From Left in Alabama, a lifelong Democrat decides to leave his party:
It isn’t the repeated offenses of the Democrats, or the examples proving it is just as much a corporate party as the other, because like you, I knew that. What got me was the history of progressive movements. Time after time, when progressives have allowed themselves to be folded in, they lost their battles. The only times they won any major ground—Civil Rights, for instance—were because of intense independent grassroots pressure. I didn’t want to believe that and tried to find an exception the author forgot. I couldn’t. Can you?
Being scientifically minded, I just can’t ignore empirical evidence. You should read the book—it is like watching Lucy pull the football away from Charlie Brown way too many times.
We can’t do the significant things we need to do by working within the two party system. If we want big deal changes like real healthcare reform, not just rolling off the cliff instead of being thrown off, we need to take this seriously. By staying under the big Democratic tent, we give those elected an easy out—they know we are terrified of the openly vicious alternative and will generally forgive them by blaming their failures on the other party, so our vote is in the bag. This means they only have to please their corporate masters.
I saw this in action just last week, when a Democrat friend of mine heard me say some true but unpleasant things about the ACA. She said she agreed, but that we should be careful NOT to report any of those things until after November 6, because it would give ammunition to the other side. Think hard. If you have to lie to others or yourself to support a party, there’s a problem.
One way a third party can influence policy is by threatening or throwing elections in swing states—that could get us some important things and possibly even a change as significant as single payer health insurance. But only if we don’t wuss out and throw darts at Ralph Nader for doing the right thing. Another way would be if folks stuck with it and didn’t go back to the Democrats every time a small point was won, allowing the US to gradually build a true third party free of corporate control. The time to start is now. If we wait until it looks like an independent party can do something substantial, we will never start. That’s an idealist point of view, I know, but it isn’t impossible. All other developed democratic countries have some form of Labor party except us.
To succeed, we have to focus on one central objective—attaining responsive representation in government, so big money can’t rule the day. Without that, it doesn’t really matter about the rest, because once we’ve fully lost the power of our votes, we will have only as much civil liberty as suits the most powerful big money interests. We have to keep our focus on representation, the same way meditators deal with distractions. If we get stronger, the efforts to distract us will intensify—be ready for it. They’ll wave gay marriage at us, reproductive rights, maybe even changes in drug policy—don’t bite unless it comes attached to democracy.
Some folks, like Morris Berman, believe it is already too late and no road forward is possible for the United States. If he is right, my Dem friends are probably doing the best thing. Either one should expatriate, as Berman did, or one should at least hang with the party who won’t rape us with ultrasound probes. It is not unreasonable, if one must go off the cliff, to choose being rolled over being thrown.
If it is NOT too late, there is only one real choice for progressives. We must refuse to serve as arm candy that makes the Democratic party look safe. We must stop letting Lucy hold the football. We must stay out, and we must do our best to gather a coalition of others who will challenge the powers that be.
Yeah right, let’s all join the the politically impotent Greens and let the zealots on the Right turn the nation into a totally neo-nazi regime while we, the “new provacatuers”(sp) be sent off to the “death camps” that the neo-conservatives speak about so often.
They ain’t just talking that shit for their health, or for ours (or, the lack thereof). Be very careful about “wasting” your vote at this juncture; nothing against the Greens per se, but we need a REAL Constitutional Convention to legitimize a 3rd party—as well as an educated electorate—-before we run off on raw emotion and disgust against the r’s and dems.
The New Revolution won’t be televised and will take at least 2/3 more decades to become a reality! The corporate propogandist posing as our ‘mainstream media’ and have no reason whatsoever to veer away from the moneyed interest that support them. Therefore, the uninformed population—-poor, uneducated, afraid, and frustrated will follow anyone down the ‘yellow brick road’ if they believe they can, at least, have a chicken on the table to feed the family. It’s a disgusting reality that will take 20/30 years to overcome. Thank God I won’t have to be here to witness the slaughter.
Your paranoid rant about where the country is headed is in no wise an endorsement of the Democrats as an opposition party. The Patriot Act, the Defense Authorization Act and the Obama Doctrine of assassination all have Democratic fingerprints. The impotence of the Green Party is a product of whiny rejection of the spoiler role. Nonetheless, they are a viable alternative because a vote for one of their candidates is a vote that the Democrats know is a cancer on the base resulting from their triangulation ever rightward. The Democrats have forfeited my vote. So like the author, Green it shall be.
The reason the Civil Right movement succeeded as well as it did was because it DID NOT DO POLITICS. It stayed on its own course, raised its own support and made decisions to take direct action against its enemies without waiting for the politicians and their support.
They upset the Kennedy brothers and Lyndon Johnson by continuing the Freedom Rides, doing the march on Washington and bringing the Freedom Democratic party from Mississippi to the 1964 convention, upsetting the political strategy the Democrats were working through. They knew the Democrats were their friends only as long as they had people power on the ground.
The Occupy people had the right idea, but not quite enough force, and not enough press to overcome the DFH image problem. I am a pacifist, but I say they needed to be more bloody minded under the police attacks as Gandhi was under the lathi attacks.
There’s is no danger that Obama will not be re-elected. He is the chosen candidate of the money power. My vote for him is useless since I live in a winner take all state and he will lose big time here. My vote for Nader did nothing back in 2000 either for the same reason. This person’s vote for a Green in Alabama means nothing either.
If the Green Party is a “viable alternative” than the moon is made of green cheese. IMHO anyone who does not vote for EVERY Democrat on the ticket in this election is just being a petulant, whiny rejectionist. If you are really interested in prying the 1%’s grip from your throat vote for EVERY Democrat. The destruction of the Republican Party is mandatory for your freedom.