FDL -- "Political Physics, 2006: A Tale of Three Parties"

[understandinglife]

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Here are the three parties:

DC/K Street Elites: As the name implies, these are the people whose constituencies are the big money lobbies in DC. Those lobbies are mostly big corporations, which include GE and Time Warner. Their media machine includes establishment media outlets like the major networks, all the cable news stations, the major newspapers including the Washington Post, the AP and the New York Times, Clear Channel radio, defense contractors like Haliburton, Northrup Grumman and CACI, and the anti-net neutrality telecoms like Verizon and Comcast.

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Grassroots Theocrats: The Goldwater business Republicans did not really gain national control until they made common cause with the Jerry Falwell theocrats and their contemporary power brokers on the right, like James Dobson and crystal meth closet case Ted Haggard. Their constituents are Christian religious fundamentalists, primarily but not exclusively evangelicals, who believe in a religious government opposed to the traditional interpretation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Grassroots Theocrats vehemently oppose pluralism of any kind, and they maintain their own media arm through Christian right wing radio, televangelists and a huge publishing and Christian music industry. These people are authoritarians largely suffused with racial supremacists, as their movement took wing in the wake of and in reaction to the civil rights movement. Geographically, the base of this party is in the old Confederate South, but it has adherents spread throughout the country.

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Grassroots Progressives: This new, emerging power center in American politics is making its bid for ascendancy as an alternative to the ruling coalition of the previously described two parties. It seeks to forge an alliance of secularists, pro-pluralist religionists, information elites on the Internet, working people and anyone not among the super-rich (including poor and middle class urbanites, suburbanites and small farmers). It also seeks to include privacy advocates and members of the creative class, including creators of music, software and films. It has created its own media arm on the Internet, of which this blog is a part, and it also gets its message out virally through independent films like Iraq for Sale. It supports the traditional, pro-pluralist understanding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and therefore supports things like civil rights and due process. Members of this emerging coalition believe government should be a servant of the needs of innovative businesses and common people neglected or largely disenfranchised by the DC/K Street Elitists and the Theocrats.

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Conclusion: The DC/K Street media machine on cable news, print news and the major networks will frame this election in terms of Democrats and Republicans, but there are really three competing parties in play Tuesday. Everyone expects the DC/K Street Elitists and Grassroots Theocrats to suffer losses, but the real question will be, how many losses? What's more, among the remaining winners, how many will be candidates that can rightly be claimed by the Democratic wing of the DC/K Street Elitists, like Joe Lieberman and Heath Shuler, and how many will be Grassroots Progressives, like Jon Tester and Angie Paccione? How big will the wave in favor of Grassroots Progressives be, and what will this mean for the future of both the Democratic and Republican parties as we currently understand them? These are the real questions in play with this election.

At FDL, we'll be covering Tuesday's results with these questions in mind, even as the establishment media spins the results in favor of its own constituents in the DC/K Street Elitist party.

Link: http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/11/04/political-physics-2006-a-tale-of-three-parties

As almost everyone reading DU knows, "We the People ..." (i.e., Grassroots Progressives) must prevail on 7 Nov 2006

Please read the entire, brilliant monograph by FDL'er Pachacutec, and, PLEASE send this to everyone you know.


Never Forget: George W. Bush willfully violated National Security to cover-up his willful launch of a war of aggression and illegal occupation of Iraq .... and, now he willfully provided nuke-making instructions to terrorists -- if you doubt it, just check 'the google' ...

[readmoreoften]

1. So where does the DLC fall? DC/K street or grassroot progs?

Haha. Okay, that was funny. Anyhoo. I'm just rooting that this isn't just shifting power from one side of K street to the other. With 9 Republicans in Kansas running as Dems, I'm afraid at the end of the way we might just get conned in our own shell game. I think the real revolution's going to happen when we take back the Democratic party and pull it to the center on economic issues and issues of authoritarian government control.

[understandinglife]

2. LOL!

:rofl:

Good one.

I think it's much deeper than which side of "K Street" fattens during the next two years. For starters, way more folk know what "K Street" means, now, than ever before.

I think Howard Dean and John Conyers and Ned Lamont "get" the "blogosphere" in the deepest implications of how connected and flexible and intelligent and engaged a growing number of our fellow progressives are.

We're in the middle of a seismic event in the history of the Republic - a bunch of old institutions are about to get ground to dust.


NOT ONE LINE OF SOFTWARE BETWEEN A VOTER AND A VALID ELECTION.

[readmoreoften]

4. Good god I hope you're right.

But why would they be ground to dust? The power of the vote? Not to be sarcastic, but they're rigging that shit. What I see emerging is the apparatus of a glitzy fascist state run by the Halliburton gang, the PNAC, and Rupert Murdoch (as if they aren't one and the same in many respects.) We have no habeus, no posse comitatus, torture, the real ID, the North American Union, and a new rule that will make people have to get a yea or nay every single time they exit the US.(Not to mention the economy and the Supreme Court--issue let's call it.)

I only have two questions:

1) are the bastards going to keep stealing elections? Even if they don't get away with it (or want to get away with it) this time.
2) if the Dems get into office are they going to fight to repeal the laws that have turned this nation into a police state, or are they going to posture about being "tough on terrorism" by giving us Patriot Act III-- because I hate sequels and Patriot Act I & II sucked bad enough.

If Dems get in and start swinging I'll be pleased as punch. If they get in and do not-a-goddamn thing, I'm going to work to vote the bastards out. This time I'm voting for anything with a D behind its name. And if that doesn't right these wrongs, next time I'll be voting for anything with a strong will and a spine.

[understandinglife]

3. Important.

BE THE BU$H OPPOSITION - 24 x 7 x 365

[DemReadingDU]

5. afternoon kick

interesting!