For the first time in more than a decade, Democrats seem to have a shot at taking back Congress. But also for the first time in recent history, Congress is on the cusp of switching hands without a voter mandate. How is that possible? Because Democrats are only in the hunt thanks to gross Republican missteps—and they are going out… return to article
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Reader Comments (10)Page 1 of 1 pagesGiven the choice between a Republican and a semi-Republican, people will vote for the real thing. Expecting any significant resistance from the donks to our corporate masters is pointless in the extreem. If twenty years of democrat “Me Too"- ism hasn’t taught you that - it hasn’t taught you anything.
Significant change will happen *outside* the duopoly. Not within it.
Posted by AlanSmithee on Apr 15, 2006 at 11:31 AM I desperately hope that the United States break into full-blown riots when the newly elected “Democratic” government trundles along just like it’s Republican predecessor. People voting for changewill be suckered into voting for the different face of the same enemy.
March on the White House gates, and see if that gets their attention.
Posted by Harrower on Apr 16, 2006 at 4:57 PM “The Democratic Party refuses to take a position wholly different from the Republicans, simply saying the management of the war—rather than the war itself—is the problem.”
The current administration has failed to address the problems of border security, institute measures to identify and deal with chemical, biological or radiological attacks on our civilian population. This creates an unreal perception that the events of 9/11 were a fluke, a one time action by a bunch of now dead kooks.
Moussaui’s comments at his trial and the Iranian threats of thousands of suicide bombers should remind us this is a real war and a genuine threat.
Mismanaged? Yes! But it sounds as though the author is of the opinion, “Call it off and it will go away.” Rather than run for office in denial, they should propose a better way to deal with it.
Imposed democratization is in itself a contradition.
Posted by whattheheck on Apr 17, 2006 at 1:36 PM Sirota is quickly becoming one of the most intelligent voices in a pathetically feeble liberal media. His observations on the Democratic party are sadly accurate. One need only look at Hillary Clinton, our front-runner god help us all, to realize that the party is not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.
Posted by opeluboy on Apr 17, 2006 at 5:13 PM It is well past time for a significant Third Party.
The Democrats sold out their Liberal heritage long ago, but that’s another (OBVIOUS!) issue still denied by most who still support the Dems., rather than taking the necessary pains and yes - sacrifices and risks - to build such a third party. To me, gutless passives have only themselves to blame for the catostrophic results of their passivity. (America: The Fascist Empire.) How much longer will they wait for “others” to do it for them? Will they wait until the world sees its next Hitler rising from the ashes of America’s phantom “freedom”?
I suggest a party modelled after Western Europe’s current tendency of moderate left public policy (what the Dems. USED TO BE - might it be called something like “New Democrats”?).
This lost American ideology has already been called the “Third Way” by some journalists and analysts, though it has seen VERY LITTLE PLAY in the US media. And there is a very good reason for this: it WILL break the (now, ancient!) DemoPublican monopoly.
What is it?
It is the secular humanist, egalitarian model set forth in (ironically) the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is also what the US has never actually achieved, but which many other countries have, to a large extent.
This “news” seems to come as a legitimate shock to “mainstream Americans”, who are still ultra-conservative as compared with today’s Western Europe, and increasingly so, even Latin America.
Though it may be hard to imagine from where we are now - still bogged down by the corporate Empire, and thoroughly addicted to the following drugs: organized religion and brainless consumption of the Empire’s products and moral value system - it IS inevitable. The only question is how long it will take Americans to snap out of their drug-induced trance.
Steven Wanzell,
artist/activist/ex-American
www.wanzellarts.com.ar
Posted by wanzellarts on Apr 19, 2006 at 5:53 PM I’d like to believe that there could be an effective challenge to the DemRep duopoly, but I’ve pretty much given up on that thought. It seems so unlikely as to almost qualify as a fantasy. Years ago I briefly registered as Libertarian as a gesture of helping to erode the duopoly, but eventually went back to the “no party” designation (never been a reg’d Dem nor Rep).
In order for another party to have any real clout at the national level, they have to have broad support at the precinct level in a relatively large number of states. I don’t see that happening at all. Since I’ve been a registered voter, John Anderson, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader (beyond the many little-party candidates) have been floated as candidates who actually had a chance to challenge the Dems and Reps, but of course none of them did much more than split the vote for one of the duopolist parties and to unintendedly help the other Big Party to win. There may have been passionate support in the hearts of some thousands of voters for their chosen Third Party challenger, but little beyond that. Maybe it had to do with the attempt to “go national” without that firm base of interstate neighborhood support.
And really, for as long as gerrymandering fosters re-election of incumbents (or at least incumbent parties) in the legislative branch, there continues to be exceedingly little chance of any party taking on the Big Two in any other than a symbolic manner. Third parties may not be truly locked out, but their already uphill climb is made so much steeper by the practice.
Actually, until voter participation can climb higher than the low- to mid-50s in terms of percent (and that’s for national elections, it’s much lower for elections at the state and local levels), nothing can possibly change much. Let’s face it, Americans are complacent, pre-occupied, and prone to taking for granted the advantages they have enjoyed. Everyone knows it.
Sorry for the doom-and-gloom, but that’s how things look through this particular set of rosy spectacles.
Posted by Kuya on Apr 20, 2006 at 12:47 AM Maybe if a popular movement rooted in discontent with the Dumbos and Asses promoted themselves as an alternative party with a longer time frame for their presidential ambitions, not 2008 or 2012, but perhaps 2016 or 2020, they’d have a chance. But the efforts and sacrifices that Steven W mentions above, in addition to truly relentless use of mass media (and I don’t mean just the blogosphere!) to keep them in the public eye, would have to be endured and withstood. As would the ridicule the Biggies and their adherents would heap upon them. The real work would be in the precincts; the grueling, boring, frustrating, two-step-forward-one-step-backward infiltration of the Biggies’ turf.
It could come true, perhaps. Longshots do play out, occasionally. Well, rarely.
The modern Republican Party got going when a disparate, scattered set of groups had only one issue in common - preventing the spread of slavery into the territories grabbed up during the Polk years. They’ve endured, to understate it.
What could a new party’s candidate cite as a similarly galvanizing issue in today’s America?
I’d take on the job myself, but as a promoter of gay marriage rights, a (patriotic!) detractor of the invasion of Iraq, a non-millionaire, and a guy who must have inhaled a bail of dope in his day, I might end up handicapping the new party just a little bit. Ya think?
Posted by Kuya on Apr 20, 2006 at 1:31 AM “Oh, I’d like to do the right thing, but I can’t because of voting is below 50%.”
“Oh, I’d like to do the right thing, but I can’t because it’s too hard;”
“Oh, I’d like to do the right thing, but my lumbago is acting up.”
“Oh, I’d like to do the right thing, but but but but...”
UP JUMPED JESUS IN A CHARIOT-DRIVEN SIDECAR! WHAT A BUNCH OF SOFT-FINGERED NINNIES!
I you’re sitting around on your fat white ass moaning excuses and waiting for a saviour to come along, then you deserve *exactly* the kind of corrupt, theocratic & homicidal government you get.
But for those who were actually born with a spine, The Committee For a Unified Independent Party a great place to start:
http://www.cuip.org/index.html
Sign Up. Get Active. Do It Now!
Posted by AlanSmithee on Apr 20, 2006 at 5:32 AM (a moment of jest)
HEY! LET’S RENAME THE DEMS (AGAIN)!
I’d like to invite all who read and blog here, to join me in renaming the Dems:
Referendum:
* Shall we rename them?
YES / NO
* If yes, what shall we call them?
THE OTHER-PUBLICANS
THE SLIGHTLY-LESS-PUBLICANS
THE FORMER DEMOCRATS
THE DEMOC-RATS
____________________________ (Pen your own!)Please post your votes for all to see!
Steven Wanzell,
artist/activist/ex-American
www.wanzellarts.com.ar
Posted by wanzellarts on Apr 20, 2006 at 8:29 AM Actually, a viable third party could emerge, but not unless a visble, respected political leader promoted it. Ariel Sharon managed to do it in his very politically fractious country, and within a few short months, that party now runs the country. It takes a leader who knows when his party no longer represents his ideals, and who has the chutzpah to actually say enough is enough. Do the Dems have any such leaders? I think so, but they will need the courage of their convictions and a willingness to lay it all on the line.
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