Taking a Page from the Tea Party Book

[BridgeTheGap]

Anyone who has ever had the yearning to vote for an alternative, independent, and progressive third party candidate only to cave in the voting booth and vote Democrat—haunted by voices saying, “You’d be throwing your vote away”—must surely be asking these days, “What if?” After seeing what just a few elected officials can do to the whole political process, each and every one of them has to be saying, “If only we’d voted with our hearts.” After all, as Kevin Drum points out at Mother Jones, “So who was driving the absolutist view in Congress over the past few months? If it was the no-compromise wing of the tea party, that's less than 10% of the country.”

Less than ten percent. No doubt, at some point in the last few decades all those people wishing they could break out of the tired two-party system and vote for a truly progressive-minded candidate could have reached a number in Congress that could rival the number of Tea Partiers taking the country hostage now. What then? What would this country look like had we known that so few could do so much? We’ll never know.

Still, if we must try and find a silver lining in this nobody-wins model of government, maybe it’s this: It turns out we might not being throwing our vote away if we vote more progressively than we previously thought possible. Or, at the very least, form a political base with some teeth, able to make Democrats believe they may be ousted for a more progressive candidate if they continue to woo the Almighty Independent Vote in lieu of actual liberal ideals. This is the conclusion behind recent articles in Dissent and Change-Links.

In “Stopping Obama’s Next Betrayal” Mark Engler has little time for debating whether or not Obama is a true liberal or a centrist. Such discussions don’t “lead very far in terms of suggesting a political response,” Engler writes. Obama is what he is and, no matter what else you say about his administration, it will listen to opposing sides. The problem, according to Engler, is that progressive movements aren’t doing their part in making the president or Congress work for them.

Read more: http://www.utne.com/Politics/Independent-Progressive-Labor-Movements-Tea-Party.aspx#ixzz1Uj8VTvuT

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. with the stranglehold of corporations on politics in the USA

I don't think a third party will survive. The powerful corps stamp out any progressive thought process. I think this is more successful in Europe.

[BridgeTheGap]

2. It's still all about the grassroots. The anecdote to the corporate push to the right is door-to-

door engagement. People are pissed now and need direction. The g.o.p. is co-opting the tea partiers, but they're not having an easy time of it. True progress in this country is possible but it can only happen at the grassroots level...old fashioned politics at its best.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. I agree

but there is a great amount of apathy.

[BridgeTheGap]

4. There will always be apathy. Believe me, there are plenty of people who want to do something but

don't know what to do. Organize!

[roxiejules]

5. First, we have to reject the nonsense about long term deficits

and the rhetoric about “burdens” that will “fall on our children and grandchildren”.'

And the first change must be to challenge and reject all the nonsense about long-term budget deficits, national bankruptcy or insolvency, and even “fiscal responsibility” that we are hearing. The entire object of this propaganda campaign is to cripple government—including regulation and the courts—and to roll back Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The defense of those successful, effective—and yes, sustainable—programs just became far more difficult, and perhaps impossible. But it needs to be carried on to the last ditch.

- James Galbraith

[BridgeTheGap]

6. The fact that interest on our debt is the number 2 expenditure (behind defense) is problematic to me

That and what we are actually in debt for (i.e. wars, corporate welfare, the rich not paying their fair share). We seemed to be in decent shape until Bush & the Neo-Cons decided it was time to launch wars for the sake of U.S. supremacy while doling out tax cuts, still in place for the wealthy.

[roxiejules]

7. What I mean by long term deficits..

The U.S. Government has spent $13 trillion in financial bailouts since Lehman Bros. failed in September 2008. But now we are warned that thirty years from now, the Social Security fund may run a $1 trillion deficit.

It is theatre designed to scare us into cutting the only programs that actually work.

[BridgeTheGap]

8. I agree. The Bush admin. & repub congress refusal to regulate the financial industry

is another big reason we're in this fix. People got rich off this thievery (including private contractors through the war) and yet the rich can't be taxed appropriately! This is a shakedown!