Corporate Democrats Act Like the Cable Company

[yurbud]

After enduring another round of DLC/Third Way/Centrist whatever the fuck they're calling themselves this week berating of progressives after and even before the election because we didn't adequately support their candidates, I just realized their behavior is a lot like the cable company.

Remember that guy who tried to cancel his service a while back, and the cable company kept him on the phone haranguing him about what a good deal he was giving up?

Where else are you gonna go? Back to the three shitty channels you get with an antenna?

Corporate Dems think they are cable and Republicans are the antenna. They know fewer and fewer people like the handful of channels they get with the antenna: tax cuts for the rich, cuts to government services, fear of gays, blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, and some foreigners yet to be determine, and military spending and war 24/7.

So the corporate Dems give us some channels we like: gay rights, better education spending, health care reform, Social Security, and a couple of others.

But they also make us pay for a lot of channels we don't want, including a lot of the worst Republican ones: trade deals, privatization of government services like education, weak punishment and regulation of Wall Street crimes, the surveillance state, and endless war.

Sure there are third parties like the satellite systems, but they are set up much like the cable companies, and while they offer a better deal, they don't really cut into the cable business in most places.

They think they just have to wait for the old farts that like antenna's racist, "get off my lawn" audience to die off, and they will own the market.

But like cable, competition could come from some entirely unexpected direction.

People are cutting their cable and getting the programs they want a la carte on Amazon, iTunes, and the like.

The corporate Democrats don't seem to realize that that kind of unexpected changes is coming to politics.

Even if they took better care of their customers, it would only delay the inevitable.

The cable box is going to end up in the dumpster along with the last rabbit ears antennas.

And if they don't take better care of us, we might throw the box out before we figure out what the replacement is.

[msongs]

1. gouging customers for ever more $$ while offering no increase in service or quALity in exchange.

that's what cable internet providers do in honolulu

[cprise]

2. We'll campaign like we're asleep, but try voting 3rd party

...and we'll flip out on *your* ass. Republican politicians get a pass, not you little person.

[yurbud]

3. yep. It's no big deal if Republicans beat them, but if too many of us vote for third parties

they might become second parties or even win.