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Edited on Thu Oct-04-07 03:58 PM by PATRICK
The future is never quite the match of reasoned speculation. What it looks like now is that there are no clean hands to catch the falling GOP. Something again dirty, like Tricky Dick or the cover reagan conservatism, will out compete ANY honest moderate. The organization itself is beyond the pale of even a deep, party slamming purge. Only outside criminal investigations could do that and the Dems seem more than reluctant to carry things that far even if the law and democracy itself has been ruined because of it. The choice between criminal liars trying to destroy democracy and weak deliverers slouching toward a mushy center with blinders is not a democratic choice, but a last line no-choice, cynical falsity to simply save our skins.
The Dems have a possibility for a new direction and the DLC is fighting it with an honest stupidity in order to greedily swallow up "centrist" Republicans and leave in fact all citizens with nutty or urgently populist/realist reforms in the dust of corporate profit taking after a dangerous lawless binge. This party could use a purge and is unlikely to get one without a crushing DLC defeat which would endanger the planet and nation beyond the imagination to conceive. The RW thus is dragging us down with so much compliance, complicity and evasion. When you look at the "left", the attempt either to vilify or revive progressive identity obscures the fact that the party IS at the center, its leaders whined and dined to the corporate right, which, devoid of the thuggery and nuttiness, is just where the Bush dynasty is leading us. Some so called liberals number many ex-Republicans who still decry, along with too many so-called "far left" Dems, many left issues which at least merit respect and discussion("socialized medicine", non-militarism, public ownership of vital services, even the future of unions).
In any event, if the Dems win with anyone, the real war will be for the Dem party. However it goes it will foster the growth of new parties which may splinter off those who have radically lost influence. Only a slow natural attrition and rise of progressive candidates could truly make it a super party with an honest opposition by old style GOP grouches under new banners. Many economic shocks and natural crises will be arraigned against its happening. More likely the big tent power will hold things together, unsatisfactorily for anyone except those whose sole legitimate mandate derives from power and money. If reform goes faster and deeper for media, election and campaign finance reform, instead of slower, it would rival the importance of bringing the Bush/Cheney damage to full account.
I see a mess in the future without a strong progressive party that will make third parties cycle down the ability to legislate strongly for the created and natural crises dragging the nation down and constantly into the threat of fascism. The GOP had a Populist Party threat once upon a time, in its very Golden Age, from prominent "liberal" GOP centrists. it got ground between the two parties yet had long term influence. I wonder how much of a long term we have before the next POSSIBILITY, a possible choice during a savage economic downfall, vindicates this slow revolution.
Many were asked about the current state of the struggle for justice or even rationality. It takes time, long defeated sacrifice and old ground tactics the goons adapt to more than newness regenerates. All well and good were not the earth itself, much less human civilization under the gun and a ticking clock. Do billions have to die horribly and prematurely(or worse) while this mucked up American democracy cannot even admit it has yet to be born? To fight the senile few insanely trying to make a slave world and rich bunkers against reality? That is why gentle predictions are inadequate despite historical knowledge and personal experience.
If we don't open the doors wide to real hope and reform, with a world rallying energy, we are in a vast trouble where the only comfort as usual is isolated, personal, temporary comfort. This is what concerns me this election to the point of uncharacteristic ly dumping on "centrist" Dems who can't imagine such a necessary role. It IS life or death. The corruption of hope itself dooms our endeavors.
Either way, by leading reforms or opposing them, new parties will arise to fight for an actual voice in government- which is extremely difficult to accomplish and accomplish without blending in eventually. THEN the centrist democratic party- which is what it is- must make the internal ideological choices. That is a long term hope because the opposition of media and raw power. And the long term is just about up.
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