Will Your State Be the Florida of 2004?

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• Reader Comments (3)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  The author says: if “Greens think you have a fucking prayer in hell of changing shit in that America, yíall need to take some Dexedrine and open them eyes.”

  A good point, but believing that “If you fend off the Republican threat, it buys you slack to move the Democrats in a more progressive direction” is hopelessly unrealistic.

  The problem is that the Dems take for granted the entire progressive community. Their thinking is: ‘fuck ‘em, what are they going to do, vote Republican?’ And they’re right. We’re a solid base for the Dempublicans against the Republicrats. My heart fills with joy.

  So my feeling is that all the supposedly ‘Liberal’ Democrats have abslutely no right to whine about the Greens or Ralph Nader or anybody else that actually tries to change the discourse in this country. I personally disagree that we “generally good people” in the Green Party “have the power to destroy the Democratic Party,” but if we did, would things really change that much? Both Dems and Repubs seem to be enthralled with U.S. military power, both are financed by—and beholden to—corporate muckity-mucks and both have decided that stealth deregulation under the guise of ‘free trade’ is a good thing for Americans. Of course, neither party has much more than contempt for actual working Americans. The differences in the parties, at this point, is that one is a party of corporatism and religious extremism, the other is just corporatist.

  John Kerry has advisors from the Carlyle Group just like GWB. He believes that Israel, by definition, can do no wrong, and that Leftist governments (like Venezuela’s) can, by definition, do no right.

  In the final analysis, there’s not a reason in the world why real Progressives should look to the Dems for change. I agree with the author’s call for “Progressive fusionism.” Let’s start by seeing some evidence that the Dems believe in more inclusion. I don’t hear any Dems arguing for open debates or against restrictive ballot requirements that stifle 3rd party participation. When Kerry or the DLC comes out in support of instant runnoff voting or public campaign financing, then we can start talking about a coalition. At that point, we’ll know that Progressives—and their political agendas—aren’t just taken for granted. The ball’s in ‘y’all’s’ court.

  Posted by voiceofreason on Jun 17, 2004 at 5:59 PM

  Didn’t get past the opening expletives - try a little more respect and dignity and maybe a dialogue may be opened.

  Posted by Eric Myers on Jul 12, 2004 at 3:31 AM

  Sorry Eric, but if you read a bit more carefully, you’d see that the “opening expletives” are direct quotes from the article to which the comment was directed, not my own words.

  Actually reading what someone’s saying carefully enough to make an informed, accurate comment is also a sign of respect and also fosters dialogue.

  Posted by voiceofreason on Jul 12, 2004 at 5:20 PM

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