Whatever Is To Do?

(First, and completely beside any point ... Happy Birthday!  Thought I forgot, didn't 'ya?  You're what now ... 83?  Heh!)

It might actually shock and surprise the notorious MarkT to find that he doesn't reside in a place of political disillusionment all by himselfs.  I know he's staked that out as 'his ground', and often assumptively defends it like a badger guards it's burrow.  He really needs to take heart (or lose it even more) because he's not alone; we're all kinda screwed here.  The vast majority of Americans want out of the charade that is our Middle Eastern endeavor, the overwhelming majority of us don't want to be force fed a religious or moral righteousness, and we really don't want to be screwed with by our government ... in the way that the Bush administration has so incompetently done over the last seven years.  In short, we don't the Republicans; they suck.  We do seem to prefer Democrats as long as they don't show that they suck every bit as much as Republicans ... which much of the leadership has done.

We, The People, have really lost control here.  Kossack Hunter sums it up very very well.

In battle after battle the House and Senate Dems have made it crystal clear that they do not give a flying shit about their base. They wish we'd just curl up and die. They're happy to have the free help spreading their points, but that help does not reciprocate in any way. There's not a damn thing they'll do on our behalf, or on behalf of the voters who made their regained power possible -- not one thing. They'll even sell out Move On by name -- and all in fear of this mythical overwhelming conservative tide of voters who will wag their fingers sternly and supposedly dangerously at the slightest provocation. They spend a hell of a lot more time worrying about what the racists think about brown people, and the religious extremists think about non-extremists, and the corporate lobbyists think about corporate needs, than they've ever once worried about any of us. Their strategy is all about placating, of all fucking things, the Republican base. That's who they're absolutely obsessed with: making sure the Republicans aren't mad at them, that thirty percent of voters who would rather join militias and drift off into the countryside than vote against hardcore Republicanism anyway.

...

It is the same story as always: the Democrats do not care about their base because they know full well we've got nowhere to go. But still, they push too far -- I am hardly a leftist, and am more to the point usually a painstaking pragmatist, willing to accept small victories over no victories at all, but they have at this point got even me thinking it's a waste of time to work with them.

...

What strikes me at the moment is just how devoid of true, inspirational leaders the current party is. We've got nobody, at least not that is a household name. Kennedy?  A longtime liberal and a fine speaker, but hasn't been able to accomplish a whole lot.

...

Hillary Clinton seems to studiously avoid even the shadow of a hint of a larger vision, and Edwards could not get the press to like him if he personally had sex with every one of them. Obama is indeed a fine speaker, but is at his best in well-crafted speeches in service to no particularly concrete or substantive goals -- and those goals he does most passionately espouse, like chastising fellow Democrats for not more emphatically embracing religion, are the stuff of uninspiring Broderesque conventionality. We have faced the most incompetent, corrupt, scandal prone, and indictment-laden administration in recent history, and yet we still must from all corners hear paeans to working together with the worst of the worst, and compromising with the bigoted, and bridging the gap between our moderate party and the one that has been purged of nearly all but the most single-minded of extremists.

(As always, I strongly and passionately urge you to read the whole thing.)  Of the sad things Hunter describes, I haven't had a doubt for some time now.  However, unlike MarkT and a to a large degree Hunter, I find patience to be a greater virtue in this situation than I do cynicism.  That does not mean blind obedience to the Democratic party.  What it does mean is rational pragmatic balance of assumptions.  I do believe that Hillary Clinton would keep her promise to relinquish Administrative powers back to Congress.  That's a step in the right direction.  It also isn't what we want accomplished.  I do believe that John Edwards would work tirelessly on his agendas and fail miserably because of Congressional opposition and political spite.  I believe that Obama would talk a great game, and make no difference whatsoever at all.  His core values remain the status quo, religiosity and toughness in the face of insults to a hollow ideal of America ... oh, and OPRAH!

None of these are good options, though one at least offers baby steps of progress.  Any who have read what I've written over time would know that I believe the next President to be a sacrifice before whatever Gods of Democracy still have any compassion for us after the disaster that the Worst President Ever and the Cheney-bot have handed us as legacy.  The highest hope, my greatest optimism, is that one will steer us in the correct direction and give the people a modicum of control back.  There is a dim hope that any of the Democrats who could win would or will do that.  There is *no* hope that any of the Republicans will ... save one.

I'm getting a Jones on for Ron Paul.  He has the greatest possibility for impact should he run as an independent.   His ideas of getting us out of costly and offensive foreign involvements are spot on, to my ways of thinking.  He could, and truly would, be the happy sacrifice that is needed to wake this country up from the idea that all things will just get better if we clap a little harder. 

The bad:  He's a little extreme.  No, he's a lot extreme, and that's not bad if one desires a corrective shift from a complexity singularity (if you don't know what I'm talking about, then tough.)  He's anti-women.  Not really, but that's a whole 'nuther argument in itself.  He would be ineffective.  Yes, he would.  He'd be *really* ineffective, the likes of which Edwards could only hope for ... of one is expecting the same effect that we have seen time and again, which is increased complexity, diatribe and general malaise to our political system.  He would be very effective at shaking things up, simplifying the discourse, and solidifying what Americans really believe.  I think most of us would end up hating him, but that can unify us a lot more than people think.

The good:  we might actually end up with a more equitable tax code.  He's more rabidly against corporate welfare the Edwards is.  The people might wake up and realize that we are the strength in this nation.  The Commander in Chief Paul could order our wasted money and lives out of the Iraqi cesspool.  Let the Iraqis clean up their own goddamned mess.  And, one of the main reasons I'm starting to like Paul?  With some people, who desperately need it, he will shake their Pillars of Heaven.  There's folk out there who hate Ron Paul because he has no respect for their sacred cows.  My response?   Mmmmmm ... steak.  (For the record, I like Hillary Clinton for much the same reasons.  It's time this country's mythologies got an enema.)  And the best thing about Ron Paul is this, he is the only candidate running who has the potential to motivate this country's cynical and hopeless electorate to appease him, or oppose him.  Not even Bush could do that to the degree that Ron Paul could.  As a  hopeful Democrat, I ask this:  why offer people oppression lite or oppression heavy?  Let's go straight to the edge.  Liberty or death.  It's time we all choose.

Before those with no sense of irony or sarcasm waste a shitload of bytes telling me how awful I am, let it be known:  as things stand right this second, come June I will vote for John Edwards, for the third time in my life.  But, in the contradictory mish-mash that lives in my head, Clinton's stock is rising fast.  Strangely, so is Ron Paul's.  We are not helpless here, even as Democrats who recognize when we might be helpless.   Steadfast Republicans?  Well, they're helpless.  Give up on them.  But we needn't give up on ourselves.  If it takes an extremist President to light a fire under a milk-toast Congress, well I'm just having a hard time seeing the downside to that.

Comments

[Mark Tokarski]

So, what you're saying is that you will vote for Edwards, like Hillary, and find Paul sexy enough that you'd get in the back seat with him.

I like Edwards, though I'm wondering why the progressive populist was such a schmuck in 2004. I don't recall him being a liberal in the Senate either, but those voting records read many ways. Hillary will do one or two things right, and many things wrong (including reinforcing our commitment to stay in Iraq for fifty years, if necessary, for so long as there is oil to pump). She's the preferred mainstream alternative to Republicans, meaning that she is enough of a Republican herself that they can 1) get what they want from her, and 2) beat up on her all the same. Just like Bill. Obama is a big nothing - a blank slate. I've no idea what we will get there except for one thing: The Republican dream of privatizing Social Security we come true through him.

Paul is interesting, but at best he's a Perot - he'll pull enough votes from the Republicans to guarantee a Democratic victory.

Why can't we ever get what we want? Just one issue - 70% of us want a national health policy. Why can't we have it? Hint: It's not republicans that stop it - it's Democrats.

Mark, once again you seem to think that I don't see things as clearly as you. You migt want to reconsider that.

If you need to make a statue, and you have no stone, use clay ... or silly putty, or jello. Whatever works.

[Mark Tokarski]

Oh, I get that. I totally get that. I just don't like being a hamster in a cage running his little feet off with no destination in mind. The Democratic Party absorbs all of our energy, and makes sure it never amounts to anything. I don't like that and don't resign to it as easily as you. I went for Nader in 2000 because it was a good idea. It's always a good idea to jump off the wheel break out of the cage.

[Gerik]

Sure you can skip the hamster wheel, unless you operate in a two party system, in which case you must abide by the incremental insanity making that is policy and public discourse in Paris Hilton's America.

Ron Paul has more juice in the grassroots department, real down home support, than any other candidate. (based on my super scientific read of bumper stickers and yard signs in Oregon and Montana) He may be sexy enough to talk Wulfgar into the backseat, but the blunt truth is that Ron Paul is fucking insane, here is a quick hit of ideas for you to get in bed with...

The right of an innocent, unborn child to life is at the heart of the American ideals of liberty.

Government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combat bigotry.

A nation without secure borders is no nation at all.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to fund or control schools.

The key to sound environmental policy is respect for private property rights.

Paul Wellstone is dead people, and Ron Paul is not the next best thing. If you want to move units for our base I am convinced you have to get out from behind your cozy little computer screen and start speechifying the shit out of your local street corner soap box. Pardon my rant but there is enough goddamn pent up Libertarian Democratic rage on the intertubes to blow the doors off every sleepy town in America. Blogging feels like a bunch of sally bitches preaching to the choir unless you get out do the grueling work of organizing real people to affect change. Every day.

Get a job pushing your agenda, don't rely on some anti-government wingnut to carry your water for you. In the meantime, the best advice I have heard is to hold your nose and vote and work hard to change your choices.

[Gerik]

p.s. sense of irony intact - strangely full of rage at the notion of a great nation lost to Paris Hilton Paparazzi Swilling Ron Paul Voting Fuckheads

[Max Bucks]

Politics is for losers. Money’s what counts.

[moorcat]

Not quite 83 yet but working on it. Remember, though, you ain't that far behind me...

Moorcat