Number of Democrats thinking of not voting in 2010 up to 45%

I’m not voting. Apparently things have to be in full crisis mode, complete meltdown, before people are motivated enough to think about policy in adult terms. We are close to freefall, but not there yet. Unemployment is a factor in 2012. If Obama can’t put a dent in that, AND the Republicans can field some fresh new face, he could lose. At this point, it might be better. I am pissed off.

Boy do I wish you had preview. That comment is a mess. My apologies Ian. I read it over, but I guess my brain isn’t fully awake yet. Hopefully, the ideas in it can be seen through the poor grammar and typos.

Ok, i get the feeling. I even agree with it, and i won’t be voting Democratic in the foreseeable future…if ever. But until we have the opportunity to vote “None of the Above”, not voting only plays into the hands of the legacy parties. They, together, benefit from low turnout.

Come on, Dems, throw away your vote once. I can almost guarantee you’ll like how it feels. It’s certainly better than staying home, and the message it sends is far stronger.

BDB: message received loud and clear.

I think we are likely to see a strong third party candidate for prez in the next cycle. The problem is, s/he is likely to be dangerously insane. I could easily see a very popular candidate run on an anti-immigrant, anti-corporate, anti-free trade banner and do very well at uniting the bases of both the left and the right. Except for the anti-immigrant bit, I’d be right there with him. We could get the anti-neoliberal policies that the country requires, but wow, anyone who doesn’t “Murrican” better not go outside….

Indeed, add “look” to that last sentence to make it parse-able. Sorry.

I mean, even *Krugman* is practically calling for tariffs on the Chinese. My first exposure to him in the ’80s was as a die-hard free-trader. With the “lost first decade” and another one staring us in the face, the anti-corporate, anti-free-trade campaign ads write themselves.

I doubt the expected profiteering of the health insurance cos over the next couple of years will help the Dem cause much either…

I wish people on this site would stop blaming the victim.

“Wallstreet just pulled off the largest theft of cash in the entire history of the human race ”

This happened under a Democratic Congress and a Democratic and then a Republican administration. So lets say you are a voter who is anti getting their money stolen by Wall Street. Do you vote for the Democrats, who are in favor of having Wall Street steal your money? Or maybe you vote for the Republicans, who are in favor of having Wall Street steal your money? Or you don’t vote, in which case Wall Street also steals your money.

You might have a federal representative who bucks his or her own party and takes a more populist line, until his vote really matters and is whipped.

I happen to vote for fringe parties, they are fringe parties in the US by the way, not third parties or minor parties, all the time. If you think an organized party other than the Democrats or Republicans will gain control of so much as a state government under the current electoral system, you don’t understand the system very well. For a start, look at who makes the appointments to the local election bureaucracies. Also this works very differently in Canada.

Ian, at this point you would benefit from reading “Indispensible Enemies”, which I think is out of print but still available through Amazon. For one thing it will clear up the mystery of why Obama is doing things that will cost the Democrats seats in Congress.

@ Lex
Not voting is one thing, the return on the position is negligible, as you point out.

Withdrawal of consent, may appear similar, but has incredible power. It is dangerous to confuse the two and deadly without the wisdom to distinguish. This is true for Republics, kingdoms, all forms of autarchic governance, not one survives the withdrawal of consent. The fall of the Berlin wall is a recent example of what withdrawal of consent can effect, Romania was a violent result brought on by a violent regime. Indifference and apathy may also be a form of withdrawal of consent, be plenty sure placing your bets on those dice.

This whole meme of “Obama is as bad as Clinton” is a ridiculous.

For those who sought a retreat from Bush II corruption, Obama is a disaster of unmitigated proportions.

The only president Obama compares to is “Bush The Second”…or perhaps Wilson.

I did not like Clinton, but he and Obama have nothing in common, the most damaging things that happened under Clinton, sans NAFTA, were when Republicans carried the whip hand.

BTW Ian, a little history, Clinton lost big in 1994 because of his tax increases. Those tax increases led to the biggest boom since the 1960’s. Every Republican, in or out of office, declared with conviction that the world would melt down, 100% wrong.

Bush’s 3rd Term?

What is Bush’s 3rd Term Ian?

Weak tea Ian.

tjfxh,

You might want to read, or show some comprehension of my post before pontificating about it. Of course it could you just being pedantic to garner some attention to your self…you have a pattern in that regard

To the best of my knowledge, I started with “Obama is Bush’s 3rd Term” after Obama’s reversal on FISA.

When you leave out “Obama” the phrase becomes meaningless. As an example, I tested the phrase “Bush’s 3rd Term” on some Obama fans at my bar…and without explanation they though it meant something like, “thank God McCain didn’t win”.

Now maybe Ian thinks “thank God McCain didn’t win” when he says “Bush’s 3rd Term” we don’t know because whoever we mean when we say “Bush’s 3rd Term” is not identified. Thus the phrase is vacuous and open to interpretation, so at some later date “Bush’s 3rd Term” could morph into “Clinton would’ve been Bush’s 3rd Term” or “McCain would’ve been Bush’s 3rd Term”.

The left has a long history of ambiguous phrases being turn on them, because they assume others play fair.

So now that I spent 10 minutes explaining to Tjfxz one line personally addressed to Ian.

How about the other 4 paragraphs Tjfxz, which were the subject of my post:

“This whole meme of “Obama is as bad as Clinton” is a ridiculous.

For those who sought a retreat from Bush II corruption, Obama is a disaster of unmitigated proportions.

The only president Obama compares to is “Bush The Second”…or perhaps Wilson.

I did not like Clinton, but he and Obama have nothing in common, the most damaging things that happened under Clinton, sans NAFTA, were when Republicans carried the whip hand.

BTW Ian, a little history, Clinton lost big in 1994 because of his tax increases. Those tax increases led to the biggest boom since the 1960’s. Every Republican, in or out of office, declared with conviction that the world would melt down, 100% wrong.”

selise: As you probably know, I agree with your assessment of Obama and the current leaders in Congress don’t want progressive legislation. I don’t know why, but actions speak louder than words, and their actions are those of people who don’t want progressive legislation.

@ Lex

That is the first time the reference “peasant (technique)” has been associated with Boycott, a withdrawing from having social (political) or commercial (economic) intercourse with (whomever). Short of conspiring to overthrow a regime, a very dangerous proposition at best having remarkably little success, the boycott freed India from British empire, was the effective force in Irish independence, and if properly read, the US Declaration of Independence is exactly an invoice sustaining a withdrawal of consent to be governed by the British Crown (and Parliament). The form of withdrawal of consent has infinite forms, limited only to the imagination, everything from black markets, barter, to infidelities with facts on documents or in relations with agencies (under the premise one liar to another), refusal to participate in public duties, the list can be extended to messing with tax returns (imagine what the IRS would do if 50-70 million returns were falsified – they would have to build thousands of prisons to house the government supporters and turn the country into the prison, much like gated communities are today).

There is a fact and once it is accepted, the course becomes clear, that fact, the system is corrupted beyond repair, neither the Republic nor Law no longer exists, and “none of the above” is meaningless as is participation in the fraudulence of electoral politics. The urgency to be addressed is the development and creation of a viable, functioning alternative to replace the present governance dysfunction. There is all of history to choose from for your models, and you also have history’s judgments as to effectiveness and utility. Bits and pieces can be combined or recombined to mold whatever is necessary to meet public needs or provide public protection from whatever human excess threatens. Or you may succumb to the siren call of whatever demagogue may be passing, and your future will be as lost as it is now. It is your choice, choose once, choose wisely.

S. Brennan, I respectfully disagree with you. In the important things, Obama is continuing the Bush policies. Sorry, that’s the way many progressive see it, and you aren’t going to convince us with the arguments you are mounting. They are beside the point of me and many others. This argued all the time on DKos and I am familiar with it.

Lex and Formerly T-Bear:

“It is your choice, choose once, choose wisely.”

T-Bear, I agree that we have to choose wisely, but what will allow us to make the “right” choice?

” Mankind sets itself only tasks as it can solve……it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.” It is within this context that we define the role of the individual and individual choices. What will allow us to make the right choice: understanding of the material changes and the laws inherent in them. I don’t mean political laws; but rather, economic laws.

If we have the most advanced technology ever developed by humankind, and yet we have people staving, homeless, dying from lack of health care, etc. it certainly is not the technology that is causing this problem. As a matter of fact, we can produce enough food to feed every human on the planet and we certainly have enough housing: thousands of homes and condos apartments building sit empty and more are being built every day.

So what is in the way? What is the fetter? If we answer that question, we find the solution within the problem. The fetter is broken and all of humankind moves forward.

tjfxh,

Bad policy and bad economics, too. With the GOP in disarray, hell bent on stampeding over a cliff, why is the Dem establishment thinking about grabbing the third rail of American politics with both hands and committing electoral suicide?

because the republicans can’t do it, so the job falls on the dems instead?

wouldn’t you expect balanced budgets (fed and current account) to lead to a world wide deflationary depression? maybe that’s their plan to protect the climate as energy use plummets? (just joking – mostly)

Does no one understand that the act of not voting is what allows the representatives to pull this shit off? They *are* pandering to their base: they don’t want you to turn out in the non-presidential elections, because they know that if you did they would lose their jobs and the lobbyist’s money. Their base is the lobby.

If you’re pissed off, go vote and get all of your pissed off friends to go with you. I’m pissed, and I fully intend to vote, let my representatives know I’m voting, and try to bring as many people with me as possible. Why? Because I want the current reps gone for what they’ve done.

The Constitution can be easily usurped by those who know how to control factions (Federalist Papers). By not voting, you are allowing factions to be created. Neo-cons: faction. Religious right: faction. Nut-job idiots who don’t like health care: faction. Stop allowing factions. Go vote. Bring people with you. Turn our country back into a representational republic, and not the sham it has become.

Demand the expansion of the house. 1 rep per 100,000 citizen’s this is the solution it’s still not too late to prevent the down fall of the republic. See http://www.thirty-thousand.org for more.

i’m very doomy about america’s future, and that of the world. i just can’t see the solutions to our many problems being considered, let alone implemented, by our ruling elites. i have been extremely disappointed in the Congressional “progressive” caucus this past year, and they are pretty much our only hope for any kind of change, and minor change is likely the best they would be able to accomplish assuming so many of them weren’t such caving wimps.

i’m also very down on the amurkin people (whom i so name as i don’t believe we deserve to be called “americans” anymore). we’re pretty much a nation of apathetic addicts who are getting dumber by the minute. as i was reading elsewhere, there is great value in the destruction of a nation, and that’s what i think is going on here today. the ruling elites have no interest in saving the environment, getting off the oil economy, etc., and have pretty much demonstrated that they are at the stage of rulership which is: ‘and when you can’t squeeze a dime’s more profit out of manipulating the population via work and creation, sell off all remaining property of value, including said population as slaves.’

that’s what i think is happening to america today, and it will continue to happen until we are a true banana republic of wholly oppressed masses kept in ignorance, and a few ruling elite for whom nationality will be meaningless.

don’t you just love Mondays? 😉

Or, working under the reported information that the Clinton administration’s first line of defense was to claim rabid partisanship, we could rightfully wonder if the VRC was taking credit for things it didn’t deserve full credit for and the Clinton SOP used the VRC taking credit as politically convenient cover.

I don’t know which is true, and it probably doesn’t matter. It certainly doesn’t matter within the context of Ian’s post because the post does not posit the motivation of Clinton doing his second term damage beyond that the damage was done after Clinton lost his base and Congress in ’94.

But IIRC, Congressional Democrats were not happy with how Clinton was going about things between ’92 and ’94 because they saw that it would do damage to their electoral chances.

Someone is going to win the election of 2010. Staying home does not change that. Not voting means that you do not contribute to our democracy. If you find that the Democratic Party does not represent you any more, find a new party. The Green Party represents the ideals that the Democrats sold out. If all the progressive Democrats who don’t identify with the direction the party is going were to vote Green, there would be a clear message sent to the direction we need to go. Staying at home is to contribute to the failure of your country.

It is really hard to tell which party wants to lose more.

I find it hard to believe so many seemingly intelligent individuals debating the question of voting. Doesn’t it seem strange to anyone that there doesn’t seem to be any real choice? For many years now the democratic party has been pandering to the republicans, so much so that you could say they are the left wing of the G.O.P. The reality is that there is a secret government acting behind the front of public politics and they control who the candidates for the next election will be. Their mastery of deception is exemplified by the brillant strategy used to get Obama into office. His repeated declarations of being a Washington outsider and his apparent disgust of the Bush administration secured him the presidency even though he was black. It has become apparent that he was a shoe in, having been groomed for this role for some time. The decendent of slaves who now uses his position to enslave us all. Forgive him for he himself is still a slave. If you look to the future it isn’t hard to see the strategy at work for the next election cycle. George Bush gave white men a bad name so they had a black man waiting in the wings. He now has given all men a bad name so they have Sarah Palin waiting in the wings. They decide who could be president not the voters. In fact the president doen’t have much power anyway. He is told what to do and what to say. Congress has been impotent for many decades now. But not voting just helps the secret government keep getting stronger. If the voters turned out en-mass much could be done to restore democracy. It is absolutely imperative that a new political party be created. And with it a citizen watch dog group to oversee elections. We need to establish citizen oversight of Congress. We need citizen oversight of every branch and department within government. We need acountability from our leaders and their appointees. I don’t know if you have noticed but there doesn’t seem to be a justice department in Washington anymore. What we need is action and we need it now. We need candidates for office that are not part of the privileged few and are willing to do what’s right for it’s own sake. We need to draft everyday Americans into public service because they posess the character and skills required to uplift humanity. We need real choices at every level of government from Mayor to President and I think the time has come for the governed to choose who ought to be a candidate in the race even if it means drafting the individual against his will. Business interests have seized our government and use our leaders to systematically control us for their benefit and it has got to stop. Are you men or lemmings? Vote every chance you get and if there is no choice then let it be known!

First suggestion, look up the definition of “LIE” in your Webster’s Dictionary.
With your “New Found Knowledge”, you can easily understand why we have such a corrupt bunch of elected officials, taking everything we’ve worked for all our lives to date, and either giving our assets to Wall Street, or using them to support those people who our government deems, deserviable, of OUR assets.
The last TWO presidents, Bush and now Obama, are in it for their own personal agenda’s. What Obama did to get to Washington, is a classic example of what Webster is saying. Coupled with his movement to presaude millions to beleive that he was there for them, and he would put a stop to much of the corruption in Washington D.C. was a very big “LIE” to start with. He never had any intent, but too win that election. Whatever it took! He merely took advantage of a situation, and articulated his big SCAM on the American Public.
What we have today is “A Government, FOR the Government, BY the Government”. OWNED and controlled by Corporate America’s money. [$$$$$$$]
While these already elected officials are taking campaign contributions from C.A.’s bribery funds, in reality, they’re selling us out even before they’re elected. Anyone who beleives that their exception of these funds are free for the taking, have already been taken themselves.
The majority of our elected officials have a gold ring attached to their noses. There is a gold chain assigned to each, held by each Political Party, that is simply attached when needed, to lead each official in the direction determined by C.A., and carried out by the appointed leadership of said parties.
But what about us, “We the People”? That praise has been changed by the Government. It now should read “The Government”, For the Government, BY the Government”.

Addendum:

Should you be further interested, Tolstoy also has a discourse on civil disobedience that is brilliant, you can research that one yourself.