A Wild Hair in the Bay State

I recently read Chris Hedges' Empire Of Illusion. In it and in his speaking engagements he says forthrightly that Americans have to begin to support third party candidates such as Cynthia McKinney. David Sirota from In These Times also says the vote has to be used strategically. The quote from Bill Clinton is nearly worn out in which he says the working class will vote for Democrats no matter what because they have no choice.

Republicans and their tea party populism will never represent the people they claim to represent.

It's time to abandon both parties even if only to get a handful of independents that can swing votes to defeat, when necessary, bad legislation.

The larger voting public should take a lesson from Lieberman and the like: look what one swing vote can do.

On the money. I can't believe I'm pulling for a Repug to take Ted Kennedy's place, but Obama's emerged as such a reactionary figure that I am pulling for Brown. The terrible part to come is embodied in Nagourney's piece: only one lesson will be drawn from a Brown victory by both the White and the media: the admin must move to the right.

[Yeah, Nagourney clearly puts it in the establishment's context. g.]

In the Nagourney piece he says:

"Still, some Democrats are wondering if Mr. Obama would be in a better position now if he had embraced a less ambitious health care proposal, as some aides urged, permitting him to pivot more quickly on the economy."

What health health proposal could be less ambitious that what is now offered?

This election looks as narrow as the debates allowed for Presidential office.

Perhaps George can have a podcast on how the US, in institutions, media, and welfare for the owners of production resembles the Soviet Union. I saw this someplace but it has gone down the memory hole.

Perhaps Werther has some insight?

While I would enjoy hearing another podcast about how the US is falling apart at the seams, I'd love to hear someone with realistic ideas about solving the problem, but so far Electric Politics seems to avoid the world of fantasy.

We live in a corporatocracy where all our constitutional institutions are either dysfunctional or owned by the very interests against whom we the people need protection. Our electoral process consists of a pair of year-long infomercials and a selection between two products that will not only fail to work for us, but will work against us.

I fail to see how we get out of this morass by competing with corporations and banks for control of our congressional representatives. My local garden store has a supply of pitchforks but we'll have to improvise the torches.

[The solution, Charles, is for us to adopt a different system of government — I do say this from time to time but for the moment it only bears a certain amount of repeating. g.]