I'm not going to be abandoning the Dem Party yet

[eridani]

The reason is simply "Been there, done that." Like all too many lefties in the 70s, I thought that a few years of Repukes fucking everybody over would lead to change through street riots. Hey, how has that been working out for us lately? :sarcasm:

A few of us like Kucinich and Sanders took electoral politics seriously and started to run for office then. Most of the left ignored them, as as a result there aren't many progressives in the pipeline 30 years later to mount aggressive primary challenges. The wingers during that decade started to pay future officeholders big bux to start running for school boards and other local offices. They were taught to keep their real agendas hidden. Too bad more on the left didn't do that--we wouldn't even have to have hidden our agendas.

No third party today takes electoral politics seriously, with the exception of a few working in states where fusion voting is still legal. Locally, I haven't met a single Green candidate who has even bothered to get a list of registered voters from the county auditor. Until that happens, I'll just suck it up and work to get better Dems in the pipeline and try to make up for 30 lost years where I paid no attention to politics.

[el_bryanto]

1. Good post.

I more or less agree - I wish there was a viable alternative, but there isn't. And wishing won't make it so.

Bryant

[pnwmom]

2. Glad to hear it, eridani. We NEED people like you in the trenches.

That's the only way things are ever going to change for the better.

[MineralMan]

3. Thanks for that. I'm with you.

[Vinnie From Indy]

4. I agree

All the talk about abandoningthe Dem party around here is silly. I am all for driving out the corporate shills as best we can. I am not giving up on the Dems yet!

[sufrommich]

5. I agree completely. Great post. k &r.

[old mark]

6. Rec. Sad but true, the Democrats already have the structure and machinery in place, just lack

real leftist commitment. To try to start from the ground up is foolish, something that even the teabaggers who are about to take over the GOP know.
Third parties-or fourth or fifth-don't amount to much in the US.
If this country is about to become even more polarized, we must have some real power; our enemies-
and they really are our enemies-are working on it every day.

We must get some better candidates in the upcoming primaries, must get registered and MUST VOTE!

We have a lot of dead wood to cut down.

mark

[BanzaiBonnie]

7. We have to take the party back

And that means work.

[azmouse]

8. K&R