Our Votes, Our Power

I think almost everyone other than blind political loyalists understands, at this point, that those we are dealing with in the Obama Administration, for the most part, are not willing to fight for the vast, vast majority of ideals we were hoping for when we pulled the lever in November 2008.

Yes, it's been nearly two years since we gave the Democrats our enormous power- a simply huge majority in the House, a 60-40 caucus vote in the Senate, and, on top of it all, the White House.

Since our victory, things have mostly gotten worse, which is no exaggeration and also a pretty mind-blowing realization.

Democrats gained a huge amount of power in 2008, yet things have mostly gotten worse- how can that BE??

Amazingly, the Obama Administration has mostly gone out of its way, not only to make sure that the change we showed we desired with our votes did not occur over these last two years, but to ensure that we went in the other direction, toward further corporate and monied control over our lives.

Before the election, we had a number of issues that were incredibly important to us.

They included:

1) Health care reform

2) GLBT rights

3) Protecting Social Security (which we took as a GIVEN!)

4) Protecting our civil liberties and the political process


Many of us even stayed loyal to the Administration in its early months, particularly with regard to foreign policy, understanding that things were difficult and that change would only come slowly.

But then the Health Care bill came manifest. I was vehemently against it (without a public option), knowing that, if it passed, we would end up stuck in a rut of hundred-billion dollar hand-outs to entrenched and lobbied corporate interests that would never allow us to get to the more efficient, single-payer place that we needed to get to. The deal the Administration made was geared toward nothing but passing along taxpayer dollars to private healthcare and pharmaceutical corporations, while still not necessarily providing corresponding care. We lost plenty of our power- our money, given away by the Administration- while gaining nothing in return. It was a terrible deal that is difficult to believe Obama did not intelligently give permission to, just as it was difficult to see how our representatives did not see the Iraq invasion for the sham that it was.

Since then, we've also seen very little regard for the perfectly defensible and morally righteous plight of homosexuals in the military, though they could be addressed with the President's small penstroke. There is nothing saying Obama has to enforce DADT, just as- correctly- California's AG is choosing not to defend the bigoted Prop 8 legislation it is responsible for.

In addition, we have seen ZERO movement with regard to the civil liberties laws infringed upon during the eight years of the Bush Administration. Again! things have only gotten worse. Now, it's apparently okay to flat-out murder American citizens, as long as they're in another country, with no judicial permission or oversight whatsoever. Oh, you say they're "terrorists" (meaning what?) living outside our borders? Just kill 'em, no need for justification! I don't even understand what "evidence" means!

And, now, possibly the worst of all, and the most confusing simply because there is no need for it.

The "commission" the Administration has set up is going to recommend cutting Social Security benefits, and perhaps even raising its retirement age.

I have a hard time even believing it, because it has seemingly come out of nowhere- there is no reasonable rationale for doing such a thing. Social Security is in no kind of trouble, but, more importantly, any decent economist understands that most of our current financial problems are due to a weakened, undervalued middle class. Now they're talking about further weakening the middle class by cutting funds that, by law, "trickle down" in that direction"?

What are they, fucking STUPID?

Why would they want to do this?

Whose interests is this Administration looking out for?



Anyway, for those of you who are so concerned about loyalty, and seeming to others like "good Democrats," I think we should be more concerned about BEING "good Democrats." Money and campaigning aside, there is only one thing politicians truly care about, and that is VOTES.

Individually, our vote is our only power.

Do not let others illegitimately intimidate you into casting your vote within the "lesser of two evils" paradigm- which I'm not necessarily convinced even applies here.

The paradigm I'm seeing in our politics today is monied interests vs. non-monied interests, and the monied interests are winning, quite easily, having bought off ALL of our representatives. There is no moral imperative to vote to continue either party's monied stranglehold. Certainly not.

We should be proud of the power we will exercise. Ostracization, as some private parties may choose to engage in, should not be a concern. Such influence would, quite necessarily, be corrupted, if you would not be allowed to exercise your power freely, and it should thusly be disregarded as lost anyway. It is not helping any decent cause.



My point is that we have a Democratic Administration who are too bought or too afraid to fight for genuine liberal ideals, but, as individuals, we should not be similarly afraid to fight for them.

That means fighting against any interests, no matter how powerful they may seem, private party or otherwise.

Your vote is your own. Vote your integrity.

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One side is saying: "We want you to dig your own grave. And of course we'd never push you in! Be rational! However, if you happen to die..."

The others side is saying: "Our plan is to tear you limb by limb. You are the enemy."

Neither of these parties are my friend. One is honest; the other claims that I must take responsibility for my own death by voting for them." It's kind of a "brutal-rape-and-murder" versus "seduction-coercion-and then murder" scenario.

Okay, it's 4am and I'm fresh out of metaphors. The political situation in this country sucks. What its missing is a viable left.

to put them in power instead of another guy they don't trust quite as much, but still sponsored by the same monied interest.

But here is something that no one has been able to answer.

What do we do if the GOP wins?

Call it a guilt trip if you want, but as of yet, voting third party usually means the GOP gains power. Am I wrong in that I do not want to see the GOP with their hands on the Wheel, yet again? Al Gore may have had faults, but I would have rather had him in power than George Bush.

Yes, the Blue Dogs are evil, and frankly, most of them can go. The Senate does need a bleeding, as they have done more to retard the progressive agenda than the GOP does. However, call me woodchuck if you will, but I do not see how, in 2012, allowing ANY GOP into the Oval Office could be anything but a titanic act of harm. It would be one thing of there was a leftist independent party that had some senators and governors, something that is a feasible goal that should be shot for, but the Oval Office is still either going to be Obama or a totally unacceptable choice.

You have your convictions, I have mine, but I am sincerely open to hearing and suggestions. If you feel not voting Obama in 2012 will help things, I am all ears.

If, in any given election, my one vote will tip
the election between the truly evil and the lesser
of two evils, then I should almost certainly vote
for the lesser of two evils, forestalling disaster
for one more election cycle.

But if the election is a certainty, no matter how
I vote, then I should vote in such a way that it
will move my party in the direction I want it to
go in the future.

So if my party is certain to win the election,
then I should vote for a further-left party so
that my party can see that there is a meaningful
cohort of voters farther to the left of my party
and that my party should move leftwards to help
acquire those votes.

And if my party is certain to lose the election
(in particular, if they're going to lose it through
overwhelming stupidity as the 2010 Democrats seem
intent to do), then I should help them receive the
drubbing of their lives, so that the party big-wigs
will be replaced by better, hopefully-more-capable
politicians ('cause they could hardly be worse than
the assholes who are running the Democratic Party
right now: Rahm, Kane, and the rest of them).

*THAT* is why it may make sense to weigh the situation
and if the Democrats are still headed for disaster in
2012, one may want to ensure that the disaster is of
such magnitude that no one, I mean NO ONE, can misread
the signals and say (for example), "well, if only we'd
behaved a little *MORE* like Republicans, people would
have voted for us instead of the Republicans".

Otherwise, the lesser-of-two-evils becomes ever-more-
evil over time, until there's no distinguishing them
from the truly, horrendously evil. And we're pretty
far down that road already, when our party defends,
for example, the summary execution of American citizens.

Tesha

and while the idea of Rahm et al being drubbed does sound tempting, it ignores some things worth thinking about.

One, you could send the exact opposite message, that the reason they lost is because they went too far left. You know that is the narrative already prepped.

Second, in this day and age, no election is a certainty. We have already seen two elections that were so close, the powers that be called them for Bush.

Third, and lastly, yes, we want to DEMOCRATS to realize there is much more to be gained from pleasing the left than the mushy independents, but, as much as those damned Reagan democrats are annoying, they still outrank us in number. Until such time as Mrs and Mr Joe average lean left, anyone who goes too far right risks losing their vote. People say "how did Bush do so much, and we forget that while he was a right wing bastard, he was able to outright tell the moral majority to keep quiet in 2000, enough so that people actually bought the line that we has not a reactionary. Yes, we came close in 2008, because, let's be honest, Suburban Whites were finally getting a taste of the same abandonment most coffee or chocolate colored people already knew. Now the Tea Party is doing a great job of reviving all the old myths the average joe would not only die for, but KILL for. The protestant work ethic, white man's burden, and all that rot. The point is, when the mediocre majority starts yelling "if you go too far right you will scare us away!" and they have the media amping their message like the guitars at an Iron Maiden concert, what do you offer against the mob?

> One, you could send the exact opposite message, that the
> reason they lost is because they went too far left. You
> know that is the narrative already prepped.

That's why I will *NEVER* "not vote"

Even if, in some election, I choose not to vote
for the Democrats, there will *NEVER* be an election
in which I will choose not to vote. If there's no
Democrat that I can support in a race, I will find
some nice oddball farthe rto the left to vote for.
Or I will write myself in. Or write in Mr. Tesha.
He's a well known flaming liberal-about-town.

Not voting allows the assholes to deliberately
misconstrue the result to their benefit. But if
2% of the Democratic vote were to disappear to
the Socialists and/or 5% to the Greens, then the
point would be unmistakable, no matter how many
lies Rahm and company would try to tell about it.

Tesha

A mark of an OP that is devoid of intellectual honesty. The idea that only you and you alone (those that disagree are clearly defective blind people) shows that your position is so flawed and so weak that you need to make those illogical and insulting statements.