[snip]: On the other hand, has MDG or JD ever considered that if he and enough of his friends joined a progressive third party, that the Democrats might take some proactive steps to woo them back into the fold? This is precisely what has happened in New Mexico's local politics with the emergence of the New Mexico Green Party.
OF COURSE I've considered that, Sam. And as I've repeatedly told you, I support third parties, especially the Greens. What I advocate, and what you apparently dismiss, is WORKING FROM THE BOTTOM UP. You want a viable Green party candidate for President? Then start building the Green party at the local level. Establish the party, take control of school boards and state legislatures and show the people what a difference the Green party can make. You have to build your way up from the bottom. In the meantime, you also need to come to grips with reality and ask yourself who will be better for the country, Bush or Gore/Bradley. You say there's no difference between the two, and I say there is.
: : I fear that Democracy is yet one more casualty of so-called 'consumerism.' We seem to think that political choices are something over which we have no control and candidates are merely another corporate offering. It's Coke or New Coke.
: SDF:
:
The consumers are the workers and employees, the
: fammers and lower middle class. Capitalist production so confines them,
: body and soul, that they fall helpless victims to what is offered them.
: As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them.
: The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities. It is stronger even than the rigorism of the Hays Office, just as in certain great times in history it has inflamed greater forces that were tumed against it, namely, the terror of the tribunals. It calls for Mickey Rooney in preference to the tragic Garbo, for Donald Duck instead of Betty Boop. The industry submits to the vote which it has itself inspired.
: Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, from Dialectic of Enlightenment: : But isn't that the whole point of such democratic-oligarchy? To let people think they actually have a choice? That includes the neo-nazi loons out there... throw in an RC cola now and then. In the end, they know everyone will go for the Coke.
: :
: : We'd better wise-up to the fact that none of this nonsense is going to change unless those of us with nothing to lose and everything to gain by change, change it.
: SDF: What about those who have something to lose by its continuation?
You really think you have nothing to lose, as opposed to big bad liberal democrats like (as you allege) me? Think again. The Democrats might just stop privatization of Social Security, whereas the GOP are gung ho for it. That affects even a commie like you, SDF.
Lastly, I'm amused by how you think calling someone a liberal is a bad thing. I don't mind being called liberal, though I probably go beyond that term. Liberals have always fought for human rights and freedom, environmentalism, and all those other things leftists embrace -- and just because one is a liberal DOES NOT mean that one rejects socialism -they can easily go hand in hand. I remember when the Republicans embarked on their campaign to make the term "liberal" an insult. I remember George Bush, in his sneering, nasally voice, calling Mike Dukakis a "lii-ber-ral," as if that was a bad thing. The sad part is, the conservatives have won; in fact, they've done such a good job of it that they even have leftists like you, Sam, agreeing with them.
