( – promoted by buhdydharma )
How many times over the last 9 years have we had these moments?
They’re exactly the same, every time, whether they’re about the destruction of Habeus Corpus, funding the wars, whatever. Seriously, you could just plug in a different issue each time, the response is always the same. “Congress sold us out! Harry Reid needs to lose his seat! I can’t believe Pelosi did that! Obama lied!”
Every time the Dems sell us out and we scream and yell and say “they lost me”.
And what do we do about it?
Anybody start any new parties yet?
No? Why not?
The two parties we have don’t represent us. They’re two reflections of the same ruling “real” party.
If we want some actual representation, we have to provide it ourselves.
New parties. New people. New everything.
Americans think they can just delegate everything. They think they can “consume” politics the same way they “consume” other corporate products.
“Well, I buy Budweiser. Therefore I am served by Budweiser. I vote with my pocketbook for Budweiser, and that’s what I get, because that’s what I like.”
Doesn’t work that way in politics. You have to get out there and create shit. You can’t order your political house out of the Sears catalog any more. You have to start from scratch, find the plot of land, cut down the trees, chop up the boards, forge our own nails, whatever.
Nothing will change until we completely ABANDON the existing political parties. I mean ABANDON them. Take yourself off their e-mail lists, quit sending them money, quit VOTING for them, any of them! Ignore them the way you would ignore an ex-spouse who keeps trying to call you. Change our number, move, go unlisted, change your name.
To keep thinking that somehow the Democratic Party will somehow, for some REASON, in the future START representing you is a fallacy. It’s like being married to Tiger Woods. Only we can’t even demand a rewritten prenup!
I’m not saying what this blog should do. But somebody, somewhere, needs to start building a new party that actually represents people.
“Oh, that’ll take too long!” people shout as they throw up their arms.
Well, how long is the alternative taking? How long is it going to take to “reform” the Democratic Party? How’s infinity sound? I’ve been watching this since my first election in 1980 and I have only watched the Democratic Party go seriously right-wards, and I have watched as the corporations have utterly taken over the American political system. Right now there is NO party that actually represents anything but corporate interests. None.
We’re back where the founding fathers were, with “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”.
The only way to reject that, at this point, is to completely reject the American political system.
And start a new one.
We actually have a Constitutional right to do this.
As do we a Constitutional right to free assembly (which has been taken away by these fucks) and several others that we need to exercise NOW.
I say we need a party that represents Common Sense for the Common Good.
That’s what I want to see. The Common Sense party.
It’s time we served the Democratic Party with divorce papers.
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How many times do we let them give us black eyes, only to stay with them?
I’m in. We don’t have a legitimate government imo. Haven’t for quite a few years now. They only have power if we give it to them. I wonder if we ignor them they will go away. Just erase them our minds and poof…! Yours truly, Alice N. Wunderland.
I always hated that.
It’s time, according to the historical cycle of the meta structure of American mythos.
We are building the Working Families Party. It is grassroots and infiltrating the Democratic party pushing progressive candidate. They pulled many candidates into office in the last election here in NYC. They are also are greenroots.
Now there’s a set of ideas we can work from.
http://www.progressiveparty.org
http://www.waprogparty.org
http://www.workingfamiliespart…
Why not go with existing third parties that have already gotten results? I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t start a new one from scratch if you absolutely feel it’s necessary, but it does make things easier if you can build on an existing foundation.
… because the system is programmed to make it happen, and each time we scream, because we are the ones who do not like that aspect of the system programming, and each time someone has the bright idea, “let’s divorce the Democratic party”, but the system is also programmed to make that futile.
Participating in major party primaries is not a movement, its a strategy.
Forming a new third party is not a movement, its a strategy.
Joining an existing third party is not a movement, its a strategy.
Merging existing third parties is not a movement, its a strategy.
The core problem is not in the predicate of the sentence, its in the subject. In the “let’s primary the bastards”, “lets teach the bastards by forming the X party”, “lets teach the bastards by joining the Y party” – the predicates can be ceaselessly swapped from now until kingdom come, and until the core problem is addressed, there will be no progress.
The problem is the subject. “Let’s”. “Let us”. There is no “us”, as a coherent political force, for “us” to adopt any given strategy. Until an “us” is created, the discussion of forming a third party, or primarying the bastards, or joining an existing third party, or whatever, is discussion about how to set the sails in our sailboat when in reality we are dog paddling in the creek without even a canoe.
From what keeps happening (see post above), its clear which creek we are dog paddling in without a canoe, and while its more pleasant to discuss how we would run things if we were to be in possession of a nice trim little sailboat, than to focus on our unpleasant reality – we have not yet built any boat at all, not even a raft.
We’ve got examples in the past of how people in similar situations who did, in fact, succeed in equipping themselves with a boat managed to do it. They built a coalition, going through the hard work of not flying off at the handle at each short term set-back but working through what it is that each participant needed to make sticking with the coalition worth more than trying to go it alone.
Some members of a nascent coalition seem conscious of the need to hang together if we are not going to each hang separately, but in a core tripod of a Freedom-Blue-Green coalition, most of the hard work of coalition building seems to have been done on the Blue-Green side, and at least in my narrow field of view, it seems that many of the potential members of the Freedom leg seem to be mostly trapped in single issue advocacy, go it alone 80’s style politics.
gained influence over the West Coast – and New England/N.Y. – with a couple of Great Lake States thrown in?
Here’s a thought experiment for bloggers———
Would the Abolitionists have had more impact if they had the internet to organize? Would the Underground Railroad have worked better? Would the early unions have been more effective? Would voting rights for women have arrived earlier? Could wars have been avoided if people talked to each other via a common language over the internet, sort of like an end run around the MIC?
So what happened with Healthcare reform from a liberal bloggers perspective? Actually, I think it was a very good experiment. But do the Democratic and Republican parties really need or want the internet except for money? They’re never going to show their hand anyhow.
An issues oriented site would be better than a party oriented site IMO. It would be more constructive.
And after all, political parties have evolved in this country from great issues of national importance, not from popularity contests.
As far as Naranja is concerned, it seems like the baby has been stolen in the hospital nursery a few days after the mother (in this case father) gave birth. Sad Indeed.
Is it not possible that a concerted boycott of mainstream corporate by a significant minority of Americans could be more powerful than a new party?
Let’s say 15% of voting Americans cancel cable, stop shopping at big box stores and start supporting local business. Let’s also say that 15% of voting Americans refuse to vote for a corporate sponsored politician. Let’s say that these actions are bound together.
What would be the end result?
Would it be a defacto 3rd party? Wouldn’t it be the Common Sense party?
current situation is dire. As James Hansen wrote in the current Newsweek about climate change: “Obama doesn’t get it!” Or, like most hack politicos, he just doesn’t care beyond his current political fortunes. Given the urgency of all our issues, we need to confront the establishment from the top, we need a viable and exciting indpendent candidate for President to step forward and take on Obama and the “rats” head-on, win, lose, or draw!