I think, my first job as a radical is to reveal the truth as I see it. From there we can chose our options. Right now our options are limited for sure. To wit: 3rd party in-viability is a direct result of Democratic party suppression both in codified legal infrastructure and illicit shenanigans. The political process itself is consciously rigged to exclude 3rd parties and while Democratic rank n' file types such as Sanders (despite his Independent designation) or yourself will lament the 'reality' of our two-party system-- you won't demand anything better (i.e., anything more democratic) from the party. You tacitly approve of its tactics by continuing to vote for them. Also, the media consciously and through more subtle filters (see: Chomsky's propaganda model) excludes 3rd party voices. This is no accident-- it is manipulation by the corporate press-- a press that is buttressed by the two-parties and the capitalist infrastructure; it is the apotheosis of cynical collusion. In fact Ralph Nader himself cites this very phenomena (see: Crashing the Party) as his raison d'être for getting into electoral politics in the first place. He listed, ad infinitum, the examples of inaction/obstructionism on progressive and popular policies by the Democrats. He noticed that left-wing/progressive ideas (ideas popular with large majorities of the population—but unpopular with big-business) were routinely shunned by the Democrats. Now, to be fair, some marginal gains can be made for sure through petition and protest once the Dems are in power. But marginal gains are not enough to pacify those of us you place under the rubric of "Nader advocates". My point is that the mythology of the efficacy of "putting pressure from the left" on the Democratic candidate is so strong that it limits first your capacity for critical thinking on that particular candidate (e.g., Obama); and further, occults your ability to see how rigged the whole system is. And since we radicals see the "pressure" tactic within a larger "from-the-outside-in" strategy as largely ineffective, we must attempt something else. You are willing to have Democrats in power forever and have more Progressive types put pressure on them from OUTSIDE. Look, it can apparently never be said enough: Obama is BETTER than Bush. But he's not "BETTER" enough. Mussolini was better than Hitler but I wouldn't vote for him and I wouldn't try to "work" with him and expect much. I know that syllogism is hyperbolic but you get my point. Some of us are literally dying as a result of neo-liberal economic policies married to military adventurism into the 3rd world. Many liberals can live with that compromise (you bourgeois liberals get your lower prescription drug prices, a less politicized DoJ, and the rest of the world gets continued US hegemony and State Department backed political repression at home [see: central America for example] or if they're really lucky a CIA-led coup that destabilizes the region! These are compromises some of us are not willing to make. These phenomena happen on BOTH parties' watch. Foreign policy objectives (not tactics, but objectives) are almost monolithically agreed upon by the two parties. If one needs proof I suggest reading Jonathan Perkins’ account of economic to military hegemony in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit-man and also any number of Noam Chomsky’s books on the subject (e.g., Culture of Terrorism, Thrid-world Fascism and the New Power Mandarins, Re-Thinking Camelot, et.al.) However, you guys insist that it's good enough to "play within the system" and squeeze whatever blood we can from the stone that is the Democratic Party - if we just get them elected. But, time and time again, they ignore us and rightly/tactically so. Where are we gonna go, to the Republicans? So it's not really an internecine battle as Sanders voting record indicates and as many self proclaimed "progressives" posit. I do not really think the pusillanimous or reactionary liberals of the Democratic party are inside the Left-wing movement in any real way. They have shown their allegiance is to capitalism, state-corporate power nexus, careerism, and other right-wing values. This impotency is why I advocate that serious people on the left read up on our historical precedents when the entrenched parties de jour (e.g., the 18th century British monarchy, the 20th century Batista regime, our 21st century DNC/GOP duopoly, et.al.) were unresponsive to the normal mechanism of democracy. This lack of power in the contemporary hands of the left is why I first advocate for electoral participation by hook or crook i.e., by 3rd parties. It's the only way inside the process in which the Dems are forced to take the Left seriously—we already know the ‘pressure tactic’ is impotent. Insurrections and rebellions from Cape Town, to the Moncada Barracks of Cuba, to Boston Harbour, have sprung up when people believed their fundamental rights and needs were being transgressed by their governments; when their natural rights were being usurped with impunity. It is the right of every people to rebel against tyranny, and its discussion as a concept and a legitimate political praxis, (in the abstract of course, heh heh), is very much within the bounds of legal discourse. Furthermore, this is why I suggest reading Thomas Paine's Common Sense & Rights of Man, Fidel Castro's, History Will Absolve Me, Sgt Stan Goff's (US Army RET) Full Spectrum Disorder, Ward Churchill's, Pacifism as Pathology& On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. I suggest we pull our heads out of the sand (or our asses) and begin to look at the broad picture of history. There is a reason that historical analysis is so valuable-- it shows you the precedents for all the bullshit you will see and hear from Obama (Clinton, Carter, Johnson, et.al.) so you don't get suckered again.

I support freedom of speech and political rights which include your right to continue to apologize for those advancing a right-of-center conservitive and corporate controlled agenda which Hartmann and Sanders continue to uphold; Sanders through his voting record, and Hartmann through is carefully manipulated and watered down apologetic. Conversely, I don't support that agenda, and will continue to fight it! :)

Are you saying Bernie Sanders voted for everything on your list, Ekobe? Because, I can assure you, he did not. BTW, professor, where do you teach your course in logic and political studies?

How interesting it is that Moore is not doing any films against the current Administration as he did under Bush? After all, Obama is carrying out the policies of Bush and I daresay he's even more a fascist than Bush--yet where's the outrage from Moore? Bush+Obama=2 peas in a pod