The "Two Party System" Is Dead- R.I.P.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

We must be clear about the following bitter realities:

...

10. So, if the Democrats will NOT filibuster to block occupation funding, if their leading candidates all agree to keep U.S. troops in Iraq; if Bush will write signing statements diverting (actually, misappropriating) funds from other War Department budget areas to keep his Iraq & Afghan occupations going; if most Democrats will continue voting for bloated, Cold War-level War Budgets regardless of our real security and domestic needs; if Democrats and Republicans will not stand up for what is left of our Constitution and Bill of Rights as Cheney/Bush grab more and more executive power; if the "fix" is in so that Democrats will never impeach Cheney/Bush, where does all this leave us?

It's about time we cleared our eyes of the fog of an alleged "two party system"

and truly, deep in our bones, realized that, when it comes to war-funding and foreign policy,

the U.S. has only one War Party, with two branches

(to paraphrase Gore Vidal). It's true that most Democrats are somewhat more "liberal" than most Republicans when it comes to "domestic" issues such as women's reproductive choice, separation of church and state, affirmative action, teaching evolution, helping the poor and homeless, health care, funding education, improving our infrastructure, and caring for the environment. These differences are significant and should not be minimized.

BUT, when "national security" and foreign policy (in reality, expansion and maintenance of U.S. global hegemony and empire) are the issues, and when the Democrats' record since 1947 is examined, there has always been little significant difference between them and Republicans, which is what President Eisenhower warned us about just before he left office.

....

Right now,

we DO NOT have a government of, by, and for the people of the United States. We have a government of, by, and for war criminals, by their enablers in the Congress, and by the corporate media which profits from the status quo. And it will continue this way, as long as the current bipartisan power structure, the Corporate-Military-Congressional-Media Complex (CMCM), continues.

...

As 2007 ends and Election Year 2008 begins, let's keep these bitter, sobering, but ultimately liberating realizations uppermost and begin to act on them.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18856.htm

[LoZoccolo]

1. The Big Green Lie is dead. n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

3. What about "We The People"

Do We still count?

Betrayal seems to be The State of The Nation.

It seems ideologues and lobbyists have trumped honor and diginity.

What now?

[LoZoccolo]

4. So do you personally think Pelosi should filibuster occupation funding? n/t

[Orwellian_Ghost]

5. Avoidance

As one who is firmly in the reality-based community I adhere to the obvious.

As for the "occupation funding" if one perpetuates an illegal occupation one is complicit in crimes.

How to get the US troops out of Iraq has been spelled out in many quarters.

At least you use the proper term, "occupation."

What "We the People" are faced with is duplicity at all levels of Government. It's painfully obvious.

[LoZoccolo]

6. Answer the question or you are complicit! n/t

[bonito]

10. Hey, check out this site

let me know what you think about it!
http://www.citizen.org/

[LoZoccolo]

18. That's cool.

Too bad it doesn't absolve it's founder of later goofiness!

[laconicsax]

12. Civics lesson:

Pelosi can't filibuster. Filibusters can only take place in the Senate.

[tom_paine]

21. LOL! Another person who can't pass an 8th Grade Civics test

Is it any wonder the Bushies took our freedom and the very soul of our nation as easily as taking candy from babies?

We can't even pass a fucking 8th Grade Civics exam, most of us (and whatever the minority is here at DU, flip that around, double the margin and that's the vast majority of we Imperial Subjects of Amerika who couldn't pass an 8th Grade Civics test to save their lives (maybe if it was multiple choice..process of elimination and all that, but fill in the blanks...NEVER) and we're expected to participate and defend our democratic-republic.

How can we fight for what we don't understsand? How can we fix problems of mechanism we don't understand?

I have seen this a hundred, a thousand times over, since I have been "Paul Revereing" to everyone within earshot these last seven years), and it may be the scariest thing at all.

Before most Amerikans can begin to understand what the Bushies have done, they must first be able to understand what freedom is (no, not the freeom to choose between a myriad of pretty cellphones or Cable Infoganda channels) and how the System of checks and Balances is supposed to properly function.

Trsut me, before you even get to that part, it is mostlikely that the ADD person (we are ALL ADD person nowadays) will have tuned you out, eyes glazing over.

NOTE to those with the handy "you think you're better than me" response that this thread will invariably garner: I think I am better than no one. I have a field of expertise and inetnsive study, in other areas I am ignorant or dumb, like just about every other human being that ever lived.

OK? So be mad at me if you wish, but SPARE ME the bullshit non sequitur "So you think your better than me?" smears.

[warren pease]

14. She doesn't have to fillibuster...

All she has to do is refuse to allow any appropriations bill to come to the floor. She can tell BushCo to stuff its funding demands and use the money they're paying Blackwater to evacuate the troops, then use her bully pulpit (assuming there's one left after a year of disuse) to blame any further troop deaths and injuries directly on The Commander Guy.

We know she's good at killing bills by ignoring them because that's exactly what she's been doing with H Res 333 since April of this year when Kucinich first introduced it and she sent it off to die in committee. Same result this October, only she had Hoyer do the dirty work for her.

But she has no trouble shepherding an unending list of bills naming new post office facilities after unknown dead guys, demonstrating that her extraordinary talent for the trivial is only matched by her inability to deal with anything of even modest importance.

So yeah, she can stay up all night and talk to herself for all I care. Or she can take the easy, traditional route when dealing with rogue administrations and just keep their garbage bottled up in committee until they (the rogue administration) learn who's boss.

Of course, the idea of Pelosi asserting herself as the boss is so ludicrous that maybe she SHOULD stay up all night talking to herself because it's probably what she does best.


wp

[Blashyrkh]

2. This is how all two party systems work. It means they can never lose.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

9. That's exactly what it means...

...I like to hold out hope that it's not yet out of the realm of possibility that progressives could do to the Dem party what extremist Neocons did to the GOP -- take it over. But an honest electoral system needs to be in place for this kind of "working within the system" revolution to prevail, and there's pretty good evidence that we haven't had across the board honest elections since the turn of the century.

MSM, left media gatekeepers, and Dem leadership ALL have little or nothing to say on the topic of stolen/rigged elections and the insurmountable obstacle it represents if not remedied. It's one of several giant yellow and purple polka dotted elephants standing in the room being dutifully ignored by those who would have us believe they represent our interests.

We're being led to slaughter by our own chosen, and/or illegitimately installed, shepherds.

[lvx35]

7. Here's *how* to act on them:

First, repeat after me. THERE IS NO THIRD PARTY SOLUTION. It will always be the same so long as we are looking for somebody else to solve these problems FOR US.

Second, this means taking responsibility ourselves for more and more in our lives. The wingers have turned the phrase "personality responsibility" into a euphimism for "Go fuck yourself poor person", but we need to take it back, we need to use it. We need to become responsible not just for defending our own freedoms and empowering ourselves, but for helping others. This will make us stronger.

Third, we need to be creative in our will to change from the status quo. We need to see how old and banal this game is and be willing to have fun throwing monkey wrenches into it. More than anything we need to build, we need to live the better system of politics and live the changes we want to see in the world.

These are my thoughts on it. Great post!

[LibertyorDeath]

8. It's been dead since they put a bullet in JFK....

[slowry]

30. "They"? Bah, you'll be proved wrong, when they don't release all the documents in 2017.

Oh... fuck.

[Tuesday_Morning]

11. two good diaries at DailyKos today about this:

What Can Be Done With Democrats That Refuse To Lead? by Hunter
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/10/4548/4464/945/420087

and

The Answer by thereisnospoon
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/10/174637/95/659/420373

[Mme. Defarge]

20. Thanks.

[upi402]

13. corporatists control both parties, and 3 branches too.

we are doomed to suffer the rabble's laziness in accepting the fact that we have been propagandized. That we have been hoodwinked by hoods.

[Doodad]

15. Rabble?

That's a nice way to talk about your fellow human beings. Usually it's the Rethuglicans being so elitist.

[upi402]

16. Welcome. And actually it was our forefathers who referred to us that way

We the people, or 'the rabble', were to be represented in the HOUSE section of the bicameral congressional branch of the 3 branches in the system of checks and balances.

upi402 breathes now...

[magellan]

17. lol. I used to fume over the "rabble" reference, too

Until I realized those forefathers of ours were right.

If the Repugs were really against such elitism they'd elect people who weren't part and parcel of it. Former CEOs and oil men aren't "the rabble".

[upi402]

22. They control the means of manipulating the rabble...

the media.
It's a full-on propaganda organ for the neocons.

[Greyhound]

26. I wouldn't say propagandized, let's be honest. We've been enslaved.

FDR described the process and it's results in acceptance speech for the nomination in '38. He was talking about the French (I think) then, but it's here now.

Long speech, well beyond the attention span of the average American today, but the key phrase went something like, "...they have surrendered their liberty for the illusion of making a living".

The thing about sheep is that they never understand that once their wool is no longer of sufficient quality, they always become mutton.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

19. Have Pelosi and Dem Leaders Been Complicit in Bush's Torture Policy Since 2002?

Have Pelosi and Dem Leaders Been Complicit in Bush's Torture Policy Since 2002?
By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan L. Smith, AlterNet. Posted December 11, 2007.

What did Congressional Democrats know, and when did they know it?

Is it possible that many Democratic leaders have been informed by the Bush administration over the years about its doubtfully legal activities?

If so, are they therefore complicit in the Bush administration's lawlessness?

It's just been disclosed that Representative Jane Harmon and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were briefed by the Bush administration on the use of waterboarding. Harmon objected but Pelosi did not -- and when she became speaker of the house, she rejected Harmon for chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

...

http://www.alternet.org/story/70218/

[Initech]

23. One Nation Under The NASDAQ Index

[magellan]

24. ...divisible by race, religion & income...AMEN.

[Initech]

25. And sorted into easily-marketable demographics to maximize profit potential.

[Truth2Tell]

27. Kick. Nail on head. Wham. n/t

[lovuian]

28. Bush Clinton Bush Bush and the next show is Clinton

I think I see a Pattern here developing

[autorank]

29. Sorry I'm late, this is well worth RECOMMENDING!

Yep!