> "Given the recent history of the democratic congressional majority, what guarantees can they possibly make that'd make us all confindent in placing our votes with them?"

We should not look to "the Democrats" or to the DNC to provide such assurances or leadership. Progressives should organize independently as progressives and act through the Party. I think Progressive Democrats of America is the right idea, although PDA needs to grow and mature before it can claim the right to represent the Left as a broad front and not just another little group run by a clique at the top.

In politics you have to make alliances and sometimes you will be betrayed, but if we have an organization that truly represents us (and in which we all have a voice) then that organization will nominate people we can support, cut deals with people we make alliances of convenience with, and hold everyone accountable. That may not give you perfect assurance, but I think it's the best we can do.

You may be right N2K. You've obviously studied the US 2-party gridlock and appear to know what you're talking about.

If you are correct, then I suppose the next question would be how would the Dems reassure their progressive supporters that they aren't going to fold in the face of Repub pressure or U-turn on issues that most here are passionate about.

Given the recent history of the democratic congressional majority, what guarantees can they possibly make that'd make us all confindent in placing our votes with them?

I must admit I have not studied the British case but I would guess that either the LDs are concentrated geographically or there is some rule in the electoral laws which allows them to play a role.

In the American system, there is no way a small Left party could "hold the balance of power" in elections because third parties are barred from transferring their votes to another party's candidate, or in most cases even appearing on the ballot endorsing another party's candidate.

We are in general too mixed geographically for a third party to win a major election anywhere. This has been the experience of the Green Party even in the San Francisco mayoral race. The victories of independents such as Sanders and Liebermaggot are anomalous, and show how weak the parties are compared even with personality politics.

You have a fairly concentrated hippie population in Vermont; the best hope for a Green or Left independent is in such places, but such a strategy tried nationwide would lead to Left disenfranchisement in most places, and there are not many places where a Green win, which would still be unprecedented, is even remotely likely.

In order to "hold the balance of power" in Congress a Left party would have to win a few dozen seats at least. You already have such a Progressive Caucus consisting of progressive Democrats. I have not heard them described as holding the balance of power. By definition, that would go to a minor group in the Center.

A robust strategy of engagement in the Democratic Party process nationwide is the only way for the Left to gain and to wield real influence.

Not 'trinitarian mystification' but a cumbersome attempt to apply systems-theory (engineering) to politics, Nader2000.

I agree that a third-party will probably never gain the presidency, barring extreme conditions.

Perhaps the US is very exceptional case wherein 3-parties cannot exist.

However.

In other countries, on some issues, the third largest party actually holds the balance of power during votes. It is therefore possible for them, even though not in the hot-seat, to alter political debates and table minority-opinions. Often this leads to corrections in bad government policy.

A good example would the lib-dems of the UK (before C. Kennedy was ousted) which has resisted all attempts at being folded into the Labout party and has rejected all offers of coalition power.

Samski: Although it seems to me that you are engaging in some kind of trinitarian mystification, you are onto something in pointing out that a 3-party system would be unstable. In fact, it is pretty obvious that we will never have the vote divided nearly equally between three parties. One proof of this is that, if such a situation were to come into being, two of the parties would immediately form an alliance and obtain a lock on power. Since they would be assured of winning absolute power as an alliance, they would be able to divvy up offices and trade issues. In effect, they would become one party. In fact, they would need to become one party at election time in order to pull off their alliance and avoid competing against each other. So we can never have three parties. There will always be only two.

You might imagine that a third party could rise to the point at which some kind of catastrophe occurs and the third party becomes one of the two dominant parties and another party falls apart. This has happened exactly once in US history, and it happened over the issue of slavery. It was possible for this to occur only because the issue divided the country into two distinct geographical and economic blocs. The kind of issues that divide Greens and the Democratic Party do not have this characteristic.

Since the dynamics will work in small steps, what will happen to a Left third party is that it will remain small and never gain traction, and most of its members will fold back into the Democratic Party.

Nader2000: Thanks for your analysis. It seems to make sense, until to describe the 3-party system.

Presumably, the feedback mechanism you describe for the 2-party system would have an analogue under the 3-party system and it is here that I propose your analysis becomes a little shaky.

A system with 3 parameters(or more) which includes feedback mechanisms is inherently unstable. Unexpected results become more probable, even with only minor disturbances to the current order.

Mid-to-long term predictions become unreliable.
It is exactly this kind of instability which leads eventually to a different kind of order (or pattern) to emerge from 'chaos' once systemic peturbations have settled around down to orbit new loci.

A 2nd order (2-party) system is stable, static and predictable.
A 3rd-order (3-party) system is unstable, dynamic and unpredictable.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

Implicating/entangling others in one's crimes is learned in "Getting Away With It, 101."

The Mob is expert at this. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that it works.

Samski wrote:

> "...you're forming a third party. A toothless third party with no more powers than current campaigning groups."

I'm not forming a third party, or any kind of political organization. But there are political organizations which are not electoral parties but do work, with more or less effect, through the two-party system to effect change. They work at election time and in-between. They have real influence. The Green Party has none.

> "Can you show me a formula that predicts the failure of 3rd parties?"

It's very simple. The two parties today split the vote about 50-50. There is a strong feedback mechanism which keeps it close to an even split; if one of the parties strays too far to the right or left, it starts losing and soon enough gets the message to make a correction toward the center. So immediately you see that splitting off the left from the Democratic Party won't move it to the left, but rather to the right.

If you form a third party, it will at the outset get at most a few percent of the vote. In any statewide or Congressional, let alone national election, it will always lose.

But you imagine that, over the course of the years, your third party will grow, until it splits the vote three ways with the Republicans and Democrats. So we can estimate it needs to grow until it can get 33% of the votes on average. Maybe this is a bit too pessimistic. Maybe if it could get 20% of the vote nationally, it would get a plurality in some places and be able to win at least a few seats in Congress. That would be something.

This can never happen when you start as far down as the Green Party is currently. The Greens have been at it for two decades now. In one election after another, their presidential nominee has gotten a few percent, no more. They have never won a single Congressional or Senate race, or even a big-city mayor. It's just too far to go from a few percent to a level that can win. As you lose, lose, and lose, two years, four years at a time, your partisan activists grow old and grey, young people perceive you as just losers, your party is riven by infighting and splits, and eventually you peter out.

The fundamental problem is winner-take-all elections, and that is not going to change. Instant runoff voting, the great hope of the Greens, is still winner-take-all. They would still lose. In order to have a multiparty system in this country, we would need nothing short of a constitutional rewrite, which is not going to happen.

The math is simple. Unless you get at least 1/2 of the votes, in a two-party system, or 1/3 of the votes in a three-way split, you get 0 victories and 0 influence.

But don't bet on only having to get 1/3. We will never have a three-party system, because two of the parties would immediately coalesce to form one big party that would dominate for some time at least. This means that, in order to achieve its goals, the Green Party would have to fold back into the Democratic Party at some point anyway. Or we could imagine something even worse. The Green Party might succeed in bringing about that very Democrat-Republican single-party dominance that posters here fatuously assert already exists, and which would shut out absolutely all progressive voices from national politics for another generation.

Look at the latest apologies of the partisan worshipper. In order to give the Democrats cover he has to extend the blame to all Americans--leaving aside that the Democrats were voted in precisely to confront the Bush gang and NOT to capitulate or be complicit with them.

"What is basic to me is that we are responsible for the actual, real-life, predictable consequences of our actions, not for our declared high principles and ideological purity, our hand-washing pretenses of non-complicity."

I really don't know what it is going to take for you to stop giving passes and making excuses for those who have an ongoing record of betraying us, deceiving us, lying to us and accusing those who want some oversight and accountablity as demanding ideological purity. It is folks like you, actually, for whatever reason, in using the old buzzwords and threats that actually keep us trapped in a box, demanding that we continue to support this as the best we can expect..

There are many variables that caused Gore to "lose". His lousy campaign, disinfranchised voters, butterfly ballots, a corrupt supreme court, Kathryn and Jeb, the Clinton IMPEACHMENT, the fact that more registered Democrats voted for Bush, mock mobs to prevent challenges--and the truth that Gore, despite all these things did NOT lose if all the votes were counted---yet all of these things amount to ZERO. The entire blame is pinned on Nader by the DLC monopoly of the Democratic party. Which goes to show you that they can fight and attack when it suits them--but it doesn't seem to suit them to fight and attack Bush no matter how much the polls reflect what the majority of the country wants. I guess you could accuse the majority of the country of demanding ideological purity then, huh?

seriousprofessor wrote:

> "As long as we're lining up to be recognized as arbiters of reality, let me chime in by reminding you that reality is intimately connected to empiricism. The evidence at hand exactly suggests complicity (or worse) by the Democratic Party."

Your fallacy is oversimplification. Some Democrats are in some ways complicit with the crimes of the Bush gang. Maybe you could even say a majority of Congressional Democrats are to some extent complicit. However, I would go further. ALL AMERICANS are to some extent complicit in the crimes of the Bush gang. We have all acquiesced at some point. If you really want to be a fundamentalist about it.

Some Democrats have stood up against the Bush gang at least some of the time. I think that is reason enough to dismiss your "the Democrats are complicit" as an argument against my claim that what progressives need to do in order to have more influence on the direction of America is to work through the Democratic Party, working to change the Democrats (much easier) as much as to change America (much harder).

> "Any party that acts in those ways acts against common sense and has lost my support."

Unfortunately, common sense is the least common of the senses.

> "Some things are basic, after all."

What is basic to me is that we are responsible for the actual, real-life, predictable consequences of our actions, not for our declared high principles and ideological purity, our hand-washing pretenses of non-complicity.

SPIKE -- It's so wrong that most of the world's terrorists are out-of-their right-mindedness, and blind to reality's dualities.

Just saw Harman on a news program. She is as senile and incompetent as a right wing think tank could ask for. "Is waterboarding torture? I don't know," she says. HELLO, it's ILLEGAL by multiple international treaties! That makes it US LAW! We have GOT to clean house and sweep ALL THE INCUMBENTS OUT....

No right minded terrorist would think of changing one single thing in the US government. The worst enemy the People have is resident in Washington, D.C.

War gives those in power the authority to keep secrets. Secrecy in government leads to corruption of power and tyranny. And so we have wars. After 100 years of War, World Wars, Cold Wars, War on Drugs, War on Terror, Depressions, etc, we are today not a Republic as envisioned by our Founding Fathers, not even a Democracy which they rejected as being susceptible to corruption and majority rule which could eliminate inalienable rights, but we instead are Soft Fascist State priming to go Hard Fascist.

There is only 1 party. They won't tell us their name, since they think they can fool the critters and make them think we are still a Democracy with 2 parties, and thye will continue to do so until they get tired of pretending or more critters figure it out (thats what all these anti-democratic laws and Executive Orders over the last year have been about, for the day they tell us and so they can crush dissent).

That said, having lived in countries which were Communist, under martial law or colonial rule, I can say that most people can still live a decent life, just obey the rules, and don't say anything bad about government. Those who don't get disappeared and........ Of course, if you are Arab, or a 9/11 truther or activist, well, good luck.

Ah yes, "What did they know and when did they know it?", that is the question so oft repeated from the time of Watergate.
Well, George and Dick, and all of the other Neo-Fascists knew it ALL, and they knew it in a timeframe that makes them ALL WAR CRIMINALS, along with possibly a few Dems as well!
I have listened to a lot of fellow Dems offering up a plethora of excuses for the lack of action by the new majority on a number of issues. You know, like the majority is too small and we can't overcome a veto from the Commander and Thief.
Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker by a majority of Dems to push a Dem agenda. The people of our country are being played by both parties in a game of good-cop-bad-cop.
Funny how when the Repubs had a narrow majority in the senate, the Dems couldn't filibuster to stop bad legislation or unfit appointees, but since the '06 elections, the Repubs now in the minority, have been able to stop Dem legislation from even coming to a vote with the filibuster.
We have even been enablers in passing legislation that the Neo-Fascists wanted. Sooner or later you have to realize that we no longer have a Democracy, but rather a Capitalist Corporacracy, and the only way to stop the machine is to throw yourself into it's gears.
Stop doing what Bush told you to do after 911 -
STOP SHOPPING!! Two thirds of all economic activity in this country comes from people like you and me buying stuff.
Hit them in the only place that matters to them, the wallet!
Stop buying STUFF that is not a necessity for you, and watch this short video called "The Story Of Stuff".
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
Take your country back, before it's too late.

OMG - We are so startled every time we hear another incident/issue/story which validates that a corrupt, unethical government exist. If you place a frog in hot water he jumps out - If you place a frog in cool water and heat it up slowly over time it dies. As a country we have been in the pot a long time... People in this country are in such denial, soft and helpless. Even us on this site - and for everyone of us there are 4 listening to O'Reilly, Hannity, etc. nevermind mainstream media. There will NOT be any president elected that corporate power does not want elected. Let's face it - we're all to soft to fight back and the power in place doesn't care how much we scream foul. News flash - In essence, there is no difference between Dems and repugs - no shit. Any evidence of a three branch gov't lately. For a year now - every story I read is the same story. There are different names, facts, mind boggling injustice and absurdities but it all is the same story over and over again. - Bought influence to maintain profit for corporations without a conscience. "For the people by the people" - Gone - period. Fire all of Congress and fill by lottery - won't happen. Stop global warming/reduce use of fossil fuels - WILL NOT HAPPEN! Prevent the dollar and the house of cards it is now built on from crashing - no way. Keep people spending above their means until just before the crash - probably!
I sometimes wondor if the powers that be know this and are sucking the system dry until man made or natural worlwide catrastrope(s) happen to reduce world populations? - Demand destruction.
Trust me, I'm a happy guy, but I know bullshit when I see it.

Ross Perot famously told us there was not "a dime's worth of difference between the Republican and the Democratic party." How right he was.

I have a wacky idea... Instead of vowing to never vote for any Democrat ever again, or vowing to vote for each, every, and only Democrats no matter what they do, how about we vote for Democrats who have done good things and not vote for Democrats who have done bad things?

I know, I know... That's crazy talk.

The Democrats probably did deeper and more systemic damage to the US by ignoring the inevitable lending crisis than by condoning torture-lite. I saw the usury problem coming about 5 years ago, and I'm not a professional economist or policy wonk.

Water-boarding is something that can be stopped today if the will existed. Will or no will, this usury crisis isn't going to disappear over night.

no one sees this article except readers of Common Dreams. So what exactly is the readership?

Not that a lot of people probably realize the corruption is rampant, most do not have a clue.

Why are TPTB planning a police state?

They probably believe the 'wheel is about to come off' the petrol bandwagon.

This is exactly why secrets in the government should not be allowed. They assented secretly to torture, et al. When I think about the suffering and death our country has caused, I wish the leaders could be hung from a tall tree and have to listen to our jeers while they die.

To the writer identifyied as nader 2000, sorry.

It's your "no way, no how" about "third" parties that allows the Dems to club us all over the head and silence those who really are concerned, fed up, outraged, or ready to do something.

They take your money, they take your vote, then they take you for a ride.

"Changing it from the inside" is a Fool's Errand. It's been tried, over and over. In more than 4 decades not one iota of progressive politics has emanated from that party. Look what they did to Dean, Jackson and McGovern. The corporatists always got THEIR way.

The "news" is, that the Democratic Party has already BEEN taken over -- by the corporatists. They have the key to the coffers and are not likely to give them up. Even if enough progressive people did manage to get into major positions, the right would take the money and run, leaving you with an empty shell.

Look. The sad story is: THERE IS NO EASY SOLUTION. We've been digging the hole we're in for far too long with no organization or resistance to find a simple way out.

There may be no easy answers, but moving in the right direction, is the first step so let's get going.

It is long past time to start anew. Audacious is better. Saying out loud what it is we need to be doing is better. Building a humane and sustainable vision is better.

Not just "third party", but Green Party which already has the best progressive agenda going, and millions of sympathizers. It can use all the help and support from those of you who realize we've been had. The Republicrat duopoly works like a tag team. We must DEenrgize that system and ENERGIZE a new paradigm: a political party based upon the recognition of the interconnectedness of the web of life on our planet and the need for functional participatory democracy separated from corporate money, to allow human wisdom to trump human greed.

THAT is something to support. And you can help, whether you are a Green or not.

Growing the Green Voice and Vision is a way of moving ALL of us -- at long last -- in the right (correct) direction, instead of wasting time and words on challenging a corporate-funded party leadership to act in ways they don't want to.

Use your REGISTRATION as a "vote" for sanity and humane politics. Registering Green (or affiliating in states where you can't register) sends the clearest progressive message you could possibly make to those in our Congress. Even regular voting doesn't often send a progressive message, as most progressive candidates rarely make it through the primaries, or even get into them. If you cannot vote for a progressive candidate, who in Congress or the state house knows your progressive values??

Your Green registration shouts out those values and thus can be even more important than a vote in establishing a progressive identity, agenda and force.

Want to stop this illegal Occupation? Want to Impeach the Constitution Shredders? Want single-payer healthcare? Want women's rights and labor rights?

Want to register these and others of your Progressive Values?

Then, Register Green no matter how you vote! And vote Green wherever you feel you can. Run for office yourself as a Green. Build something new which sounds, looks and feels like you own hear and mind. Switch2Green.org.

It's time. We can't wait for "them" for the answers anymore.

I'd like to see a 'minority presidential election' which shadows the real one. Only abstainees of that latter get to vote in the former. On the ballot would be all candidates which didn't make the main tickets.

Any websites out there planning to do this?

Nader2000 you nearly had me but your reasoning, at least to me, breaks down:

"In between elections, we must organize and mobilize pressure on Democratic politicians as much as on Republicans, telling them what we want and what we expect from them, letting them know we are watching. We must show that we are a force that will be reckoned with at election time."

Or in other words, you're forming a third party. A toothless third party with no more powers than current campaigning groups.

"You can't beat the math, and you will lose trying."

Can you show me a formula that predicts the failure of 3rd parties?

"They [corporates and conservatives] would fight you if you ran as an independent or third party, too. The difference is, in that case, they would beat you 100%, whereas if we get into their game and play hard, we can win something."

Progressives shouldn't want to play their game, or even compete. The goal is to overhaul a badly malfuctioning two-party system.

It's the only way to secure the future.

Our bourgeois democracy, which has been narrowing in recent years will in time be shut down completely under the pressures of an expanding war in the Middle East and the deep economic crisis which is just around the corner. Elections will never again decide matters of substance in the United States of America.

As our capitalist economy enters its final stages, a nearly seamless political transition to fascism is taking place. The trappings of bourgeois democracy are a brake on profits and so they are being shredded. The Constitution and its Bill of Rights are being rendered meaningless by plans for perpetual war, by presidential signing statements and the theory of the unitary executive, extraordinary rendition, government surveillance programs and the like. Programs based on democratic principles like the public schools, Social Security, Medicare, affirmative action and welfare are being starved to death. Separate and parallel InterNet and military forces are being constructed along with internment camps and the legal construct for a martial law declaration. Blackwater will ultimately fight US military regulars in the streets of this country. (Too many sons and daughters of the working class in the US military to be trusted by the bourgeoisie.) The mass media and electoral machinery and both major political parties are now fully under the control of those with real power--capital. Bloodless coups in 2000 and 2004 installed George W. Bush in the White House and no future ballot will remove the candidates of the ruling class from power.

Pointing out the defects born of our dying economic system and the government that serves it has become as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. The ruling class brushes its liberal democratic/progressive critics off like gnats as long as they stay away from the third rail. But let one of these voices dare mention unity based on working class-consciousness and a mobilization to strike at profits (think Boston Tea Party, Flint Sit-down, Montgomery Bus Boycott) and great danger would shortly thereafter visit.

Let's dream for a minute, like Dr. King did before he became too dangerously revolutionary to be allowed to live beyond 1968. In this dream, on an appointed day, at an appointed hour, Americans across the country turn their cars off in the street, pocket the keys, and walk home to wait. Wait for the oil industry to be nationalized and the ExxonMobil directorate to be arrested, or better yet, wait for Bush and Cheney to vacate government housing. Hey, December 16th is the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party!

And "more and better Dims" is meaningless. Who, for example will get the Dim presidential nomination? Kucinich? Gravel? Yeah right! oh, I'll vote for Kucinich certainly, but you're kidding yourself if Dim voters want "more and better Dims." They want just more of the same.

Down with the party!

*ahem* Arthur Silber was right.

I've stopped calling the Dims "spineless"-- its not that they are "weak" or "spineless" or any such thing. They are complicit with the war crimes of the Bush administration and they always have been.

keep in mind Nader2000:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Margaret Mead

You know, the ones with the ...pipedreams, like the minority that persisted in the American Revolution- not the ones continually appealing to appeasing the king.

Nader 2000.....Reality is what WE make it!.....WADR..You're living in THEIR illusion. And as long as you exist within their illusion, anything you attempt will also be an illusion. With clear thought and purpose and NO resignation, we can create our own reality, void of hypocricy, immorality and resignation. We have heeded and worked within the illusion all of our lives...this current, abhorrent state of affairs is where it got us. Shall we continue within the same insane process and believe we can create sane results?

People of the USA..PLEASE WAKE UP and stop being mezmerized by the red sock/blue sock puppet show that is your government.

Today you are actually under a one party system...the MediaDemRepublocrats....who represent only the global corporatists, and pretend to be two differnet parties and an indepentent media. They will suck your country dry of all money, and then move on to the next victim.

Fascinating.

"Facing reality is the first step. Disposing of pipe dreams, however common, is the second. The third is coming up with a plan that makes some kind of sense."

As long as we're lining up to be recognized as arbiters of reality, let me chime in by reminding you that reality is intimately connected to empiricism. The evidence at hand exactly suggests complicity (or worse) by the Democratic Party.

Disposing of pipe dreams is certainly based in rationality, and I suggest that "pipe dreams" includes repeating the same actions and expecting a different result. Thus, it is a pipe dream to expect that electing Democrats will result in opposition to torture, war funding, and other Bush policies.

Sense derives from a combination of rationality and shared assumptions of values. To my way of thinking, "sense" cannot include torture, war, and the untrammelled abuse of power. Any party that acts in those ways acts against common sense and has lost my support. Some things are basic, after all.

Y'all are falling for the Rove Ruse, damnit! The issue IS NOT what loyalbushieDems knew or when they knew it!!! It is Cheneybush LYING about TORTURE and ILLEGAL SPYING and RENDITIONS and MASSIVE THEFT!!! The issue is Cheneybush ILLEGALLY INVADING and MURDERING MILLIONS OF INNOCENTS and LOSING AFGHANISTAN and LYING TO MURDER MORE INNOCENTS and EVEN MORE STEALING!!! The issue is Cheneybush RIGGING ELECTIONS and IGNORING ALL LAWS and SHREDDING OUR CONSTITUTION!!

After we deal with those issues, we'll get back to the loyalbushieDems and who they blew and when they blew it. For now: FOCUS!

Quality Time wrote:

> "Oh, I suppose in 2008 we could toss everyone in the congress out along with the president regardless of party affiliation and start with a clean slate."

Question 1: Who are "we" and how could "we" do this?

We, the Readers of CommonDreams?

We, the 3% - 5% of the electorate who are highly politically aware and committed to progressive ideas and values, and who would vote for a Nader or Kucinich, because they say what we like, in spite of the fact that the entire corporate media, which dominates, nay, totally controls the political conversation in this country, ignores, savages, or ridicules those same sentiments and ideas and portrays their champions as marginal figures who would be dangerous if they were not so pathetic?

Okay, let's get real. "We" do not have any option to toss out everyone and start with a clean slate. "We" do not have any option to form a third party and elect even one congressman, let alone a president. "We" don't even have the means to achieve our own political unity, consciousness, decisionmaking and concerted action as even 3% of the electorate, to say nothing of a majority.

Facing reality is the first step. Disposing of pipe dreams, however common, is the second. The third is coming up with a plan that makes some kind of sense.

> "On the other hand, maybe we should recognize that despite the obvious gains, we didn't give the Democrats much room in which to work effectively and take the necessary measures in 2008 to make certain that we do."

This is what most responders here have howled at, and rightly so. Just blindly supporting "the Democrats" so that they will have more "room in which to work" might bring some modest improvement from America under the Bush-Cheney Republicans, but is hardly the most effective strategy to bring progressive change.

We must not only support, but also act on, work in and through the Democratic Party. In between elections, we must organize and mobilize pressure on Democratic politicians as much as on Republicans, telling them what we want and what we expect from them, letting them know we are watching. We must show that we are a force that will be reckoned with at election time.

We must actively challenge conservative, corporate Democrats in primary elections, and direct our support in the general elections to the most progressive Democratic candidates. We must caucus independently of the Democratic Party as progressives through PDA and other organizations. We must support the nominee for president, against the Republican alternative who will almost certainly be far worse, but first we should fight hard for a progressive nominee like Kucinich, or for the best of the likely three, whether you think that is Obama (my choice) or Edwards.

I certainly think Nancy Pelosi has earned a primary challenge, and wish Cindy Sheehan would give her one. Unfortunately, Sheehan seems determined to run only as an independent, which means she will probably lose. If she were running against Pelosi in the primary, the Speaker would be a lot more worried than she likely is.

The two-party system is the only game in town, because of the structure of our electoral laws. We cannot change that, no way, no how. People have tried before and in 150 years they have always failed. You can't beat the math, and you will lose trying.

The good news is, the Democratic Party is wide open for anyone willing to get in and play hard - or fight if you prefer. Yes, the corporates and conservatives will fight back. They would fight you if you ran as an independent or third party, too. The difference is, in that case, they would beat you 100%, whereas if we get into their game and play hard, we can win something.

To qbaldsmoove :

It sounds to me that you are doing valuable work. Keep it up! As the citizen of a real democracy (not the US of course), I can attest to the fact that democracy does work. Don't get discouraged because the model you got is a lemon.

I would humbly suggest two things.

1. That you guys try a third party. Start at the local level. Work your way up. It will take time. At some point you will present a threat to the corruption and they will have to deal with you. Be ready. If you want help with this, get out a globe, point to one of the democracies on the map, call or email someone from one of the smaller parties. Just about every democracy on the earth has smaller parties that have gotten their members elected. Once you have elected members that are on the same side of issues as the majority of the citizens, you have got yourself the thin edge of the wedge with which you can split apart the corruption that binds together the two crooked parties you have in office now.

2. Civil disobedience. Peaceful demonstrations. Sit-ins. You don't have to give up your wealth or use violence. Simply call attention to the corruption. Block stairways, clog up offices, and tie up traffic. It doesn't cost money, it doesn't take heroics, and you don't have to turn your life upside down. Simply force the corrupt to deal with you. The more noise you make, the more scared the corrupt will become. They like the dark. Shine a light on them.

It is primarily up to you inside the US to deal with this mess and I hope you straighten things out soon. If not, there are plenty of people out here who are growing impatient with your mess spilling out and fouling the world, but it would be better for everyone if American democracy is righted through forces of internal civil society and proper governance.

It's simple. It can be fun. It makes you feel good. Remember, the population of the US is around six percent of the whole world's and in the US, my guess is that there are slightly more decent Americans than there are multimillionaire corrupt politicians. In other words, there are a lot more of us than there are of them. Remember, you are not alone and you are in the right. I know that right will prevail.

i have this fantasy. it involves the bush crime family (which evidently includes pelosi) a large cell in guantonomo, nudity, people hanging upside down, and a singapore cane....how on earth could a woman condone torture? does she have any children? is anyone else having a problem maintaining their sanity in this insane day and age? now where did i put that jar of peanut butter?....

This is a HUGE story. An independent investigation is the ONLY way to go in order to criminal charges against these war criminals.

Revolution? Be careful "longinforsanity," you may now find yourself under investigation by the thought police under the new "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act". Be a good citizen and mind what you say.

Quality Time December 11th, 2007 12:55 pm ...The recent revelation is that the Dems sold us out in 2002 by condoning torture. They have gone along with the Repub agenda because they did not give THEMSELVES enough room. They caved everytime and are doing it as we speak. That garbage about not wanting to be seen as not supporting the troops is tired and worn out. For one reason or another, they have kneeled in front of bush every time he put forth the slightest pressure. It's complicity, plain and simple...anything else is spin. For one reason or another they have granted bush every wish. The MSM is equally responsible and have also sold us out. Do not listen do the spin and obfuscation...it's black and white, as much as the Dems want you to think they are in a gray area. The only gray area is the overlap between bush and the special interests and their responsibility to the voters who gave them a majority, albeit a small one. All along, they could have made the distinction and separated what has really become a battle between good and evil and chosen GOOD. They chose the gray/overlap area as a hiding place of rationalization. Many supporters haven fallen for it...not this one...and unless they nominate Kucinich, come 2008, they'll regret trurning their backs on their TRUE constituency.

My personal attempts to get my representative, Gwen Moore, to vote for impeachment have thus far failed. She is a democrat in a strongly democratic district, but has yet to sign on, though she did vote to not table the bill recently.

I attended a meeting with her where she said she wouldn't vote for the bill because the leadership was against it because of the truly valueable things they were spending there time on. Oh, and she said it didn't have a chance of passing so why vote for it? Such crap I have never heard before, and was dumbfounded by our rep's lack of leadership. When I finally had the chance I asked her what those "truly valueable" things were, because as far as I could tell the Bush agenda was still being muscled through on everything that really mattered. Ms. Moore sat there and shook her head, I thought she was actually going to cover her ears so that she wouldn't have to hear. She would not even respond.

I have since begun canvassing the inner city trying to educate. Most there hate Bush, but have no idea there is such a bill, or that there congressperson, one of there own (hailing from the inner city herself) is not siging such a bill. They have no idea how much difference they can make. So I find that many inner city churches are alright with me leaving flyers on windshields. Everyone has a cell phone these days. I want to get Ms. Moore's voice mail full on a daily basis. Consider trying it in your town, especially if the representative is a dem. They need pressure, apparently lots of it.

My first impulse is "impeach 'em all" but I guess there needs to be someone around to do it, at least as things stand. My 2nd impulse is to recall Jefferson's wisdom that we need a good revolution every 20 years or so; and that we are long long long overdue.

Here's my new bumper sticker:

Had enough?
Vote Third Party!

"Oh, I suppose in 2008 we could toss everyone in the congress out along with the president regardless of party affiliation and start with a clean slate. On the other hand, maybe we should recognize that despite the obvious gains, we didn't give the Democrats much room in which to work effectively and take the necessary measures in 2008 to make certain that we do."

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

"The greatest discovery any alien anthropologist could make about our culture is our overriding response to failure: If it didn't work last year, do it AGAIN this year (and if possible do it MORE)." - Daniel Quinn

"...we didn't give the Democrats much room in which to work effectively and take the necessary measures in 2008 to make certain that we do."

Makes you wonder what it will take for the true believers to finally get off their knees watching the shadows on the cave wall.

Oh, I suppose in 2008 we could toss everyone in the congress out along with the president regardless of party affiliation and start with a clean slate. On the other hand, maybe we should recognize that despite the obvious gains, we didn't give the Democrats much room in which to work effectively and take the necessary measures in 2008 to make certain that we do.

"Complicity" "Collusion"

And why did we think that electing Democrats would make any real difference?

Even their "efforts" to cut the funding are largely a pretense. They've been very careful to do only things that CAN be vetoed or filibustered - not the things that cannot be. Their real power lies in NOT passing a funding bill. That takes only a simple majority in the House, and 41 votes (to support a filibuster) in the Senate.

I'm telling you that: there is no reason to keep telling your Congressrat, as if they don't know. Of course they know how their own institution works. If they don't, they have no business being there.

So since the Democrats took over Congress, what you see is their actual agenda: Bush stays in office and the war continues, and nothing of importance gets changed.

COLLUSION. COMPLICITY.

It does seem to answer some nagging questions about Congressional inability/unwillingness/reluctance to confront Bush/Cheney. When will Pelosi respond? What is she waiting for? Each day that passes, her silence simply works to confirm these charges against her.

The Damocrats are worse than the Repugs because the Reps hang together and get something done, even though it is usually all the wrong things. You have to respect their blind dedication to a lost cause and the effort to protect all of their crowd. The Dams have about as much structure as a bunch of chickens. Oh wait, they are a bunch of chickens.

Complicity extends to the major media as well. They have become inseperabel from the NSA and Psy-Ops. They have knowingly abbeted a criminal administration by promoting lies and repressing other, more rational opinions.

OMG, they've got the best clothes, I heard their all invisible though....

Can you say "banana republic"?

Well, I have been saying for months that the Democrats are as corrupt as the Republicans and the reason they haven't stopped the war in Iraq is because they want it too... little imperialists riding donkeys instead of elephants.
Pah. I spit all of them out of my mouth.

alank...Bravo. Simple, straight to the point and absolutely correct!

I got my hand slapped very hard for voting Nader in 2000. So I "learned my lesson" and voted for Kerry in 04 and actually gave money to Dems in 06.

The Dems took my vote, took my money and took me (and those like me) for a ride. No more!

I, like many, thought for a long time that the Dems were just spineless and afraid of a fight. That is simply not true. Look how hard they fight Nader and the Greens. But they won't fight Bush and the Repubs that hard. There must be a reason for that!

I would say they are more afraid of a left alternative than they are of a right wing agenda. Hence their behavior. THEY ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

To Nader2000 and others: If you want a REAL,IMPOSSIBLE fight on your hands then try to take over the Democrats and convert them to a Progressive organization.

The Bush/Republican disaster cannot be stopped and reversed if you keep supporting their co-conspiritors. It's time to draw the line, stop playing defense, stop calculating, triangulating, compromising and start to fight for what is right and good! Not just for the "evil of two lessers." That's why we're in this mess.

"Congressional Oversite" of the CIA and other intelligence agencies means at most four legislators doing steno for
the agencies, with no connection at all to the body politic which is supposed to be the basis of political decision making. Congress is nothing but a respoitory for highly selective secrets. Is this what the founders had in mind? Hard to tell: they didnt know that an agency created in 1947 would have far less accountablity than a president who nominally (ask JFK and Nixon) controlled it.

What did they say when would happen to institutions of power when they were never checked? Yet it is intimated by the brokered grandfather figure, Tom Brokow, that the CIA is weaker than after 9/11. Possiblly, but it sure has some well placed alumni at the moment, and besides with reps like Harmon and Pelosi, how would we know?