My favorite description of the Democratic
Party is Woody Allen's restaurant; you know the one, “such bad food and such
small portions”.
The American political system is corrupt and both
political parties are part of the problem and in my opinion only a massive
citizen’s movement similar to the Civil Rights struggle could ever change it.
To expect the system to reform itself, is like looking
for true love in a brothel or as the Spanish say, “you don’t go to an elm tree
to pick pears”.
Still there are some significant differences that
justify a tactical vote for the Democrats.
The first one is that the Democrats have no interest
in keeping black people from voting. For me this by itself would justify voting
Democratic.
Next; Democrats do not favor deregulated campaign
financing, for the simple reason that there are more crazy Republican
billionaires than crazy Democratic billionaires.
So, please, all those who four years ago thought they were voting for Mahatma Gandhi and have discovered that they elected a moderate
1970s style moderate Republican, please stop pouting and keep Ayn Randian, Tea
Party crazed, new-breed Republicans, Willard and Ryan out of the White House. DS
11 comments:
Thank YOU for reducing Baracquiescence to its lowest Obamanable NOMINATOR!
Obama versus Romney:
Obama is a smooth, cynical sociopath who has stolen my constitutional protections, a servile toady to investment bankers and corporate interests, who has perpetrated war crimes daily overseas, ostensibly in my name. Romney is, if possible, a worse abomination. A vote for either is a vote for the cult of death and perpetual decline.
Your response is uncharacteristically un-Seatonish. There's no "there" there, David.
The Dem party doesn't restrict black voting. This is true. They also take it for granted so they can ignore that constituency in every possible way in governance and in policy because the Dems will get their vote anyway. This is better….er….how? It's a bit like giving someone the choice of how they'd like to be killed: will that be one bullet or three, Sir?
The Dems oppose de-regulation in the same way they oppose the gun lobby: by paying lip-service and then doing nothing about it.
You've been co-opted, David. It may hurt to confront it, but you have. There's no effective difference in either foreign policy or domestic under Obama. I never saw the sumbitch as Gandhi. I just thought he was better than Bush.
He wasn't.
Tell you what: you vote for him. I won't.
…..A further thought: have we all become so frightened of the semiotic Republican that we're losing all sense of sound strategy?
Wouldn't it be better to put the party in utter disarray so that it can be rebuilt to take best advantage of the seismic demographic shift that's upon us?
Vizsla, I think you may be missing one clue: when the republicans say they want to abolish the social safety net for all, believe them. Twenty years ago, no, I didn't believe them. Today, the teapartyrepublicans are just ignorant enough and crazy enough to believe that's what should be done. Even Medicare and Social Security will be gone within a couple of years with a TPrepublican sweep of all three houses. If you can, go back and look at the industrial photos from the 1880's -- that's where those Ayn Randians want to take us. Of course, they all think they will not be affected, but as soon as their useful idiocy is no longer needed, they will be dumped on the refuse pile.
Cactus
I agree with Vizsla and want to add a point.
The Democrats have morphed with the Republicans to become the Republicrats. They are basically one and the same.
As Henry Adams wrote, glowingly of our government back in the 1890s:
We have a single system, and in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariate is to be bought and sold, the bread and the circuses.
In as much as the Democrats wrap their insidiousness in populist rhetoric I find them even worse than the GOP, where it is all too clear who their masters are. The Democrats have the same masters but try to hide this from their constituents, relying on the hope or fear of their supporters to buoy them.
It used to be that people thought that voting for a third party candidate was throwing their vote away, but to me, that would be voting for a Democrat knowing that, in the end, we are still going to get a Republicrat. And being ok with that.
I would rather the Democratic Party collapse and be replaced with a party that will actually represents us in the way we hope to be represented. Or give my vote to a third party. But if the Democrats can be the 'lesser of two evils' and stil get our votes, we ensure that we will never achieve the real representation that we desire.
I enjoy how you approach to politics, your creative way with ideas, David. Yet I find it stunning people still have such faith in the right-left paradigm. I don't vote, don't give either a mandate, but then I haven't lived in the States for over a decade and haven't been back for many, many years. Its no longer a country I recognise, completely polarised, lacking any solidarity of any kind, but then, that's kinda the whole point, innit?
Gore Vidal was prescient for 7 decades, documenting everything, from Truman's creation of the nation state on ward and long before. He studied our country, its infrastructure through history, philosophy with less emphasis on the political side, knowing well its a mug's game. He had perspective. He understood history, our history.
I recently read an interview he had with Larry Kramer, the great LGBT activist. Larry kept berating him throughout for not focusing his powerful intellect on his activism. Gore, believing our sexuality exists on a sliding scale, again, understanding history, said, at the end, "When someone stops you on the street, they ask you about being gay, when someone stops me, they ask about the Constitution" I paraphrase, but well, we no longer breed that kind.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here, but I'll keep on checking in from time to time.
I don't have any "faith"... To me politics of a stable system like the USA is like cleaning the bathroom or checking the refrigerator to see if you need to buy more yogurt. I think the Democrats are a bit more sensitive to the demographic blocks I sympathize with than the Republicans... Check my latest post to see why the GOP is so crazy.
David -
Are they really more sensitive or are they just claiming to be while doing everything that the GOP does on all of the *most* important issues?
I am, socially, very very far to the left (or very very far to the right - it is hard to tell anymore). I care deeply about issues of race and equality and am active in that arena. Nominally, the democrats are better. Nominally.
However, these issues, while very important are still not the *most* important and pressing - and destructive - issues facing us. At least not right now.
On issues of war, the erosion of the rights of the people to be safe from the government itself, and the corporatocracy, do you really believe that the Democrats have been any better at all than the GOP? Is killing you with a gun vs poison the choice we should have?
They keep us focused on the secondary issues so that we do not place a collective eye on the real ones. This system is propagated by BOTH parties for the betterment of those who own BOTH parties - the monied classes.
Until we, as a society, say 'we are on to you fuckers, you are done' we are guaranteed to continue our long, but accelerating, slide into serfdom.
I agree that the Democrats are only nominally better than the Republicans but that is enough to get the tactical vote of the left in this election. The Romney presidency would gut what little is left of FDR and LBJ's legacy.
If you read my stuff you'll know that I believe that only activism of the Civil Rights Movement will ever really change the issues that you and I care about t. IMHO third parties at this point are premature to the point of acute onanism.
I don't agree with the both-parties-are-the-same-meme, but one of the reasons conservatives wield such power in the GOP is that when they don't like the candidate they stay home. Just saying.
I generally agree with your post in other respects. However, there is no longer much space between the Democrats and the Republicans in regard to campaign finance reform. When it became apparent to Obama that he could benefit by rejecting matching funds and bundling his way to victory, he took down the reform language on his website and never looked back. It was another knife in the back of the cause. You reap what you sow, etc. No doubt he wasn't expecting Citzens United, but surprise surprise....
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