There's so much of this the last coupla days, it oughta be on CBS, which Mrs. G calls "The Autopsy Channel" because of
NCIS and the
CSI: Wherevers. Heh.
Lady Jane4. That said: suck on it, “anonymous Senior White House officials” and other assorted DC Democrats (extra hard for you, Bill Clinton). Labor is not your bitch, and their money isn’t yours to direct. They’re supposed to take what, another six years of black eyes from Blanche Lincoln just because you say so? If their $8 million buys derivatives legislation and limits the damage that the Masters of the Universe can do to the world economy in the future, it’s not only a bargain, it also means that a bunch of nurses and janitors have done more to rein in the banks than you and your entire pack of servile, visionless Wall Street lackeys has done since you took office.
Glenn GreenwaldWhat's going on here couldn't be clearer if the DNC produced neon signs explaining it. Blanche Lincoln and her corporatist/centrist Senate-friends aren't some unfortunate outliers in the Democratic Party. They are the Democratic Party. The outliers are the progressives. The reason the Obama White House did nothing when Lincoln sabotaged the public option isn't because they had no leverage to punish her if she was doing things they disliked. It was because she was doing exactly what the White House and the Party wanted. The same is true when she voted for Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, serves every corporate interest around, and impedes progressive legislation. Lincoln doesn't prevent the Democratic Party from doing and being what it wishes it could do and be. She enables the Party to do and be exactly what it is, what it wants to be, what serves its interests most. That's why they support her so vigorously and ensured her victory: the Blanche Lincolns of the world are the heart, soul and face of the national Democratic Party.
...
[...] In other words, the White House wants unions and other progressive groups to be nothing more than Democratic Party apparatchiks, whereby they help Democrats get elected purely for the sake of preserving Democratic power, regardless of the policy outcomes that are achieved, and regardless of how hostile those outcomes are to progressives. The sooner that realization is pervasive, the better.
Both of those pieces have links to others.
So what do we as progressives do about this? On the one side we have a regressive right-wing warmongering corporatist Repuglican't Party. Support for them is out of the question. Duh.
On the other side, we have a slightly less right-wing but just as corporatist Democratic Party. Support for them is getting to be more and more distasteful even though Obama is light years better than Bush or any other Repug in every way. Yes, I said
every way.
I'm beginning to understand how the fundies and 'God, guns, & gays' and other retard wingnuts must feel, if there are any of them with functioning brains, that is. The Dems are using unions, liberals, and minorities just like the Repugs use the right-wing tiny-brained: promise them anything for votes and then kick 'em to the curb once they're in power.
One answer that has been kicked around for a while and is gaining support is a (gasp!) Third Party. This has its own set of problems. For one thing,
our third party will split the Dems into smaller factions just like the teabaggers are doing to the Repugs. That's a good thing when it's happening to the Repugs, a bad thing if it happens to Dems. Worse, Dems aren't as conditioned to lock-step ideology as Repugs and don't agree as easily to things they are told to like but don't.
Which brings us to 'time'. It will take a comparatively long period of time for a Progressive Third Party to congeal* (carefully chosen word) into something that can get a national following and get people elected who are outside the two-party corporatist/careerist mold.
*I chose 'congeal' because there are
lots of 'third parties': Peace & Freedom, Green, Save The Alligators, Free Bagels, etc., etc., that can hold their conventions in a phone booth and come up with candidates like Eldridge Cleaver and Ralph Nader who mercifully don't stand a chance. That kind of splintering just makes the problem worse and the bleeding needs to clot.
The longer it takes to do something, the earlier you must start. Let me use the analogy of a spark plug: we tend to think of a spark plug firing all at once. It doesn't. A spark plug
starts to fire an incredibly long period of time, relatively speaking, ahead of actually lighting off the fuel charge in order for it to build up enough of a kernel of electrical flame to do so. I could go on and on about the compromise of ignition timing, stoichiometry, fuel compression, cam timing & overlap, rod angle, and a bazillion other things that have to happen to get you to the convenience store for a pack of Depends, but that's for
Fixer & Gordon. Point is:
Start
now, results
later. A viable Third Party is simply not going to spring full-blown into existence ready to take over and make things right. We're not talkin' an election cycle or two here. We're talkin', best case, a decade if we hit the deck a-runnin' NOW. Which we're not doing. Worst case, a generation. If we start NOW. Which we're not doing.
The seeds of a third party are being planted as we speak, and mighty oaks from little acorns grow. Go plant one and get a lawn chair and a cold drink and watch it. Before you can hang a tire on a rope from a branch on that mighty oak and watch your grandchildren swing, there's a lot going to happen.
Do it. Start a Third Party. Nurture it. Watch it grow to national prominence against the entrenched two-sides-of-the-same-coin corporatist moneyed powerful political system we have now. Trust me on this one, it won't happen as fast amongst Progressives and Liberals as it seems to be happening with the teabaggers because we tend to
think for ourselves. That's a big difference and something to consider.
A split Democratic Party will inevitably lead to the Right Wing gaining power again, just like the currently split Repug Party mercifully has them running in circles and screaming and shouting.
Until such a time as there is a viable Third Party, I ask you to remember that the biggest enemy our nation faces is not the Democratic Party but rather the Far Right. You can call the Dems a
Hobson's choice or the lesser of two evils, but whether you opt for another more progressive party or try to change the Dems from within with better candidates, Fight The Right With All Your Might. They must never gain control again. Period.
