After Dem votes on Bankruptcy bill who else is ready for Dean to lead us..

[reprobate]

...in a third party?

I beleive it's now apparent to everyone that there is now only one party in this country: the Corporate party.

I know that Dean is now head of the DNC, but there doesn't seem to be anything that anyone-Dean included-can do to change anything unless and until the corporations are excluded from contributing to campaigns. And this won't happen with the power structure now in DC.

I saw Trippi on tv interview shortly after the election, and he said that Dean would try to change the party from within, and if that failed would start a new party.

Well, it looks like it has failed.

It's now time for a party financed of, by and for the people.

But what do I know?

[caledesi]

1. I trust Dean and where he goes, I will go. nt

[jdj]

2. I personally think we'd do a lot better if the powers that

lead would pay attention to what we are doing and what we are concerned about and follow us.

[Frances]

3. You will get a lot more bang for your buck

if you try to reform the Dem party.

I have been around a long time and no third party has been successful. Ross Perot helped elect Bill Clinton and that was good. Ralph Nader helped elect W and that was bad. But neither the followers of Perot nor the followers of Nader gained one iota of power.

[flaminbats]

4. our party system is a pile of...

:smoke: incumbents only listen when a strong third-party candidate sets the agenda.

[madfloridian]

5. Dean has not failed. He has only gotten started...less than a month.

DFA is staying organized and funded, and we must make sure DNC is funded by the grassroots.

The DLC is just waiting and watching. They put in an article yesterday that Dean would need the corporate funding, that we could not do it.

I agree we will need some corporate donors, but they have been doing it to the exclusion of all else.

As Dean said: $100 dollars from 2 million people is 200 million dollars. I think my math is right. His point is that we CAN fund the party very well if we try and do it in numbers.

[Radical Activist]

6. Dean is part of the establishment

He has no interest in changing it. Isn't that obvious enough by now?

If the Democratic Party is going to change it will happen from the grass-roots up. You shouldn't look to Dean or any other party leader to change it for you from the top.

[imenja]

7. protest the bill with a Call-In on Tuesday

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1653304

[Selatius]

8. There can be no third party in the US...not in its current form

The electoral laws in this country are set up in such a way that it prevents a true multi-party representative democracy from emerging.

Even if that were the case, the second hurdle is private contributions. No corporate oligarchy would ever throw contributions to something like the Green Party or the Socialist Party USA. It'll be a cold day in hell before that happens.

Your only option is the Democratic Party. Change can only happen through the Democratic Party. Where the protesters and progressives of the 1960s failed with campaign finance reform and electoral reform, perhaps we can succeed. Only time will tell though.

It is ironic that the road to making third parties truly viable leads back to the Democratic Party.

[Melynn]

9. I would follow Dean into a third party

Anything is better than what we have.

[Mojorabbit]

10. I did not hear him

do any press conferences to publicly oppose the bankruptcy bill and mobilize the base. Today I have had it with them all. I may feel differently next week.

[madfloridian]

11. He can't set policy. They are not letting him.

He can not go out in public and organize against a bill. His own party would crucify him.

[Mojorabbit]

12. OK

Please educate me. What does he do in his position then? I thought he was the focus point man. I do not know much about the party's inner working and forgive my grammar. I am recovering from the flu and am not to clear.

[madfloridian]

13. Well, it is going to be hard to define.

Ordinarily the chair builds the party finances, works behind the scenes, and as the DLC warned him yesterday...keep his nose to the grindstone (and implied..keep your mouth shut.)

Howard Dean is a different case. He is bringing in a lot of folks to the party, and he a big fundraiser in the grassroots. This is new.

He is actually the guy we all turn to be the leader, since we really don't have one right now...not officially. But he is having to walk on egg shells not to talk issues.

He is being urged to be more active on taking stands, and the party is being pushed to let him. We will have to wait and see. They are so protective of their turf, and we are like annoying little insects to them...they want us to go away. Ain't gonna happen.

[countryjake]

16. I'd like to be a fly on the wall & just hear what sort of pressure...

they might be putting on him. Annoying insects, indeed! We sent all our money in, as did lots of other folks around here, until he was hornswoggled out of the running. I hate to think it, but do you suppose the only reason he got that position was to keep the grassroots from bailing?

[Mojorabbit]

17. Then it seems his talents

are being wasted. Doesn't it? We do need a leader and badly.

[Zhade]

18. That's certainly what collaborators like the DLC are hoping for, I'm sure.

They'd love for Dean to be marginalized - his bottom-up approach to politics threatens their corporate cash.

Fuck the whole lot of them with burning daggers of acid! Or something.

[madfloridian]

19. Whatever you say. Ok?

.

[FlemingsGhost]

14. The moment he signed on as Chair, I lost interest in Dean.

The Democratic Party is not the future of progressive politics.

[northamericancitizen]

15. What would you suggest? nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Being that this is an alleged democracy,we should lead Dean.

Not that I wouldn't support him if he ran Green.

[NYCGirl]

21. It took the Democrats 30 years to get to this point, and the

Republicans 30 years to become the majority in DC. Jesus Christ! Give the man more than 30 days to try and turn it around.

BTW, don't believe everything Trippi says. He doesn't know anything.