More seasoned, more informed bloggers here are doing the heavy lifting in terms of analysis and journalistic coverage. I write to join the many of us who are not front-pagers and who do not write anywhere near daily, who nonetheless have watched this routine legislative issue being spun into an apocalyptic (potentially) crisis.
We've watched as the Teahadist minority wagged the Republican minority, then watched as the Republicans, who control one chamber of Congress, somehow bullied their way into getting the Democrats to cave in on issue after issue after issue.
This is still playing out, and maybe President Obama will pull one of his magic hands of cards from his sleeve; maybe he'll come up with something amazing, right out of left field, and make us all wish we'd waited before putting words into pixels here.
But I doubt it. This time, I sincerely doubt it.
I have always voted Democratic to avoid seating Republicans, the idiots who happily fanned the flames of their batsh!t-crazy Teahadist contingent, and bowed to their will on this debt-limit crisis.
I've done so in the past, and will probably continue to do so. (I'm not sure, but speaking pragmatically, that's what I have for an option, for now.)
But in doing do, I know that I am merely voting for a slower death for many the things I hold dear, rather than the obnoxious, all-out slash-and-burn assault the Repugs pursue against those interests in the name of more money for those who have plenty and more corporate influence over what is left of this "democracy."
I realized within only the past couple of years that what I am is a Democratic Socialist. I believe in many Socialist ideas to protect the people from the ravening, insatiable, gobbling maws of the corporations and the corporatists who serve them. I believe in not just devouring all of an area's resources, polluting the hell out of said area, then moving on to find more to consume and despoil.
I believe in human equality.
And I believe in reaching protections of these interests through a democratic process.
Which the United States has clearly left in its wake.
I think it is time for a viable, committed, worthwhile third party, one that doesn't bow to Republicans or Democrats or their leaderships, and one that isn't immediately co-opted into the influence hierarchy that is entrenched in DC. Just watching as Mitch McConnell ordered all Senate Republicans not to negotiate with or even speak with Democrats this past weekend as the debt crisis escalated should show anyone that the system is entrenched in bullshit and Old Boys' practices and arcana that work to prevent things getting done any way but the Old Boys' way, and which has been part of how the patently insane Teahadists managed to wield this much influence over this battle.
It is dysfunctional. Malfunctioning. Broken.
F][k, people, our party just let them take the entire global economy hostage. For more money. For people who are already wealthy, for f][k's sake.
So I hope for a viable Third Party. I don't know who that third party will be.
Not Perot's directionless Reform Party, and certainly not the racist shell of that party that Pat Buchanan transmogrified it into when he hijacked it.
I wanted to see the Tea Parties' various acts of insanity prove too much for the more sober heads in the GOP. I wanted to see them split the GOP. But that hasn't happened. Instead, the GOP encouraged even the ones wink-nudge espousing violence. And now the Teahadists have a great deal of influence over the so-called Grand Old Party. F][king great, that.
I voted Green in the 2000 election; their party platform is more in line with my beliefs than any other party on the ticket, and we lived in Austin then, and Bush was clearly going to carry TX. Wherever a Green candidate posed a threat to a Dem, I voted Dem, back then.
The various Green Parties do well in Germany and elsewhere. Democratic Socialism works well in France, and in Canada, no one's threatening anyone's life over receiving government-guaranteed health-care coverage.
I'd appreciate hearing from others on the pursuit of a third party, and not so much from people (I know we're all disappointed enough here with the debt-limit fiasco) who want to shout me down for suggesting this. I know this is a Dem blog. I also do not feel that the Dems have helped out us in their base much on this crisis.
As I said, I'm a Democratic Socialist, though not a card-carrying member, now. But I'm paying attention to what they are saying, and I like what I'm hearing.
A shout-out to Dreaming of Better Days: http://www.dailykos.com/...
And to bobswern for this:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
And to everyone who's fed up, tired of seeing the corporatist-puppet GOP attack them and the policies that affect so many of us, personally or otherwise.
And a bigger shout-out to our fellow bloggers who have lost employment and are trying to figure out how to survive, now, without a paycheck, in a world where, perversely, many places won't consider giving you a job if you do not have a job. My best wishes to you.