Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Well I'm sold Al but my posts are getting blocked. Not that I blame you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

Sometimes that better behavior at a future date comes at too high a price.

Or not... this is a conspiracy to make me look like a complete fool I tell you.

And why would you try to make me look like a fool? I can do that all on my own.

/sneaks away

I hasten to point out that "punishment" is an inaccurate terminology when referring to what motivates the oft-chastised third party or non-voting Democrat.

While it is true that "vengeance" is what drives all of our dramas and comedies, usually The Voters vote (or don't) for that which they see as representing their interest.

Loyal Dems interest is sometimes "their pocketbooks" all other issues be-damned. Just as selfish as any other motivation.

Swingers and third partiers vote for the person/party who speaks to issues otherwise unaddressed.

This motivation has nothing to do with punishing the Democrats, the end result notwithstanding.

You can punish the Democrats all you want but it still doesn't open the ballot or the debates to third parties.

What 2010 is proving is that the Republicans and the corporate media have been able to coopt anger at both major parties without giving any ground at all to a third party from either the right or left.

The media has simply allowed the Republicans to distance themselves from Bush by rebranding themselves as the "Tea Party."

The only successful third party candidates over the past few years have been right wing hacks like Lieberman and Murkowski.

In the meantime, all of the anger against both Obama and Bush has been channeled into racism and xenophobia.

CR, I can't punish the Democrats at all. I'd doubt the value of attempting to do so if it were a realistic option (for reasons previously stated, not least the thinness of revanchism as an organizational principle for the left). And there is not, in fact, any movement to punish them! They are going into the elections with the albatrosses they themselves placed around their own necks. But as a factor in the outcome, that pales alongside the usual reasons for low midterm Democratic turnout and Republican organizational advantage. Simply put, Parry is arguing from fantasy. He's in a flop sweat over nothing. Hysteria becomes him, however.

No Comment, are you trying to draw ridicule? The Weimar hysterics are so over the top that it's impossible to treat your comment seriously. The Republicans are not Nazis and the Tea Party is not a brownshirt movement.

Davidly, by all means point it out. It's completely accurate. Your comment is apposite and welcome.

Drunk Pundit, I looked for blocked comments in the blog's log. I couldn't find any, although that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Al. By "you" I mean the electorate in general.

Isn't it safe to say that the Republicans and Democrats in the traditional sense where Democrats have the support of unions and blacks and Republicans are the party of big business are simply over?

You've got two very elastic corporate entities you can rebrand whenever you like. The system assumes that the electorate in general will hate both of the major parties.

If you're a third party advocate from the left, how do you compete on the ideological level with all of the coporate money on the right?

the punishment movement needs very specific targets two examples lieberman and lincoln
where the lesser evil fall back position remains open or the national trend is clear one way or other

note the outcomes so far of these specific hits by the left have failed to draw serious blood

whereas the regular repubs have been knocked off by tea bag types quite nicely

until a few of these gunks get knocked off
by local left uprisings
the lesser evil vote appeal
will trump the punishment vote appeal
prolly 5 to 1

CR writes on 10.22.10 at 08:15:
If you're a third party advocate from the left, how do you compete on the ideological level with all of the coporate money on the right?

Easy... stop participating in "elections". Stop pissing your time away on "parties". Stop relying on weak-assed Liberal politicians to fight your struggles for you. Build a real peoples' movement for positive change outside the Dadaist surreality of this country's twisted, sick-assed electoral kabuki theater, and resist any incursions by politicians -- especially Liberals -- with everything you've got.

In the wake of Seattle and A16, I started thinking that the anarchists might have the right idea. The ensuing decade of insanity and inanity have pretty much proven I was right.

No Comment: If the current GOPs and Teas were Nazis on the rise, it would be the Democrats fault because their opposition to such amounts to: "We're gassing the wrong Jews!"

Al, I definitely don't find satisfaction in agreeing with a posting tool who uses "you argue like Cluster" as an "insult," but I think the Weimar Republic schtick makes more sense if you see the Dems as the Nazis... not the Tea Party.

job class base punishment is bipartisan

is there solice in that???

my fellow left outs , i sure hope so

if the yankees get wiped off by the rangers tonite
i'll consider voting
the straight republican ticket

"Drunk Pundit, I looked for blocked comments in the blog's log. I couldn't find any, although that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

Perhaps I didn't type in Hillary's name correctly. No matter.

I'm still standing by my own personal barricade holding strong against voting for any democrat in the national elections. No comment's barrages of rhetorical tear gas not-withstanding.

The history is well worth studying. Not repeating but rhyming. The alliance between the super rich and the National Socialists may rhyme with the '?' brothers and the Tea Party.

However, even if the Weimar parallel seems ludicrously extreme, no one can say with any certainty that the seeds of fascism are not being nurtured in our sick national political discourse. Unemployment as measured in the most reasonable manner is about 20%. The 1/8th of nation is using food stamps to survive. The rich are getting richer by the day and are being seen to. A movement that addresses the problems directly and vigorously would have a lot of traction in a hurry. Such movements are generally brutal, and split the population between the cowed and the chased. I don't want that.

What arouses my curiosity is the complacent assumption that the USA is so stable and so much the master of its destiny that there is infinite time to debate about how bad the Democrats are, etc.

If there is a left, third party running in 2010 with the ability to rack up a demonstration/protest vote in one's district, vote for it. In many places that is not the case.

I don't invite ridicule but expect to get a little. Still, it may be later than you think.

"You argue like Cluster" was not said as insult. I thought from the Drunk Pundit text that I was arguing with Cluster.

Reviewing the sequence of posts, I notice that I had replied to "Yes Comment" regarding the Bush push on SS and that Drunk Pundit deconstructed me and took umbrage at my suggestion that we all spend some time talking to the neighbors (except me, of course, ... too busy posting comments). The "you don't know me" move is a very familiar Cluster trope.

"Blind drunk" is a response to "look in the mirror", btw. But this is getting Talmudic.

Walking away from farce, ridiculing the ridiculous, attacking fraud comprise components of rejecting an anti-democratic system. Proportional representation, like plurinationalism, is a different system, not a reform. Democracy entails a wholly different set of relationships and distribution of power than what our institutions presently promote.

To create a democratic society in the US would require transforming American culture to the degree that we would no longer recognize ourselves. In essence, we would have to experience a revolution of ideas as earth-shaking as 1968.

Okay, No Ridicule. It may be a little later than I think. On the other hand, it may a little earlier than I think. Or I may have forgotten what day of the week it is and, whoops, my goodness me! There's Sarah Hitlerpalin! With a gang of brownshirts riding their Medicare scooters.

No comment.

Mr No Says:
"Reviewing the sequence of posts, I notice that I had replied to "Yes Comment" regarding the Bush push on SS and that Drunk Pundit deconstructed me and took umbrage at my suggestion that we all spend some time talking to the neighbors (except me, of course, ... too busy posting comments). The "you don't know me" move is a very familiar Cluster trope."

When you tell someone what they should be doing with their time most people will take umbrage with that sort of thing.

It's rude.

Al,

The Tea Party leadership is just media savvy Republicans, no doubt. But, many of its rank and file are an insult, a Mexican flag at a WalMart, or a "stolen election" away from transforming their proto-fascism into fascism.

I wasn't addressing D.P. but Y.C. in the first instance and readers generally. Why does D.P. take offense?

The "you don't know me" move is a very familiar Cluster trope.

It's no trope, Mr/Ms False Pedant. It's the truth. None of you knows me personally. That fact is obvious from the way you project your e-shrink assessment of my "personality" and from the way you misread my posts. Clear, gin-clear, vodka-clear.

More importantly, focusing on my "personality" or the wrong projections of my supposed psyche, that's not even getting to any of the issues under discussion. But then, I'm familiar with intellectually fettered "leftists" thinking they're so smart that they know everything about everyone, and cramping every one's views into either "leftist like me" or "idiot rightist" and having no ability to think outside that cramped paradigm. But hey, the detached pseudo-scholarly posts, they sure smell nice, like a rose-scented pile of feces.

Pseudo-psycho-analysis of people with opposing views is a popular way of dismissing their arguments without actually addressing them in any meaningful manner.

That's also rude.

And I'm a reader both generally and specifically.

"if you see the Dems as the Nazis"

oxy ???

why is it just to think-link to fascism
causes such a twitch for certain careful minds

soft ware needs a major rewrite

example:

" many of its rank and file are an insult, a Mexican flag at a WalMart, or a "stolen election" away from transforming their proto-fascism into fascism."

-----------------------
"you don't know me"
who wants to ???

I tried to make an argument. Next topic or none. However,
a couple of clips from earlier posts and an admonition.
"That's also rude.
And I'm a reader both generally and specifically."
Posted by Drunk Pundit | October 22, 2010 3:43 PM

"You're a fool. Look at who Obama appointed to the Cat Food commission."
Posted by Drunk Pundit | October 22, 2010 12:44 AM

You can't really have it both ways

But, many of its rank and file are an insult, a Mexican flag at a WalMart, or a "stolen election" away from transforming their proto-fascism into fascism.

I just finished reading Robert Scheer's book "The Great American Stickup."

He never actually uses the word "fascism" but if you read between the lines of the book it's pretty clear he thinks the United States became a fascist state somewhere in the late Clinton years, if "fascism" is defined as "corporate control of the government."

Robert Rubin and his cronies have controlled the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.

Wouldn't the Teapartiers be the open manifestation of an underlying reality that's already fascist, and has been so for over a decade?

And wouldn't Rubin and Summers control a Palin administration as well?

And to expand on that, I remember reading in a college history text the term "non-racist fascism" to describe Mussolini.

The Teabaggers are openly racist in a way that the Democrats aren't. But is the primary characteristic of fascism racism?

If you're fighting the open racism of the teabaggers on top of an underlying fascist reality, what good is it? Doesn't it mean getting the rug pulled out from under you by your "friends" every time there's a crisis?

A good example would be Acorn. The absurdity of James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles bringing down Acorn with a Democratic president and control of both houses of Congress should be self-evident.

More worrying to me than Teabagger racism is Teabagger denial of objective reality (eg creationism). But it seems to me that Obama, Pelosi, and even Jon Stewart made no attempt to question O'Keefe's obviously doctored videos.

It might just be the beer and Parry's fatuous, dust laden Nader-bashing, but I'm just brimming with nostalgia right now. So is it "CR" or "No Comment" that sound more to you regulars like our old pal Stan R? Or possibly both of them are our old pal Stan R? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here...?

oxy ???

Sure. The parallels are similar, if you're willing to see them. If you're not, then of course they'll seem perpendicular and not parallel.

You can talk about The Idealized Dems or The Historic Dems, but the present gang smell more like Ernst Rohm's boys than the Baguettes.

Am not Stan or CR. Don't know Stan or CR personally or electronically. Not interested in the psychoanalysis. Don't know what Oxtrot is going on about. Lost me.

I made an argument. Not making anymore here on this topic. Pointless.

Somewhat amused at Drunk Pundit being so easily offended by a general suggestion made to 'Yes Comment' that talking to neighbors about politics might advance the left causes that everyone seems to want to advance, well, perhaps not everyone (I'm looking a you Senore De Novo) .

Could D.P. and Y.C. be one?

Clever:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/us/politics/23dems.html?_r=1&hp

Y.C.

Yavapai College
Y Combinator
many assorted Yacht Clubs

see http://www.google.com/search?q=Y.C.&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=645&prmd=n&ei=33DCTIjzF4WycK2xpMwN&start=0&sa=N

or not...

Anonymous, third party runs don't produce a net siphon from the major parties. They increase turnout all the way around; mostly for the candidates perceived as threatened. The Dems and Reps think it's cunning, or immoral, depending on who does what to whom, but the only verifiable impact on the outcome is an increased overall turnout. The major parties win and lose on their own miserable, feculent merits. There's nothing at all clever going on.

There's a little humor in the misperception, however, and that bolsters some highly satisfying goading. I've reached the point where I really enjoy liberal hysterics. Their sputtering and shrieking makes me feel young. It's good for them too, in an odd way. Democratic partisans don't have much to live for. Shrill victimhood keeps their hearts pumping. I won't get any thanks from them, but a job well done is often its own reward.

Mr. No sez:

You can't really have it both ways

"Will the misery be limited to the losing Democratic candidates or will the Drunk Pundit get some of it for himself? Nose cutting->face spiting. Lack of enlightened self interest."

You first addressed me in the denigrating comment quoted above.

Apparently you can have it all ways.

I had never addressed you in any way before that comment. Now having accused me of lacking enlightened self interest and cutting my nose to spite my face you blather on about me trying to having things both ways.

Well done sir... Well done.

"Could D.P. and Y.C. be one? "

Yeah sure.

Paranoid much?

The inferior original:
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2010/10/the_great_unteachables.html#comment-505723

The rewrite:
Schadenfreude is joy in another's misery. Will the misery be limited to the losing Democratic candidates or will all of us get some of it for ourselves? Aren't we cutting off our noses to spite our faces and displaying a lack of enlightened self interest? For the joy (which, as I am sure you all know, is transitory) of seeing a disappointed Donkey?

Dems stink. But Republicans stink worse and are irrational to boot.

I want to give a shout out to the Drunk Pundit for editorial assistance with this much improved comment and also I want to ask him to please retrieve his goat.

or her goat, as the case may be.

Nader has a "10 Questions for Teapartiers" up on Counterpunch. Number 8 addresses the third party issue.

8. Can you be for a new, clean system of politics and elections and still accept the Republican and Democratic Two Party dictatorship that is propped up by complex state laws, frivolous litigation and harassment to exclude from the ballot third parties and independent candidates who want reform, accountability, and stronger voices for the voters?

This is the obvious issue that nobody's addressing. The media is presenting the teabaggers as a third party force without mentioning the elephant in the room. No Teabaggers are running third party campaigns.

FWIW, the idea of leftists rooting for the extreme right to punish Democrats just seems a sign of how weak the left is, no less no more.

Can anybody imagine the left in 1948 rooting for Strom Thurmond to punish Truman?

CR, I can imagine the Left® cheering for Truman to nuke Japan. I can the Left® cheering for Henry Wallace and subsequently being accused of helping to destroy the Progressive Party. I can imagine some of them saying that a movie they saw was good, and some saying it was bad. I can imagine the Left® stepping out for biscuits when they should have been reading Marx. Oh, the humanity, etc.

It's a terrible old world.

I'll make a bet with you.

If you can go back and find me any example of anybody generically on the "left" rooting for Strom Thurmond because of disatisfaction with Truman, any publication, any photo of a sign, any snarky remark by any figure in the media, I'll send you the biscuit of your choice via PayPal.

...I've reached the point where I really enjoy liberal hysterics. Their sputtering and shrieking makes me feel young. It's good for them too, in an odd way. Democratic partisans don't have much to live for. Shrill victimhood keeps their hearts pumping. I won't get any thanks from them, but a job well done is often its own reward.

You're wrong to sell yourself so cheaply, Al. I'm thinking of cutting and pasting this entire thread to the PDX Pwog haven over at LJ on Sunday Morning. I plan on demanding a free iPod™ in return for a cease-and-desist.

I see the context of SMBIVA essays and comments this week is to argue over definitions, as if that matters any.

I applaud "Fred Bethune" and all the other aliases being used to advance this "trope."

And I yawn. After puking at the self-righteous nature of the pedantic pissing.

"I want to give a shout out to the Drunk Pundit for editorial assistance with this much improved comment and also I want to ask him to please retrieve his goat."

I'm always glad to help out. I'll have that goat making cheese in no time, no worries.

I just want to warn people about the Drunk Pundit's goat. It's a murderous goat. Do not approach it unless he's there to calm it down.

People talk about the "getting" of goats, but have no idea what kind of trouble they're going to encounter. Sure there's cheese to be made. Sure they look kind of cute. But looks are deceiving. Don't become a casualty.

Heh. I do note that no one suggests whipping out your .44 Magnum and popping a cap in that goat's ass.

That's just not done.

I must warn the blog owners that if Oxtrot starts vilifying goats, I'll have no choice but to call for his immediate banishment.