The system is not about ideals

A man with a mission and a message we all need to pay attention to!
http://www.motherjones.com/arts/qa/2003/11/ma_586_01.html

He is known as the "radical prgamatist" and really liked his quote:

MJ: What about the Democratic Party? Can it effectively oppose Bush?

TK: I have said this before, and I'll say it again: Anyone that the Democrats run against Bush, even the appalling Joe Lieberman, should be a candidate around whom every progressive person in the United States who cares about the country's future and the future of the world rallies. Money should be thrown at that candidate. And if Ralph Nader runs -- if the Green Party makes the terrible mistake of running a presidential candidate -- don't give him your vote. Listen, here's the thing about politics: It's not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this.

The GOP has developed a genius for falling into lockstep. They didn't have it with Nixon, but they have it now. They line up behind their candidate, grit their teeth, and help him win, no matter who he is.

MJ: You're saying progressives are undone by their own idealism?

TK: The system isn't about ideals. The country doesn't elect great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them become great. FDR was a plutocrat. In a certain sense he wasn't so different from George W. Bush, and he could have easily been Herbert Hoover, Part II. But he was a smart man, and the working class of America told him that he had to be the person who saved this country. It happened with Lyndon Johnson, too, and it could have happened with Bill Clinton, but we were so relieved after 12 years of Reagan and Bush that we sat back and carped.

In a certain sense, Bush was right when he called the anti-war demonstrations a "focus group." We went out on the street and told him that we didn't like the war. But that was all we did: We expressed an opinion. There was no one in Congress to listen to us because we were clear about why they couldn't listen. Hillary Clinton was too compromised, or Chuck Schumer -- and God knows they are. But if people don't pressure them to do better, we're lost.

that it's not about your ideals RIGHT NOW.

The system we have now won't support voting your hopes and dreams, but that doesn't mean it never will.

this does not preclude vigorous and active participation in the political process, but there is a difference between activism and the ballot box. the former is engagement in the long term, the latter is selecting between more immediate differences.

anybody but bush is an immediate difference.

Every single person in this country knows that our election system is fucked up. He who has the most cash wins, 9 times out of ten. We all also know that in our election system that those who win are going to pork up their donors as payback, and to keep future money flowing. Doesn't matter whether it is a Dem or 'Pug in office, we all know how the game works. So thus that big shitball of corruption keeps right on rolling along, and we the voters keep on helping it. "Who else are you gonna vote for." "You've got to be a pragmatist, not an idealist." "Compromise, you can't have everything you want." "Vote for the lesser of two evils"(my personal favorite). These are the mantras that are recited ad nauseum whenever a well meaning person brings up the unpleasant fact that we have become a two party/same corporate master system of government. And in fact these get repeated so often that the general public is continously conned into pulling that lever again and again.

Well, it has to stop. This isn't "idealism" this is facing up to the reality of the situation that is before us. An out of control, corrupt government whose only interests are in retaining their seats of power and paying back their buddies via crony capitalism and government manipulation. I mean come on, this is even acknowledged by the pragmatists, with their cynical mantra "vote for the lesser of two evils". Hello! I'm sorry, evil is evil, and encouraging it in any form is just dancing to the tune that the devil plays.

The answer to this dilema is obvious, to make all national, state and local elections publicly financed. With candidates free from raising obscene amounts of money, they will then be able to focus on the group that they are supposed to answer to, you and I, their constituents. This is one reason you see such groups as the Greens starting to gain momentum. People are refusing to play the game anymore and are looking for a real change. If this makes them idealists, so be it. But I would rather deal with a clear headed, far seeing idealist than a pragmatist who simply urges us to keep beating our head against that same old brick wall time and again. We need a real change people, and the folks in power who are benefitting from the current system are not going to provide it. It is up to you and me.