Badtux, it is has been more than a decade since anyone I have voted for actually won any office. I watched a lot of supposedly serious, intelligent people jump on the Obama bandwagon without even looking at the corporate decals plastered all over it. I’m not a forgive and forget kind of person, and those people will never be trusted again because their judgment is obviously fatally flawed.

I don’t expect candidates to match every position I take, but they have to have a real reason, other than personal enrichment, for opposing things I support.

But the sheeple just keep eating it up and bending over as they get serviced up the rear by the people they elect and shout “give me more, sir!”. Talk about your idiocracy…

– Badtux the Pessimistic Penguin

We don’t have a true “Labour Party” base in the US, especially since they started outsourcing all of the manufacturing jobs which has wiped out several major unions. [a feature, not a bug]

If people don’t start throwing out the corporate stooges, nothing can possibly change. As long as the same crooks keep getting re-elected, and then gain seniority power, the system can’t be fixed.

until Congress deals effectively with corporations, nothing is going to change.
Hallelujah brother! 😉

The only problem with that, is of course, that the congresscritters are employed by those companies. and they will never bite the hand that truly feeds them. 🙂 Only the people can make a change, and they won’t. *shrug*

Jill, until Congress deals effectively with corporations, nothing is going to change. There have to be real penalties for bad actions, not fines that have a minor effect on the profits for a single quarter.

Actually, John, the people of their states support health care reform, but they don’t have the money to make the political contributions required to get the attention of their Senators. Like most incumbents they keep getting re-elected because of the myth of the power of seniority. Seniority is good for the individual, but not so much for their states.

They are encouraging this crap. They are rewarding bad behavior which is a terrible way to train a dog, or raise children, so it should definitely be off limits for lower forms of life, like Congresscritters.

They are listening to the people who voted for them and supported them, only to the incredibly stupid outbursts from people who have no intention of voting for anything. They only way you can get the attention of the White House is by opposing it, which is exactly what the progressives in the House should do. Nothing coming from the Senate is going to be worth squat, and things are not going to get fixed in reconciliation.

There are now a number of people who suspect that this entire charade is to provide cover for screwing around with Medicare, and not in a good way, but in a way that will reward the same bad actors that have created the current mess.

It’s time for a Liberal Party, and let the centrists fade into the sands of time.

There is a lot shorter list of sane, and intelligent people. Most of the media includes all the same “dog whistle” phrases and distortions.

It’s like the people seriously bringing up statements about the Hedgemony lying about the evidence on Iraq made by Congresscritters being the equivalent of what the dillweed for South Carolina yelled during a joint session of Congress. There is no mention of the fact that the excuses for the Iraq invasion were lies, while the bills currently under consideration specifically do not permit payments to undocumented immigrants.

The reality, Hipparchia, is that the only dependable sources of news about the United States are all from media organizations outside of the United States. It is pathetic that I am more likely to read balanced reporting on the US government in Izvestia, than the New York Times.

Even so, I think this is a grotesque miscalculation on their part. It will only serve to encourage more attacks on Obama. As Digby says, it clears the way for The Stupids, now, to shout “Hitler, Hitler, Hitler” every time Obama shows his face in public.

I despair. The Democratic Party always has been an ugly coalition of right-and-left, liberal-and-reactionary, equality advocates- and- segregationists. But without a rational Republican Party with a substantial progressive wing on the other side, the nation’s electorate is left with no real choice. Can’t abide the modern Know-Nothings, and Democratic Party leaders perceive (Obama included, I am now convinced) that there is no political benefit for them in listening to the Left. After all, where else are we gonna go?

History suggests a third party has no real chance of gaining ascendance as a national party, except in unique times when the nation confronted enormously divisive issues such as slavery and civil war. Far more likely to succeed is an ideological realignment where, for example, Democrats slowly become the party of conservatives and the Republican Party returns to its historic, progressive roots.

But I see no one in the GOP positioned, or even desiring, to drag it away from the abyss into which it is now staring. And no one, or at least no one I know, has the least interest in spending his life going from one tea bagger meeting to the next, converting the Dummies into educated, reality-based thinkers.

I’m almost ready to run a white flag up the pole and surrender to the United Corporations of America, the financing arm of both political parties.