Victoria Collier
Editor http://www.Votescam.org
Ronnie Cummins
National Director, Organic Consumers Association
August 8, 2011
In the wake of a super-nova of exploded hope in President Obama, a power vacuum is now spinning in our political universe. A desperate need to fill the void (lest it someday be filled with the unthinkable; a babbling Bachmann or weeping Boehner) has led to a frenzy of organizing among mainstream Democrats and Progressives.
Some, like the Van Jones/MoveOn "Rebuilding the Dream" coalition, are attempting to rekindle that obliterated Obama flame before the 2012 elections. To accomplish this they are strategically pointing the blame finger at "evil corporations," while carefully avoiding drawing a direct line from corporate headquarters (like those of Goldman Sachs, GE, and Monsanto) to the White House. Others, like the New Progressive Alliance (NPA), led by activists such as Cindy Sheehan, Cornel West and David Swanson, are taking a more honest and radical position, boldly calling out the Democratic Party leadership as sold-out corporate shills, incapable of reform and unworthy of further support. In other words, the power vacuum of the Left has a deeper split within - a true black hole that threatens to pull all of us into oblivion between now and November, 2012.
Free-floating in the void are record numbers of left-leaning Americans who lost all hope after what they perceive as Obama's Great Betrayal, followed by the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision, unleashing an unfettered free market for the rich to buy our candidates. (We may now envision them as a far less cool version of NASCAR drivers, slathered with the logos of their corporate sponsors). Many activists have likewise despairingly turned their efforts away from the grim spectre of national politics toward non-electoral campaigning, movement building, and direct action.
Yet we all realize that the 2012 elections will have major consequences for every aspect of our accelerating Crisis: global warming, permanent war, redlining economic and ecological collapse, and the growing power of the National Security State.
We cannot, in the end, afford to drift into personal oblivion, no matter how the Pharmaceutical Industry offers help in doing so. Too much is at stake.
The NPA and a large number of organizations such as RootsAction and Progressive Democrats of America have been hard at work on developing a body of comprehensive new Progressive platforms. This, ostensibly to galvanize Americans to rally again for the values that once defined the Democratic Party. All well and good, but we've got to have inspiring candidates to rally around, don't we? The lesson learned from Obama is that pretty words do not action make - and the Establishment Democrats and their Wall Street backers tell us what we want to hear in order to keep themselves in power. We also know that our two-party system is walled like a fortress against a third party uprising.
The NPA, for its part, is undaunted by this Corporate citadel that was once our government. They are planning the long-needed coup - an electoral insurgency of true Progressive candidates to challenge the compromised Democrats, and if that doesn't work, redoubling strength and charging forward as a new party.
Do they have the right positions?
Definitely!
Do they have the support numbers?
Yes!
Can they win?
No.
Not yet, anyway. The problem is that some of the changes the NPA - or any true Progressive coalition - will make once in power, need to be made before they can take power.
The reason we now suffer a ruthless Corporatocracy is because we no longer control our own democratic system. Puppet candidates have rigged themselves into office and manipulated our government to hand corporations the keys to the kingdom. We the People are now the rabble outside the gates, reduced to begging the rulers within to please be just a little less ruthless. Funny how they don't listen.
Our elections have been bought or stolen for decades, but the People are only now waking up. Most of the public (including Al Gore) knows that George W. Bush stole the Presidency in 2000, and many are aware (including John Kerry) that he stole it again in 2004. Republican operatives apparently decided not to steal the White House in 2008 once it became clear that Obama was headed for a landslide. But whether elections - or politicians - are literally stolen, or simply bought (including Barack Obama), the outcome is the same.
Some, like the Van Jones/MoveOn "Rebuilding the Dream" coalition, are attempting to rekindle that obliterated Obama flame before the 2012 elections. To accomplish this they are strategically pointing the blame finger at "evil corporations," while carefully avoiding drawing a direct line from corporate headquarters (like those of Goldman Sachs, GE, and Monsanto) to the White House. Others, like the New Progressive Alliance (NPA), led by activists such as Cindy Sheehan, Cornel West and David Swanson, are taking a more honest and radical position, boldly calling out the Democratic Party leadership as sold-out corporate shills, incapable of reform and unworthy of further support. In other words, the power vacuum of the Left has a deeper split within - a true black hole that threatens to pull all of us into oblivion between now and November, 2012.
Yet we all realize that the 2012 elections will have major consequences for every aspect of our accelerating Crisis: global warming, permanent war, redlining economic and ecological collapse, and the growing power of the National Security State.
We cannot, in the end, afford to drift into personal oblivion, no matter how the Pharmaceutical Industry offers help in doing so. Too much is at stake.
The NPA and a large number of organizations such as RootsAction and Progressive Democrats of America have been hard at work on developing a body of comprehensive new Progressive platforms. This, ostensibly to galvanize Americans to rally again for the values that once defined the Democratic Party. All well and good, but we've got to have inspiring candidates to rally around, don't we? The lesson learned from Obama is that pretty words do not action make - and the Establishment Democrats and their Wall Street backers tell us what we want to hear in order to keep themselves in power. We also know that our two-party system is walled like a fortress against a third party uprising.
The NPA, for its part, is undaunted by this Corporate citadel that was once our government. They are planning the long-needed coup - an electoral insurgency of true Progressive candidates to challenge the compromised Democrats, and if that doesn't work, redoubling strength and charging forward as a new party.
Do they have the right positions?
Definitely!
Do they have the support numbers?
Yes!
Can they win?
No.
Not yet, anyway. The problem is that some of the changes the NPA - or any true Progressive coalition - will make once in power, need to be made before they can take power.
The reason we now suffer a ruthless Corporatocracy is because we no longer control our own democratic system. Puppet candidates have rigged themselves into office and manipulated our government to hand corporations the keys to the kingdom. We the People are now the rabble outside the gates, reduced to begging the rulers within to please be just a little less ruthless. Funny how they don't listen.
Our elections have been bought or stolen for decades, but the People are only now waking up. Most of the public (including Al Gore) knows that George W. Bush stole the Presidency in 2000, and many are aware (including John Kerry) that he stole it again in 2004. Republican operatives apparently decided not to steal the White House in 2008 once it became clear that Obama was headed for a landslide. But whether elections - or politicians - are literally stolen, or simply bought (including Barack Obama), the outcome is the same.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
