripe for a “Second” party win (since one person in a thread above rightly suggested the Dems and Repubs are the same corporate party).
Gore could have had millions in the streets if he’d had a spine. But he caved. And the fixed voting in Florida didn’t help. (BTW….what ever happened to that ditz Democrat who invented the “butterfly” ballot to help the senior citizens in Miami? The ones who thought they voted for Gore and instead voted for Buchanan???)
And lastly, Evelyn is right about our thinking as to elections period! I will continue to encourage everyone to vote ABSENTEE and to Xerox their ballots and count them in their precincts as a group. If we could somehow organize this it would be an invaluable exercise in democracy. Especially if we had a really respectable Independent ticket running like perhaps Bill Moyers (a respected Southerner!) and Scott Ritter. Some dream ticket that would create a Ventura-type upset. A hard core constitutionalist like Michael Ratner perhaps? A ticket that would speak to ALL Americans about saving the Republic!! NO to the North American Union! NO to constant war mongering and imperialism! NO to the Federal Reserve and private banking! NO to fiat money production and debt and interest! YES to U.S. notes at no interest owned by the American People and backed by silver and gold! YES to Medicare for all! NO to the use of Depleted Uranium munitions and on and on and on.
Plus, if the Absentee only voting caught on nationally it would REALLY piss the MSM off! Just think! There’s NO WAY they’d be able to call the election 10 minutes after the polls in Hawaii closed! All those pesky absentee ballots would need to be counted!!! And if the People don’t do the counting you can stick the fork in. We’re done.
Thoughts?
Paul Bramscher wrote:
QUOTE:
Go to your local Democratic or Republican caucus next time around. Encourage your progressive friends to go as well. Make sure that one of you becomes a state delegate.
END QUOTE
How on earth does one “make sure that one of you becomes a state delegate?”
I’ve heard all of this “go to…” and “we must do” and “make sure” nonsense ever since 2000 and look at the state of things today. With every passing day since 2000 things have gotten worse and worse politically despite all the “we must do” and “make sure” crap. It’s just hot air.
I left the Dem Party after the 2000 stolen election and I want NOTHING to do with the useless and worthless Democratic Party at the national level or the local level or their sister party, the Repug Party. I have had it with them!
One will be spinning their wheels in a rut trying to change something within our current pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-imperalistic, pro-Bush one-party system with two right wings.
You can waste your time fooling around with the Dems. I’m long done with them. Can’t stand them and want nothing to do with them.
A COMMENT FROM THE AUTHOR:
I have never yet joined in a discussion of my own articles, but I feel compelled to in this case.
RichM seems to speak for a number of commentators when he writes:
“Anyone who winds up (like Prof Green or kivals) suggesting that the best we can do is fall in line with the Democrats is really counseling surrender.”
I have to wonder whether RichM or the others really read my piece when I see a comment like that. Indeed, I wonder whether they even read the title, which calls for progressives to HIJACK the Democratic Party.
Maybe we are having a semantics problem here, but in my lexicon, to hijack something means to own it, after which one can do with it what one wants. That is pretty much the direct opposite of the concept of surrender, which means to be owned.
Everyone is of course free to disagree with this or any other idea. I may or many not have described the best way to advance the flag of progressive politics in America. There is no doubt that what I have called for may not be the best path, and I hope commentators will offer their alternatives for the consideration of other readers, and for me to think about as well.
But please don’t distort my meaning. That’s - minimally - not fair.
For those who missed my points in this piece, let me try ot boil them down to their essence:
* The Democratic Party sucks.
* It is today largely a corporate-owned monster, not unlike the GOP.
* It would be lovely if we could scrap it altogether, or just ignore it and build a better alternative.
* Indeed, I have myself followed that dream, voting for and volunteering for third party candidates.
* Wish as we might, though, there are clear and massive barriers to achieving this end, not least of which include the ideological diversity of potential third party voters, and the country’s electoral system.
* History and the current composition of Congress also strongly suggest that success along this path is highly improbable.
* History also suggests another approach, which has worked in the past.
* Therefore, our best hope of implementing our agenda is to HIJACK the Democratic Party, make it ours, take control of it, kick out the DLC corporate hacks, and start legislating.
This is essentially what I argued in the above article, not much more and not less.
It may well be the case that this strategy is a fool’s errand, and ultimately unable to produce success. I obviously don’t agree with that assessment, and I don’t think history vindicates that argument. However, I would happily entertain that line of thought as quite legitimate for our consideration.
However, those claiming that I am a Democrat, let alone a Democratic Party hack, or worse someone calling for surrender, either did not read or did not understand the article.
I hope this addendum helps to clarify my meaning.
Cheers -
DMG
To think that we “vote” with BLACK BOX voting machines still in place is comical, yet I don’t see a push by Dems to ban them as we approach the 1 year and counting mark till “Presidential elections”
So evidently the Dems are going to sit by and let another election go to the Republicans so the US can move on to take over the world(and oil)
To the “New World Order” and the Neo Con empire of which evidently the Dems have made a deal for their future $lice of pie.
I’m still voting Green.
A QUOTE FROM DMG (the author of the piece):
Therefore, our best hope of implementing our agenda is to HIJACK the Democratic Party, make it ours, take control of it, kick out the DLC corporate hacks, and start legislating.
END QUOTE
How on earth does one do all of this? For starters, how does one kick out the DLC corporate hacks?
Sigh.
“We” don’t have that much time to “hijack” the Bush-enabling pro-corporate Democratic Party. That would take years and years to do. “We” have very little time left. We are less than an inch away from a full-blown dictatorship in case you haven’t noticed, which mind you, the Dems have helped to create with their “yes” votes for Bush, their complicity and their silence.
Just for example, a senator serves a 6 year term and the senate is divided into thirds for re-election purposes. I heard all this hot air about “vote them all out” before the 2006 election. Well I knew that wasn’t going to happen and it didn’t. It’s not possible.
For example, Iraq war-profiteer Dianne Feinstein got back in from the 2006 “election” for another 6 years so she’s able to do another 6 years of damage to this country. So much for the “vote them all out” nonsense. Just from Feinstein getting back in “we” are already behind on the “vote them all out” slogan.
Anyone who thinks they can “hijack” the Dem party or change it from the way it is now is simply fooling themselves. It’s not realistic. It’s wishful thinking.
Oh come on now! I can’t believe that there are still people out there that believe we can “take the democratic party back.” The presidential candidate for both parties is still decided behind closed doors by the party hacks. Besides,the real change comes from what happens on the streets. The politicians just follow along, “canonizing” what the people have aleady decided. When the arch-conservative McKinley beat the populist William Jennings Bryant, it didn’t mean that people gave up on the eight-hour day or banning child labor or the right to unionize. They kept fighting in spite of the politicians. The only way to force change is to build a popular movement. It was dumbocrat Bill Clinton that dismantled the New Deal, not Bush. Electoral politics at the national level is the opiate of the people.
AS Woody Allen also said; “I wouldn’t want to join an organization that would have someone like me as a member”.
For those intent upon supporting a third party, I have a question. What makes you think that the future will be so radically different from the past that a third party will succeed on the national stage? Relying upon what would amount to a miracle is an idealistic and utopian vision, but it is not a practical political strategy for change.
The political tactics, the only political tactics, that have worked on the national stage in the past, have revolved around shaping, steering, or taking over one of the two major parties. Is there a good reason to believe that this will not continue to be the case? I am open to hearing such a reason, but I have yet to see one presented by any third-party proponent.
Kudos to Professor Green for bringing yawns to those with closed minds, and insightful strategic ideas to those with open ones.
Now is the time to bring home the military people and equipment from all over the world. They are needed here and now in what was formerly a democracy. It is time for a coup. Let me repeat - It is time for a coup.
There is work to be done, such as destroying the White House and the Tunnels underneath it, and destroying the Capitol Building. Those are buildings that can be rebuilt somewhere else, but disbanding the criminals inside is the most important objective. All congressmen and women, and all representatives that voted for a war of aggression should be sent to The Hague for war crimes.
While we’re at it, destroy the CIA and FBI headquarters. Fire everyone. Those people do more harm than good. This country needs to start over.
Vote or Hillary, or Vote for a republican candidate.
Either way, you get a republican.
Rewarding the Democratic Party with your vote will insure more of the same. Ive heard people argue about high jacking the Democratic Party for years, but no one who holds that position can refer you to ONE significant change within that organization. Take Pelosi and others who characterize themselves as “progressives” but consistently violate progressive values like ending the war, impeachment, and voting reform to insure paper trails.
Follow this dudes advice if you want more of the SAME.
Perhaps we ought to step out of the way and let them fall on their faces.
The Bush Administration with the collaboration of the DLC has done much to excite the so called liberals and so called left of the Democratic Party. One day the Democrat Party may become a liberal, civil liberties and humanitarian party if this excitement continues.
QUOTE FROM BEING FRANK WITH BARNEY:
The political tactics, the only political tactics, that have worked on the national stage in the past, have revolved around shaping, steering, or taking over one of the two major parties. Is there a good reason to believe that this will not continue to be the case?
END QUOTE
I’m not exactly sure what you are talking about but yes, there is a good reason to believe that this will not be the case. We are now in a fascist state (police state tactics are being used on citizens around the nation) and we are on the edge of a full-blown Bush dictatorship. Bush has essentially unofficially dissolved congress as it is by making them irrelevant (declaring “executive privilege,” dismissing subpoenaes as the “unitary executive” and referring in his speeches to “MY GOVERNMENT.”) Meanwhile, the congress postures and has been complicit in all of this. We also have a fraudulent, corrupt voting system all over the nation which you also failed to mention, presuming this disaster can somehow be remedied by voting. Ha!
Reading your post leaves me with the impression that you are still living in the days of “politics as usual” or pre-2000.
When we hijack the Democratic party, immediately throw Hillary off the truck in the middle of nowhere. Good riddance. And then let’s pursue the progressive agenda. If she gets nominated and elected, it will be, God only knows, how many decades before we have the chance for change again.
erma: Well, I became a state delegate because there were only about 20 of us at the table, multiple slots open, and half of them were my friends, neighbors, parents of kids I went to school with, etc. A little community networking and respect between neighbors goes a very long way.
Re: DMG (5:36 pm) writes: A COMMENT FROM THE AUTHOR –
Dear Prof. Green: You quote ONE sentence I wrote, then question whether I read your entire article. You complain “But please don’t distort my meaning. That’s - minimally - not fair.”
If you look at two other comments I posted to this thread (at 1:47 pm & 2:35 pm), you will see the reasoning behind my criticisms of your “Hijack the Dems” notion. It is also “not fair” for you to remove my one lone phrase from its context, & to make the phrase, rather than the full idea, a launching pad for your counterattack. // I don’t oversimplify you, & fairness requires that you not oversimplify me.
For instance, my 1:47 comment begins, “Despite Prof Green’s sophistication, eloquence, and his awareness of the Dem Party’s deficiencies, the perspective he lays out here is …”
And then of course I proceed to rather vigorously attack your idea, because I don’t believe the Dem Party can be hijacked. I believe that a great deal of effort (on the part of very clever people) has gone into designing it, to make it hijack-proof.
“Don’t know whether you prefer the Borda count over Bucklin voting, the Condorcet method, Single Non‑Transferable Voting (affectionately known as SNTV), the Gallagher Index, the Sainte‑Laguë or d’Hondt methods (or perhaps you are all about the cloneproof Schwartz sequential dropping method, instead)? No worries, neither does just about anybody else. This confusion is not a good attribute for an electoral system to possess, but there are many other factors to consider as well, and polities are frequently experimenting trying to find the best system (none are perfect).”
There’s much less to this than meets the eye. Instant Runoff Voting is by far the most widely advocated reform for elections that are by necessity single-seat (such President, Governor, and U.S. Senate). IRV has been adopted in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Burlington, Takoma Park and other localities. IRV in statewide elections passed both houses of the Vermont legislature earlier this year.
“The answer is that the American political system doesn’t tend to adopt new third parties, and it doesn’t implode from the pressures of frustrated change, because what it does instead is to accommodate various political aspirations within the malleable shells of the existing parties.”
And many of these aspirations found their electoral outlet in third parties. The most recent example is Clinton ditching many items on his domestic agenda in favor of deficit reduction after Perot got 19% of the vote in 1992.
Third parties such as the Populists, Socialists, and Progressives have been tremendously successful in getting their agenda adopted by the two major parties.
“Yeah, well, I rest my case. Third party alternatives to hopelessly nihilistic Republicans, hopelessly equivocal Democrats, and the hopelessly self-serving lot of them make total sense except for one small problem. They can’t win.”
Perot got 19% of the vote in 1992 in spite of badly mismanaging his campaign, dropping out of the race and getting back in, and saying all of that ridiculous crap about the Republicans trying to wreck his daughter’s wedding. Bloomberg has $1 billion to spend and probably won’t make the same mistakes.
This article contains the most muddled argument I’ve ever read. First we’re told that third parties won’t work because there’s too much ideological diversity in this country, and that the only way anybody will ever get elected president is by standing as close to dead center as possible. Then this notion is reinforced by pointing out that the kingmakers have always managed to marginalize third parties. Ergo, they won’t work.
Then we’re told that if we “generate” enough Wellstones and Kuciniches, such a progressive can win the presidency.
Ridiculous! Green never stops to consider the fact that the kingmakers are every bit as good at marginalizing progressive Democrats as they are at marginalizing third parties, and exactly the same arguments apply to the one as to the other. Did you ever take the time to leaf through the New York Times or the Washington Post or any other big-time Democrat newspaper during the 2004 “presidential primary” season? No? Then let me reveal something to you, fella. The papers were full of news (and trivia) about Kerry and Edwards and the other DLC types, and you couldn’t find any more info on Kucinich or Dean than about Nader or Buchanan.
Zogby ran three independent nationwide polls in the summer of 2000 on the subject of who should be admitted to the presidential debates, and all three of those polls indicated that over 65% of the American people supported the participation of Nader and Buchanan in the debates. Green has managed to convince himself, by means of a circular argument, that if more than two presidential tickets were given fair coverage, the fickle American people would scatter their votes and nobody would get a majority. I ask: How can he possibly know, since such an open election has never been allowed? The nearest thing to evidence for Green’s position would be proof that that a succession of state primary elections, with several candidates to choose among, could never manage to select a winner. But in fact they do select winners, so the only evidence available for extrapolation indicates that Green is almost certainly wrong on this point. And anyway, why not find out?
Finally, it’s not very intelligent for Green to discuss this issue without mentioning instant runoff voting (IRV), which solves all the imaginary problems Green regards as so insoluble. IRV, for the benefit of those who haven’t heard of it (including Green, apparently), works like this:
If you have a ballot containing Buchanan, Bush, Gore, and Nader, you are not limited to voting only for your first choice; if you wish, you can also vote for your second choice, and you can also (again I say, if you wish) your third and even (what the hell) your fourth. If nobody gets a majority of the first choices, the candidate who got the fewest first-choice votes is dropped. Then the second-choice votes are added to the first; and chances are that the one who got the biggest total of first AND second choices, added together, will get a majority. In the unlikely event that this doesn’t happen, the candidate who got the second fewest votes is dropped and the remaining third choices are added to the totals. For example, if you (1) prefer Nader, (2) hate Bush and Buchanan, and (3) don’t like Gore much but would prefer him to the two B’s, then you can make Nader your first choice and Gore your second, and ignore the two B’s. So it’s guaranteed there’ll be a winner. In other words, Green is wrong.
The cynical manipulators and dirty tricksters whom we’ve so far allowed to control the political process tell us it’s okay to exclude everybody except the two Republicrats from forums and debates because the others have only a small “percentage of support”. That sounds fine until you notice that the question that determines so-called “support” is: “Would you vote for him if the election were held today?” The question is ridiculous, because of course you wouldn’t vote for somebody “today” if you had no chance to hear his views because the media refuse to report on him! The correct question is: “Do you think he should participate in the debates, and be given adequate coverage by the media, so that you can DECIDE whether to vote for him?”. And as I’ve already noted, the polls on that question say +65% want more inclusive election campaigns.
Green’s article is convoluted. Its argument is circular. It shows an ignorance of, or maybe just a refusal to consider, some of the most important issues at stake.
I find it interesting that a bunch of “do nothing” people … no, I’m not speaking about congress, I’m speaking about most of the angry people in America, have all the answers about what should be happening right now.
I have heard more complaints and bs about the Dems six months as a “supposed” majority in D.C. then I did in the ten years the pubs led the parade!!!
What exactly are the Dems supposed to have done by now?? If the votes aren’t there, the votes aren’t there … and when the votes are are there, butthead vetos what has been passed!!
I hear more noise here then then I hear from any “voices” in the street!
All we old revolutionaries hear these days are excuses from the younger generation as to why they “can’t” do anything to make changes. It is easier to blame it all on the Dems in Washington, then leave their computers, blackberries, cell phones, ipods, texting , bongs etc behind and do something!
Talking about third parties and not voting at all is easier for the lazy, useless then doing something, and most are doing nothing!
Get off your buns and do something… then maybe the Dems in congress will have hundreds of thousands of voices backing them up!!
In order to “high jack” the Dems one would have to throw more than Clinton overboard. Try the entire pack of spinless wimps running the show. The only true progressives in the party are Kucinich and Gravel. That is not much to work with…If the cat is so sure of his views where is the map described in detail of how you do it, and more importantly, how long would it take. The truth is the party is the people who run it, not some nameless entity. To change the party first requires that you change the corrupt people in it. And if you believe that can happen - I got some cheap swamp land for sale.
Paul: I was a state delegate too, in California in the early 90’s.
We went to the Assembly District Democratic Party meeting (it wasn’t easy finding out where and when it was believe it or not), and we (my activist friend and I) placed our names on the ballot for the election to be delegates to the convention.
We also “stacked” the vote with our friends and neighbors. When we walked into the high school and found “our” room it was very interesting watching the “old-timers” whip their necks around to see who was interloping on their domains.
When the votes were counted, my friend and I slipped through and two of the “usual” group got booted off the bus to Sacramento.
We did this move statewide as peace activists. When all of us arrived at the convention we had our caucus and realized there was no way we ever could have even gotten into the room where “they” were discussing and drawing up the California platform, let alone have a say or a vote. It was stacked from the get go as to what the “higher ups” had already decided.
Which is why I feel creating a new Independent Party for next year, with a candidate for President and Vice President and candidates running on the same slate in every district (plus the third of the Senate that is up for re-election) is the only sane way to go and have a chance of getting what we want. The candidates have to be Constitutionalists, intelligent, well-spoken, trust worthy and charasmatic. Someone with the Constitutional stand and anti-war positions of Ron Paul, but with the Progressive ideals of Molly Ivins etc. I suggested Bill Moyers and Scott Ritter just for starters.
Remember: Once a Presidential candidate and his/her running mate are announced publicly, if you have a Bill Moyers etc. they will automatically poll in at 5%, which would automatically get them in the debates. Unless they’ve rigged that standard to and made it unattainable. Who knows?
And we all must vote Absentee, Xerox our ballots and count them ourselves in each precinct….REGARDLESS of what the MSM says is the outcome!
If we don’t have the organizational skills and the courage to try the OBVIOUS!, then we deserve what we get. More of the same or worse. Probably worse.
BTW, check out PBS “Now” tonight around 8pm. Greg Palast is on the show and the subject is “The 2008 Election: The Fix is Already In”.
Gabi wrote:
I find it interesting that a bunch of “do nothing” people … no, I’m not speaking about congress, I’m speaking about most of the angry people in America, have all the answers about what should be happening right now.
I have heard more complaints and bs about the Dems six months as a “supposed” majority in D.C. then I did in the ten years the pubs led the parade!!!
What exactly are the Dems supposed to have done by now?? If the votes aren’t there, the votes aren’t there … and when the votes are are there, butthead vetos what has been passed!!
Here are several things they could’ve done by now-had they really wanted to:
1) Filibuster every spending bill for the Iraq war, forcing Bush to either withdraw or else find an extra-constitutional source to keep funding it. In fact, I think Gravel suggested something like this already.
2) Make impeachment the main dish on the table instead of taking it off the table.
I’m fairly certain that if they looked around for rules that they could use to make Bush’s life a living hell the way he’s done to us, they could find them. But then, past a certain point, the question really becomes whether they really want to do this in the service of a bunch of people that, fundamentally, they seem to hate representing because we’re not rich, as opposed to continuing to get rich off of us?
gabi also wrote:
I hear more noise here then then I hear from any “voices” in the street!
All we old revolutionaries hear these days are excuses from the younger generation as to why they “can’t” do anything to make changes. It is easier to blame it all on the Dems in Washington, then leave their computers, blackberries, cell phones, ipods, texting , bongs etc behind and do something!
Talking about third parties and not voting at all is easier for the lazy, useless then doing something, and most are doing nothing!
Get off your buns and do something… then maybe the Dems in congress will have hundreds of thousands of voices backing them up!!
You mean like the no doubt hundreds of thousands of letters against the Iraq war, against the packing of the SC with right-wing voices, et cetera, that they must’ve gotten for the last near-eight years and ignored?
Or when only Barbara Boxer, out of the entire Senate, was the only Senator who spoke up against the 2004 vote fraud?
The problem isn’t us. The problem is that Democratic Party politicians are basically set in their ways not to listen to us. As such, the only cure for this as a solution is their wholesale abandonment.
Well Gabi, if you don’t know what the Dems should have done by now you are beyond hope.
If you will recall, when the Repugs are in the MINORITY OR THE MAJORITY they get their agenda through congress. Period. Their supporters don’t have to resort to making excuses for them (like you do) and apologizing for them (like you do) the way the pathetic Dem supporters are now doing.
What they should have done? It’s what they should NOT have done such as voting “YES” for the Iraq war/occupation and the subsequent funding for it. They should not have voted “YES” for the USAPATRIOT ACT which shreds the US Constitution. They could have all voted “NO” on that. They should not have voted “YES” for Alito and Roberts, but they wanted to “keep their powder dry” when they should have done what they said they were going to do which is filibuster. The Repugs don’t have any problem with the filibuster.
What the Dems should have done?
Repeal the USAPATRIOT ACT which they voted “yes” for.
STOP funding for the Iraq occupation and bring the troops home NOW. And by the way the Senate in a vote of 97-0 last week gave Bush the authority to attack Iran. And you’re telling me there’s a difference between the Repugs and Dems?
What else the Dems should have done?
Began impeachment proceedings. Don’t have the votes YET? They didn’t have the votes at the beginning of the Nixon impeachment either but history shows us that Nixon was impeached. I guess they got the votes, eh?
No one is blaming “it all” on the Dems. It is a given that the Repugs are equally to blame. I expect the Repugs to be who and what they are: SCUM.
Pre-2000 I would not have expected the Dems to be who and what they are now: SCUM.
The People have little power. Aside from phoning, faxing and e-mailing these useless corrupt people in congress, voting on a corrupt system is the only option left.
The Dems don’t deserve to have any voices backing them up at this point. The Dems have been a miserable failure since 2000.
What have they done about the electronic voting machine problem? NOTHING. They actually helped put them in.
The Dems have been the main reason the Repugs and Bush have accomplished most of their goals. And you’re still supporting them?!
Now I have a question for you:
Do you really think the Dems are going to do anything about Gonzales or Cheney or Bush?
No, “impeachment is off the table.”
And you stand behind these worthless, corporate whores who take their $$$$$$$$$$$$$ from the same people the Repugs do?
I could go on and on (i.e. the Dems should be screaming about the PNAC document, ending torture and police state tactics, respecting human rights…) but I don’t think CommonDreams has enough space for me to list everything the useless Dems should be doing.
But if you want to keep making excuses for them and drinking the Dems’ koolaid, so be it.
Now for those who ask what should we be doing:
LONG NATIONAL STRIKES
MILLIONS TAKING TO THE STREETS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND EVERY CITY AND TOWN ACROSS THE NATION.
Psssssst: Hillary Clinton is a pro-war, pro-imperalistic neocon Repug. She has said that Bush has been too soft on Iran. That’s what we need. Another Margaret Thatcher.
There are some of the most intelligent and fascinating comments posted here I have ever had the pleasure of reading on any Common Dreams strings.
Unless we change the method of voting and “counting” the votes here in America, a third party candidate will NEVER be elected to the office of the president.
That is especialy true in the states that are highly populated. Stop the electronic balloting with no paper trail or forget having a democracy. There is no viable argument for that opinion.
I appreciate prof. Green adding some clarifying comments, even if they ultimately fail to bolster his argument. I’d like to add one more piece to the rhetorical puzzle here.
That is: if we dismiss out of hand the possibility of a progressive third party, then there is nothing to stop us from dismissing out of hand a progressive Democratic Party. This technique is called “drawing the line,” a variation on false dichotomy. It is not based on naturalistic truth; it derives from subjective preference.
The danger of engaging in this tactic is that it cedes definitions of “possible” to existing power structures. This is, by definition, antithetical to progressivism.
“Anyhow, nowadays Dean is chairing the damn thing, so their resistance to him can’t have been that intense.”
Come one, now. The election of Dean as DNC chair was a happy conspiracy between the grass roots Dems and those DLC power brokers who wanted to remove Dean as a presidential threat in 2008 (except I don’t think the grass roots folks were let in on the conspiracy, surprise, surprise).
What we need is a second party. The one party with two names is for global hegemony through militarism and neo-colonialism. It upholds the status quo of one superpower with unprecedented benefits around the globe for whoever already has the do-re-mi. How can we hijack the Dems? Vote third party until they feel enough pain to allow for run-off voting and/or proportional representation.
Did someone say general strike? It’s an idea that needs to catch fire. I’m all for it, and we all need to discuss it more here and everywhere. Can I hear an AMEN?????
Amen.
Seriousprofessor: Be careful. You yourself are setting a fairly dangerous precedent with that argument. You are saying that even if - just indulge me here - the most efficient method of eventually building a third, fourth, etc. party is by effectively acting out a political insurrection within the existing Democratic party (Green’s argument), you would rather blow that off to continue to build the the opposition party that doesn’t stand a chance in hell of coming to fruition under the current system. Am I correct in assuming that?
Also, I don’t quite understand the basis of the first part of your argument. I don’t see the thread. I mean, why is it that if we come to the conclusion that under the current system a genuinely viable third party is virtually impossible, we also have to come to the conclusion that a revolutionized - progressively hijacked - establishment party is not possible?
By the way, subjective preference is not all bad. Sometimes things are subjectively preferred because the situation at hand warrants it. Just like not all propaganda is bad; some accomplishes great things when produced by and propagated to the right folks, dig?
Thanks to OW20YE for his lucid analysis.
By the way, let’s not give Barbara Boxer too much credit for “speaking up” in 2004. She alone “spoke up” only because she had no choice. She alone was heavily lobbied by peace and justice activists. They (we) made a big mistake targeting only one Senator (Boxer) with our cards and letters and emails and phone calls, instead of targeting SEVERAL Senators.
Notice how thoroughly she copped out. During the entire week before the counting of the electoral votes (her moment for “speaking up”), she said over and over again, “This is not going to change the outcome of the election”. Now what, I ask you, is the point of calling for an investigation of a vote fraud that may have (almost certainly did) determine the winner, if you’re going to say in your next breath that the investigation is not going to change the outcome? Who the hell did she think she was kidding?
And of course, after the call for an investigation had supposedly been considered by the Senate and rejected forthwith, she made her token protest and shut up. What a phony.
It brings to mind that precious moment in 2000, one week after the electoral votes were counted and the Black Caucus’ call for an investigation was rejected, when John Kerry and Joe Biden appeared on Meet the Press. A reporter asked them, “Why didn’t you support the call for an investigation?” and they said, “Nobody asked us.” They needed somebody to ASK them to investigate the most serious evidence of vote fraud in US history? It was rather comical, actually: they said what they said (”Nobody asked us”) simultaneously, in chorus, like Donald Duck’s nephews. Obviously they’d been told to say that. Indeed, according to the press leaks, it was Al Gore who put the pressure on these two and on other Senators not to support the call for an investigation.
Yes, boys and girls, Al Gore. The one who pretended to fight the vote fraud by bringing suit before the Supreme Court with a demand for a recount, but who made sure to call for a recount of only certain precincts where he knew he was ahead, not a recount of the State of Florida. He was certainly trying to have it both ways, now wasn’t he! If that bozo had called for a recount of the State, I very much doubt the Court could have ruled against that. I hate to say it, but if I’d been the Court I think I would have ruled the way they did. You either have a total recount or you don’t. Away with this notion of a SELECTIVE recount, gerrymandered so as to give Gore the maximum benefit when he wasn’t yet sure how it would turn out!
And of course it goes without saying that the whole thing was the fault of Ralph Nader. Presumably he either caused Jeb Bush’s Florida administration to trash 109,000 ballots, all in Democratic precincts, or else he prevented the Democrats in Washington from supporting an investigation. Words fail me.
Come to think of it, if it’s true that Gore urged his Senator buddies not to endorse the call for an investigation, then HE should have been impeached.
Isn’t it weird how loudly our government objects when there are fraudulent elections in Third World countries, and how great we feel when Jimmy Carter and his boys go overseas to monitor elections and so make sure to prevent such crimes? It’s kind of like the way we send our troops abroad to to help Iraqis establish constitutional government.
I should reassert my support for a full on insurrection though.:)
Let go of parties altogether and focus on issues. The person who quoted Zinn upstream had it right. Say goodbye to the Democratic Party for good and focus on the issues you care about. Make a lot of noise and let your righteous anger be heard.
Me, I will vote for Kucinich in the primary if I have the chance. When it comes to the general election I may just leave it blank. I will vote for progressives down ballot but I won’t waste my vote or a second of my time to support corporate Democrats.
Tying your politics to a party is a recipe for despair. Instead re-orient your politics towards issues and policies. Prof Green names a few in this essay. There is a lot to be done. Get busy. Stop bitching about the soap-opera spectator sport of politics and commit yourself to actually doing something. Our country needs you.
Leave political parties to the assholes, liars and scoundrels who call themselves politicians.
Focus on people-oriented politics and try to think about how you can make a difference.
Poison
David Michael Green is a gelding
Politics has long been equated in the American mind with voting and lobbying elected officials. But politics is more than elections; it is the struggle for power – to keep it or to get it.
Today, more and more people know that the corporations have all the clout – the political power to get what they need. As we feel the polarization of wealth, millions of Americans are also becoming aware of the intensifying polarization of power – that our government is actually of, by, and for the corporations. Every specific struggle confronts the naked rule of corporate power – a state that will go to any lengths to protect the capitalist system.
The keystone in the arch of ideology and organization that ties the workers politically to the capitalists is the Democratic Party.
Unless and until people understand the cause of their problems and embrace the solution, there will always be the danger of misdirection. Candidates and pundits are fine-tuning their attempts to aim the awakening anger against immigrants in the U.S. and against the people of various countries abroad. The ruling class recognizes that the economic foundation for their hold over the American people is weakening. They have the resources to misdirect the growing anger of the American people into a mass base for a fascist movement.
It is this context, I think we should be talking about building a third party.
the only way a genuine opposition is going to get built is when people who’ve had the actual experience of having run up against the bastards who stonewall any “progressive hijacking” of the democratic party repeatedly come together with disaffected republicans, libertarians, radical labor elements, greens, etc, and put together a united front strategy. It can work, if the specialists who want to keep us on this fucking billionaire merry go-round which unshamedly calls itself the “democratic” party even as it sabotages every democratic process will kindly get the HELL out of the way.
In 1856, the early republican party wasn’t much more than a handful of disaffected elements from across the political spectrum, people who were tired of both the democrats and the whigs. Four years later, they were in the White House. Now, I don’t expect things to move that fast in our day, but the need for a serious opposition to this mess we live under is very real, and people who are willing to do the footwork and create the mass base will get results. Have a little confidence in the people who live in this country, Dr. Green. It can be done. The hijacking will have to go around the party, not into it. Otherwise we’re finished. Get used to that idea.
baska July 27th, 2007 1:42 pm
We can also say that contact between Scalia and Cheney before and during Nov.-Dec. 2000 may have required Scalia to recuse himself of participating in the Supreme Court’s 2000 vote that ended the Presidential election and thus a 4-4 vote rather than a 5-4 vote.
What we find now is that regardless of these “what if “ thoughts, we are in hot water and neither Democrats, Greens, Republican nor Independents can put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.
The stories about rigged state delegates is disconcerting, but I really think people should be involved in the primaries.
Every Presidential primary results in a final choice between corporate candidate #1 VS corporate candidate #2. I don’t feel like sitting around this time, or fighting to get Greens on the ballot in a system that is rigged against third parties.
I agree with this sociology professor’s analysis that third parties are not structurally viable in a single-member-district plurality system like the U.S…
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_freshstart.html
I also think that the name “Democrat” is just a label. Parties can be changed. If Gravel or Kucinich is the overwhelming winner of primary support of people involved in the primaries, isn’t that a more worthwhile win for progressives than getting Nader on the ballot again, then getting 1%? If we can’t get true progressives as state delegates to elect who we choose, well then maybe we should organize mobs and protest / aggravate these party hack bastards for spreading the illusion that primary votes actually mean something and that democracy still exists. I think they would fold under overwhelming pressure.
Ron Paul supporters are going to do their job pissing off the establishment on the Republican side, we should do the same thing on our side. If our side also exposed the state delegate scam… we might have a nationwide movement on our hands of tons of angry people who finally feel disenfranchised.
Remember, John Kerry never fought against the obviously rigged election results, and because he didn’t fight, people remained in the dark. You think Ron Paul or Mike Gravel would go down as easily if we find out they won their primaries? No, we’d have a serious confrontation. Without confrontation we can’t have change. Third parties who are ignored by media and most independents don’t confront the system, like an attempted coup at the primary level. That’s why I agree with this article… kicking out/changing the Democrats is the best way to change the system.
There is Thunder on the Left! Time for the Democrat’s cadres, apparatchiks and apologists to make their appearance.
It’s interesting to me that there are those who counsel that it is far too difficult to elect 3rd party candidates, to qualify for the ballot, to get the message out and to get the MSM to even cover a 3rd party. They have no trouble telling us to “hijack” a capitalist, globalized, pro-war and collaborationist bunch like the Dems with billions of dollars at their disposal. That would be what, a piece of cake?
I belonged to a small Socialist group in the early seventies that intended to take over the Democratic Party. We found out that they had no intention of being taken over by the likes of us.
That was almost 40 years ago and the same tactic is still advocated by some “Progressives”.
I agree whole-heartedly w/BARTVANZETTI who posted at 5:07pm
“… it is hypocritical of me as an opponent of war to help, in any fashion, a pro-war party.”
This is a simple position that Prof Green, and others like him, simply cannot grasp. We will not give the Dems one more chance to do the right thing. I for one have been waiting since 1968. No more! Kucinich is not the answer. He would never be PERMITTED to get the nomination. He is there to keep progressives believing that there is hope for the future. Why, one of their frontrunners tells us that hope is audacious. Yes, and in the Democratic Party it serves as a substitute for results. Hillary IS the Democratic Party today and the party is the place reform goes to die.
Vern, RichM, redgeek, BARTVANZETTI: Outstanding comments!
I just want to add… changing the Democrats WORKS. Lieberman lost the primary. Too bad he was so persistent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3MtTfR7mXs
What if we made every one of the corporate/pro-war bastards including Hillary, independent? Then they would have NO party. So I call BS on people who say pro-war corporate Democrats can’t be kicked out.
I just want to add… changing the Democrats WORKS. Lieberman lost.
What if we made every one of the corporate/pro-war bastards including Hillary, independent? Then they would have NO party. So I call BS on people who say pro-war corporate Democrats can’t be kicked out.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Unholy Joe Lieberman is still in the Senate, and Lamont (who is the a paragon of the strategy that you advocate, and I think he did challenge Lieberman honestly), isn’t. Furthermore, Lieberman is just as effective as an “independent” sabotaging church-state separation, advocating war in support of Israel’s interests, and generally being the obsequious, sermonizing toady in defense of Bush as he always has been. I believe the rest of the Democrats were even nice enough to still honor his seniority.
The reason why is because of the massive double standard involved in who the Democrats will and won’t work with. Lieberman, both in the short term and the long term, is far more of a traitor to the Democrats than any analogous personage on the left. Yet they work with him, while in comparison, the Democrats gladly throw their own politicians on the left (such as Cynthia McKinney) out the door, and do everything to undermine them.
If changing the Democrats from the inside actually worked, then why did the Democrats in the Senate, 97-0, approve an amendment sponsored by Lieberman a couple of weeks ago that practically hands Bush a pretext to bomb Iran on false pretenses? A worst case scenario if Bush chooses to invade Iran is going to make a lot of this debate really irrelevant.
Nothing will change until the electoral system is changed. Big money decides everything. Would the current politicians voluntarily change this system? No. That leaves with what?
Here’s what I predict progressives will do when they finally manage to disabuse themselves of the notion that working through conventional channels will lead to anything other than more of the same, or else the kind of feel-good but ultimately meaningless and impotent symbolism embodied by protest candidates like Nader and Kucinich.
1) Understand that the current rules of our political system - and by rules I mean mechanisms embedded in the Constitution, statutory laws, judicial rulings and practical realities - make it impossible for the system to serve any interests except those of the financial elite. The wealth class effectively owns the American political system lock, stock and barrel, naturally including all of the significant major party politicians.
2) Commit to the development of a new rulebook - i.e., a heavily revised, updated and modernized Constitution - that addresses in a comprehensive, far-reaching and unambiguous manner all of the inequities, distortions, and unfair advantages that make inevitable the current reality of a “tyranny of wealth”.
3) Show more single-minded determination, cohesion, and unity of purpose than any past generation of progressive activists in America ever has. Which will actually be easier than many people expect, given that there is arguably now far more at stake than there ever has been. Unite behind a single organizational banner in order to best leverage influence and effectiveness - the African National Congress representing a worthy role model. There is strength in numbers, but there is also inherent power in a compelling, timely and principled idea. One could say that Right makes Might. And I’m pretty sure Gandhi and Mandela would agree.
4) This progressive alliance holds ITS OWN FRIGGING CONVENTION to hammer out the details of the updated Constitution - one whose overriding purpose is to make government of, by and for the people a reality as opposed to a high-sounding but ultimately hollow slogan. Assemble the best academic minds, the most astute Constitutional scholars - do the advance legwork, the careful preparation, and take whatever time is required to develop something that fair and open-minded people will respect and take seriously.
5) Pour every ounce of energy into the job of building a critical mass of support for the idea that the New Constitution - or something very much like it - must be adopted as our country’s new political operating system if America is to have any chance whatsoever for a peaceful, secure and prosperous future. That the antiquated, archaic and outmoded 18th Century version is hopelessly ill-suited to adequately address the needs and challenges of America as it exists nearly two and a quarter centuries after ratification. And continue to hammer on that theme ceaselessly and unsparingly - on the Internet, on campuses, in local chapter meetings - everywhere.
6) Recruit candidates to run AS DEMOCRATS - I agree with Professor Green regarding the futility of the 3rd party option - with the proviso that these candidates commit themselves without reservation to A) supporting the New Constitution; B) making its adoption their highest priority as lawmakers; and C) voluntarily agreeing to abide by all of its relevant provisions. These “public democracy” Democrats then get our votes and our unqualified support. The bought and paid for “country club democracy” Demowhores get our contempt, our disdain, and our categorical rejection.
I realize, of course, that right now - here in July 2007 - such a scheme as outlined above is far too extreme and audacious for anyone but a few crackpots and dreamers to even consider, let alone take seriously. But what I have seen quite clearly, in my many years of observing it in action, is that the system currently in place is quite immune to any meaningful change, reform or improvement - or at least by those striving to work within its crimped and narrowly circumscribed parameters.
What you see is unfortunately what you get - this year, next year, next decade, ad infinitum. But the reality is that things have now reached such an advanced state of decay, depravity and dysfunction that a continuation of the status quo is no longer a tolerable or acceptable option. So with each passing cycle of futility, the ranks of crackpots and dreamers will inevitably grow. Count on it.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mohandas Gandhi
MAN YOU USED A LOT OF STATISTICS/WORDS/TWISTED LOGIC TO SAY JACKSHIT! I’M NOT VOTING FOR ANY CORPORATE SHILL AND IF THAT DISENFRANCHIZES 25% OF THE ELECTORATE(BULLSHIT)THEY MUST HAVE STAYED HOME ON ELECTION DAY. YOUR ARTICLE IS THE ALL TIME GREAT APOLOGIA FOR THE “ONE PARTY” SYSTEM I’VE EVER READ IN 60yrs - A PURE POINTLESS MIND NUMBING PILE OF TOXIC BRAIN GOO. CONGRATULATIONS. YOU WIN THE PRIZE.
Enough with the Democrats.
As Common Dreams must know, most Democrats(and definitely the leadership of the Democrats) are complicit in what Bush has done. Why does this website, publish anything supporting the Democrats?
It is time to finally, completely and absolutely work against BOTH major political parties. They are both useless in making the changes that are now needed.
I agreed with the first half of what Red Harvest wrote about the need for a new Constitution. In fact, there’s a growing body of books that either deal with this subject directly, such as The Velvet Coup and The Frozen Republic by Daniel Lazare, How Democratic Is The US Constitution? by Dahl, and Our Undemocratic Constitution by Levinson which came out last year, or alternately touch on specific issues such as our grossly antiquated electoral system such as Hill’s works or Steal This Vote by Andrew Gumbel.
At the same time, electing candidates as Democrats doesn’t seem like a potentially successful approach at this point in time towards that end. Here’s why:
1) There would be no guarantees that candidates, once they became elected as Democrats, would hold to their promises for a new Constitution for us. The obvious threat to hold over their heads is to ensure they don’t win re-election otherwise-but doing this would necessarily entail having a third party alternative.
2) The Democrats, as a party, would be quite likely to do their utmost to sabotage other Democrats that did advocate what we wanted.
3) For these candidates to become part of the Democratic party would necessarily entail ‘entangling’ them in supporting a lot of the sort of unrepresentative structure that got us to this point.
Accordingly, although it’s going to be a lot harder at first, I really do think that it might be better to start out with a clear-cut third party, and then build people up who won’t be as easily corrupted (or craven) as the Democrats are right now.
QUOTE:
usrcjp July 27th, 2007 11:34 pm
Enough with the Democrats.
As Common Dreams must know, most Democrats(and definitely the leadership of the Democrats) are complicit in what Bush has done. Why does this website, publish anything supporting the Democrats?
It is time to finally, completely and absolutely work against BOTH major political parties. They are both useless in making the changes that are now needed.
END QUOTE
Indeed! I would just add that it’s not just CommonDreams. Why do so-called “progressive”/Liberal talk hosts keep supporting the Dems? These talk show hosts are so engrained with that D party-line thinking. I can’t stand to listen to most so-called “liberal” talk show hosts because they are still drinking the Dems’ koolaid so they make excuse after excuse for the Dems (such as “you have to give them tiiiiiiiiime.) Yet no one who has ever told me that I need to give the Dems time has ever responded to my followup question: How much time are you talking about here? I always get silence to that question.
Before the 2006 “election” I heard the Dem koolaid drinkers chanting “gotta get Dems in, gotta get Dems in.” After the “election” they were jumping up and down and celebrating. I wasn’t because I knew nothing was about to change. Why would the very people who had been enabling Bush since 2000 do an about-face all of a sudden just because they were in the majority. Now, these people who were celebrating after the 2006 “election” are now saying, “we need MORE Dems…about 60 more.”
UGH. It’s never enough Dems for the Dem koolaid drinkers. As I’ve said before, the Dems could have every seat in the House and Senate and we would still be in the same damn place we are today. Period. For example, it has been leaked out of the White House that the US is going to sell $20 BILLION of arms to the Saudis, you know, the ones who supposedly flew planes into the WTC. And because Israel does not like this deal, the US is going to sell Israel $30 BILLION worth of high-tech weaponry. That’s what we need all right is more weapons in the Middle East (or anywhere!). Are the useless and worthless Dems complaining about this? HELL NO! Not with all this war-profiteering going on and with all these new high-tech weapons, the US can guarantee instability through the Middle East for years to come and the Dems are going right along with it.
So why is anyone still wasting their time with any of these Dem shit for presidential candidates? We already know who the annointed one is: Neocon Hillary “I’m going to be another Margaret Thatcher” Clinton.
Well, I ain’t voting for any of them, assuming there is an election in 2008.
My personal choice is for Samuel A. Gobloot. Ever heard of him? I haven’t either really. But he will be far superior to any of the shit corporate whores running now.
SAMUEL A GOBLOOT FOR PRESIDENT IN 2008?
It is who counts the votes…..period.
A third party candiate will never win a presidential election.
Fix the voting and counting problems FIRST.
Then argue about Nader and whomever has the beat chance.
Got some really intelligent bloggers here however, really sharp people. They just don’t get it, that our balloting procedures are rigged. If they get it, few mention it.
DMG writes:
…”All of which suggests to me that the party is ours for the taking if we want it. Given enough Wellstones, we can own this thing and shape it into a force for true progressive change.”
“With enough Paul Wellstones…”
Green’s way of phrasing this idea points to a central reality. Significant change in The Democratic Party seemingly will require a number of Congress-persons (and others) to discover within themselves the kind of integrity and courage that Wellstone demonstrated.
However, many people have come to the conclusion that he was targeted for just these qualities, and the direction in which he was heading.
Was Wellstone murdered for being a very outspoken thorn in the administration’s side at a critical time? For a discussion of these issues, see Chapter 16 - “Silencing Congress” - in Ruppert’s book, Crossing the Rubicon.
PowerOfLove wrote:
Green’s way of phrasing this idea points to a central reality. Significant change in The Democratic Party seemingly will require a number of Congress-persons (and others) to discover within themselves the kind of integrity and courage that Wellstone demonstrated.
So this, I think is one of the central questions:
There are a lot of people with a lot of good ideas for solving the wide variety of problems we now face.
Most of them seem to have very little to do with the Democratic Party.
Do we have enough time to wait for the Democratic Party to develop a Wellstone or Wellstones (as opposed to the 20 or 30 Clintons, Steny Hoyers, and Rahm Emmanuels that it’ll produce simoultaneously), as opposed to at least trying to change things on our own?
Folks, the following quote from Kane Jeeves from another place on CD today is priceless. Perhaps DMG wrote the article above that is causing so much anguish here after meeting this “American” Neanderthal’s (definitely white,imo)brothers and sisters.
KaneJeeves July 27th, 2007 4:31 pm
“Americans by and large don’t care. I asked a coworker (early 30’s, very bright, college educated) if she’d heard Karl Rove was subpoened. I got a blank stare. She had no idea who he was. We talked a little more…she heard there was something going on in Iraq but wasn’t quite sure what. BUT she knew all about Tom Cruise’s baby and latest episode of The Office. And she’s young and college educated! And she’s typical of so many I’ve talked to.”
So, Professor Green’s suggestion that progressives to throw their weight behind the Democrats isn’t new, hasn’t worked, is immoral, dishonest, cowardly, and just plain wrong, etc. etc.
Oh yeah?
well, I haven’t read any proposal in here that sounds any better or has any more chance of changing the way things are. You want to change the electoral system? You want to outlaw corporate greed? Outlaw ignorance? Outlaw conservative, backward thinking? Well, just get out your little magic wands and do it!
Earth to progressives!
Earth to progressives!
The Democrats are not the same as the Republicans. If you think that, you’re either blind or as delusional as George Bush.
The Democrats are not our enemies. They are our friends. Imperfect? Indeed. Corrupt? Somewhat. Evil? No! Let me repeat that:Evil? No! For all their weaknesses and imperfections they are all we have. Like it or not. The Greens are not going to save us (though we all know they would love to) nor is that noble soul Ralph Nader. They don’t have the power or ability to get the power. There is not going to be divine or extra-terrestrial intervention on our behalf.
Only the Democrats have the potential to chance anything.
Get real. Support the Democrats or you are supporting the Republicans –like it or not. That’s the-two party/bipolar/seesaw world we live in.
Kem Patrick,
Most people, including most so-called “progressives” do not talk or do not want to talk about our corrupt, fraudulent voting system. It’s as if they want to pretend that’s not the case. I talk about it frequently. Most people don’t want to “go there” just like, if you’ve noticed, no one here (at least that I’ve read) has said a word in response to my question:
Has anyone seen any sign or indication that Dictators Bush/Cheney plan to leave in 2009?
Rove and Cheney have installed a dictatorship with the help of the Dems so why would Bush/Cheney leave in 2009?…yet no one wants to talk about that or think about it. Or perhaps people can’t believe that would possibly happen. Really? Put NOTHING past these people. In my opinion, they didn’t steal 2 elections just so they could be in power for a mere 8 years.
Just like “everyone” seems to be assuming there will be an election in 2008.
Why would anyone assume there will be an “election” then? There may well be one but in a dictatorship there is no need for elections especially when the congress has been rendered moot.
As for dux July, that person is obviously a Dems’ koolaid drinker. That koolaid must be some strong stuff. Anyone have the ingredients’ list? It leaves one in a state of denial and as an apologists for the Bush-enabler Dems. Pathetic.
That is exactly how I see it Erma. We will all see soon. I sure hope that I’m wrong, but we can see the obvious clues.
Nice try, David, but no banana!
The country is being hijacked; the process has been visible for years, moving steadily in relatively slow motion, yet NO ONE in the Democratic Party has bothered to mention it. In fact, they treated anyone who brought up those nasty things (like the war and attacks on our Constitution) as disease and vermin. Now you trot out that old horse, talking about “changing it from the inside.” I don’t think so.
If it weren’t so deadly serious, your idea would be a laugh. Wake up, fellow. Game’s over. You missed the party and missed the point. For over forty years progressives have been trying to change the Dems from the inside. Along the way they got rid of welfare “as we know it” (gave it to corporations), pushed for WTO, NAFTA and FTAA, presided over the concentration of media, and now with BushCo’s near checkmate of the branches of government, you’re going to somehow “take over the party?”
Sorry, David. For all the sincere and well-meaning folks still in the Democratic Party today, no single institution in America has better DISARMED the working people and minorities of this country, with their shamefully pathetic “analyses” of America’s needs and voting patterns.
They sold America a right-wing set of goods in near-liberal clothing. Their phony “fight for the middle,” the running after “soccer moms” as all our jobs went overseas without so much as a mention of that fact (except to lower wages and benefits). Dems bought into and peddled corporate globalism and “competitiveness” to citizens and refused to listen to the needs of what once was their base. However, they REALLY listened to their corporate campaign funders.
All the time they say, just vote for us. Get us into office and we’ll show you. Yeah. Eight years of Clinton got us what? The Fourth Reich.
Hey, I know as well as anyone does that building (and winning with) a third party is not easy in the US. Not only are all the cards stacked against it, but the duopoly parties do everything to prevent it. That doesn’t mean you don’t do it, or don’t need it.
The Republicans lately have done everything to prevent Democratic votes from either occurring or being counted. At the same time, our “friends,” the Democrats, do what they can to prevent third parties from existing or running candidates. So much for democracy. Is this what you are asking us to support??
The most outrageous crimes against our nation (from vote fraud to constitution shredding) and massive war crimes are occurring, and this group cannot put together a slap on the wrist?
They authorized a gazillion dollars to fund troops to kill an an invented enemy, and they cannot even denounce the visible one standing before us trying to steal the reins of all government? Against THIS you intend to prevail? Its analyses, premises, strategies, values and practices are ALL WRONG. What exactly IS it you wish to salvage?? The brand name? Is this a hostile takeover by progressives you’re suggesting?
And what do you intend to do with all the baggage and corporate lobbyists?
You want change from Democrats? OK, here’s an idea. There is a MUCH greater chance of changing them by pushing from the OUTSIDE, than on the inside. For one, they do not listen to their own–they take their votes, then take them for granted. Two, they will only get the message when you get up and leave.
Historically, most major social and political change has come from the energy and dynamics of third parties.
While it may be difficult, it is infinitely more sane and productive to build a party based upon the visions and values we believe in and truly need than to convert a corrupted one. Brother, to get to Point B, you must first be willing to say you want to get to Point B. Can you get that?
For me, the Green Party already has the basis to build upon. Build a party that stands for what you want. There may well be times along the way when we have to still deal with the Democrats in their positions of power, including in some elections, that is fairly clear — but always with the vision of building something NEW.
For the 20 or so minutes you spend in the voting booth every four years (or 10 or 11 hours if you are from Ohio), there is now no excuse or justification to waste ALL the OTHER in-between minutes of those years coddling a lame donkey. Vote how you wish, but BUILD a true representative party working for the re-birth of democracy, and end to the madness of “preventive” or pre-emptive war, one that is ready today to fight for single-payer (and single-payer only) health insurance, for women’s rights, for a living wage and for workers’ right to organize.
Every one of those ideas have been rebuffed by the Democrats for years.
IF we are ever to regain a citizens’ government, it will be because of People Power, Americans coming together to save their nation and re-think parties, laws, democracy. Also, and perhaps above all, it is time to END of the all-distorting “corporate personhood” fiction. i don’t believe that has ever been on the Dem agenda.
The current threat to our nation is dire and it is real. As an institution the Democratic Party has proven itself cowardly and not up to the task of of denouncing the abuses and dictatorial pretensions, much less organizing us to resist this executive onslaught. To the contrary they have shown themselves to be skilled enablers of those destroying our Treasury and Constitution.
So far the only ones the Democrats have told “to watch your steps” are not the abusers of executive power, but rather the progressive anti-war movement and third parties.
It doesn’t have to be all black or white, David. There are still useful things to be done within the Democratic Party (above all to keep it from doing more damage). But it is time to hedge your bets and begin moving in seriously new directions for a society we want and need. If we are to get out of this mess, we need to put in real time and real dollars to build poitical alternatives.
So, David, stay there, if you wish, at your own — and our — peril. We need all the good people over here. Now.
“If changing the Democrats from the inside actually worked, then why did the Democrats in the Senate, 97-0, approve an amendment sponsored by Lieberman a couple of weeks ago that practically hands Bush a pretext to bomb Iran on false pretenses? A worst case scenario if Bush chooses to invade Iran is going to make a lot of this debate really irrelevant.”
You’re acting like people who say overthrow the Democrats have been tricked. Like I actually think current Democrats have any integrity? I don’t. If we make them all independent like Lieberman we will get the structural benefits of the system, which the majority of people on Commondreams don’t seem to understand. STRUCTURAL BENEFITS ARE VERY IMPORTANT. It’s why a third party has not challenged the current system for over 100 years… you think that’s going to change with this election?
It’s amazing the trouble the single corporate party had to go through to get Lieberman into office after losing the Democratic primary. The Republicans joined up with the Democrats. The media endlessly attacked Lamont. Obama, Clinton, Edwards all of them had to make their betrayal known, and now many CT Democrats see current Dems for who they are, and probably won’t support them because they betrayed their progressive candidate, Lamont.
Democrat is just a LABEL, that has NOTHING to do with how left a person’s politics are. ANYONE can run Democrat. It’s not the label that is inherently bad, it is the individual who is elected. It is not the LABEL itself that has forced politicians to betray us. A true progressive politician will always vote progressive, just like Wellstone, even if they call themselves Democrat.
Go back through your comments then, and replace the word Democrats, with the word “Black People”.
Since the color of your skin has as much bearing with your politics as the LABEL of Democrat, you might as well discriminate that way.
Maybe I should Register Republican because Republican is ALSO just a LABEL, and at least people on the Ron Paul side of things actually understand it’s easier to overthrow the system at the primary level with an angry mob, where only 1/10th of voters are showing up, than it is to change the system using a third party.
But too bad… Ron Paul is a [fill in the blank] who thinks global warming comes from volcanoes… so Mike Gravel is my current choice.
There are some here who just don’t understand the depth of anger that so many of us feel toward the Dems.
We were told in ‘06 “Give us control of Congress and we’ll change things.”
We did. And they didn’t. Now the cadres are out telling us that we must put a Dem (presumably HER) in the White House in ‘08. Why? We gave them Congress and they are too afraid to do anything. Why bother?
I will fight hard those who oppose me. I will fight harder those who betray me.
Thought Shaman:
Rite on! IRV is our best hope.
www.instantrunoff.com
www.fairvote.org
www.instantrunoffvoting.org
www.calirv.org
www.irvwa.org
Check out these web sites and others. Happy revolting
Hasn’t KUCHINIK has been trying to “HIJAAaack..k… . k” the Dems for a decade or more? Duuu…h!!!!
Didn’t DEAN try to to “HIGHJACK” (scream that please) the same Dim’s in 2004?
And why are there 140 posts here, 48 under “Tillman” (the white football player), and ONLY 3 posts for those innocent Afghan children killed by your (yes YOURS - - you were 90% for Evil just 6 years ago, you WMF sh$%) bombs?
And here you are, 6 years too late, firing soap bubbles against LEVIATHAN as if “IT” (go read Stephen King’s IT) is going to make IT tremble!!!
You have no compassion you MFWS - - - and you expect that some white (Nordic) knight in shining armour from King Arthur’s lilly white round table is going to come and save you from 150 million of your own kind who are foaming- at- the- mouth Neanderthals out to nuke all of humankind that is not white? The only difference between you and them is that you want to do what they want to do politically correctly.
If there were even 30% solid support in this doomed place for a third party as you are all hollering and deluding yourself, then your stupid KUCHINIK is even more stupid than he looks. He looks just like Edith Bunker of Archie Bunker fame, and in a yahoo country where looks and macho are the only things that count as “presidential” he has as much channce as dear, lovable Edith would have had if she had stood up for PREZ.
DMG is just a messenger you dolts, don’t kill him and ignore his message. Tell your Kuchinit (no spelling error there . . . .oooh did I upset you genteel white sensibilities? did I? sooo soorry, I am still working off my anger at your callousness about the Afghan children you — yes you - - are killing) that if he wants to form a third party and lead a nation of white racists back into the human race, then he has to thump the table next debate to be at least taken seriously by that Wolf Blitzer (you know the one who is sucking at the same tits as the DLC).
There, so much for your third party. Do I support the Dems?? Are you insane, when they are trying to outdo each other as to who would fling more nukes at 1.4 billion innocent people who did nothing to you WS???
Yes, I am spiritual, but not your white robbed, Popish BSer. I told several times before that no compassion will be shown to you by the Universe if you do not show compassion and decency towards the millions of innocent non-white people your armies, made up sons and daughters of mothers like Cindy, are now killing of which you do not have the decency to register your sorrow even at their picture printed on CD.
Walk the talk of compasion and your “third” party will succeed. Otherwise you will be banging your heads against the granite wall of LEVIATHAN all by yourself.
GET IT?
CRCox: Of course subjective preference isn’t all bad. My caution was against treating it as a naturalistic truth.
Yes, I prefer the improbable third party to the even more improbable tactic of reforming the party where progressive movements go to die. Fortunately, political participation is constituted by more than just electoral politics.
“seriousprofessor”
This article on CD on July 26 applies to “serious” people like you. Some of us have been academics too and possibly at better universities than you. Don’t be a rude AH.
The Mainstream, Sane, Serious Joe Lieberman
by Glenn Greenwald
So serious are you serious like serious Joe?
aymon, I’m not going to play the game of whose institution is bigger, nor was I being rude. Any comments on actual substance of the point would be welcome.
This is such a heated discussion that I have been hesitant about commenting. Nonetheless, DMG raises the issue of coalitions that have been able to control party platforms, but neglects to examine the nature of these coalitions. Certainly the Repugs have exploited the “perfect storm” of religious fundies, racists, sexists, and massive corporate funders. These groups have the advantage of highly structured institutions by which they can organize and mobilize. 9/11 further helped to coalesce these conservative/reactionary elements because the event helped to legitimate the underlying fear that animates such ideologies. Here I am talking about MSM propaganda, church mobilization, NRA, “pro-life” groups, and of course the power of corporate dollars to underwrite the campaigns. Perhaps equally important is the fact that the US has always been fundamentally conservative, if not proto-fascist (corporate-state control of politics, racist, nationalistic, “anit-communist,” etc.)
The left has never had the same degree of institutional structure, media access, etc. And historically the left has always been fragmented in this country. AS DMG points out, although a leftist third party sounds appealing in some kind of proportional representative system, the proliferation of highly orgnaized right wing parties would most likely neutralize, if not futher marginalize, lefties. The likelihood of leftist groups somehow organizing into a bloc, then shifting the Dims leftward seems unlikely, and although the anti-war movement is strong and growing, it is not ideologically bound to other progressive movements so doesn’t really hold much promise as a galvanizing issue into the future. Look what happened after the Viet Nam war ended.
I have no answer other than to admit my fear and loathing of what I see as more militarism, hate politics, exploitation of fear and the concurrent rise of even more fascistic domestic politics.
The major landmine in the attempt to form a third party to address our grievances is that … well there won’t be a third party. There will be Thirty. Every stripe of extremist will get enough momentum to become “official” and then it will still (inevitably) come down to the Republicans and Democrats and the people who are willing to engage them, make them more responsive and effective and shift the current policies. I frankly think the country is ripe for a revolution within both parties. All it needs is the active and committed revolutionaries.
Many I think miss the main point here. As long as the two parties successfully get their corrupted candidates elected and reelected, supporting a third party will just be a waste of time. Corporate controlled media will promote the two parties over the third party. Because of this media manipulation, campaign contributions will continue to flood the two party candidates compared to the third party.
In other words, everything is stacked against a third party succeeding. Americans are not going to just wake up some day and realize, “Oh, I am being manipulated against my own interests by corporatists and self-serving entrenched politicians so I am now going to vote for the “____ party candidates”. This is what Professor Green is saying “aint going to happen”.
In order to have a realistic chance of changing this, reform must happen that will change a system that enables a bunch of incumbents and their hand picked replacements from maintaining power. One of the essential ways to do this is work towards implementing clean election systems that level the playing field with regard to candidates use of money in campaigns.
Once this money advantage is removed, then the “people” can work towards electing candidates that actually represent them over special interests. Once this takes hold, then we can go about the business of media reform, voting system reform, and other changes that WILL allow a third party to succeed.
But until some of the impediments are removed by those already in power, a third party that actually gets significant electoral support is just a “pipe dream”.
For more information about clean elections, you can go to http://www.publicampaign.org/. To find out what activities are happening in your particular state, go here http://www.publicampaign.org/clean-facts.
QUOTE FROM ERMA
I’m not exactly sure what you are talking about but yes, there is a good reason to believe that this will not be the case.
END QUOTE
What I am talking about is the Civil Rights Act. What I am talking about is Social Security. What I am talking about is the Clean Air Act. How many members of a third party voted for those bills in Congress? How many third-party Presidents signed them? Those grand progressive achievements were made by shaping, steering, or taking over one of the two parties in power. I challenge you to cite equally powerful progressive changes brought about by any third party in the history of the United States. I believe that the lessons of the past are applicable to the future, and that we ignore them at our peril.
QUOTE FROM ERMA
We are now in a fascist state (police state tactics are being used on citizens around the nation) and we are on the edge of a full-blown Bush dictatorship. Bush has essentially unofficially dissolved congress as it is by making them irrelevant (declaring “executive privilege,” dismissing subpoenaes as the “unitary executive” and referring in his speeches to “MY GOVERNMENT.”) Meanwhile, the congress postures and has been complicit in all of this. We also have a fraudulent, corrupt voting system all over the nation which you also failed to mention, presuming this disaster can somehow be remedied by voting. Ha!
END QUOTE
If what you say is true, that there is no more recourse through the political system at all, then we have very little to discuss. In my understanding, the debate here is one about political strategy. If you honestly believe that this is a police state, I suggest you go visit a real police state an have your eyes blown wide open by reality. Defeatism like this get us exactly noplace, serving only to demoralize progressives, and to energize our opponents. This debate should be about (and mostly is about) how to make changes, not a litany of all the reasons that any change at all is difficult or impossible.
Although what Green says is interesting, but we don’t have the time. Wellstone was a powerful figure, a people choice and if had been allowed to live, ( the plane crash was no accident) he’d probably be running for president. Not only that he wasn’t for the war and the senate lost an important seat when he was taken out. The country is too big and unmanageable.
WOW! If only THIS thread had been broadcast LIVE on C-span! The good news is this informed debate shows aspects of democracy ARE alive and well, if on a grassroots level.
WALT says, “I frankly think the country is ripe for a revolution within both parties. All it needs is the active and committed revolutionaries.” Sounds like a plan. I think conditions relevant to our economy and further evisceration of Civil Liberties will cause this to occur, almost organically.
Personally, while there is all the evidence of an improvisational “history course” in this thread, I personally would like to send kudos to the following for interesting perspectives and/or points raised: TOM AMITY, SERIOUS PROFESSOR, JEREMY WELLS, PAUL BRAMSCHER, and ALANK.
Aymon has such PROFOUND compassion for the suffering of those directly harmed by inflamed U.S. policy that he asks we bring HEART to this subject/debate along with the expansive outpourings of our intellects. Compassion is the thing that can rise above all the disparate perspectives to cause unity in the cause of preserving life, the greater good, for the many. Meanwhile, I for one am glad that so many took the time to share their considerable insights in this forum.
This discussion is about TACTICS, folks, not necessarily the running of winning 3rd party presidential candidates as THE solution (would that it were so). Therefore, it is about WHAT TO DO.
Here is something to Do that can make a significant difference.
Independent of how you vote in that long-off November ‘08 (if we are still given the chance), you can USE YOUR REGISTRATION (or affiliation) to make your “Vote” known RIGHT NOW. A Green registration puts you on the political map as antiwar and pro-impeachment. You immediately become a factor. Those are numbers that veteran politicians will understand–and you don’t have to wait until ‘08. In fact, the sooner the better. Read about this thinking at switch2green.org.
Make today Election Day! “Vote” with your Registration!
Why wait until even primary season to show your antiwar credentials and force? Voting with your feet and with your registration RIGHT NOW already moves some pieces on the chess board when they least expect it.
They want you to play the Clinton/Obama Game. Show them you can play another one altogether.
Pressure recalcitrant Dems right now to put Impeachment ON the table! Don’t wait for polls or primaries. Let them know where you stand TODAY! Your registration (or affiliation) switch can do that. They will not be expecting that and will have to react to a new equation.
We should use every instrument we have at our disposal to combat the Right and its enablers. That political tool is available to us right now. Those who feel they need/want to participate in the Democratic primaries, can switch back temporarily (if needed in your state). In fact a registration switch (and informing loudly your representative what you have decided to do) will help ALL progressive candidates, by showing the support for progressive issues and positions that a Green registration signifies.
I can see good arguments on both sides: try to reform the Dems from inside vs. building a powerful third party. Just like with all complex problems there is no simple answer or the perfect tool. You need many tools to build a house.
I think if we can address the following structural issues then both approaches (from within vs. from outside) will automatically gain traction and we’ll be able to achieve the desired changes.
1) Get big money out of election (this will make it easier for third party candidates to complete, but will also help potential Wellstone-like candidates to rise inside the Democratic Party)
2) Implement IRV (the same thing as above will happen as a result of IRV)
Of course I do not know how to get these two things implemented. But I thought focusing on these two “STRUCTURAL TOOLS” rather than the “STRATEGY” (from within vs. with a third party) would be more meaningful.
Our current corporate-whore politicians will not change status quo. The only hope is “we the people”. Can we have some ideas on how to approach this?
Here’s a better idea, one which might actually work in the real world:
Greens run candidates in every election possible, spoiling as many as possible. For a brief time, Republicans win every election and the Democratic party collapses. (which it will do anyway, only more slowly) Then, when Democrats and Greens beocome equally likely to win elections - equally “electable” - there won’t be any perceived benefit for voting for do-nothing Democrats. There still won’t be any viable “third” party, but there will be a viable opposition party.
RE: THE ‘RULING CLASS’ CAUSED THE U.S. SHIFT RIGHT?
RichM July 27th, 2007 2:35 pm
OK, to explain the post-1970s shift right of Democrats and Republicans, you argue: the US two-party system is an instrument of rule by a capitalist ruling class; since the 1970s, global competition has produced ‘hard times’ for this US ruling class; and it has responded by passing on this hardship to most US’ers by successfully “clamoring” for right wing rep’s/legislation/policies in govt. (Your second reason is that, at same time, the perceived threat of 1960s democratic tendencies led the ruling class to rein in progressive legislation before it got ‘out of hand.’)
I have a different explanation. The crucial issue, of course, is the idea of the capitalist class as a ruling class. I believe ruling class theory gives capitalists too much agency. In my view, power is aggregate. In capitalist nations, multiple forces make up progressive and right wing power, and these forces contend. Although all capitalist democracies are – in varying degrees – ‘frozen’ in the age of capitalism, the balance of power and political and social outcomes are not the same.
Historically, the US has been uniquely right wing in terms of social legislation securing worker rights. This is because, historically, workers are a stronger force in other western nations. That is: they have more power relative to right wing forces – capitalists being one of those forces: not enough power for revolution, but enough to wrest more from politics.
Historical factors are one explanation for US’s relatively strong right wing and relatively weak left – a relatively undemocratic form of representational government, a racial/ethnically fragmented working class, post-WWII power.
Since WWII, I regard the steady diminishing of big industry/big labor as one crucial force in increased right wing power – as compromised as labor was, it represented a crucial ‘countervailing’ force against right wing forces. The shift was international – but, again: different outcomes in different countries: not a ‘plot’ to weaken labor, but an intnt’l economic trend that was less – or more – successfully politically opposed in each case.
From this explanation, the post-70s right wing shift is not a question of capitalists needing more money, but of the relative weakness of progressive forces - and lack of ability to get more of an enormous capitalist feast - in the US vs. elsewhere.
Since I do not regard the political system as by-definition an instrument of class rule, I do not categorically rule it out as ONE site of struggle - and, consequently, view my ‘3rd-party-ism’ as a tactic rather than an immutable grounds of resistance.
Bushtool is spot on. Our system of government is built on conflict of interest. It takes money to win so money dictates the terms of the debate and money dictates policy.
We can change the name on the winning party but unless you fundamentally change the system the faces of the puppetmasters will remain the same. That the Democratic party is what it is today and that it has essentially followed the Republican Party headlong into this state of affairs should prove this.
Privately financed elections do not produce public officials, they produce privilege. Private law.
There seem to be only so many people in this country willing to get their hands dirty in local politics. I know too many self-identified progressive activists who know nothing, absolutely zip about their local Democratic Town Committee, yet they would refuse to get involved because “the Democrats suck”. “Which Democrats suck?” “You know, Pelosi … Clinton …” “Oh really, they are stifling your town committee?”
“My what?”
Should a third party candidate/white knight indeed come along and wrest us and our democracy from the fiery clutches of the Republocrats by winning the protest vote, how will that campaign transform and sustain as a major party?
How does ballot access work in your state? What does it take to automatically qualify as a major party in your state without having to petition for ballot access every election cycle? Where are the local activists going to come from who will form the local town committees to keep this new voter driven thing running in every voting district across the land? Will they be “all new” activists who are already out there, ready and willing, but just waiting for the perfect party to come along? Doubt it. Or will this “new and improved” party consist old DTC and RTC members? Not likely.
How will this new party continue overpowering money with voters if public elections are still privately financed?
It won’t.
If the system is the same then what it takes to win will be the same. If the people in this new party are the same then the new party will be the same. If the people pouting on the sidelines still can’t stomach doing the work of candidate selection and holding officials accountable than the pouting on the sidelines will stay the same.
Screw hijacking the Democrats, hijack the Democrats AND the Republicans. We need some options here.
But taking over the government is hard work. I’m with the author, if most of you don’t have it in you to take over a political party, you definitely don’t have it in you to take over the government.
Another aspect not noted previously is the influence of corporate money in the process. People constantly refer to these infusions of cash into the process as “donations” when in point of fact they are INVESTMENTS. Corporations expect a return on these investments by way of favorable legislation on their interests and agenda. To think politicians are going to render illegitimate those interests are living in the worst kind of dream world. Noted film maker Roger Moore has asserted in his new film Sicko that Hillary Clinton received the second largest INVESTMENT from Big Pharma than any other US Senator. Since Clinton seems to be marching toward the nomination my question concerns her loyalty if she wins the presidency: will it be to those who elected her or instead will it be to corporations who supplied her with the cash to achieve her goal? How will ordinary citizens compete alongside of Big Pharma for progressive ideals/legislation without rewarding her with our vote? Money and corruption will win the day every time! That is the reality. And if you agree with this point, consider climate change dissolution of done deal under Hillary’s stewardship when she needs to make a decision that might make her handlers in the auto industry a little too anxious.
We are at the tipping point to reverse negative consequences of climate change. Ignore it to your own peril. If Green thinks that we have thirty or forty years to enact meaningful change to reverse fossil fuel usage then I would question the dudes sanity or regard is entire views as a state of psychological denial.
TO KEM PATRICK: I did mention the problem of rigged voting in previous streams. I was the one who suggested everyone watch PBS last night, “NOW”. Greg Palast from the BBC was on and the topic was the rigged elections of 2000, 2004 and he said, “The fix is already in on 2008.”
My personal mantra is, “ONLY VOTE ABSENTEE, XEROX YOUR BALLOT AND COUNT THEM WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS IN PRECINCTS.”
TO BUSH TOOL: The problem with trying to get “clean elections” by eliminating corporate control of candidates is that it’s those very candidates who must vote in meaningful campaign financing legislation (full public funding) and it is obviously not in their self-interest to do so. Therefore, it will never happen.
TO AYNOM: Obviously you are angry and I understand your anger. Just want you to know that I have many pictures I’ve clipped from The New York Times of children we’ve had a hand at maiming and killing in foreign lands. I’ve cried my share of tears over these photos. I can guarantee you that even though most of us have been focusing on the “How do we extricate ourselves out of this mess” rather than “looking at the mess we’ve made”, we all are extremely upset with those who are currently in power in this country. If you read everything that has been written regarding Prof. Green’s article I think that is all too obvious.
Last night I was reading the July issue of “Harper’s”. I noticed a book ad for “Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America’s Class War” by Joe Bageant. It made me realize what a tiny minority we truly are in this country.
How many of us watch television? Practically none, unless it’s CSPAN or something educational. How many of us read books, like “Crossing the Rubicon”? Many. How many of us go deer hunting or kill spiders needlessly? Probably not many.
We need to realize we are living in a country of hateful, racist, illiterate, ethnocentric Stepford Americans. And they VOTE!! We are surrounded by right-wing religious wackos! And there is nothing on Earth any of us will ever be able to do to change any of them!
I’ve had more than one good friend tell me to shine on anything political and just live my life. “Forget politics. It’s absolutely corrupt and if you give the rest of your life you will never make so much as a DENT in the way things are in this country. Go to the beach, write your novel…move on.”
Sometimes I wonder what this country would look like sitting at a cafe in Paris chatting it up with the locals there. I wonder about being in Amsterdam or Sweden or any country where people at least TRY to love each other. Where there is health care for everyone and people communicate and are kind to each other. Where religious nuts don’t rule the day.
Bush made a comment the other day about people “not loving him”. He must see that he is not only not loved, but hated and dare I say feared at this point. Which is what he wants.
Maybe Claudius had the right idea. For what ever reasons he announced that he’d be dropping out for a while from Commondreams.
After reading every post after Prof. Green’s article here, I must admit that I feel isolated, impotent, unloved and alienated from this country.
And to think that we’ve financed all this mess with our tax dollars for decades.
Excuse me while I go barf.
RE: CRCox: ON RECONSIDERATION, I AGREE: 1) CD HAS MANY ‘THIRD-PARTY’ VOICES; AND 2) ‘EQUAL TIME’ ON EVERY ISSUE IS NOT NEC. OR DESIRABLE
CRCox July 27th, 2007 4:43 pm
“there has been a great deal of journalistic positing about third parties…Just because it is not ‘front loaded’ doesn’t mean it’s not being addressed.”
Yes, CD posts much pro-3rd party writing.
“that is a myth in journalism anyway, whether opinionated or not, that every side of the issue has to be represented.”
I’ve thought it over, and, again, I agree. Not every article - nor editorial policy - has to be balanced.
Given the apparently strong 3rd-party slant of many CD readers, I would even say the article is healthy, since - w/o a counter-authority to support their views - it forced CD posters to support their POV themselves. Here, I must note disappointment that many posters’ POV did not go beyond ‘yawn’ or ’shrug’ or ’stupid’-type replies.
The author summarized his article above as DMG in his 7-27-07 5:36 p.m. comment.
First of all, that takes a lot of integrity and humility to read the comments and to join the discussion. That is very respectful of all of us who are commenting about the article. Thanks DMG. Now I address part of your summary:
“* It would be lovely if we could scrap it altogether, or just ignore it and build a better alternative.
* Indeed, I have myself followed that dream, voting for and volunteering for third party candidates.
* Wish as we might, though, there are clear and massive barriers to achieving this end, not least of which include the ideological diversity of potential third party voters, and the country’s electoral system.
* History and the current composition of Congress also strongly suggest that success along this path is highly improbable.
* History also suggests another approach, which has worked in the past.
* Therefore, our best hope of implementing our agenda is to HIJACK the Democratic Party, make it ours, take control of it, kick out the DLC corporate hacks, and start legislating.”
I’ll summarize what I wrote above in contradiction to your proposed strategy.
You present a false dichotomy. You say our best (presupposing, single) hope is “to hijack the Democratic Party.”
You use either/or thinking. You presume we true progressives must choose between either a third party or hijacking the Democratic Party.
But you present no evidence nor any argument that the dichotomy that you presume is valid. You only say that success with *the other side* (third party strategy) is “improbable.”
But you say nothing–zippo–zilch–about a both/and approach that would embody both parts of your false dichotomy. If progressives agree to hijack the Democratic Party (which I believe is a great idea and is something I am doing already, having helped to establish one of the nation’s 20 state progressive caucuses) what is to say that supporting and strengthening the one, national progressive party (www.gp.org) is contradictory to the hijacking of the DP option? I don’t think it is. No one in any comment (or you DMG in your article) offers a tiny shred of evidence that progressives hijacking the Democratic Party is at odds with strengthening the Green Party of the United States.
But Red Harvest offers in his 7-27-07 11:16 p.m. post a far-reaching proposal for progressives to understand the rules of the system; to commit to changes to the Constitution as a new “rulebook”; to create “a single organizational banner” like the ANC; and hold a progressive convention to work out the constitutional details of the an improved government; work to build a critical mass for that proposal; and recruit candidates to run as Democrats on the unified progressive platform.
What Red Harvest advocates is right in line with the Green Party 2004 Platform which calls for IRV, proportional representation and other progressive electoral changes. It is consistent with Gravel’s initiative proposal and with Kucinich’s and Nader’s electoral proposals. And it is entirely consistent with your proposal to hijack the DP.
But what will make the excellent ideas that you make DMG, and the great ideas of Red Harvest; and the many other good ideas presented in the various comments turn into a plan and action is this: both/and thinking. We don’t need false dichotomies. We need a strategy to unify the many good options and ideas progressives have: including strengthening the national Green Party AND hijacking the Democratic party. But to develop a strategy requires a single banner that spans many various types of progressives with a trusted entity that is empowered by the American progressive citizenry to make decisions, perhaps subject to ratification like unions do all the time.
As I said in my post above at 7-27-07 3:06 p.m.:
“To create such thinking and the resulting plan would take progressive political unity with real decision-making authority that we do not now have.
The details of how progressives can unite politically to make needed plans–Democratic Party progressives, independent progressives and Green Party progressives–is another matter, but in history many groups outside the US have done this under similar circumstances. The ANC in 1912 is one. And there are others.”
It is unity we need by incorporating good proposals into a larger plan, not arguing either side of false dichotomies, each of which have merits. That is the kind of thing that progressives could do once they, we, organize into something akin to Red Harvest’s far-reaching, innovative proposal.
So we have a choice. We can be a progressive House of Babel and remain politically impotent in the current system. Or we can do that kind of both/and thinking to integrate and synthesize opposing views into coherent plans here in discussions such as this one, and in our political lives.
BeingFrankwithBarney July 28th, 2007 10:11 am
“What I am talking about is the Civil Rights Act. What I am talking about is Social Security. What I am talking about is the Clean Air Act. How many members of a third party voted for those bills in Congress? How many third-party Presidents signed them? Those grand progressive achievements were made by shaping, steering, or taking over one of the two parties in power. I challenge you to cite equally powerful progressive changes brought about by any third party in the history of the United States. I believe that the lessons of the past are applicable to the future, and that we ignore them at our peril.”
As I mentioned in a previous post, many of the ideas adopted by the two major parties were originally advocated by third parties.
Do you like voting for your Senators instead of having them appointed by your state legislature?
Thank the Populist Party, who got about 8% of the vote in 1892 and won 5 states. They were the first party to advocate for direct election of Senators, and their idea was adopted by the Democrats and Republicans.
Do you like having a progressive income tax?
Thank the Populist and Socialist Parties.
Do you like female suffrage?
Thank the Socialist and Prohibition Parties.
Do you like having weekends?
Thank the Populist and Socialist Parties.
Do you like the abolition of child labor, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and the New Deal?
Thank the Socialist Party.
dux July 28th, 2007 1:49 am
“The Democrats are not our enemies. They are our friends. Imperfect? Indeed. Corrupt? Somewhat. Evil? No! Let me repeat that:Evil? No! For all their weaknesses and imperfections they are all we have. Like it or not.”
If the Democrats are our friends, then why did they vote for the Iraq War, the Patriot Act (twice!), Bush’s torture bill, the bankruptcy bill, CAFTA, etc?
“You want to change the electoral system? You want to outlaw corporate greed? Outlaw ignorance? Outlaw conservative, backward thinking? Well, just get out your little magic wands and do it!”
The Democrats could end the “spoiler” problems right now in 20 states if they want to. There are 16 states with Democratic Governors and Democratic Legislatures, and 4 states with Republican Governors and veto-proof Democratic or Democratic/Progressive majorities. They could pass Instant Runoff Voting and there’s nothing the Republicans could do to stop them.
gabi July 27th, 2007 7:25 pm
“What exactly are the Dems supposed to have done by now?? If the votes aren’t there, the votes aren’t there”
The Republicans weren’t even close to having the votes they needed in the Senate to convict Clinton after they impeached him. That didn’t stop them from trying.
RE: Progressive change: Reform Democrats, 3rd Party, or work on both fronts?
Earthian July 28th, 2007 12:57 pm
For the record, I agree. Good post and good work seeking to evaluate and find a way forward on a big thread on a big topic.
Two brief points.
First, I hope the clearly at odds w/each other progressives on this website can find ways to support each other and to think of themselves as supporting each other on this point.
Second - it is great and imperative that posters like you are also active. As I have posted numerous times before - I hope that, whatever their view, progressives posting here are active, and don’t use this website or their party line - whatever that line is - as a substitute for engaging with others. It’s not.
I am concerned that a pessimistic strain of feeling re change may lead posters into depending on this site - or other ‘closed’ communities - to rationalize their quietism: a militant, aggrieved, ‘principled’ quietism, to be sure…but a quietism, nonetheless. A withdrawal into the comforting idea that, simply by withdrawing from the established political process they are - without necessarily doing anything else - acting. They’re not.
Besides our activism, voting for progressives, whether Green, Democrat, Independent, or whatever, that stand a chance of winning, is all that we can do.
Joining the Green Party will help to calm our conscience and to focus on the future.
Forming a progressive voting block may have to wait until we’re closer to the election. Gore could run.
I’m hoping that some progressive candidates will adopt Mike Gravel’s National Initiative, recognizing that it’s a giant leap forward for democracy.
Also, we can work to convince candidates to adopt some Green Party issues in return for our vote.
I’ve seen no evidence that the DLC gives a rat’s ass about anyone who doesn’t support Hillary … the drip.drip.drip of announced endorsements and general demeanor suggest to me that we are seeing a demonstration of just what a good sport ol’ Hillary is as she “spars” with the other candidates, deigning to stand on the same stage ….
Business as usual for as long as they get away with it … and they’ll keep up the appearances even as the walls of the fortress crack …
The DLC is still trying the “repair the damage” done in 1968 when all those radicals “ruined” their party …
They’ve told me for too long, in too many explicit ways that I am not welcome in “their” party … short of recreating 1968 in Denver (which imho is a very bad idea and almost impossible logistically), I don’t even know how we get their attention, when they are so very commited to ignoring us.
abbybwood (July 28th, 11:28 am) - some crystal-clear logic, which can be taken much further –
abbybwood responds to the “Let’s push for clean elections” idea by noting that The problem with trying to get “clean elections” … is that it’s those very candidates who must vote in…campaign financing legislation … and it is obviously not in their self-interest to do so. Therefore, it will never happen.
This is a valuable example of thinking in terms of how the system actually works. Sure, clean elections would be great. Who could disagree? But the very same things which have brought us to this abyss guarantee that no meaningful “clean elections” law could be passed. The same politicians who have helped Bush dismantle the Constitution are not going to turn around and suddenly be champions of clean elections.
This kind of clear thinking generalizes easily to the scope of the entire present discussion: Prof Green suggests a “hijacking” of the Democratic Party. But the Party’s controlling players all know that the rank-and-file is well to the left of the Party’s core strategists, donors, apparatchiks, & officials. They’re well aware that “progressives” would love to “move the party to the left.” It would be absurdly naive to suppose that they’ve not guarded against this possibility. A “hijacking” can never happen because the people who control the party don’t want it to happen, and would fight to the death to prevent it from happening. The moment a hijacking actually got underway (if it ever got that far), the party’s pooh-bahs would join forces with the media to savage the leftward move. Every day the NYT & WaPo would be haranguing about the “once-great Democratic Party, now sadly falling under the influence of hippies, radicals and communists.”
———————
baska - (11:13 am) I don’t see much that I disagree with in your explanation of the rightwards shift. Certainly the demise of labor is a big part of this story — partly as a cause of the shift, partly as an effect. Michael Parenti’s “Democracy for the Few” makes a powerful case for the political system being an instrument of class rule, partly “by definition” (ie, what the framers intended) & partly by the way the courts & subsequent flow of events caused the founding documents to be interpreted.
RE: GRAVEL’S ‘NATIONAL INITIATIVE’ - GREAT LEGISLATIVE REFORM INITIATIVE
ezeflyer July 28th, 2007 1:45 pm
Meant to respond yesterday - good post and useful link - hope others will read it:
ezeflyer July 26th, 2007 2:20 pm
“Pelosi voted for the farm pork to help Dems running in ag counties. With a public referendum, she wouldn’t have to make unpopular decisions like this one, or decisions favoring Big Money instead of the public. Let the people decide: http://www.vote.org/”
Something’s brewing on the Left…
http://www.recreate68.org/
BeingFrankwithBarney,
Dem koolaid drinkers like yourself were calling me a “defeatist” before the 2006 “election”. Why? Because I said nothing was going to change by putting more Dems in congress. Well, Dem koolaid drinkers didn’t want to hear that or believe that at all. They preferred to live in their wishful thinking world. Well, I was correct because nothing has changed by having more Dems in congress. The Dems are still Bush-Enablers as they have been since 2000. What you call being a “defeatist” is really being a realist and pragmatist. I prefer to look at things realistically and live in reality rather than in a wishful-thinking world like yourself.
I could cite you reams of information of why we are now in a police state (and have been for some time) with police-state tactics being used on citizens, but judging by your comments you still wouldn’t see it because you don’t want to see it (that’s called Denial). So I won’t bother presenting you with any information. Go ahead and continue to drink your useless Dems’ koolaid and believe that they are going to be your “lord and saviour.”
For anyone else interested, did you read this article:
Flag-defiling charge ends in fight, arrests
Sheriff’s Office denies allegation deputy assaulted couple
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770725118
12 Warning Signs of Fascism:
http://www.mvp-seattle.com/pages/pageFascism.htm
So professor Green let me start by saying you are obviously ill-informed of the history of Nihilism if you would use this as an adjective to describe Republicans. But that’s a minor point in what really is a breathtaking article. One has suspend belief and ignore most of the last 50 years to think what you suggest is possible or even worthwhile. Fortunately we have the likes of RichM to explain the situation more clearly so those who come across this piece can see how ludicrous your proposition is. But let’s take this in another direction for a moment professor. Let’s suspend our beliefs and get on board with your program.
You suggest:
“…our best hope of implementing our agenda is to HIJACK the Democratic Party, make it ours, take control of it, kick out the DLC corporate hacks, and start legislating.”
Okay you’re on. What is Step One professor?
I’m assuming you have thought this through rather than simply posting such an article based on abstract fantasies. Really here, what is the first thing that is required of the likes of you and I in our successful hijacking of the Democratic Party?
After you give us some concrete answers on the First Step in this process could you then lay out at least a skeletal framework for what follows?
It’s incumbent upon you to answer these things if you are to be taken seriously.
And for all who may have missed this superb analysis of the Democratic party by RichM titled, “47 Reasons to avoid the Democratic Party”, go here:
http://www.progressiveindependent.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=68191
Professor you may wish to read the above. I await your response to my above questions or perhaps you could pen an article titled, “Concrete Steps To Hijacking The Democratic Party”, or something similar to answer those questions.
In the meantime the “best of the best” of these Dems can’t even fulfill their basic oaths of office.
To Baska in response to this post: >>baska July 28th, 2007 1:35 pm>>
Thanks much.
I could not agree more with your two points. We need to find common ground and offer one another support. And we need to do real political work in our real, (off-line) lives.
My priority is to work in various ways over time to strengthen the Green Party and to create a progressive presence in the Democratic Party at the state level. After the election tragedy of 2004 a couple dozen of us created a progressive caucus in a midwestern “red” state–Kansas. See: http://www.kansasprogressives.org
Whatever we do, we need to do as you suggest Baska. This could be a planning forum. But it isn’t yet. Much of our real work involves working with people and organizations we know–or involves starting new organizations. Thanks.
RE: 3rd PARTIES - TACTICAL vs STRATEGIC REJECTION OF DEMOCRATS AS ONE FRONT OF STRUGGLE
RichM July 28th, 2007 2:03 pm
“don’t see much that I disagree with in your explanation of the rightwards shift.”
It is a question of the conclusions to be drawn from this explanation re seeking to reform or pressure Democratic Party.
The above posted explanation is not dependent on idea of US political system as an instrument of class rule. And, therefore, it does not follow that the political system is merely a ruling class ruse - vs. one contested field of power - nor that a categorical rejection of pressuring Democrats - a multi-front-struggle - must be rejected.
Thought that was clear. Guess not.
abbybwood wrote:
“Excuse me while I go barf.”
And,
“After reading every post after Prof. Green’s article here, I must admit that I feel isolated, impotent, unloved and alienated from this country.”
Don’t we all! (Disenfranchisement is the name of game in today’s world).
However, let’s remember that people all over the world, at our current level of development, are almost exclusively externally-oriented…… Often to the point of obsession and “inner blindness.” Don’t get me wrong here. I do see it as critical that we focus (as in all of the comments here), on making change in the “un-real-real-world” of parties, politics, and human-human (and human-Nature) injustice.
However, in achieving a more just and wisdom-prone society, there are other beneficent kinds of power to draw upon, besides those we can see with our eyes.
Gandhi referred to such a “power” as “Truth-force. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also spoke of it as “Soul-force.”
While these energies can be utilized in evoking and unfolding outer change, our access to them requires an inner, rather than outer movement. A “going within ourselves” first. Genuine meditation: a quieting of the mind and an opening of the compassionate heart, free of “I, Me, and Mine.” Each of us needs to hook up their own personal connection: getting our plug into the electric socket, as it were.
Not for nothing, but it seems to me that in today’s world, which is literally teetering on the edge, we ignore these other dimensions of power at our own risk.
A
RE: BITTER, ISOLATED, IMPOTENT TRIUMPHALISM
erma July 28th, 2007 2:35 pm
“I was correct….I could cite you reams of information of why…but judging by your comments you still wouldn’t see it because you don’t want to see it (that’s called Denial). So I won’t bother presenting you with any information Go ahead and continue to…believe [Democrats] are going to be your ‘lord and saviour.’”
Yea, no one but you and your cellmates know the truth, everyone else is wrong and stupid.
So - continue your bold “action”: bash a strawman and then pull a Vietnam - declare victory and get out.
Cozy in your red ivory tower?
To those of you that say politicians will never pass “clean election” legislation.
Arizona, Maine, City of Portland Oregon and other places already have clean election systems.
Where I am in Washington State, http://www.washclean.org has been lobbying for legislation for several years. The plan is to get a voter initiative passed in 2009 if legislation does not pass the 2008 state legislative session.
These systems can get implemented and can succeed. It is certainly a more realistic path than trying to get someone elected who is fighting the effects of too much corporate money in the hands of their opponent and a media system that works against them. I say put your money and your labor towards efforts that can make VIABLE third parties a reality rather than support third party efforts that are doomed to fail in a system that is stacked against them.
DMG and Chomsky are right. Hold your nose and vote Democrat. Some of the Independent-minded have been sucking on the pipe too long. Yeah, I understand, we all love a common dream.
This has been one hell of a read today, just checked in to see what else was added. My take on all of this is the hired killers will never let anyone close to become our hero. Wellstone is dead, there is a reason for that and it’s been repeated throughout our recent history. The whole empire thing has to end. The country should be broken up. This country is like the lava lamp that kept growing and adding to the point the glob wants it all. Secede States, civil war come what may, better than pursuing world war 3 while we diddle about what to do with the current world threatening situation that will make us sitting ducks. Fuck the elections, get ready, it’s out of your hands. We all saw the Katrina victims, you are on your own. Get your food supply, ammo, be ready.
chlamor said:
“Okay you’re on. What is Step One professor?”
Go to your local DTC meetings, get on your local DTC, participate in candidate selection, help shape the terms of debate, run for local office, run for the state legislature.
Tried and true blue stuff.
Among those other places that have passed clean elections is Connecticut. 100% public financing of all state races, effective 2008. Could never have happened without a lot progressive activists doing all of the above.
I think the “shift to the right” simply represents the shift from a manufacturing/industrial economy to that much vaunted “white collar” or “pink collar” service economy.
The decline of the troublesome and demanding labor unions of course followed … and wage stagnation followed to … and work related benefits declined in turn …
Most of the only unions left are public service jobs — teachers, health care, police …
When labor was organized and had money, they could not be ignored … these days … not so much. Other interests moved in to fill the vacancy.
[I’m still waiting to find a connection between the service workers Justice for Janitors campaign and Lou Dobbs, et al’s hysteria wrt “illegals” … historically, many “american” union movements have had to be imported and were fought and squashed on the basis of “commie” or “anarchist” outside agitators]
RE: POLITICAL SHIFT RIGHT DUE TO INDUSTRIAL TO SERVICE ECONOMY SHIFT?
susan parker July 28th, 2007 4:38 pm
“the ’shift to the right’…represents the shift from a manufacturing/industrial economy to [white/pink collar, service economy]” - w/less bargaining power for wages and political demands, as you write.
That’s basically my view, too.
Worse, despite Justice for Janitors’ heartening successes in certain ethnically solid & politically organized regions, union membership slips - and, with it, not only organizational opposition, but, essentially, the class consciousness that even New Deal Democrat programs depend on.
‘But that’s class warfare!’ is not new - but it becomes a more potent right wing slogan when there are fewer in the electorate accustomed to facing off against capital across a bargaining table.
I think this view is important - because it focuses not just on the power of right, but problems of opposition internal to forces that have historically opposed the right.
abbywood wrote:
“Obviously you[aymon] are angry and I understand your anger. Just want you to know that I have many pictures I’ve clipped from The New York Times of children we’ve had a hand at maiming and killing in foreign lands. I’ve cried my share of tears over these photos. I can guarantee you that even though most of us have been focusing on the “How do we extricate ourselves out of this mess” rather than “looking at the mess we’ve made”, we all are extremely upset with those who are currently in power in this country.
“And there is nothing on Earth any of us will ever be able to do to change any of them!”
Thank you very much, abbywood. I agree with your first para. but not with the second, not because I am naive, which I will demonstrate momentarily that I am not, but I see this frustration of helplessness envelopping many progressives and it is going to drain energy out of you.
I call this the “Wolfowitz” syndrome, and that affects a lot of Western progressives unlike Gandhi, beacuse the later was anchored in a very powerful belief that I as an easterner knows, having felt that myself:
It is:
SATYA VIJAY - - - TRUTH WILL BE VICTORIOUS
The “Wolfowitz” tipping point is that point when a committed trotskyist becomes a commited Neo-Nazi fascist.
Prior to being an extreme fascist, Wolfowitz in his younger days was a Trotskyist and extreme leftist. The western mind is Pavlov trained to seek instant gratifification, instant truth, instant change - - everything here and now. Naot getting that, it then goes into a long period of wishful thinking, and finally having not worked out any strategy that has reason and logic behind it, becomes angry at the organization of the world being immune to change. Finally, some such as Wolfowitz as well as many neo-cons, beieve that the world is scientifically ruthless and one must become a Stalinist rather than a Trotsykist to get anywhere in “real politik”
That said, I will put forward my analysis as to whether or not one can logically hope,given the facts on the ground,
for a truly progressive third party to arrive soon and which can change or even temporarily halt the slide into total and complete fascism.
Let me say at the outset, ANYTHING is always POSSIBLE, but few things are both possible and PROBABLE. Consequently, I am not saying that eventually, in the long run, a genuine third, or even fourth or fifth party will not be possible if America survives the blowback, internal economic and external climatic, that it is heading for on its current Bushco train. That blowback is going to occur for fully SCIENTIFIC reasons that I will not digress into (I have spelled them out in earlier posts) here in the next 10 years. I am asking,
Is that probable in the next 6 months?
The sad but logical truth based on reasoning and not wisful thinking is - - NO.
You do not have the luxury of working over generations to effect the positive changes through a not-yet-ready “third party”. That is a fact on the ground. Also as John Maynard Keynes, the British Liberal economist who got the Western World out of the Great Depression of 1929-33 by providing a solid economic rationale for massive public works to get people working and earning their daily bread, said:
“In the long run we will be all dead.”
That was in response to the influential (among the rich classes) British Imperlialist economists such as “Lord” Lionel Robbins who advocated leaving the “market” alone to work through the singularity by itself over a long run equlibrium.
Keynes was a Cambridge trained mathematicain and logician (Russel and Wittgenstein’s student/colleague), and also fantastic economist. He logically wrestled the capitalist dogma that the “market” is God, down into dust so that it did not rear up its ugly head again until Ronald Reagan.
The purpose of this little digression is that there are many eloquently written posts above in response to Professor Green’s article. Most have far better prose than mine. Many advocate rejection of Professor Green’s thesis out- of- hand as being axiomatically soiled. But good prose does not a logical argument make.
A lot of what has been poured forth is the “long run”, eventually, type of wishful thinking, completely oblivious of the reality on the ground. But that is not reasoning; that is ideological purity of the Trotskyite kind, very commendable as the conscience of a movement, but not practical. It is for that raeson, the practical implementation fell on Lenin, and then Stalin and you all know where the “people’s” revolution went after that.
What do we have on the ground as facts now:
1. A raging war (occupation, whatever) in Iraq that appears to be grinding down the US miltary in an unending conflict, and Bushco in denial about it.
2. A possible larger war on Iran to cover up the defeat in Iraq, and the imposition of Martial Law (next 6 months or so)
3. An economy in shambles
4. A country in recession that may deepen into something much worse.
5. The advance guard of the forces of climate change comes in, striking randomly and causing unexpectedly large relief and restructuring expenditures.
Let us start with these five.
A viable third party candidate must articulate his or her strategy with some fire in his/her belly, some passion to galvanize a dozing, tuned out, dumbed down masses as to how he/she would address these five issues and others. Do we have that in Kuchinik? IMO, no. That does NOT mean I don’t consider him conscientious, inteligent and one of the best progressives with a good vision. But somewhere along the line he will need to beome a Nader or a Dean to catch fire. Kuchinik is too genteel for that. Gravel may be more of a curmedgeon, but he still projects more gusto than Dennis. Dennis must learn from Gravel how to project an “I am in command” attitude.
But from that fact, does it follow logically that one HAS to be inside the Democratic Party and “hijack” it from inside. That is Professor Green’s contention, but at this point his argument is weak on tactic and the possible response of the DLC and its anointed candidates - - Clinton and (now it seems) Edwards. They are hardly going to put their tails between the legs and slink off. So there is a high probability that the highjacker will be highjacked a la Dean in 2004.
The hijacking can only be done with an organized base of at least 20% of the Democratic Base as the army behind the highjacker to be able to demand a seat at the table and dicate conditions for support to the Clintonites. Can that be done in the milieu outlined in Points 1 -5 above?
Scientifically, or more correctly, by realpolitik, NO.
So what is left (pun intended)?
Stealth and less bravado, less chest beating and hysteria on blogs. Stealth and calm will put fear in the apparatchiks of the Dems. Kuchinik must learn to project a style that he is up to something that may bite them in the ass when they are least expecting it.
For that, progressives must start grass roots at town halls, union halls, college campuses and elsewhere. Especially minorities - - don’t make them feel left out by your cultural insularity. Right now the Green pary is mostly white, and many of the Greens have checkeered records on civil rights issues that are of concern to progressives, especially minority progressives. Kuchinik must be seen to be bulding a labour/green/ minority coalition. This constitutes the bedrock of the Dem party, and any fear of losing that will put fear in the minds of a lot of Dem candidates standing up for re-elction.
This can succeed if the Green party’s workers are available to do the canvassing and organizing and the rest of us pitching in with time, money or knowledge. Then one must use the YouTUbe and the Internet to bypass corporate opposition to go directly to the people.
This success may come just in time to prevent Bushco launching a catastrophic war aginst Iran, Syria and Pakistan (and possibly Turkey, and now Saudi Arabia). If the latter happens, then all bets are off.
Aymon
YOU DIMWITS OBVIOUSLY MISINTERPRET (OR DIDN’T READ)THE ARTICLE.
HE AINT ADVOCATING SUPPORTING THE PARTY AS IT CURRENTLY
IS.
ANYONE—-HITLER REINCARNATED, CAN JOIN/RUN IN THE DEMO PARTY…
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED ALL THESE DESIGNER LABELS FOR?
AINT LIKE YOUR DOIN ANYTHING ELSE BUT RANTING YOUR MOUTHS OFF HERE ANYWAY….
AND YOU YAPPERS THAT COMMENT HERE ARE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
HARDLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MAJORITY OF THE PROGRESSIVES AND OR PEOPLE IN GENERAL THAT READ COMMONDREAMS.ORG….
MOST OF YOU ARE LOUD MOUTHED ASSHOLES THAT CAN’T FIND LIVE PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO YOUR BULLSHIT——
INFACT, MOST OF YOU POSTERS DON’T EVEN REALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HUMANITY THE EARTH ETC….
THIS IS ALL JUST A FUCKING IDENTITY FOR YOU… ITS ALL AND ONLY ABOUT YOU
YOU
YOU
YOU
YOU
NARCISSSSSISSSSTICS JERKBAGS.
YOU AINT BETTER THEN ANYBODY ELSE.
Thank you David Michael Green… you stated far more eloquently what I’ve been arguing on this site for weeks… A third party is not going to happen based on how our political system is set up, let alone our history of two parties… A 3rd party candidate will never win the presidency, and if he/she ever did, would face a hostile Congress of the two traditional parties who would both have an interest in bringing him/her down..
The author is right. We have to fight this one out within the party - and I mean a dirty fistfight.. and win.. It’s the only way we can see progressive principles instituted. The only result of voting for a 3rd party candidate on the left is to help vote in Bush-like Republicans. That is what voting for Nader in 2000 did…
And while I have agreed heartily that the Democratic party needs some testicular fortitude, it is NOT the same thing as the Republican party. Those who take this position are letting their anger cloud their judgement.
Let’s hijack the Democratic party and bring it back to a left leaning platform..
Alkalye:
Alcohol much?
Nursery school bottom line: we need to take responsibility and Own the inner conequences of living in society dominated by authoritarian institutions and thought-forms. Our parents and theirs, school teachers, clergy etc etc: hobbled and lost within veil after veil of illusion.
Without inner work and a commitment to clear out our inner Garb-Age, we just continue and pass on our own twistedness. To do otherwise is to lay down and submit to forms of “inner blindness” and self-deception that simply keep the whole sordid game going.
So many of us are awash…
(and some drowning, others at best treading water,gasping for air)
…in emotions of rage, hatred, bitterness, disappointment, despair, horror, and fear.
There is a way to deal with these forms of suffering responsibly — which means, first and foremost —- not spewing and slathering spoiled-rotten peanut butter all over other people. And not vomiting all over them, either.
To paraphrase an old saw, “You want a peaceful world? Find peace within yourself, And create it within every single interaction with every other living being you encounter.”
Hateful words/deeds just add more power to the hatred and ignorance already swirling around our little planet.
What’s it going to be?
I-It
or I-Thou?
It’s not just you, Alkalye.
We all must choose.
Beyond our need to grow up and to grow spiritually: in truthfullness, wisdom, and clarity of mind…
…there is one word which is a bottom-line foundation for solving our world problems.
That word is compassion.
POWER OF LOVE: Right on! So many argue the either/or divide. Either we have a just society and work on tangible external levels, or we focus on finding peace within. BOTH are necessary! Conscious individuals build a conscious, caring society. It’s very difficult for those of us doing this interior work to function in a society that runs against our grain due to its low level “primitivo” ego-based functioning. I’ll finish this point with an odd analogy. When Lauren Bacall was a young Vogue model taking her first Hollywood screentest, she was asked to kiss a leading male actor. (He must have hesitated on delivering his “role”.) In front of everyone, the confident young woman said to the male actor, “It’s a lot better if you help.” That’s pretty much my view of the interaction between a sane society and healthy individuals. Right now, both are struggling, one in near shambles.
I agree that it would be very helpful and interesting if Prof. Green would write an article about “how” to hijack the Democratic Party.
I mean a literal step 1, 2, 3 article.
And thank you to those who responded to my posts. The feedback is really appreciated.
As to ALKALYE….It seems odd to me that you would accuse all of us who have read Prof. Green’s article and made comments as only thinking of ourselves!! It’s BECAUSE we are thinking about the survival of the entire PLANET that we are spending hours and hours trying to communicate and figure out a way forward.
If I were only thinking of myself I would have gone to a movie tonight, had dinner out and a good martini then come home to read a good novel or some other brain candy to amuse myself and have “fun”. Be nice.
thanks Aymon
i enjoyed your last post
ken
The problem with trying to “hijack” the Democratic Party, as you say, is that many of us don’t believe in the core values (e.g. abortion on demand, selifishness, recklessness) of the Democratic Party anymore than we believe in the core values (e.g. war, torture, capital punishment, facism) of the Republican Party. Those of us who think this way believe that many of the people who have traditionally called themselves Democrats are just as foolish and naive as the people who call themselves Republicans.
That’s why a third party is not only needed but, I believe, will in fact eventually be formed. I also think that a true pro-life party (promoting and protecting life from conception through old age while also promoting personal responsibility) will eventually appeal to the majority of Americans, and will one day be the majority party. The Republican Party has become firmly entrenched as the party that stands for facism. And the Democratic Party has become the party that stands for little more than abortion on demand, along with facism. You may be able to cut loose the facism from the Democratic Party, but you’ll never get rid of the selfish, spriritually bereft portion of the party, because it is not the fringe but is actually the core.
QUOTE FROM VAGREEN
As I mentioned in a previous post, many of the ideas adopted by the two major parties were originally advocated by third parties.
END QUOTE
I don’t disagree with you about this fact, and fully recognize the progressive achievements that you cite. Where we differ is not in recognizing that third parties have a role, it’s in recognizing what that role is. Not a single one of the achievements that you cite is the result of a third party getting its candidates elected to office, is it? Those achievements are, as far as I’m aware, the result of steering one of the two dominant parties into changing their positions. If you are suggesting that third parties play a similar role in the future, that’s all well and good. If you are suggesting that it’s possible for a third party to get its members elected to national office in any significant numbers, I think that is a misguided hope. Moreover, the Clinton/Gore/Giuliani hypothetical that Professor Green presents in regards to splitting the vote seems to me quite compelling. In other words (leaving aside the contentious issue of whether this has already happened) the possibility that the progressive vote could be split, thus empowering those with antithetical views, is all too real.
What professor Green appears to be advocating is a more direct route to doing exactly the same things that many third parties want to achieve. While third party activism is a viable political strategy, it is demonstrably not a viable electoral strategy. It seems to me that far too many people conflate the two, serving only to decrease their ability to make much-needed changes.
Alkalye: With all due respect, you are the biggest “loudmouth asshole” I have seen in this whole thread. You are angry that we are angry, which is ridiculous. Why don’t you actually offer your solution? I have yet to hear anyone on this comment section say they are “better than anyone else”.
Furthermore, you are right about Green not advocating on behalf of the party as it is, and there are plenty of comments that point that out. However, many of those people who do think Green’s article made a lot of sense - like myself - have simply come to the conclusion that we fucked in this country beyond the point at which slow, incremental change is viable. Dig? Many of us simply think the god damn thing has to be completely revolutionized in order to once again - if ever it did in the past - actually represent the intentions of the voting public.
By calling us “dimwits”, you do nothing but set yourself aside as a loser, who is hell bent on changing the system from within the system. That’s fine, when the system is still in a mode of operation in which it actually responds to the stimuli put forward by the populace. Alas, our system of voting and electioneering no longer does. Therefore, it would actually be more apt to call you the “dimwit”. Instead though, on behalf of the rest of the “dimwits”, I would like to invite you to consider that perhaps the fastest way to change the system we have - indeed revolutionize it - is to break it down to the ground and rebuild it brother.
I’ve been advocating a rejection the either/or thinking that results in conclusions advocating one side of such false dichotomies such as choosing between third-party strategies and a hijacking of the Democratic Party strategy. The article by DMG is based on that kind of either/or thinking as the title presupposes. Forget one, do the other. But in the comments I’m seeing more and more inclusive both/and thinking, where Baska–July 28th, 2007 3:40 pm– mentions a “multi-front struggle” strategy. Red Harvest suggested that above with many interesting proposed innovations. And a more-recent, perfect example of the kind of inclusive synthesis of strategies and tactics is in the post by Aymon–July 28, 2007 7:06 p.m. Aymon’s post includes what Kucinich and other Democrats need to do (and what we need to urge them to do) AND it includes what the national progressive party needs to do–the Green Party–to achieve progressive goals. Bravo to Aymon. I urge all of us to read that post very carefully. And also Red Harvests of–7-27-07 11:16 p.m. Complaining is easy. Finding solutions is hard. But there are many very good ideas that suggest positive strategies here.
Coopting an existing organization like a parasite, which I think is what is being advised here, often has unintended consequences and can result in the death of the “host.” … and that’s if the effort is successful.
Otherwise, this sounds to me rather like signing up to work “crew” on an oceanliner in the hope of affecting the ship’s course.
At worst, this sounds rather like some sort of “Clean For Gene” do-over.
Most organizations — large and small — in my experience — are cliquish and resist the newbies who attempt to change their course, regardless how brilliant, innovative, yada yada their ideas.
I have voted “third party” many times — never to “spoil”, always to “send a message” — and, yes, I have held my nose several times to vote for the annointed democratic candidate as the “lesser of two evils” though as I get older I find myself less and less willing to do so. I no longer recognize “my” party, and I hardly recognized “my” country..
After seeing the Democratic Party’s lame defense of Florida voting rights in 2000 and it’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell reaction to Ohio in 2004, joining up as “crew” to attempt to redirect this behemoth seems … what? absurd?
The whole world is praying to the Democratic party to deliver us from evil in 2008 … from what I’ve seen, I’m not terribly hopeful.
I think the author and posters who take the position that third party candidates will never directly win elections in significant numbers are probably right. But I also think the entrenched Democratic leadership would respond to an influx of progressive activists by first trying to exploit, twist and usurp this source of energy for their own ends, and where that fails they would work to distract, dispirit, or pacify them, and after that comes ignoring them and taking them for granted, and then marginalizing, ridiculing, and sabotaging those who would like to take the party in a different direction. Fortunately, party influence is not solely a function of winning majorities. It isn’t even solely about running candidates. A third party could serve as a base for like-minded progressives to get together, stake out their positions, and develop strategy–without having to withstand continuous withering assaults from an entrenched oppositional leadership which has stacked the procedural deck in its favor. With unions on the ropes and liberal churches scattered and disinclined to meddle in politics, some place is needed for organizing opposition on the left to counter the inherent power advantage of those disciplined, undemocratic, hierarchical bodies (corporations, military, regressivist churches) which have been able to push US politics so far right. Such an organization could sponsor information and awareness campaigns to influence public opinion and advance specific reforms (IRV and clean elections, for example) and could be a focal point of support for the many progressives who don’t have the time, energy, resources, or demographic basics needed to scramble for positions within the Democratic party, so they can then go on to fight the leadership from within. A lot more people can simply write a check to a like-minded party, and would probably be more inclined do so if they felt they were supporting one which would actually represent, serve and advance their values, rather than one which will take their money and use it against them. And I don’t see any contradiction between building up a third party, and strategically supporting targeted policies or candidates within the Dem. party. I do, however, see advantages to staking out a politically distinct piece of real estate, to make it clear to Democrats that this is a block of voters which can either be helpful allies or damaging enemies, but which cannot be ignored and taken for granted. So why operate as a party and not some advocacy or watchdog group? Because the ability to field candidates which can punish Democrats is the stick needed to be taken seriously. Even if those candidates never win, they can still change the outcomes.
And I while I do think hijacking, or taking back, the Democratic party at some point would be a great thing to do, such a move would undoubtedly require considerable outside organizing and planning 1) to coordinate the power of progressives into a united block so that their efforts aren’t individually dissipated and 2) to have a functioning leadership body ready to take the helm, and I see no reason a third party could not serve as an excellent base for such an effort. (And in a best-case scenario, perhaps an alienated DLC would then take their marbles across the aisle, and coordinate with Lieberman-style Republicans to try to run the show over there–which might at least give the Republican centrists a fighting chance against the fascist/zealots of the far right.)
BeingFrankWithBarney wrote:
What professor Green appears to be advocating is a more direct route to doing exactly the same things that many third parties want to achieve. While third party activism is a viable political strategy, it is demonstrably not a viable electoral strategy. It seems to me that far too many people conflate the two, serving only to decrease their ability to make much-needed changes
The problem is that this direct route isn’t really direct at all. What it actually entails is trying to ‘take back’ an organization with limited obligations to follow its own internal rules and furthermore, is going to be hostile at a lot of different levels to the effort. Even if this initial effort is successful (and so far, it really hasn’t been), its own internal rules would then need to be changed in order to eliminate corporatist influence. Finally, after this is done, this organization would then be expected to honestly take on the problems with disenfranchisement, the antiquated Constitution Red Harvest mentioned earlier, and then attack these problems in an honest and forthright manner as opposed to sabotaging efforts at every step so as to claim that the status quo is utterly immutable.
I think this adds several extra steps and a lot of extra effort to an already difficult process. Instead of trying to change the minds of people whose entire livelihoods (and in some cases, egos) are completely dependent on doing absolutely nothing or abetting the Republican/fascists, they should be bypassed instead.
I’ve tried three leftist third parties in my life — Peace and Freedom, Citizens and Greens — saw them all fail, and am burned out on the concept. In 2004 I watched the Greens refuse to support Nader, because they couldn’t stand the disapproval of their liberal Democrat friends, and make themselves forever irrelevant. Third parties seem to be taken over by little groups of people who only talk to each other and have no sense of reality, of how to have an impact on American politics. Impact is what it’s all about, not “building the party,” which the Greens, in any case, failed to do.
No, a third party probably will never win an election, except possibly in very local races, nor do they seem to have much impact on what happens after the election. Neither does working within the Democratic party, which is a con game. What I would prefer to do is abandon party politics and run candidates as independents in the general election.
Which is essentially what Ross Perot did in 1992, winding up with 19 percent of the popular vote. He probably would have done better if he hadn’t dropped out of the race, then dropped back in, making himself look erratic. (Wikepedia) The main issue he ran on was the skyrocketing national debt. The vote he got forced both major parties to take that issue seriously for some years, and the Clinton administration to do something about it. We could use this as a model.
Lynn Porter
Lisa wrote:
“You may be able to cut loose the facism from the Democratic Party, but you’ll never get rid of the selfish, spriritually bereft portion of the party, because it is not the fringe but is actually the core.”
Depending on who’s viewpoint? Whenever someone tries to tie ’spirituality’ with a political party, I cringe and shudder. Look what mixing religious beliefs with politics has done in places like the middle east, let alone the Republican party who dangerously has embraced as it’s core those who would force us into a theocracy. An evangelical Christian theocracy.
Secularism is the only way for everyone of all faiths to live peacefully together with mutal respect, and all treated equally under the law. It is not Democrats who are kissing the asses of the likes of Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, et al. That Democrats support a more secular society with a strict separation of church and state is a major plus. This way good little liberal Christians and good little evangelicals can live together without one group burning the other at the stake - which is pretty much what always happens when people start wanting to bring their ideas of spirituality to a political party.
To claim that all those who support abortion are spiritually bereft is an opinion. Not a very enlightened one, but only an opinion. You’re welcome to it of course. I suppose gay folks wanting to be treated equally are also selfish and spiritually bereft? Not to mention feminists who refuse to succumb to Christian patriarchy.
Whatever it’s faults, the one thing Democrats have going for them is they have refused to be contaminated with the blight of man-made organized religion. That doesn’t mean they don’t have personal religious beliefs, but it does mean they are sensible enough to learn from history the dangers of mixing those beliefs with religion… it means they uderstand Secularism is a god-inspired gift to save mankind from his human (and utterly fallible) followers…
JMO..
Whatever it’s faults, the one thing Democrats have going for them is they have refused to be contaminated with the blight of man-made organized religion.
If this is true, the Democrats certainly aren’t proud of or advertising it. In fact, personally I don’t think this is that true of the Democrats: it’s more that more of the people that vote for them are secular (overwhelmingly so) because:
1) We have nowhere else to go-unless, of course, we have a third party to represent us.
2) The religious voters that the Democrats would like to get to support them through ‘centrist’ mania are already more often than not convinced that the Democrats are basically Satan’s cousins-not that this really changes the Democrats’ willingness as a party to try and go after them.
As an example, I live in California and am allegedly represented by Dianne Feinstein. When Newdow first brought suit here (not that far away from where I live, actually…) her response in the Senate wasn’t to support him, although risky. It wasn’t even a carefully neutral statement that as a citizen of the US, he was exercising his Constitutional rights just like anyone else. This would have been hardly heroic, but at least understandable..
No, instead, she stood up there and said that she was ashamed that Michael Newdow came from her state. That not only did she disagree with him, but that the concept of an atheist standing up for themselves was a horrid, embarassing thing. The Democrats are no friends to the secular as much as they are forced to deal with it-and if they didn’t think that they had to pay lip service along those lines, they wouldn’t even grant this much.
I do agree with you that religion doesn’t belong in politics-but I do think that the Democrats are ethically bankrupt after years of watching them treat those values that are secular as something to be cheaply traded away in favor of attempting to win one more election, or out of fear of what the Republicans will say about them.
lporter July 29th, 2007 6:00 pm
“In 2004 I watched the Greens refuse to support Nader, because they couldn’t stand the disapproval of their liberal Democrat friends, and make themselves forever irrelevant.”
Many Greens decided to not support Nader because he was not seeking our nomination like he did in 2000, but only wanted our endorsement. This was important to us.
Last year, the Greens ran the strongest statewide campaigns that we ever have. Rich Whitney got 10% of the vote in the Illinois Governor’s race; our Presidential candidate will be on the ballot in 2008 because of his efforts. We are starting off with 20 ballot lines, and will get on the ballot in most states next year.
“What I would prefer to do is abandon party politics and run candidates as independents in the general election.”
I agree with you about Perot’s influence on the major parties, especially in making the balanced budget a top priority. Running as an independent has its advantages in some cases, but an independent Presidential bid is very difficult for non-billionaires. It’s considerably harder to get on the ballot as an independent than as a party in California, Texas, and Florida- three of the biggest four states in the country.
TRACTOR GUY: Elegant argument (and points), also kudos to A QUIET MAN. Good postings!
Thanks everyone for the excellent discussion. It gives me hope.
Some of you might appreciate a piece on the Dissident Voice website which outlines step by step how a Green could mount a serious presidential campaign.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/how-a-green-won/
While I appreciate many of Prof. Green’s points, I agree with others that onus is on him to show in detail how the hijacking of the Democratic Party can realistically be accomplished.
In the absence of this, most of us will continue to be guided by our awareness of the Democratic Party functioning as the graveyard for progressive politics.
Halle is exactly right: how are we to evaluate Prof. Green’s proposal if he won’t tell us HOW he proposes to hijack the Democratic party? It’s not as simple as it sounds. We would have the DNC, DLC and other metaparty organizations to deal with. On the other hand, it’s too late to try to get a third party candidate into the debates, and probably will soon be too late to get a candidate on the ballot in the early states. It may already be too late. But this much I know for sure: I no longer trust EITHER the Democratic or Republican parties, and I certainly don’t trust the Bush regime. What now? A Boston tea party?
DMG,
Look what you’ve gone and done. Opened up a Pandora’s box, you have. Well Done!!
Naturally, what I write next will be null and void if humanity takes the “Armageddon Bypass.” That is, if humanity avails itself of the glorious opportunity immediately before us —- to indulge in a blaze of self-destruction. “We have the technology.” Either that, and/or botching the coming environmental crises so badly that we’re thrown back into a feudal (futile?), or even more primitive existence, eking out our daily bread.
I truly honor the folks who are ready, willing, and able to take a “brass tacks” approach to the questions posed by David’s column. We all have gifts, and goddess knows, this kind of careful, reality-based thinking, strategizing, planning, and organizing at the electoral and party level is sorely needed. (Recent democrats being famous for never encountering a chance at being elected that they couldn’t screw up).
I come at this from a somewhat different angle. To this end I would like to offer a few thoughts from the realm of group development and chaos theory.
It is now pretty much accepted that many human groups are characterized by periods of relative calm punctuated by intervals of chaotic activity. As Bud McClure has said: “ This periodicity is essential for growth and reorganization, for without undergoing periodic upheaval, groups can not evolve.”
We’re talking here about non-incremental, discontinuous change, also known as “second-order change.” Disorder always precedes metamorphosis, and its outcomes can not, with any kind of certainly, be predicted from previous conditions.
In my opinion anyone attempting to play an effective leadership role would need to understand, to some degree, how chaos theory can be applied to the maturation and healthy development of groups, particularly because attempts to exert one-way control or to limit second-order change usually lead to regressive and potentially dangerous solutions.
I believe it behooves us to carefully study the (exponentially increasing) material that speaks to the issue of “paradigm change.” While the phrase has at times been used in a faddish way, when utilized in a serious fashion the term can serve as a conceptual lens, through which we can gain a fresh focus on the unfolding of present day events - and see them with new eyes.
My sense is that we radically underestimate the intensity and discontinuity of the period of change through which we are now passing. If you will, I worry that we progressives, as a whole, have not gotten our minds far enough “out of the box” of business-as-usual thinking.
I’m guessing that there are many “outrageous and unbelievable” things that will be disclosed in the coming years. From this point of view our past cannot possibly predict our future.
Politically, this means, first and foremost, using multiple frames to expand our notions of what this period of time is all about….and, of what is possible. (Fit new paradigm thinking here).
When it began to dawn in the western world that in fact the Earth circled the Sun and not the other way around (the common sense assumption for centuries) —–
—– Or that science, rather than blind faith in church doctrine just made a hell of alot more sense —– whole foundational categories of thought needed to be relinquished.
While I would agree that organizationally we must be prepared for the 2008 election (and have little time to lose), it is also of critical importance that we begin to renovate our thinking. A few people here have mentioned “either/or” vs. “both/and” thought processes. This shift is key.
The whole thing is going to require a huge “Get over yourself” (and your comfy old thought-forms) attitude on each of our parts.
For example: the dusty old either/or of ’secular vs. religious.’ Dichotomizing these, using the same old conceptual frames, simply is not going to cut it. The central issue here is that a massive spiritual awakening is already underway among humanity. However, the multiple meanings of such a proposition will also require much “unpacking.”
For a peek, see the work of Jean Gebser, Edgar Morin, Joanna Macy or Duane Elgin.
Or, for an even wilder roller coaster ride, check out www.disclosureproject.org.
And have fun!
thamks to everyone (except Alkalye) who wrote on this thread and to DMG, writer of wonderful progressive articles at CD, who bithed this thread.
My personal thanks to Ken and Earthian for your positive feedback on my post.
Thanks to abbywod and CRCox for a spirited defence of all of us who honour the fundamental human right to articulate thoughtful positions for discussion and comment by others who are also thougghtful and articulate.
PowerofLove, Siouxrose and I used to post some “out of the box” stuff earlier, but it seemed to many that we were not only “out of the box” but “out of our mind”. so it is risky here to be too much “out of the box”. well, our intuition is vividly captured by Shakespeare:
“There are more things between Heaven and Earth, horatio, then what your philosiophy speaks of”
Nevertheless, your take on Chaos theory laying surprises on “in the box” expectations is sound and that is exactly what is happening to Bushco in Iraq.
A suggestion (warning — this may require some work!): If someone could go through all the posts here and cull out actual, implementable strategy from the posts as to how to get to our goal of a progressive force capable of effecting change, whether it be by “highjacking”, “third party” or a combination of methods and modalities, that would be very useful to progressive candidates such as Cindy, Medea, Rev, Yearwood,Kucinich, Gravel, Nader (whether he runs, advises, or simply articulates it to the Dem masses), Barbara Boxer and others, the in a sense we would have planted the seeds.
The blue in my name is not anything special at the moment, and I don’t know how to get rid of it. Kem Patrick figures it is digital IED that I’ve devised. Any ideas?
Peace
Aymon
Waste of time. I’ll admit I didn’t even read this column, aside from the first few sentences. Why bother?
I used to be a Republican. Last fall I voted Democrat because of Bush. I want my vote back.
“Lesser of two evils” is horsesh*t.
RE: ARGUMENT BY ANALOGY…
susan parker July 29th, 2007 2:12 pm
Coopting an existing organization like a parasite…can result in the death of the ‘host.’….
“this sounds to me rather like signing up to work ‘crew’ on an oceanliner in the hope of affecting the ship’s course.
It’s ‘like’ this, it’s ‘like’ that - argument by analogy, unless supported by greater fact/argument, does not go beyond polemic and pre-existing point of view. For example, I am tempted to respond: ‘No, it is not like signing up as crew on an oceanliner, it is like the crew of Potempkin taking over the battleship.’
The truth probably lies somewhere between the despairing first and the hopeful second…but neither qualifies as an argument.
RE: OFF-TOPIC…NOT OFF-TOPIC: COMPASSION FOR SUFFERERS
aymon July 30th, 2007 7:39 am
“thamks to everyone (except Alkalye)”
Look, I was annoyed at first by that post too - but it took only a sec to realize the guy/gal was distraught to the point of derangement, extremely isolated, and in pain. I didn’t respond…but, jeez, if ever there was someone off their meds, it was him/her…Hope they didn’t hurt themself…
RE: DEMOCRATS, THIRD PARTY, OR BOTH - KEY QUESTION ON COMMONDREAMS
207 posts and counting - as I said at the start of this thread, this is a key question for readers of this site.
Short of a space for the question set aside by the editors - which I think would be good - I hope the thread continues as a point of reference for working out this crucial question as events continue to unfold.
It’s a HUGE mistake, to the point of surrendering our ability to self-govern, to view “the” Democratic Party as one entity, one organization.
There is a local party waiting for you and if you’re not doing anything to shift or set the terms of the debate within that local party, what makes you think you’ll do so for a yet-to-be-invented party?
It’s still going to take eleventy-billion dollars to win national office.
Better get your “we need a fourth party” mantra ready just in case you get your wish…..
I would like all the smart and thoughtful people who have contributed their accumulated wisdom to this article’s commentaries, to get together and form an organization, to which the rest of us would join.
I hope you know who you are (smart and thoughtful people).
There is much more agreement than disagreement amongst you. And central to everyone’s ideas is the idea of electoral reform through constitutional reform. You may disagree on how to get there.
If there is an organization around which we can rally that is already in place, please post it.
“If there is an organization around which we can rally that is already in place, please post it.”
Well the most accessible ones with the most depth of penetration, national with state and local chapters, are called “Democrats” and “Republicans”. They are pretty much everywhere. They both lack sufficient participation from progressive-minded people at the local level. Well, not everywhere, there are pockets of progressivity here and there but for the most part it’s a rubber stamp operation.
baska: I must say that it is truly refreshing to see a commenter openly admit that they have changed their views somewhat as a result of reading another’s views. That is what this whole experiment is about. I myself feel as though I am constantly altering my vision of this country and the world at large, often as a result of reading comment sections on sites like CD.
Thanks for having an open mind. This is truly one of the best, most thought-provoking threads I have ever seen.
yes, there is much valuable experience and perspective to be gained from participating in your local party … and working on a national presidential campaign.
I’m doubtful wrt this being something of a “strategy” or “stealth campaign” to change the Democratic party.
First, there’s the stealth part … better to go in for the learning or lifetime experience than to go in having decided in advance that it needs to be “fixed.” In my experience, that’s a losing proposition. The negative I-know-better attitude is sensed and resented.
Second, there are likely thousands of Americans participating in their local Democratic organization as a “hobby”, some for a campaign cycle, some for decades … not only were they were there first, most of them simply do not share your objections. These people, who are hardly monolithic, have already made their peace with working “from within the system.” They particpate because it’s fun, it’s civic minded, they have made friends, it’s a family tradition, whatever … they may or may not agree with “everything” but, like I said, they’ve largely made their peace.
Third, because we all only have so much time, recognize that participating in the Democratic party will mean tht you are considerably less available for other campaigns. They may miss you more than the Democratic party appreciates you.
As for “changing things,” the democratic party focuses, as I see it, on electing people to office. The degree to which elected officials “drive the train” can be questioned. Certainly it is useful to have democratic elected officials, but it’s use can be frustratingly limited (see the frustrations with our current “majority”). Special interests, groundswell sentiment, the media, and events also drive change. IMHO, educating the public wrt any number of issues is AT LEAST as important as electing people to office.
In contrast, getting people registers and to the polls, time tested and old fashioned as it may seem, in fact is remarkably crucial to making change happen.
In short, I think there are lots of good things to be gained from devoting yourself within the party … but my impression is that “local” doesn’t have much influence on “national.” The 2000 and 2004 losses do not appear to have softened national much. If you decide to “work from within” you are likely going to need to soften sufficiently that you can, in good faith, campaign for Hillary or Edwards or Obama — whatever ticket emerges. Life’s too short to compromise too much or to work on things that are not your passion.
I eagerly await the author and other poster’s action plans.
baska said:
aymon July 30th, 2007 7:39 am
“thamks to everyone (except Alkalye)”
Look, I was annoyed at first by that post too - but it took only a sec to realize the guy/gal was distraught to the point of derangement, extremely isolated, and in pain. I didn’t respond…but, jeez, if ever there was someone off their meds, it was him/her…Hope they didn’t hurt themself…”
THANKS VERY MUCH. YOU ARE RIGHT. I APOLOGIZE TO ALKALYE FOR REDUCING HIS HUMANITY whilst thinking he is a yahoo troll, one among many who visit our site frequently to disrupt progresive discourse.
Also, thanks for that superb counter example to soundbite analogical thinking re: Potemkin vs Titanic. Soundbite (yuck, yuck) analogies to score debating points is a favorite (lawyerly) device of neocons to divert attention and trivialize a major argument in front of gullible masses. I’ll put it in my repertoire of logical responses.
Peace
Aymon
VAGreen:
“Many Greens decided to not support Nader because he was not seeking our nomination like he did in 2000, but only wanted our endorsement. This was important to us.”
Ah but you see, that was not important to us. We wanted a credible peace candidate on the presidential ballot, one who would actually be a threat to the Democrats, and the Greens instead gave us a nonentity placeholder who was no threat at all. So all the Nader voters felt betrayed by the Greens and dropped out of the party. You are simply no use to us anymore, and we will not support you. We cannot trust you. You are more concerned about your party than you are about impact, and you can’t stand the heat from the Democrats.
In Oregon the Greens still had, last time I checked, around 5000 registered voters, but they have no way to organize them. The Greens do put candidates on the ballot, but no one pays them the slightest attention, because they’ve completely lost their credibility. They’re not a threat.
I think there are more Nader voters in the country than there are Greens. When you decided to split from us you lost the only chance you had to be relevant at the national level.
Lynn Porter
The opinions expressed here, hostile to Green’s idea of hijacking the dem party, are well taken. The only way anything changes in this country is if the election process changes in a fundamental way. Yes, we have examples on how to do it in some states: Arizona and Maine have mandated elections based only on public money. That would be key. For all the reasons here described, this is a solution that is never going to happen nationally. The oligarchs have too much at stake. With a strong middle class again, they could become all the richer, but what they will NEVER give up is even a scintilla of power. So there is no political solution open to us on the national level. Revolution? There is one powerful way developed and demonstrated by Gandhi, satyagraha, the act of nonviolent, yet engaged, active resistance to the regime. Absent a charismatic leader like Gandhi, this is essentially off the table in this country as well. Recently, a satyagraha in Serbia displaced the terrible dictator Milosovic; no, the NATO bombing had nothing to do with it. But such action demands a populace that is largely aware of the issues causing their suppression, which in this country, given flat widespread ignorance of relevant issues such as here so well and passionately presented, cannot happen. So only one course of action remains, and that is for states or groups of states to secede from the U.S. and let smaller areas do self governance: the present country and government is too big/cumbersome to be effective in any meaningful way even if the “right” people were to ascend to power. This course will also be opposed by the oligarchs, and so probably cannot be successful, save secession of “unimportant” states like the Dakotas; think the U.S. would ever voluntarily allow California or NY to secede? We are, then, as the Titanic, heading inexorably for a very big fall, occasioned by any one or more of the kinds of maladies and afflictions alluded to in these comments. I quite find it impossible to be anything but pessimistic for the continuation of anything resembling a representative democracy in this country. I am profoundly sorry on behalf of our grandchildren that we have so disastrously f’ed it up for those who might follow us.
A few passing thoughts…
Aymon wrote:
“thanks to abbywod and CRCox for a spirited defence of all of us who honour the fundamental human right to articulate thoughtful positions for discussion and comment by others who are also thoughtful and articulate.
“PowerofLove: Siouxrose and I used to post some “out of the box” stuff earlier, but it seemed to many that we were not only “out of the box” but “out of our mind”. so it is risky here to be too much “out of the box”….”
I thought a bit about the above statement, Aymon.
I think that to the degree that I’m allowing myself to come from a place of love, wisdom, compassion -(different facets of one energy!) - I’m required to simply speak my truth and offer the best that I have at a given moment.
There are a few ramifications to this:
The first is that whenever something shockingly innovative shows up, we humans seem to have a knee-jerk reaction “pooh-poohing” it: in many cases ridiculing radically fresh ideas, and the person(s) proposing them.
It’s just the “reptile” part of our brain reacting to anything outside of its set, instinctive purview. Let’s call it “embracing our inner conservative!”
Imagine all the people who laughed at the idea of an “Auto-Mobile!” You know, the “our horses have always provided us all the transportation we need” response.
Second, (and, without getting grandiose here) if I (or any of us) truly care — about humanity and our other natural brethren — it’s necessary make the effort to wean ourselves off from the felt-need for others’ approval.
P’m also clear that it is my responsibility - if I really hope to be understood - to back stuff up (no matter how wierd it might seem!). That’s why I try to at least indicate where I’ve learned about this or that.
And, I see no reason at all to be extreme or purposely provocative in describing our upcoming challenges as I see them —- even if I believe they will be extreme and extraordinary (which I do).
After all, even though I’m guessing that events between now and approximately 2012 will be blowing our minds (time and again)- in the final analysis it’s all just human stuff. We’ll need to open, nurse our initial shock and denial, be persistent as well as patient, be gentle with ourselves and each other, etc. Countless humans have adapted to big changes. It’s usually either that, or go down the tubes.
Last, but least, IMHO we’re all going to be challenged to grapple with whole new worldviews and to find languages that do them justice. I want to say again, that I believe there is no precedent to the “opportunites for change and growth” -(”Just Peachy! Another Fucking Growth Opportunity!”)- that are rapidly heading our way.
Those of us whose minds remain tightly “wide-shut” will simply be at a huge disadvantage (The Earth is FLAT!!”) and very limited in what they have to offer our world.
What is the saying? “Minds are like parachutes. In the open air (of life) they function best when open!”
From this point of view one can choose to embrace excitement, rather than fear.
How many psychologists does it take to change a light=bulb?
One.
But the light=bulb has to be willing to change. (hardyharhar!)
Cindy Sheehan has suggested an idea for a satyagraha that could drive things the way commenters here would like. Suppose, in response to a ridiculous executive order that claimed the right of the government, for reasons straight out of their butts, to seize property from those “supporting the Iraqi insurgency,” the following satyagraha was run: 1 million progressives create a money order in the amount of $0.01 and send it, via mail, to some chosen person in Iraq, with the annotation, “Help for the Oppressed Iraqis” on it. This after signing over all of their possessions to somebody else. So now a million of these go in, and what does the government do? Put ‘em all in jail? Seize all the assets they don’t have, so that the government, individually, would have to untangle the ownership of each and every one of the millions or else just give it up, and with the media coverage sure to follow, back off the executive order. Now repeat this, through every administration, for every obnoxious policy coming out, whether from dems or reps or from anybody else. This would establish the policy that millions would be willing to directly oppose a policy made by the government if it were sufficiently seen as outside of the public interest. If this were done, it sure as hell would command attention, because it would have the clear chance to mobilize millions to an orchistrated action very quickly, such as: boycott some offending corporation? Or whatever. Anyway, the concept of active nonviolent resistance to a regime has worked. In fact, in some 20 cases in which a democracy has emerged from a dictatorship, in 19 of these, it was the strategy of satyagraha that led to success. It’s worth some careful thought. Read Michael Nagler’s book for more information on this point.
I just did a Google search on “fuck the government” and got 32,500 hits. I’m sure that proves something or other.
lporter July 30th, 2007 6:24 pm
“You are simply no use to us anymore, and we will not support you. We cannot trust you. You are more concerned about your party than you are about impact, and you can’t stand the heat from the Democrats.”
As I mentioned previously, Rich Whitney’s campaign for Governor of Illinois got us more than 10% of the vote in 2006, and we can get our candidates on the ballot until 2010 because of that. The Greens had to collect 25,000 valid signatures in 90 days to get Whitney and our other statewide candidates on the ballot, and to get 5% of the vote to keep the ballot line.
We collected 39,000 signatures. The Democrats made frivolous challenges to our petitions, and spent $800,000 of taxpayer money in the process. In the end, we had more than 27,000 valid signatures!
The Democratic Governor backed out of debates so that he wouldn’t have to face Whitney. In the closing days of the campaign, the REPUBLICAN was telling people not to vote for Whitney because he was a spoiler. That campaign made me proud to be a Green.
BTW, guess who got nearly 10% of the vote in the Maine Governor’s race last year? Pat LaMarche, who was David Cobb’s running mate in 2004. She kept our ballot line in Maine, and could have been in Perot territory if Independent candidate Barbara Merrill wasn’t running.
The Greens are the only national party in the country with a progressive platform. As much as I like Nader, he is only one person, and he can’t build an enduring electoral opposition to the Democrats and Republicans without a party.
There’s so much here that when I go back to read it, I find I missed stuff.
Aymon has a great idea in his posting of July 30, 7:39 am. If someone has the time, please review his suggestion and follow through. (Alas, I own a struggling business and cannot do this myself.)
Thanks for all the wonderful contributions. I agree with baska on the importance of this topic to we CD readers who wish to change the disastrous course of our country.
Something to seriously consider:
Just about every comment that has been written here (all 222 of them!) will essentially be irrelevant, null and void, if one specific event occurs.
I would like to urge anyone interested to read the entire column by Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis. published today right here on CommonDreams and titled:
“Will Bush Cancel The 2008 Election?”
To give us a sense of what he has to say, I’ve taken the liberty to paste a few bits below.
“It is time to think about the ‘unthinkable.’
“The Bush Administration has both the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election.The GOP strategy for another electoral theft in 2008 has taken clear shape, though we must assume there is much more we don’t know.
“But we must also assume that if it appears to Team Bush/Cheney/Rove that the GOP will lose the 2008 election anyway (as it lost in Ohio 2006) we cannot ignore the possibility that they would simply cancel the election. Those who think this crew will quietly walk away from power are simply not paying attention.
“The real question is not how or when they might do it. It’s how, realistically, we can stop them.In Florida 2000, Team Bush had a game plan involving a handful of tactics.
“With Jeb Bush in the governor’s mansion, the GOP used a combination of disenfranchisement, intimidation, faulty ballots, electronic voting fraud, a rigged vote count and an aborted recount, courtesy of the US Supreme Court.
“A compliant Democrat (Al Gore) allowed the coup to be completed.
“In Ohio 2004, the arsenal of dirty tricks exploded. Based in Columbus, we have documented more than a hundred different tactics used to steal the 20 electoral votes that gave Bush a second term. More are still surfacing. As a result of the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit (in which we are plaintiff and attorney) we have now been informed that 56 of the 88 counties in Ohio violated federal law by destroying election records, thus preventing a definitive historical recount.
“As in 2000, a compliant Democrat (John Kerry) allowed the coup to proceed.
“For 2008 we expect the list of vote theft maneuvers to escalate yet again. We are already witnessing a coordinated nationwide drive to destroy voter registration organizations and to disenfranchise millions of minority, poor and young voters.This carefully choreographed campaign is complemented by the widespread use of electronic voting machines.
“As reported by the Government Accountability Office, Princeton University, the Brennan Center, the Carter-Baker Commission, US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and others, these machines can be easily used to flip an election. They were integral to stealing both the 2000 and 2004 elections.
“Efforts to make their source codes transparent, or to require a usable paper trail on a federal level, have thus far failed. A discriminatory Voter ID requirement may also serve as the gateway to a national identification card. Overall, the GOP will have at its command even more weapons of election theft in 2008 than it did in Ohio 2004, which jumped exponentially from Florida 2000. The Rovian GOP is nothing if not tightly organized to do this with ruthless efficiency.
“Expect everything that was used these past two presidential elections to surface again in 2008 in far more states, with far more efficiency, and many new dirty tricks added in.
“But in Ohio 2006, the GOP learned a hard lesson. Its candidate for governor was J. Kenneth Blackwell. The Secretary of State was the essential on-the-ground operative in the theft of Ohio 2004.When he announced for governor, many Ohioans joked that ‘Ken Blackwell will never lose an election where he counts the votes.’But lose he did….along with the GOP candidates for Secretary of State, Attorney-General and US Senate.By our calculations, despite massive grassroots scrutiny, the Republicans stole in excess of 6% of the Ohio vote in 2006. But they still lost.Why?
“Because they were so massively unpopular that even a 6% bump couldn’t save them. Outgoing Governor Bob Taft, who pled guilty to four misdemeanors while in office, left town with a 7% approval rating (that’s not a typo). Blackwell entered the last week of the campaign down 30% in some polls.So while the GOP still had control of the electoral machinery here in 2006, the public tide against them was simply too great to hold back, even through the advanced art and science of modern Rovian election theft.
“In traditional electoral terms, that may also be the case in 2008. Should things proceed as they are now, it’s hard to imagine any Republican candidate going into the election within striking distance. The potential variations are many, but the graffiti on the wall is clear.
“What’s also clear is that this administration has a deep, profound and uncompromised contempt for democracy, for the rule of law, and for the US Constitution. When George W. Bush went on the record (twice) as saying he has nothing against dictatorship, as long as he can be dictator, it was a clear and present policy statement.
“Who really believes this crew will walk quietly away from power?
“They have the motivation, the money and the method for doing away with the electoral process altogether. So why wouldn’t they? The groundwork for dismissal of both the legislative and judicial branch has been carefully laid. The litany is well-known, but worth a very partial listing:
“…The current Attorney-General, Alberto Gonzales, has not backed away from his announcement to Congress that the Constitution does not guarantee habeas corpus. The administration continues to act on the assumption that it can arrest anyone at any time and hold them without notification or trial for as long as it wants. The establishment of the Homeland Security Agency has given it additional hardware to decimate the basic human rights of our citizenry.
“Under the guise of dealing with the “immigration problem,” large concentration camps are under construction around the US….
“All this will be relevant should Team Bush envision a defeat in the 2008 election and decide to call it off. It’s well established that Richard Nixon—mentor to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney—commissioned the Huston Plan, which detailed how to cancel the 1972 election.
“Today we must ask: who would stop this administration from taking dictatorial power in the instance of a “national emergency” such as a terror attack at a nuclear power plant or something similar?”
Do these words send chills up your spine or give you a feeling of nausea? They should. These are things I’d rather not think about.
But to quote the late great psychoanalyist Elvin Semrad: “It is a necessary condition of human health…to be able to think what has to be thought.”
We really need to move into Planetary view of our current predicaments, if we are to grasp the complexity of unfolding events. That is, a perspective which accounts for the radical interdependence of (especially, living) systems. It is no longer a luxury to peer through the lens of General Systems Theory - (such as the “Whole-Systems Theory” articulated by Ken Wilber, Jose Arguelles, Edgar Morin, Lynn Margulis, and Elisabet Sartouris.
Many domains within the scientific community are (in some cases slowly; in others, quickly) coming to the realization that the perspective offered by GST is a necessity if they are to answer today’s pressing questions. And, they see that this new dimension involves changes that are paradigmatic in nature. And, so it must be in political science as well. It will be profoundly necessary to attempt to understand the roots, causes, and consequences of the apparent chaos unique to our time in world history.
If we truly wish to have an impact, progressives need to be Ahead of the (Learning) Curve. Much of the U.S. population is already yearning for “something new that will actually work.” I believe that deep down, whether consciously or not, a great many of us sense the precarious nature of today’s world……that uneasy, queasy feeling of looking over a precipice – and not being at all confident that the ground on which we are standing won’t give way.
It certainly seems possible to successfully triangulate issues – to the chagrin of dyed-in-the-wool conservatives of the neo - ”con” variety. But this would presuppose that progressives have a deeper, more encompassing vision of current events than they now do.
From a General Systems perspective it is not so difficult to come to tentative conclusions re- what the near future will hold. But like the many scientists who are clinging to the security of their old assumptions and views, the question for progressives is whether we are ready and willing to endure the discomfort of expanding our worldview, for example around the issue of “spirituality.” The whole subject begs for deeper inquiry and radical renovation!
But if you leave “God” – (remember it’s only the word “Dog” spelled backwards, so don’t get hung up on it!) to our brethren who are Revulsickens, progressive progress will (probably sooner rather than later) go down the tubes.
I believe that we, each of us, really need to play catch up - and fast. Old perspectives do die hard when it comes to the day to day life we are actually living. But looking historically, it’s not THAT hard to do:….our ancestors have done it many, many times. Didn’t they (most of them) eventually come to accept that the world is round, and gradually give up older notions, no matter how sacred?
Can’t we give a little? Move beyond and let go of, say, one “in the box,” unexamined, thought-habit each day. I’m guessing that there be ‘lot of out-of-the- box happenings heading our way.
Politically speaking, it makes sense to be at least a little prepared for the unprecedented.
We Can teach an old dogs new tricks, right?
And, anyways, we’re not THAT old - (yet)!