final election thoughts #1

To those that say that the Democratic and Republican parties are both wings of the same corpocracy or whatever, I say... "fuck off."

If you are playing a football game, and you are down three touchdowns, do you give up and leave the stadium because you can't take the lead in one drive?

I would say that a large percentage of Democratic politicians, maybe 40-50%, are useless, corporate-friendly placeholders. But for the Republican party, it's up around 90-95%. So again, to use another sports analogy, if my team is 5 runs behind, and I cannot possibly put us ahead with my current at-bat, do I just walk away, or try to hit a five-run homer?

No. I try to get on base. I try to start a rally.

The institutionalization of the two party system is an American tragedy. It puts us all into two camps when we are really many different places along the ideological spectrum. It places people of largely similar values on opposite sides of a bloody war. It is the continuance of America's Civil War. It shuttles everything toward the center, with no effective mechanism to pull anything toward any kind of progressive direction.

We need a couple of Constitutional Amendments - one, to establish instant runoff voting, which will empower and embolden third party and independent candidates and those who might vote for them. Two, we need to outlaw lobbying and other interference by corporations in the lawmaking process. We need to establish church/state type separations - between Corporations and Government and between political parties and Government. The influence of Corporations on Government has been a disaster for the people. Likewise, the institutionalization of the two party system has also been a disaster for the people.

But right now, the situation is what it is. What is the first step toward acheiving these goals? Is it a protest vote, for Nader or McKinney? No. The first step is to elect Barack Obama and to prevent John McCain and Sarah Palin from being elected. It's not the solution to our problems. It's actually a small step. But it's an important step.

Next, we need to continue to push the Democrats toward an anti-corporate, populist stance. Support progressive primary challenges of conservative or pro-corporate Democrats, or independent or third party challenges, where possible.

And for God's sake, should Obama get elected, when the Republicans try to take him down with some kind of Whitewater type scandal bullshit, let's not get on the bandwagon because we're pissed off that Obama didn't turn out to be our progressive savior. Like Clinton, he probably won't. But that doesn't mean he isn't our ally. Had Democrats not jumped on the impeach Clinton bandwagon, or given it legitimacy by not virulently opposing it, we might not be backed up to our own one yard line right now.

Obama can be our guy up there at the top. He can't take us all of the way there. But Nader or McKinney or Kucinich is not going to be up there right now. And no one more progressive than Obama is ever going to get up there unless we elect Obama now and continue to push and fight. We need a populist movement for instant runoff voting, and for the ending of corporate influence on elections and elected officials. These two principles must be adopted, and must be given the sacred status of amendments to the Constitution, in order to save this Republic from its own worst demons.

But again, the first step is to ELECT OBAMA PRESIDENT AND VOTE FOR THE BEST CANDIDATES THAT CAN REALISTICALLY WIN IN THIS ELECTION!