Third Party & Independents Archives

It is a corrupt bill that will only incompletely address the problem of climate change, but it may be the best we can accomplish at this time. Maybe we can make improvements.

We have also to overcome the legacy of Kyoto. No Senate would ever ratify that monster treaty and President Clinton did us a big disservice by playing the political dirty trick of signing it. He managed to bash Bush and make life harder for him with such thing as exempting big emitters such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, but not the crap has come around and landed on Obama. This Administration will now have a much harder time getting meaninful progress because of the BS expectations set up by the Kyoto mendacity.

The climate change lobby will now need to shift gears from its moralizing to doing something. It will be hard for them. We have met the enemy and he is us - all of us, not just big firms.

BTW - David - I mostly agree with you. As I reread my comment I realize it is not immediately apparent.

Thanks for the comments, Christine. And yes, Clinton sought a down payment measure whose only benefit was getting many other nations to ratify and go with it. As you say however, the biggest polluters are not in that group.

Some things simply can’t be half-measured and expect positive results. Its like paying $100,000 for half a heart transplant. You still die of heart failure, but now your debt is twice as large.

That’s the issue with pollution and fossil fuels. No amount of rhetoric is going to change the facts: we consume far more than we produce, they are finite resources diminishing going forward as demand continues to increase, and they are inherently polluting if they are kept relatively cheap. Unless WE invent cost competitive or cost beneficial NON-polluting energy to replace fossil fuels, our half measures will only end up bankrupting us without ever achieving the objectives we sought.

David

I think we all have to advocate that this bill go through. It will be very easy for opponents to point to flaws.
It is not fun just to agree, so I think I would have to modify your half of heart analogy. I think we have to start where we can and build from there. This bill is far less than I would like and it is far more corrupt. But I think the politicians had to make deals to get it through. If we demand perfect, we will get nothing.

I worry a little about developing countries. Even if we and the Europeans cut emissions to zero, which is not likely, it still will make little difference if China, Brazil, India etc don’t get on board. But I think they will see the light, especially because many of them will suffer more and sooner than we will.

I will also say that it CAN be done but only if we use the right incentives. The U.S. emissions dropped by almost 3% in 2008. Of course, we hope not to have to pay that kind of price every year.

My hope is that climate change will end up being like the “population bomb” that was also supposed to end the world as we knew it. Technologies, behavior changes and adaption defused it.

it’s estimated that early crude oil pumped in Saudi Arabia (say before WWII) had an EROEI of about 100:1 - they invested the equivalent of one barrel to get 100 out.”” Crude oil from the same region today is down around 10:1”” since it has become more difficult to extract. They need to do more to get the oil out, like pumping water into the fields to keep the underground pressure up and force out the oil, and that requires more energy investment. Much offshore oil is in the range of 5:1 or less. Canadian Tar Sands are around 2:1 because the tar needs so much processing before it becomes usable oil. In comparison”“”” ethanol’s EROEI is at most 1.3:1, and most estimates put it at 1:1 “”“if you ignore the non-energy value of its byproducts. Any energy carrier with an EROEI less than 1 is essentially useless - you might as well directly use the energy it took to make it.

The energy cost of transportation is usually incorporated into the final number, since EROEI measures the cost of creating usable energy, and that includes moving it to the location where it’s needed. Calculating EROEI is an imprecise process at best. Since it is so variable and you need to take into account so many different (and un-obvious) energy inputs, a number of simplifying assumptions are usually made. That means you can use it as a guide, but there is always a significant margin of error.
Even a EROEI of ten to one is nothing to sneeze at 700-70= 630.

Natural gas can beat the pants off that assumption but it’s not renewable energy either but it gives US More time and it’s a whole lot cleaner and safer and it’s right here on and in our soil.

Christine, only one comment I have to beg to differ on. You said: “If we demand perfect, we will get nothing.”

That is only true if we don’t throw incumbents out of office when they FAIL to deliver perfect. Which is currently the case. That is precisely what has to change. There is nothing in the universe that says government has to fail the public’s expectations routinely and earn slightly over double digit approval ratings. Nothing. The public can, should, demand perfection and WILL throw incumbents out en masse when the incumbents really destroy the public’s future, or, the Voters take matters into their own hands, BEFORE the incumbents are allowed to ruin all our futures.

Rodney, thank you for that data, which I did not have before. Yes, natural gas vehicles have been around for decades. Making them safe from impact explosions is the mole hill that must be stepped over. Shouldn’t be that difficult with all our new Indian chemical engineers coming in on H1B Visas, eh? Someone just needs to focus their talents and education in that direction with a bit of funding.

Is that in this bill? Time for some more research.

David , space and practicability is the biggest problem with CARS running on natural gas there limited to 200 miles or less between fillips , Trucks and buses , trains etc, are large enough to house these cylindrical tanks. There are documented case studies of fleets of vehicles running over 12 million miles and the results show the natural gas equipped vehicles are 37% safer than gasoline and even diesel fuels, This was a problem in the 1950s-through the early 1970s with race cars running with such volatile mixtures of racing fuels they blew up when hit you can remember watching Indy car racing in the early 1970s and seeing so many a brave men losing there lives to fire so they designed tanks that are filled with a medium such as stainless steel fillings and packed solid into the tanks and today it’s a very rare occurrence seeing a tank explode or even catching fire when hit in a race car what was the norm 30 years ago. I agree with you we need a lot more engineers, This man and his company is on the forefront with solving the riddle of making tanks smaller and safer and practical for cars by suspending the gas into a medium corn cobs! http://www.livescience.com/technology/070416_natural_gas.html

DR et al
It looks more and more that it is time to get rid of the anti-democratic filibuster. Just because it has screwed up the democratic process for a long time is no reason to keep us from addressing critical policy changes. We are at the point where policy must be decisive,sharp,not dull,not weak. The existing system of compromise with “moderates” is a prosciption for failure.

I’m pessimistic, I’m afraid we’re going to burn fossil fuel till we’re all dead! Just like health care, we can’t make any real changes if special interests control both sides in a two party system. The only answer is campaign finance reform which they won’t allow or a third party which they won’t allow. (Even if we had a really strong third party, who’s going to bankroll it. Without millions of dollars it won’t stay strong for long. Look at the Reform Party, after Ross Perot quite spending his own money it fell apart.)

Yes of course it’s all our fault, as long as people vote based on what the adds and the talking heads say rather than what the politician has done in the past we will get the same results.

We need public financing or my favorite an amendment to the constitution to make all campaign adds illegal. But special interests will fight tooth and nail to make sure that nether of those ever happen.
I’m pessimistic.

Rodney, I like that. A corn cob or walnut shell medium creates no sparks. Thanks for the information. I wasn’t aware that the safety issues had been largely resolved. There may however be a statistical aberration here on the safety issue. If they have only been used in big vehicles, and those tanks were placed above the impact zone where cars might collide, they the data may appear much safer than it will actually be when the tanks are located in the impact zones of lower cars which collide with each other far more often than buses and trucks.

Still, using organic mediums virtually eliminates sparks within the tank and may prove to be nearly as safe in cars as on the bigger vehicles. What’s the problem with 200 miles between fillups? Most cars are driven far less than that on a daily basis. And our interstates and state highways have stations at least every 100 miles. On long drives, more frequent fillup stops may actually reduce accidents resulting from falling asleep at the wheel.

Did someone mention a third party effort? Are we seeing a truism surfacing on Watchblog? ‘You can’t get real reform on any issue until government is reformed to remove the money influence. That’s gonna require a third party with a different political attitude and a locked down agenda that its members who become elected are sworn to carry out. If they fail to do so, members could vote to reject them from the Party. It’s fighting fire with fire. Put’s accountability into the political equation through a citizens oversight approach. First up, abolish corporate personhood, money is free speech and then set up a clean campaign finance program.
I watched a documentary on TV last evening about the Argentine struggle to recover from globalizataion, IMF policy and a corpocrisy government. Was just beautiful. People banded together, physically took over closed factories, cleaned them up and went to work. Manufacturing products while fighting the corpocrisy at the same time. Eventually the ex-Pres, Menhem gave up and a more moderate candidate took over. The courts legalized the takeovers and subsequent cooperatives and many folks are working and supporting their families again. What strong courage and brotherhood that took.
In this country we have a legal mechanism for throwing off the yoke of corpocrisy and a bought and paid for government. Called a third party. Just requires people coming together with the common goal of government reform. That said, it can’t be just another third party. Within a couple of years a new third party would be rolled into the corpocrisy. There simply has to be a mechanism to hold politicians accountable for their actions and that mechanism is citizens oversight. They don’t follow the party (people’s) agenda, they get rejected from the party. (Within reason, of course)
This Party would not need the kind of money the corpocrisy lavishes on the major two parties to keep them in power. Make strong use of the Internet and operate with volunteers Would you not like a volunteer job of being, say, one of eight people in Mich. whose job it was to make the party at large aware of political wrong doing or pointing out a member who voted in opposition to an issue on the Party’s agenda? The large dollars spent by the two party system is simply a ruse to keep the media off their ass and in their pocket and keep the parties in the public eye. If people had desirable candidates to vote for they would vote for then! A needed reform would be to shorten the election cycle to six months, make election day a national holliday.

Otherwise, we have the corpocrisy we deserve.

bills, the filibuster is just a tool. And like any tool, its benefit is determined by who wields it. We need to throw masses of incumbents out of office and keep doing so until their replacements learn the lesson from the voters, that they work for the nation and voters, not the corporate lobbyists and themselves. Then the filibuster will be used far more often as it was intended, as a safeguard against rush to judgment by the majority.

Actually, in principle, the filibuster would have been useful on this House Bill, since virtually NO ONE voting on it, had read it. That is the kind of behavior the filibuster was designed to prevent in the Senate.

Mike the Cynic, to hear your voice added to others demanding fundamental political reforms, helps keep me optimistic that reforms mandated by a fed up public demonstrating their frustration by voting for challengers instead of incumbents, are coming.

Roy Ellis said: “That’s gonna require a third party with a different political attitude “

Or, a growing percentage of voters deciding elections against incumbents who support the lobbyist and campaign finance system extant.

David

Everything fails to meet expectations, since we can imagine better outcomes than we can achieve and we cannot foresee all the things that can happen. It is the nature of human life on this earth. I can think of no large organization, political or otherwise, that has ever lived up to the expectations of most of its constituents.

Usually results just need to be “good enough” and then possible to modify and improve as changing conditions reveal themselves. Many of what were hailed as great successes of the past are now seen as big problems. IMO, the most successful and extensive government success was the Interstate Highway System. Like the energy/environment bill, it profoundly affected people and commerce in all the states. It accomplished the goals set out for it admirably. Now we see that it encouraged a lot to urban sprawl and contributed significantly to the energy/environmental crisis we now face. Nothing produces perfect results, only tradeoffs and choices.

Government has the biggest problem of all, since the people demanding results often do not directly pay for them.

BTW – I think that the voters should more often take the future into their own hands and don’t ask government to do for them what they can do for themselves.

Christine said: “I can think of no large organization, political or otherwise, that has ever lived up to the expectations of most of its constituents.”

I can. Red Cross. The Metropolitan Opera. In fact, the entire N. Endowment for the Arts history. Then, there are New Hampshire, Minnesota, Iowa, Vermont, Wyoming and Virgina as the best ranked states to live in. Or, Georgia as the best run state in the union. Or, how about the American Socialist Party: we never hear from them, they don’t cause any trouble, the run no viable national candidates and have no incumbents to be removed.

C’mon, lady, there are lots of organizations that meet expectations and even exceed, political and otherwise.

The Energy Bill was noted on while it is incomplete, they are still writing the Bill. Just because they can do tht and get away with it, Republicans would do the same, doen’t make it right under the Constitution. I see such acts as little different from this thing where John Conyers, Chair of Judiciary Comm., and Maxine Waters killed an investigation into ACORN. ACORN had been indicted for election fraud in several states. Instead of being in jail they will be around for the next election. Monica Conyers, his wife, is under indictment in his home state for taking a bribe relating to a $1.5B waste management contract. Seems John doesn’t mind counting the votes of dead people as long as they are democrats.
Campaign finance reform: abolish corporate personhood and money is free speech. Donors must be humans with a limit of, say, $2500. Donate through the 1040 form or a form you pick up from the PO and send to the IRS. Organize the FEC into two parts, one to receive the funds and one to disperse the funds. IRS sends to FEC on specific schedule. FEC one sends to FEC2 on specific schedule and FEC2 disperses to parties on specific schedule based on the number of viable candidates each party is fielding.
Check it out on Republic Sentry. The IRS checks for illegal donations, foreign, etc. The audit trail is lost between the IRS and FEC1 as the the specific donor. FEC1 acts as the bank and money manager, forward planning, etc. and FEC2 takes care of the party needs based on some criteria such as @ of participating candidates, etc.
Your party candidate will receive adequate funding just as government offices receive an operating budget. Clean money, no audit trail at the party level, plenty of free air time made available, etc.

Otherwise, we have the corpocrisy we deserve.

David

I live in Virginia. I like it a lot, but it is far from perfect. I also lived in New Hampshire and Minnesota. Also very nice, but far from perfect. These places, BTW, meet MY expectations, but only because I don’t expect much. BTW – when I lived in New Hampshire, several cities in Vermont talked about seceding from Vermont to join New Hampshire. There was no serious chance of that happening, but talk like that indicates that Vermont is not meeting everybody’s expectations.

My neighbor works for the Red Cross. She was working there during the tainted blood scandal in 2006. Great organization, lots of faults. National Endowments for the Arts? Come on. Remember the “Piss Christ” or the Maplethrop exhibits. Whether or not you support these things large numbers of taxpayers thought were offensive and a waste of money.

Democracy means that most people are annoyed much of the time, but it is the best we can do compared to the others.

I stick with organizations that do an okay job, but sometimes others disagree. I have had a Charles Schwab account for years and IMO they are one of the nation’s firms. I was telling that to my neighbor, who thought they were terrible.

Anyway, this energy /environmental bill will certainly displease lots of people. If it works, it will raise the price of energy and force changes in lifestyle. I think it is a good start and good enough. It will meet my low expectations and will have to be amended and repaired. I am okay with that. I expect there will be lots of complaining by others, however.

For most things, I go with what Ben Franklin said about our Constitution - “Thus I consent … because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.”

DR
“Then the filibuster will be used far more often as it was intended…”

Not valid. The filibuster was NOT intended at all. It was an oversight. Apparently the framers did not realize the depths future senators would stoop to to obstruct the will of the majority, or they just did not think of it.This obscure parlimentary device threatens to forestall and weaken the solutions to what amount to survival issues. We shouldn’t let this happen.

The bulk of the Dem no votes and the bulk of the Rep yes votes were a reflection of the desires of the districts the members represent,coal dependent areas etc. Nothing new or surprising about that and a bit of horse trading is SOP. Strange mix. Greenpeace opposed the bill. Dow Chemical supported it.
Personally, I would prefer a direct tariff on imported oil coupled with a repeal of any domestic subsidies. Oh well.

bills said: “The filibuster was NOT intended at all. It was an oversight. Apparently the framers did not realize the depths future senators would stoop to to obstruct the will of the majority,”

Sorry, bills, but your read on history is highly flawed here. First, it was intended to prevent mob rule by ignorant masses of the people’s representatives. Second, what the framers didn’t realize was political parties, which came AFTER the election of G. Washington. Still, the filibuster as practiced for 200 years worked well and for the good of the nation far more than not. That was when the rules for filibuster actually REQUIRED the Senator to remain in the Senate, Standing, and Orating, which got changed by their modern counterparts.

The root cause of failure in the application of the INTENTIONAL filibuster of the framers, was both the rise of political parties and changing the rules governing the conduct of a filibuster. It is up to the people to FORCE the politicians back to the previous rules. As for political parties, that horse ain’t going back in the barn.

The Senate has made the rules conform to their comforts as politicians and to cater to their Party bosses, instead of for the benefit of prudent governance on behalf of the people. Only the people can change that, by removing incumbents in ever greater numbers each election while demanding prudent government on their and the nation’s behalf again of the incoming freshman and remaining incumbents.

That was after all, the original intent of giving the people the vote over their Representatives, TO REMOVE them from power when they fail to represent the interests of the people and nation. The vote was never needed to permit King George to remain King over the Colonies. It was brought forth to remove future King Georges FROM POWER without having to fight another Revolutionary War.

Christine, you want perfection, die and go to heaven. I am not talking perfection in this life. And neither should you regarding government, since, to borrow and twist the wise Abe Lincoln quote “You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time”, which of course you have to in order to achieve perfection in governance.

Democratically elected government, by definition, can never achieve 100% consensus and approval. But, the state government’s I mentioned serve their people well and better than many other states. And in a democratically elected governmental society, it is the people who judge their government, and there simply is NO OTHER meaningful standard of measure.

Our federal government is by this definition, and abject failure, with from 11 to 20% at any given time approving of its overall performance. Many states on the other hand, fair far, far better on the approval ratings.

All great points, Roy. But, change won’t happen as long as incumbents continue to be reelected at 90+% rate regardless of dismal public approval ratings. The Congress needs to make the changes, and they have no incentive from the voters to do so.

David

I don’t want perfection. I would not know what perfection was if I saw it. Neither would any humans. We can only get “good enough” and I am happy with that. That is exactly my point.

Some people seek what they think they define as perfection. The perfect is the enemy of the good. I occassionally do some hiring. If someone seems like a perfectionist, I don’t hire him/her for any management jobs.

So we agree that perfection is impossible. Those that seek it in political systems end up causing lots of trouble.

Re the Federal government - I disagree that it is an abject failure. You can infer that I am not a Democrat, so I am not trying to defend the current crop of crooks running the show. The Democrats have shown themselves no better or worse than the Republicans they replaced. They are doing about as well as I expect.

But clearly we voted them (Republicans) out and still have them (now Democrats) and if we vote the new them out, we just get more of the same. Trying to reform the system by voting out incumbents is truly the triumph of hope over experience.

The problem with the Federal government is that we ask it to do too much. The Federal government is too far from many of the problems we ask them to solve and they have access to money that they can mix and match. It is always dangerous to give somebody somebody else’s money to spend on somebody else.

You can change the personnel in the government, but we have asked the Feds to create a system that nobody can run.

The fault lies with the system and ultimately with us, but not for the reasons you give. We want the government to give us more than we are willing to work for or pay for. We want to raise taxes … on somebody else and make rules that will control others to our benefit. We think organizing politically creates wealth and we admire “political fighters” and smooth talkers more than wealth creators.

On the plus side, America still gives us the freedom often to ignore the Federal government. We can create wealth and happiness for ourselves and our families. IMO, the chief duty of the Federal government is to protect that ability. As long as it still does that, and it still does, it is not an abject failure.

I often don’t like what they are doing, but I usually like what they DON’T do, BTW. We have to watch them and not ask them to do too much and not let them “help” us too much.

Christine, I don’t agree with your ‘go along to get along’ approach to government. IMO we have gone from a Republic to Social Demococracy and are now headed for a Socialistic government. If your just going along for the ride its going to get bumpy. Look to the future of your grandkids. Seventy or so years ago this nation was the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. In that short time we find ourselves indebted to the tune of approx. $90 TRILLION dollars. d.a.n’s figures show that even paying off a third of the national debt of some $12T at 2.5% would take 233 years. We have been witness to the greatest xfer of wealth in the history of the world. The US economy has been systematically dismantled. We not send wood material to China to be turned into plywood which can be produced for $20 less a sheet than if processed in the US. We are unable to manufacture competively. A nation that can’t feed, cloth and manufacture for itself is a dieying or doomed nation.
Why has this happened? Corporations and conglomerates have co-opted our government and are streamling administrative and regulatory law to facilitate their business interest. Like pitting the US worker against the illegal immigrant and the cheapest labor markets in the world. Obama wants to borrow trillions more over the next several years while the big financials that taken recovery money has applied for worker visas for approx 22,000 workers such as executives, system analysts, etc. This go along to get along approach ain’t going to hack it IMO. And sitting around waiting for things to get bad enough to cause people to vote out incuments is like waiting till your shot in the head before you draw your gun. You may live or you may die. I’d prefer a Thomas Jefferson approach. Revolution - through a one man, one vote approach. Get behind a third party with a different attitude. A party that provides for citizens oversight for elected officils, puts accountaility into the political equation and one founded on certain rules that can’t be easily changed downstream (66% of member vote required to change, edit, or delete a rule).

Otherwise, we have the corpocrisy we deserve.

Roy

The government has hugely expanded in the last 70 years (even during the Reagan years) and I am troubled by our relative decline as you are. But I don’t think that just voting out incumbents will help.

Our problem, as I mentioned above, is that we demand our government do too much for us. If we keep on sending new people to Washington with the same mission, we really cannot expect to improve the situation.

I agree with you that corporations capture government regulation. They always do. That established business usually accepts and even seeks regulation and that is why you have to have only moderate regulations.

The fundamental problem with the way many people think of government and business is that they see government as somehow neutral. Government is never neutral. Government has a vested interest in controlling people. In our democracy, people don’t really want to be so closely controlled. BUT they keep on asking government to do more for them.

We the people give government the impossible mission to make us happy, instead of taking that responsibility ourselves. When we give our politicians that mission, they try to accomplish it, with the results we see today. If we keep on giving them this mission, it doesn’t make much difference if we keep on changing the agents.

Michael Jackson recently died, and I don’t want to speak ill of him, but he provides a good analogy to government. He started to get that plastic surgery and gradually became more and more deformed. I am sure he replaced surgeons but he still gave them the impossible mission to remake his face. The world saw the result of the best surgeons money could buy. Maybe it would have been better to do less.

Quoting Cicero - “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” I would add, ask what you can do for yourself w/o the politicians.

Christine, I’m purty near 100% with you as you can tell from this quote of the first para on our party website. “WELCOME to the REPUBLIC SENTRY PARTY, guardian of our Republic. Presenting a broad reform mission, this Party will seek to renew our relationship with the nations Founder’s and work toward a better balance in the melding of a republic with a democracy style of government. In so doing, we will restore our national sovereignty, our Constitution, and the democratic principles by which we have lived and survived as a nation. From this effort a more perfect union will evolve.”

I’ve posted here frequently that we have too much democracy. We were a Republic, now rushing to social-democracy. A democracy has never lasted more than 200 years, always ending up with a minority in control of the majority, which is exactly where we are today. Why in the world do we need the President offering each of us a rebate to trade in a junker? A Republic over the cliff I believe.
Again, I agree with you in in ‘just voting out incumbents’ won’t help. Once would not be sufficient. You would continually have to keep voting them out to achieve some measure of government reform. Voting out large numbers of incumbents is not likely until some diaster is upon us.
We should circle the wagons and have your gun at the ready, before the indians attack. A third party with a different political attitude, citizens oversight can put accountability into the political equation and achieve government reform. We don’t need change. We need reform to restore our government to something closer to a Republic with respect for sovereignty of this nation and others. i.e., why did it take longer than WWII for the US to mount an insurgency in Iraq? Because the oil companies needed that time to conduct geological surveys, draw up maps, design oil fields, etc.

Otherwise, we have the corpocrisy we deserve.

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. ” JFK . JFK, IKE, FDR, Hell even RWR would be Ashamed, They’ve ALL sold us out.

Roy, They knew it was there already long before the invasion the Good Old USA and The Good Old UK was Locked out of the OIL DUH! “”The 1972 oil nationalizations in Iraq pushed the US and UK companies completely out of the country. Before that date, they held a three-quarter share of the Iraq Petroleum Company, including Iraq’s entire national reserves. After 1972, all that oil disappeared from their balance sheets.

In the 1980s and 90s, their rivals in France, Russia and even Japan and China began to make deals that led towards lucrative production sharing agreements, allowing those competitors to gain a large potential share of Iraq’s oil reserves. The sanctions regime, enforced under the United Nations and maintained at the insistence of the US and UK from 1990 to 2003, prevented these deals from coming to fruition, thus protecting the future stake of the US-UK companies. “”
THE EROEI On Iraq OIL is about 40 to 1 perhaps even more, Our new Congress and BHO wants to stay there longer now surprise surprise surprise said Gomer Pyle HMMMM?

Agree Rodney, a sellout is exactly what has occurred. 80% of the US populations owns 17% of the wealth and I suspect that figure is more like 15% owing to the last year or so.
Wasn’t if we weren’t warned:

Thomas Jefferson: “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
and,
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

Abe Lincoln: “a government Not of the people, Not by the people and Not for the people shall perish from this earth.”

FDR: The first truth is that the libery of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That is, in essence, fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling power. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.”

Remember the 80’s Rodney - when greed became fashionable and anti-trust was put on the shelf in favor of leveraging and mergining them up into conglomerates?

Teddy Roosevelt: “to destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy allieance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the FIRST TASK of the statesmanship of the day.”

I plead here daily for the abolishment of corporate personhood and money is free speech.

Judge Robert Bork: “The Supreme Court is now a political institution, not a legal institution.”

Robert Kennedy: ‘95% of Republicans are corrupt and 75% of Democrats are corrupt.:

What more do we need Rodney? On with the REVOLUTION!

Otherwise, we have the corpocrisy we deserve.

Right Rodney, rather than facilitating the development of renewable energy the corpocrisy would rather force a war and conduct nation building. A good read on the oil business is ‘Tyranny of Oil”, by Antonia Juhasz.
To continue in the same vein:
William Jennings Byran, Populist/Democrat: On the one side are the allied hosts of monopolies, the money power, great trusts…who seek the enanctment of laws to benefit them and impoverish the people. On the other side are the farmers, laborers, merchants, and all others who produce wealth and bear the burden of taxation.”

Well, little has changed since the first drop of oil was pumped.

1859 - Oil discovered in Pithole, PA.
1870 - J.D. Rockfeller founded Standard Oil Co.
1886 - Corporate Personhood, Grover Cleveland, end of Gov. By and FOR the people.
1887 - Interstate Commerce Comm, railroads abuse of power
1890 - Sherman Anti-Trust law - effective but unenforced since Regan admin
1900 - Sen. Albert Bereridge: “Senators must remember that we are not dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with orientals (Spanish Am. trade war)
1906 - TDR breaks up big oil. Holding companies formed. 45 anti-trust actions by TDR against big corporations
1907 - Tillman Act, under TDR. Illegal for corporations and banks to direct donate to candidates.
1910 - Publicity Act, TDR, full disclosure of all monies spent and contributed
1911 - Breakup of big oil, FTC and corporate regulations. Followed by deregulation admins of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover.
1932 - FDR, tried to buy ARAMCO, stood against big oil largely by himself
1928 - Corporate cartel formed to control price and production of oil
1953 - Dean Acheson, “oil corps are instruments of foreign policy”
1959 - Ike puts import quotas on foreign oil. Puts security above anti-trust.
1975 - Money is Free Speech passed into law
1976 - Carter, last hurrah for the FTC/Anti-trust
1981 - Regan - mergers, free trade, greed is good, 2600 oil company mergers since 91
1995 - Clinton, WTO
2008 - Standard Oil morphs into its original self. Acting as an oil cartel to keep poduction down and control gas prices. ExXonMobile, Shell, BP and Chevron make up the original seven sisters.

Do you think the Chevy Volt will hit the street in 2010? I don’t

Otherwise, we have the government we deserve.

Thank you so much Roy! The Rockfeller’s were world destroyer’s GREED was there passion and Human Talent and Humanity they ruined. This man told the truth 52 years ago. Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover gave an amazing speech in 1957 that predicted many of the energy-related issues we are now dealing with. Among other things. http://gailtheactuary.wordpress.com/2007/07/02/speech-from-1957-predicting-peak-oil/

Roy, you are still trying to put the cart before the horse, my friend.

You say voting out the incumbents won’t help.

But, just how, pray tell, do you intend to get the duopoly controlled Congress to change the rules and laws to admit a third party in their venerated halls of Congress? That, Roy, is not going to happen until the demand to do so is accompanied by a large anti-incumbent vote that threatens the duopoly party incumbency to its quick.

No third party in this country has a prayer of achieving federal power without political reforms which will facilitate a third party representation in the Congress. And such reforms are not possible without FIRST the anti-incumbent movement growing and threatening reelection of the duopoly incumbents.

Your party and any third party wishing to represented in Congress needs to join the anti-incumbent movement and make it their primary tactic, while their party platform and its appeal remain their strategy.

The voters must tie their actual voting behavior to their expectations and approval of Congress, and to the reforms they demand be made.

God could create a 3rd party platform, but regardless of its general public appeal, the duopoly incumbent Congress would never share seats with it in Congress.

It amazes me that organizations like GOOOH and others simply don’t get that their rise to shared power in Congress cannot and will not happen without first their occurring a large and growing anti-incumbent movement which dislodges incumbents in favor of reform minded challengers willing to open the system and share power with a competing party.

They tout things like Congressional term limits, while ignorantly failing to acknowledge that the incumbents in Congress will NEVER pass term limits - it is antithetical to their reelection self interest. Only if incumbents are removed in growing numbers each election at the SAME time the people voting OUT incumbents are demanding challengers be for term limits, will term limits ever have a prayer of becoming a reality.

Whatever reforms any public citizen group or third party wishes, they simply MUST join the anti-incumbent movement in order to realistically hope to break down the barriers erected by the duopoly incumbents, to keep all others from ever achieving power, or reforms which would weaken duopoly incumbency.

Tim Cox at GOOOH, for example, has no comprehension of this at all, as evidenced by his refusal to even list Vote Out Incumbents Democracy, a registered and funded PAC, on their web site, along side Term Limit advocacy web sites which aren’t even incorporated or generating any money to the cause. Truly Amazing.

I sometimes wonder if third party hopefuls harbor the same fear of anti-incumbent movements that the duopoly party harbors. After all, if they came to power through anti-incumbent grass roots activism, what would prevent their own incumbents from being booted as well? The obvious answer of course is, by governing well, and fearing not minority voices and participation.

Rodney Brown, your comments remind me of the admonitions of Ike Eisenhower against a military-industrial complex, such as the one he himself fought in Nazi Germany, and we were creating here even during his own presidency.

This is more than just a question of incumbents and non-incumbents.

My approach is issues first. Can we make it clear to some people that if they don’t get with the program, they’ll be leaving the show soon enough.

We got to make it plain who the voters are who will determine their fate and why.

We cannot expect people to go along with a plan to oust incumbents again and again and again. Because the people out there are not of one mind, we might see a group willing to change them out once remain satisfied thereafter.

Unless they have some reason not to be satisfied.

I believe that in politics, what people know is as important as who they know, and it’s important, if we seek to change the behavior of those in Washington, that we either exercise the capacity to change people’s minds, and lead people to express that change of heart to their elected leaders, or we find a way to make clear what is already strongly supported by folks out in America to the folks who they are voting for.

We cannot expect people to vote differently unless they understand things differently from last time. That’s like expecting people to buy a product that hasn’t been advertised.

Looks like the biggest increase was under Truman, Eisenhower made quite a few mistakes to like the Shah In simple numbers (2002 purchasing power), “defense spending rose from about $150 billion in 1950…to just under $500 billion in 1953,” a staggering increase of over 200 percent. I’d never Lockstep with any party.

The trouble with government growth is that is only goes up. Emergency measures become permanent.

That is why I worry about President Obama’s proposals. We need to expand government to deal with the current crisis, but what are the chances of shrinking it back – not to the Bush bloated levels but to the size it was in 1999 – after the crisis is finished?

BTW -The only time I remember voting the crooks out worked was in 1994, but only for six years.

Rodney

I have been thinking about the Shah thing. From 1953-1979 he tried to modernize the country, built roads and industries and did some nasty human rights violations, that were about par for the course in the Middle East.

From 1970-now the Mullahs have ruled. They are as cruel and nasty as the Shah but they are even less effective in building roads or industries. They spend a lot of their oil wealth making trouble regionally.

The problem with most revolutions is that they go too far and manage to replace one tyrant with another worse than before.

Bad as the Shah was, maybe he wasn’t as bad as the Mullahs who replaced him. Let’s hope that maybe Iran can get something better than either of the two evils.

bills

“It looks more and more that it is time to get rid of the anti-democratic filibuster. Just because it has screwed up the democratic process for a long time is no reason to keep us from addressing critical policy changes.”

why is it you were not speaking out against the filibuster when the republicans were in charge?

david

i agree they should be forced to stand there and talk, until they can’t talk anymore, or they agree to an up or down vote. IMO they have become a bunch of lazy overpaid blowhards.

Stephen D. said: “Can we make it clear to some people that if they don’t get with the program, they’ll be leaving the show soon enough.”

But, that is the heart and core of the anti-incumbent obligation of every voter disapproving of Congress’ results.

However, Stephen, you contradict the heart and soul of anti-incumbent obligation when you say: “My approach is issues first. ”

If one votes for a set of single issues, one DOES NOT VOTE to reform Congress to better represent the nation’s future and the people, instead of the lobbyists and special interests. One will NOT hold their OWN representative accountable for the voter’s disapproval of the manner in which Congress conducts its affairs.

Here is why, in simple logical form.

If, every voter approving of their representative, but not of Congress’ results as a whole, votes for their representative (incumbent), then the results of Congress will NOT CHANGE! We know that because research demonstrates that most Americans disapprove of Congress’ results and most Americans vote FOR their incumbents.

Which means, every voter who votes for their incumbent IS VOTING FOR AN INEFFECTIVE REPRESENTATIVE when it comes to changing Congress’ results.

Ergo, voting for, or against, issues will not change the overall product or approval rating of Congress. Voting for individual issues is like voting for an electric security fence when one really wants a safe society to conduct their affairs in. Voting for individual issues will not REFORM Congress.

To reform Congress, an electoral mandate must be realized, and failure punishable by failed reelection. Voting for individual issues simply divides the electorate into factions all of which are too small and off on their individual issue tangents to deliver a mandate for REFORM of Congress.

Such an electoral mandate for Congressional Reforms can ONLY be obtained by a massive anti-incumbent grass roots movement which won’t vote for incumbents UNTIL such reforms are made, which allow those voters to APPROVE of Congress again.

To do this, voters must hold their OWN representatives accountable on election day for whether the changes they hope for were realized, or not.

Your approach is brainwashed and biased toward your Party’s retention of its incumbents. Your approach will NEVER result in voters holding their own representatives accountable. And therefore, your approach is entirely and completely ineffective in changing the approval rating of Congress by the voters.

Couldn’t agree more dbs.

Could this be a water shed moment for me? I am not aware that the duopoly won’t share power with a third party elective. I see Liberman serving as an Independent in some capacity and the guy from Vermont, Sanders. He’s some off breed party. Did none of the third party efforts have folks running for legislative positions? Dunno.

If a person gets on the ballot and wins an election he would have to be seated, would he not? Am I missing something here?

David, you are so right on the issues thing. My Party is pushing purely reform measures and trying to avoid issues, especially social ones like abortion. We must create a movement dedicated solely to taking government back from the corpocrisy. Would you vote for a candidate who would stand up and argue for removing the money influence from government, implenting a flat tax based solely on earned income, reform the Congressional process to ensure that a junior senator from Maine has the same voting clout as does a long tenured, high ranking senior senator? We just need to build a platform to support those candidates. Courageous, they will have to be to stand up on the floor of Congress and call for the abolishment of corporate personhood and money is free speech. But, if they don’t support the Party’s agenda then Party members will call for a vote (mandated by a specificied number of complaints) and if 66% of the vote isn’t favorable to them they will be rejected from the Party. Dead grapes on the vine etc. Putting accountability into government.
Granted, these new Party folks won’t be bringing home perks and touting their image in the halls of Washington. But, a few at time, we can force a revolution on the body of government.
Don’t misunderstand me David. I support FOAVC and VOIDNOW but when you put them side by side as to which is more apt to achieve government reform and KEEP IT THAT WAY, then a third party with a different political attitude wins hands down IMO.

Build it and they will come!

Is there another Party out there advocating purely for reform of government? Dunno.

I do know that the nation of Greenland fell off the ice into the cold waters holding a portfolio of triple ‘A’ rated investments and so legislation has come forward to regulate Moody’s and Co. But, those silly eskimos should have known better, right Christine? I’ll keep beating my drun!

Otherwise, we have the government we deserve.

Meant to write ‘no’ legislation has come forward - -

dbs
I did speak against the filibuster when the Reps were on charge.That is still beside the point. The issues before us at this time have to do species survival,economic survival and human decency.At this point in history, the Reps are acting so blindly, so dangeriously, that they no longer can be allowed to interfere with the changes needed to ensure survival, especially through so mundane a device as the undemocratic filibuster.

bills

“The issues before us at this time have to do species survival,economic survival and human decency.At this point in history, the Reps are acting so blindly, so dangeriously, that they no longer can be allowed to interfere with the changes needed to ensure survival”

this is merely your opinion. i could say the same thing about legislation that was blocked by the dems with the filibuster. claiming moral superiority wouldn’t make it anymore true. BTW how far would you be willing to go to stop the opposition party from blocking your legislation? remember the same tactics at some time could be used against you, so be careful what you wish for.

dbs
Name one major piece of legislation blocked by the Dems under threat of filibuster in the last congress. There was some rumbling concerning judicial appointees but it was settled out. As to giving up the filibuster leading to difficulties when the Reps regain control of the Senate,a non issue for the immediate future, long enough to move some vital changes forward. Once in place and working, the Reps,even if they come back from being a regional party, would not dare undo them and spend another 40 years in the wilderness.

Roy Ellis, Sanders and Liberman BELONG TO NO THIRD PARTY, which is why they identify themselves as independents.

And no, the duopoly party WILL NOT SHARE power with a third party (kinda like Sauron in that regard). Absolutely NOT, and they have rigged the system and rules to make sure of it.

The only way a third party shares power in Congress is on the wave of a massive grass roots anti-incumbent movement that strikes at incumbents of BOTH PARTIES, and appeals to independent voters with capable challengers.

The easier part may be creating the third party with capable challengers. Creating the grass roots anti-incumbent, anti-duopoly movement will require a lot more effort and funding than is currently being expended.

Christine-
The Shah was as brutal as the folks who succeeded him. The plain truth is, both dig their own graves with their brutality.

Brutality in support of modernity is hardly a good thing. If you want to sustain progress, progress must be something invited into people’s lives, not forced on them.

dbs-
The trick with being uncompromising from a weak position for positive action is that nobody’s strength (on the aggressive minority’s side) or patience (on the politically cautious majority’s side) is infinite. Something will have to give.

Nobody likes to lose, and there will come a point where Democrats in the majority become more enamored of winning votes than appeasing Republicans. After all, really, the Republicans seem to be committed to the destruction of any meaningful legislation from the Democrats.

After all this, I think some Democrats are going to start fearing that if they don’t accommodate liberal voters and others who, while moderate, support the policies, that they might end up in a bad situation.

And what of the Republicans? Having made sure everybody knows whose responsible for the roadblocks, who is going to get most of the blame if things go downhill? The Republicans think they are improving their chances by making their attacks, reconstituting their strength. But are they? Or are they making the same mistake they did twice before? When you realize about half of Republicans support a public option, you can see where their thinking might even behind the curve of their own constituents.

David R. Remer-
To start with, ask yourself this question: who do you write for, yourself, or those you have to convince to go along with you?

When I say, issues first, I mean, the real issues: the practical matters that are important to people’s lives. The politics is worthless, heck, worse than worthless, if it makes for bad policy.

Additionally, I do not like to treat political voting blocs as monolithic.

If you look at people at a smaller scale, you will realize that folks aren’t homogenous. their opinions vary. Their motivations and interests vary.

I think looking at things in terms of a duopoly is counterproductive, just as the Democrats approach of looking at red states as lost causes was for so long. If you write people or battles off at the outset, you’ll find yourself half-defeated already.

Taking care of business has a nice, cross cultural appeal, that goes beyond partisan boundaries.

We have to stop making the broad political sensibilities the point of debate. People can argue those often unproveable and untestable arguments til they’re blue in the face.

That’s why I advise the building of local constituencies as a prelude to greater public acceptance of third parties. Those who get things done and can get things done get a kind respect that ideologues, especially disrespectful ones don’t.

People will redefine their politics in order to accomodate those who they think are getting the job done.

You’ve gotten off to a bad start by calling me brainwashed and biased. I am partial to my party. But you’ve known that from the start. Heck, you welcomed me to the site yourself!

I’m not here, though, simply to give you a hard time. I just think that until people realize that politics isn’t defined by these artificial, cartoonish bubbles of category, but by people’s experience and understanding of their politician’s actions.

Being agreeable helps when you’re trying to get people to cooperate with you. Few people are going to let themselves be browbeat, especially about generalities, towards going after a politician. Many people aren’t going to care. The question is, how do we deal with the apathy and ignorance? Do we get angry and lash out? Or do we forgive people for being human, and reason with them?

stephen

i don’t remember seeing any place where climate change legislation was a priority with the majority of voters. and as far as i’m concerned and are many others it’s still BS. this bill will do great harm to our economy and place an extra financial burdon on all of us, and at a time when the average person cannot afford it. the cost of this legislation will be passed down to the consumer, and companies will make money selling there credits to other companies, and will profit. sounds great. personaly i hope the republicans are able to block this bad legislation, and they should. i also hope the 8 republicans that voted for it in the house get shown the door in november 2010. why do you think 40 democrats voted against it? it will drive up the operating cost of any business that utilizes anything that requires carbon based fuel. in the end who do you think will pay for it?

that piddly 12 buck a week tax cut won’t even begin to cover the extra cost of my gas, and electric this winter. as far as i’m concerned this is nothing but a huge liberal tax increase.

David, I’m relieved. Thought you knew something about third parties law or regulation that I didn’t. You said: “The only way a third party shares power in Congress is on the wave of a massive grass roots anti-incumbent movement that strikes at incumbents of BOTH PARTIES, and appeals to independent voters with capable challengers.” I see that as the same relation the duopoly has with each other. If people get on the ballot as a candidate and get elected they have to be seated. Now, just like the young senators who ran a few years back on term limitis, the newly elected may get stuck in broom closets but they DO have a vote. David, if I can support FOAVC when article V hasn’t had a run in Congress since 1776, and VOIDNOW when the only time incumbents were voted from office in large numbers was 1933 and the last election showed little or no change in voter sentiment, why would you and others not want to support a third party with a different political attitude? Or, if not outright support at least give it lip service. We are getting ever increasing action on the website, opining in several newspapers and getting up a head of steam. This Party doesn’t need funds right now. Just needs verbal support and people communicating about this new Party. Needs volunteers who want reform of government. The fact that third parties have been registered in every state and put up candidates in every state for all levels of government - are you being disingenious David?
The climate change bill does nothing to change the level of emissions and doesn’t adress the problem on an international level. It does provide an out of the BIG players by letting them buy waivers to continue polluting while passing the cost on to the consumer, and it does increse the burden on the middleclass which I see as a continuation of busting up the middle class in line with globalization and free trade.

Otherwise, we have the corpocrisy we deserve.

dbs-
Priority or not, the government needs to attend to it. It won’t go away, just because the economy’s gone sour.

Part of our economic problems, leading up to the collapse, was that our energy policy was built up on a system that was spiking the prices. That’s going to be a practical problem for people, even as they try to maintain the same lifestyles.

Ultimately, we have little to gain from inefficiency on any level. Those opposing it put forward the canard that everybody’s doing the best they can, and what will result will be economic growth being hampered.

But there is empirical evidence out there that we are capable of doing better, and that for a little up-front investment and regulation, we can have a stronger, more sustainable future.

The only folks who benefit from our reckless consumption at this point are the folks selling us what we recklessly consume. And for some mysterious reason, those are the same folks who are fighting this the hardest.

I don’t care what party they’re from, I want them to support putting America on a solid footing, and forget about their need to serve oil, natural gas, and coal company interests. If we rely on fuel sources that our bound to decline, we are tying America’s fortunes to that decline.

Some think, let the market force the transition, not government.

Well, leaving aside the issue of Global Warming, here’s the thing: if we start now, while fossil fuels are relatively cheap, we are not forced into the kind of austerity that waiting until things reach a crisis point will oblige us to.

Or put simply, we can research and improve efficiencies while we still have some cushion, absorbing the costs with prosperity rather than having to fight the crisis of resource decline at the same time.

Roy Ellis-
Cap and Trade, properly configured, creates a market incentive to cut pollution, as efficient businesses can sell their ability to pollute to other buyers, who themselves will probably want to spend as little money as possible.

And once people get that efficient, you raise the price on pollution permits. That increases the incentive not to pollute, to be efficient. So on and so forth.

Flawed on its face Stephen. Passing a bill that hasn’t been completed, meaning still being written, and that NO ONE has read - I don’t need to go beyond that. But, I will. The bill makes no mention of renewable or alternative energy such as nuke power. Not an energy bill, it’s a tax on the middle class worker, plain and simple. Any jobs created with this bill will go to India or China and those will only be temporary jobs. Note that Spain lost 2-3 jobs for every green job created with their cap and trade bill. Also, note how well the government is playing their game of making winners and losers and pandering to the voter. Decrease taxes here and raise them over there. Like a shell game where the taxpayer always loses. Come election time you will be paying more taxes but all you will hear is how the dems cut taxes for everyone and they will back it up figures showing the same.

Otherewise, we have the corpocrisy we deserve.

Roy Ellis, have you read this bill? Or are your comments engaging in the same judgmental behavior toward the bill as you accuse the Congress of doing? Your comment pretends to know the consequences of this bill. How is that possible if you have not read the bill? Even if you have read the bill, how is it your crystal ball into the future works so much better than mine?

To accuse others of prejudgment while engaging in the same is, what’s the word? I respect your thinking and values in many of your comments, but, this last comment seems very short on facts and long on prejudice to suit your own political aims.

Even those of us seeking reform and change must adhere to the rules of logic, evidence, and rational evaluation to make our case. Failure to adhere, makes our efforts appear as appealing as fruit cake.

Stephen D. said: “I think looking at things in terms of a duopoly is counterproductive,”

Well of course you do, Stephen, you consider yourself and advocate of one half of that duopoly.

You said: “If you write people or battles off at the outset, you’ll find yourself half-defeated already.”

Certain people have to be written off. Those who believe without reason, evidence, or empirical justification, are to be written off. If they later distance themselves from blind loyalty and belief in their Party, then they will add themselves to the rolls of the potential again.

Your comment: “People will redefine their politics in order to accommodate those who they think are getting the job done.” is patently absurd and completely out of touch with reality. It ignores dealing with THOSE WHO FAIL TO GET THINGS DONE, like the incumbents in the duopoly party. One does NOT always have to be FOR someone in order to be against someone else.

The American public disapproves of Congress’ way of doing things and products of their efforts. Which logically dictates electing someone else in their place. Electing the same people back into office and expecting a different result is nuts.

fran, provide the QUOTE where Obama said it would not cost us more. I know you cannot, because he never made such a promise. In fact, he has talked extensively of making investments in our future, which means it WILL cost us more in the short run, but, avoid massively larger costs down the road.

Do you even listen to Obama before commenting on what he has said? Your comments create doubt.

Roy Ellis asked a great question: “why would you and others not want to support a third party with a different political attitude?”

The answer is: for the same reason I would not want my daughter to divorce an abusive husband only to marry another one. Political parties serve ONLY one master, elections and the power elections bring. Political parties by their intrinsic sociological nature have only priority, getting and staying elected. Their platform is meaningless in the wake of this superordinate objective of all political parties. Political parties will sacrifice their platform in a heartbeat if doing so will increase their chances of getting or remaining elected.

Now, having said that, I will support the kind of party platform you are promoting, and even the party that promoted it, up to the point that their elected officials first compromised that platform to remain in power.

Political parties are the poorest substitute for people of sound character and values. As our current governing political parties demonstrate all too adequately, political parties can get ANYONE elected, but, they can’t and WON’T insure sound character and values once one of their own is elected. They will support that person’s tenure nonetheless. That is the nature of political parties.

Give me a candidate or official of sound character and values instead, who will willingly sacrifice their political office and tenure in fighting, without compromise, for the sustainability of the nation, and the general welfare of the nation’s people. There simply is no substitute for that kind of candidate or elected official.

One such person was Joe Scarborough. I disagreed with many of his views, and still do, but, he got elected on his values, and when his party demanded that he compromise those values for the sake of the party’s power, he refused and left office at the end of his term, instead. If your new party will promote candidates such as this, I will support them.

One would intuitively think such a party would have no future in Congress. But, one should never underestimate the people’s ability to identify with the underdog holding firm to their sound values and character.

Stephen D., promoting a law that promotes the buying and selling of permits TO POLLUTE, is just about the most unsound, unwise, and unintelligent approach to pollution that has ever been devised.

It is akin to a law capping child molestation and murder, and promoting the buying and selling of licenses to molest and murder children as a measure to limit the number of them that occur each year.

Agree on the cap and trade thing. The corpocrisy ALWAYS couches political programs placing the entire risk (money) on the taxpayer. With this bill the wealthiest corps continue polluting, buy some credits to do so and pass the cost on to the taxpayer. Nothing new here.

Regarding third party support David said: “The answer is: for the same reason I would not want my daughter to divorce an abusive husband only to marry another one. Political parties serve ONLY one master, elections and the power elections bring. Political parties by their intrinsic sociological nature have only priority, getting and staying elected. Their platform is meaningless in the wake of this superordinate objective of all political parties. Political parties will sacrifice their platform in a heartbeat if doing so will increase their chances of getting or remaining elected.

Now, having said that, I will support the kind of party platform you are promoting, and even the party that promoted it, up to the point that their elected officials first compromised that platform to remain in power.”

A little confusing. Have you reviewed our agenda David. Are you saying you will support our Party up to the point we disappoint by compromising our platform? Why would anyone expect otherwise? Why are there so many Independents looking for a political solution at this time?

David, when is the last time you heard of a Party swearing their candidates to the platform and to be expected to be vote out of the Party if they don’t follow the platform? David, do me a favor and read the dem and rep platform and rate them 1-10. I think the dems is about 50 some pages of bull shit. I really wish you would not arbitrarily put our Party in the same category with other Parties until you have done a thorough read.

We expect to lock up Party rules about the time we achieve Party status in the first state. From that point forward it will require 66% of the vote to add, delete or modify a rule.

The Agenda thing is still being worked out. Makes little sense to lock down the agenda for say, three years, because events and situations are constantly changing. But, we will find some solution to that. At any rate, we will have numerous Party members across the country whose job will be to scan the political horizon for any Party members holding state or federal office or in appointed positions, judges/ambassadors and the like who stray from the Party’s agenda. Does that not not sound bettere than ‘fair is what you can get away with’ a la the John Conyers and ACORN scenario? Please don’t lump our Party in with the same Sh.t Heads David.

Roy asked: “Are you saying you will support our Party up to the point we disappoint by compromising our platform?”

No. I will support the candidates of such a party, until they, as elected officials, compromise the party’s platform, which of course, will be inevitable for many or, most.

In other words, I will support the party’s platform, I won’t support the Party, and I will support the candidates that run with that platform, UNTIL they compromise that platform.

I reject political parties as being useful for ANYTHING other than getting people elected. I will show NO LOYALTY to any Party because of their intrinsic nature to serve power, and power alone, to the exclusion of all else.

David, time goes by and I ain’t the sharpest tack in the box but, here is an excerpt from something I found on the web. I thought I had heard that parts of the bill was still to be written even after passage but perhaps the following is the correct position on the passing of the energy bill.

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/800-billion-1500-page-national-energy-tax-bill-passes-house-bamboozled-again/

“Congratulations, Congress Critters! You just passed a bill that doesn’t exist. Or, as Paul Blumenthal at the Sunlight Foundation called it, 300 Pages Out of Thin Air. (Blumenthal suggests you can show your displeasure at such underhanded tactics; visit ReadTheBill.org.)
David Freddoso reported June 26 4:48 PM ET in the Washington Examiner:
By all appearances, the House is about to vote on a very long bill of which it has no completed official copy.
Texas Republican Reps. Joe Barton and Louie Gohmert have just asked the chair whether there exists a complete, updated copy of the Waxman-Markey carbon-cap bill.
“If a bill for which there is no copy were to actually pass this body,” Barton asked, “could the bill without a copy be sent to the Senate for its consideration?”
Through a series of parliamentary inquiries, the Republicans learned that the 300-plus page managers’ amendment, added to the bill last night in the House Rules Committee, has not even been been integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk’s desk, let alone in any other location. The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.
But they cannot be simply combined, because the amendment contains 300 pages of items like this: “Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)…” How many members of Congress do you suppose have gone through it all to see how it changes the bill?
Global Warming is apparently so urgent that we can’t even wait until members of Congress know what they’re voting on.
Robert Casapulla of the New Haven County Independent Examiner wrote June 26:
A 300 page amendment was slapped onto the bill at 3:09AM today, and as I assumed the bill and amendment remain unread by the very members of Congress that just passed it.
Minority Leader Boehner attempted a filibuster of sorts, taking advantage of a rule that allows the Speaker, Majority Leader and Minority Leader a huge leeway in the amount of time they are allowed to speak on the floor. Boehner focused on the fact that Congress only debated the bill for five hours. “

Roy, some real contradictions contained in your last comment. Example: “Or, as Paul Blumenthal at the Sunlight Foundation called it, 300 Pages Out of Thin Air.” suggesting the bill’s written provisions do not physically exist.

Then, you go on to quote: “The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.” Which indicates the bill’s written provisions DO EXIST and moreover, sit at the Clerk’s desk.

I agree with you that normal procedure is not being followed here, and should be. But, the suggestion that the bill does not have a physical form and that form does not reside at the House Clerk’s desk and is not registered into the docket, appears to be false on its face.

A great many of our representatives gave up trying to read bills decades ago. This is nothing new about the corruption of our legislative process under the duopoly party procedures. Though it remains a travesty of our Constitutional and Parliamentary procedures.

David,
Why I am glad the House passed the bill, I am also aware that many Senators on both sides are going to have to be educated on the benefits of allowing Commerce and Industry to have an endless source of renewable energy. For with gasoline having nearly tripled in cost and no sign of a vehicle that can get over 100 mpg I wonder if the Loyal Opposition can defend the loss of the Purchase Power of the American Consumer, Small Business Owner, and Taxpayer over the next 10 years as well as the lost of revenue to every corporation.

For given the opportunity to allow every American Citizen to invest in a new National Power Grid and Supply by using such technology as Man-made Wind, I wonder if the average American are going to vote for a Senetor or Member of the House who does not want them to own the equipment that will allow them to break free of the Domainance of the Corporate World.

Nope, I just blew it on that one David, Just returned from two months down south restoring the old homeplace and trying to ketch up on the political scene in a hurry. I saw the cspan version of my above post and heard several comments that the bill was incomplete, meaning nothing was mentioned about nuclear power or alternative energy and some other things. I misunderstood thinking that some measures of the bill was still being written even as they were voting on it. E for effort or flail me with a sheleigh.
On the healthcare thing: If we are going to reform healthcare primarily because it is too expensive for a good number of us, then why is the reformed package going to cost more? One-third more according to Obama. ‘O’ says he can find about $177B in ‘unwarranted’ subsidies to insurance companies to help cover the one-third. That begs the question; why should he not recover the $177B now if it’s unwarranted? My understanding of his talk today was that we will make some changes to the program but shouldn’t expect major reform such as taking the entire program public as one-sixth of the economy is based on healthcare. Went on to say that we have a form of government that often responds slow and is maybe not efficient in some ways but that we don’t have coups, and dictators, etc. I see this type of rhetoric as just setting up for the game. I don’t want change, I want reform. But can’t get it because one-sixth of the economy is based on healthcare! Dear me oh my! I’d like to get the employer out of healthcare. The employer-government relationship in healthcare should be abolished. And, I suppose we should not be looking for a flat tax anytime soon because a large number of people are involved in the tax business. But, ‘O’ does have good hair, and I like the way he strides around the stage amd makes eye contact with everbody he can. And, I don’t suppose he would fly to Argentina for a quickie.

Otherwise - - -

And, he didn’t mention the impact of 12M illegals on healtare. In a national debate on a hot topic shouldn’t everything be put on the table for observation? Is withholding information on a major cost relating to healthcare the same as lieing?

David R. Remer-
I think it’s counterproductive not from a standpoint of the idea that you shouldn’t see politics as dominated by two parties.

It’s counterproductive because:
1) It’s clearly loaded jargon.
2) It defines the problem of gaining new third party members at a prohibitively high level of party politics.

Jargon separates. It’s language clearly designed for one group of people, rather than everybody else. As such, it’s highly assymetric in its effect- one reader gets one message, while other readers get quite another one.

Duopoly is a term of art. It might not even make sense to a person not familiar with third party writings. When it becomes clear that it’s a term of hostility, it doubles the alienating effect.

Your language should not appeal based on a party loyalty (or lack of same) that a person will not share. It should appeal on a basic level through basic channels of logic.

More to the point, people are individuals, and must be appealed to as individuals. If you get too strong in your party distinctions, you might fail to realize that the real boundaries of parties and issues overlap, diverge and converge.

Or put another way, you might miss the variation that you might successfully play upon to convince somebody to join you, or at least be more sympathetic and open to your initiative.

As for Cap and Trade, the idea is to wean industries off of their addiction to fossil fuels. Think of the permits as methadone.

You gradually make it more and more expensive to pollute, more and more advantages to be efficient.

Let me elaborate on cap and trade, David.

The important part is the cap. A company comes in having to pay for pollution above the cap. If they become more efficient, they can sell permits to non-efficient corporations. But to buy those permits, the non-efficient corporations spend money. They want to save money, so if they’re smart, they’ll cut back.

Then, after a while, we make the permits more expensive. That increases the price signal, increases the rewards for efficiency, increases the penalties for pollution.

You don’t mind a system that penalizes pollution and rewards efficiency, do you?

Roy asked: “If we are going to reform healthcare primarily because it is too expensive for a good number of us, then why is the reformed package going to cost more?”

Simple Answer: Because 50 million Americans currently UNINSURED will become eligible to BE INSURED.

Of course, that means that a number of measures must be implemented that drive down the cost per capita for all health care recipients or, the national debt grows to the breaking point starting in 2017, due to the boomer demographic.

Health care reform, we ALL learned in 1993, cannot be a fell swoop reform. It must be incremental if it is to pass Congressional muster.

Folks can argue all day long that O’s proposal does not go far enough. But, then, they are not the one’s responsible for insuring some reform GETS DONE! The incremental approach is the ONLY way this health care reform can take place. Otherwise, too many special interests will coalesce and block it, as they did in 1993 or 94, not sure of the date.

O’s priorities:

1) Get the uninsured, insured, thereby reducing the ER visits and costs in the system as a result of ER care for non-emergency and avoidable emergency care at an astronomical cost.

2) Remove unwarranted subsidies from the private profit oriented insurers.

3) Install throughout the health care industry, electronic medical records sharing and billing procedures to dramatically cut administrative procedural costs and costly duplicative administration procedures.

4) Promote and incentivize health maintenance and and reduce avoidable unhealthy conditions through incentives and better patient information regarding health maintenance issues.

5) Reap the taxpayer rewards of competition between non-profit health insurance and its driving down the cost of private for-profit health insurance.

6) Free small and mid-size business of pressure to provide health care insurance to their employees, thereby freeing capital for more production, hiring, and revenues which will increase federal tax revenues as a direct result.

There are others, and Obama has not itemized his priorities in this fashion, but, they are all contained in his speeches and the order is pretty easy to discern when applied to a realistic expectation timeline.

Roy, yes, I agree entirely. Obama is on the wrong track at the moment regarding illegal immigration and the costs adherent to their presence. He has not, AFIK, elucidated a time line for getting the illegal immigration situation under control.

Personally, I am cutting him some slack on this one, due to his plate already brimming over with enormous other issues and agendas. He has only been in office 6 months, after all. Can’t do everything at once and expect anything to get accomplished in a timely fashion.

Stephen D. said: “Duopoly is a term of art. It might not even make sense to a person not familiar with third party writings. When it becomes clear that it’s a term of hostility, it doubles the alienating effect.”

Man, what an incredibly ignorant statement. Congress has an 11 to 20% approval rating. Congress is run by Dems and Reps. What part of ‘THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DISAPPROVE OF THE duopoly PARTY’s RUNNING OF THINGS’, do you refuse to accept, regardless of the evidence?

I already have seen you ignore the facts regarding registered independent voters outnumbering either registered Democratic or Republican voters. Which explains in part why your comment above is mired in ignorance, in the literal meaning of the word - to ignore reality.

The only alienating going on due to hostility is that of the duopoly parties alienating the majority of Americans, making the party leaders as hostile toward the voters as the voters are hostile toward them, in the media, on the internet, and in part, at the polls.

And one shouldn’t conflate third party with independent. It perpetuates ignorance of the reality of the difference.

Right on David. Becoming more clear with each passing day. The people have had it. Big tea party again in NY tonight expecting to draw 300k. Thousands of reform advocacy groups on the web and growing exponentially. I fear my 3rd party effort will get lost in the noise as I was behind the curve in getting it started. People will no longer participate in politics based purely on TRUST. There has to be some measurable, tangible asset attached to a political party or candidate. That’s my only hope in that Republic Sentry offers to put accountability into the political equation. Folks can see they have a way of weighing in on the elected officials pocketbook, or career. Either way, change and reform is going to be forced on Washington one way or the other and it’s coming on fast, I do believe. The duopoly, as we know it, is going down.

I’m not convinced on the cost of healthcare reform. If we have 50M people who are uninsured and 12M uninsured illegals using the healthcare system would it not seem logical that if they were included in the system the cost should go down. I assume those uninsured are using the emergency room and other costly services that exceeds the cost of their being insured. Yet, we are told the reform package is going to cost a third more. Where is Dan the Numbers Man when we need him?

Roy, the uninsured ER visits ARE NOT BEING COVERED by federal tax dollars. Those costs are currently being passed on to every INSURED person in the form of higher premiums, in turn as a result of the ER’s charging more to ALL their patients who can pay.

The FEDERAL OUTLAY for insuring those 50 million will increase the budget for federal sponsored health care.

However, the overall cost per medical treatment should go down for ALL Americans, whether they pay out of pocket or premiums through an insurer, private or public.

Currently, the very high cost of uninsured medical treatment is being born by everyone who pays for health care, i.e., Medicare - Medicaid - taxpayers, and privately insured policy holders, and those paying for medical care out of pocket.

Roy,
Why I share your point of view that the cost of healthcare should come down considering that educating Americans on how to live better is a matter of education material and programs. I also know that Government and Society must be careful in creating a Bubble in the Medical Proffesion to handle the increase demand that the Babyboomers will put on the current medical facilities, hospitals and insurance companies.

Since, if America is to invest trillions in staffng the hospitals, rest homes, and other remedies capable of handling the increase of citizens and seniors over the next 30 years, at what point after the Babyboomers expire will America have more medical staff than is needed in the Market.

Sure, having five doctors competing to provide medical services for each patient would naturally drive down prices; nevertheless, getting America to that point as well as building and maintaining the medical facilities so the price of hospital and rest home costs naturally come down will leave the Children 50-100 years from now facing the expense of having to shut down and layoff the medical staff needed to handle the millions of Babyboomers.

So, why healthcare reform is needed I do believe that it is the Duty and Responsibility of every Babybommer and Congress to look into the Future and find a way to design a program that will help the Children of the 21st Century have better medical care than the Youth of the 60’s and Silver Spoons of the 70’s even if it means that our generation must suffer with a healthcare system unable to meet the needs of every citizen today. For what good is reform that will lead to destroying health care system in the next 50 years?

Do we really need to make the same mistakes made by past generations in looking out for their best interest instead of their Children? Remember, no one has the right to live forever!

Henry, 30 years from now the global market for our doctors and nurses should be really huge. Not a problem.

David R. Remer-
Hostility is unnecessary, and counterproductive, like I’ve said.

Democrats have increased their party ID, along with the Independents, at GOP’s expense.

Also, independent does not mean unsympathetic to a party, nor third party. People can be disgusted with the party, but still tend to vote a certain way, based on certain principles. Badmouth those principles, and you’ve lost the opportunity to persuade them.

The reality is, those who lean to one part or another vastly outnumber those who are pure independents.

Only nine percent of independents hold absolutely no leanings whatsoever.

And if you think about it, this result, from a Gallup poll, reflects what we know to be true: despite about 37 percent of folks being Independent, somehow two parties maintain their dominance. If we explain it by putting forward the notion that lack of a direct party ID is not lack of partisan sentiments, this result becomes easier to reconcile.

But it means that if you’re really talking about complete rejection of both parties, You’re really only dealing with about 3% of the total voting population that is as alienated as you say.

Or, to put it another way, Independents comprise a large group, but being independent is not necessarily being hostile to the main parties. We would see more third parties in real competitive races, if that were the case.

Most people do not follow politics closely, or passionately. We’re a rarer breed than we would like to admit.

A word of warning, though: there is nothing about being alienated, or representing the alienated, that means you can’t alienate others yourself. People can be alienated by the alienated just fine, despite their best intentions. You are not exempt from the possibility of ticking other people off.

Your message will come across a bit strained if it comes from those who do not respect people’s personal positions.

David,
Why I hope that Americas’ Medical Proffesionals will be in great demand in 30 years, I am also aware that Eastern Medicine and Folkcures are still major players when it comes to dealing with many illness and injury.

For example, most sprained ankles doe not need a doctor, but having the Self-Knowledge and Wisdom to tell the difference of how to handle that injury would save the Consumer millions and lower visits to the ER. Yet, knowing that not every parent has that knowledge I do hope that President Obama and Congress will look at ways to teach the Children of the 21st Century in their Health Classes how to deal with minor illness and injurys and fund the programs through Healthcare Reform.

Because why I don’t have the number of vists to the ER room for headaches and non-life threating injurys, I do know from personal expreince that eliminating such vists or offering an alternative medical program to handle such cases that America could save millions if not billions in higher costs to the Insureance Companies and those citizens lucky enough to afford being covered.

Henry, you may know that the Republic Sentry Party is steering clear of social issues like healthcare. My personal opinion is that corporate interest so dominated the healthcare industry that there is little room for negotiating significant change much less reform. Just the way of business. Watching the bottom line is the priority of the day. I think it matters little whether healthcare is public, private or shared. As long as we have a corpocrisy government little will change. The money influence simply dominates every single issue. Therefore, in the current environment I see no reason to try to change healthcare. Henry, aren’t we supposed to be living in a ‘free trade’ globalized world? Well then, if we can buy plywood from China why can;t we buy drugs from China? That would save a lot of bread. Instead of stifling competition by having numerous corporations competing to provide you healthcare why has the corpocrisy trashed anti-trust law and leveraged/mergered small ones into big ones. 2100 mergers in oil companies since 1990. 0 anti-trust suits against oil companies.
The ‘seven sisters’ are back on the throne. Walmart wants into the banking business. GE, while not a financial firm, received millions in bailout money because they owned a couple of small banks. Therefore, one would predict that if Walmart owned a bank or two they too would receive some bailout. Henry, shouldn’t we be looking for a way to reform government before trying to improve our lot on healthcare, clean energy or any other issue?
Not that I don’t want healthcare reform, just that under this corpocrisy little change can be had. I would recommend staying with the status quo and hoping the 50M uninsured will join Republic Sentry and help force reform on the government through the ballot box.

Otherwise - - -

David, You Wrote: “Roy asked: “Are you saying you will support our Party up to the point we disappoint by compromising our platform?”

No. I will support the candidates of such a party, until they, as elected officials, compromise the party’s platform, which of course, will be inevitable for many or, most.”

That’s a novel idea that bears some discussion. I’ve no love for political parties either. I see them as necessary to fight fire with fire in seeking reform. I do agree the Party should have no other reason for existance than promoting candidates for elected office. In order to do that they have to be organized as a Party, become registered in most or all Sates and provide financial support to their candidates. Their agenda/platform should be derived from the voting membership. I don’t see that you could have ad hoc candidates popping up with no organization behind them. Currently I am struggling with a post reform issue for Republic Sentry and other parties that exist post reform. Post reform (corporate personhood and money is free speech abolished, campaign finance reform carried out) I believe all donations should be from an individual to the IRS. Once the audit trail is broken the IRS sends the donations to the FEC. Now, should the FEC fund the viable candidates from every Party or should the FEC fund each Party based on the number of candidates being fielded by that Party? Goes to what you are saying about supporting the Party or the candidate. Funding the Party gives the Party room to play politics with their candidates which is undesirable. Yet, how are Parties to exist without funding? What’s your think on this concept?

Stephen D., it is truly amazing to me the intrinsic quality of your comments to continue to ignore the elephant in the room even after it has been pointed to many times by others in the room.

Democrats didn’t win because of their tax and spend and debt principles. They won because the alternative was just as bad, and if independent voters don’t have a third party choice, they will by Buddha vote for the other party just to stick it to the one in power. Which means in 2010 or 2012, it will be the Democratic incumbents that independent voters will be sticking it to.

Your party is not significantly improving public opinion regarding the Congress, which your party controls. The independent voter dynamic and the duopoly no choice options, spell disaster for this country as independent voters are forced to vote against whichever of the duopoly parties is in power.

Your slant directly implies the position that your party will be immune to the Independent voters retalliation. I think what just happened to Republicans and what happened to Democrats beginning in 1994, culminating in the , 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections, is the elephant in the room that your comments choose to be ignorant of.

Rush Limbaugh has higher approval ratings than Pelosi (CBS News poll, Mar 2009.) And Sen. Reid’s approval rating is lower than the self-besmirched Sen. Ensign (June 2009).

The simple fact of the matter is, our nation’s people and their prospects, and their children’s prospects, are worse off today than they were in the 1980’s, and that is a direct result of the governance by Democrats and Republicans. Both parties continue to demonstrate that they work for the corporate special interests and wealthy campaign donors, instead of the nation’s and working people’s future.

There is no getting around that elephant in the room. Independent voters are simply leading the way for the rest of the voters to recognize that the new emperor has no clothes on, at all. Whether the emperor calls them self a Democrat or Republican, is irrelevant.

Whether the American working families prospects in this country are improving or not, is the only relevant factor which will keep independent voters voting out the party in power. And neither the Democratic nor the GOParty can remain in power anymore without the independent voters. That reality is inescapable, by the numbers.

Oh, and labeling ignorance, spin, and sophistry for what it is, is not hostility. It is just calling a spade a spade. Of course, doing so may appear hostile to those engaging in deliberate ignorance, spin, or sophistry. That is understandable and predictable.

Roy, my first thought is, the FEC is controlled by Democrats and Republicans, so their is no route for reform, there.

My second thought is, the only alternative for the public is vote out incumbents repeatedly until they see the reforms they demand and need for responsible representation installed by the freshman congresspersons. In other words, the public has to focus on voting for candidates committed to those reforms, and not parties, and not incumbents whose tenure in office has failed to produce those reforms.

Voting out incumbents is the only path to needed reforms, because it forces new, and incumbent congress persons, to acknowledge a new boss, the dissatisfied voters and public, instead of corporate and wealthy special interests.

Roy, may I suggest a name change for your party? The PUBLIC Sentry Party, not Republic Sentry Party. It is far more transparent in meaning to the general public, most of whom could not define Republic if their life depended upon it.

Henry said: “I am also aware that Eastern Medicine and Folkcures are still major players when it comes to dealing with many illness and injury.”

But, all indicators point to Eastern cultures being far more Westernized in both economic and medical adoption 30 years from now. They will be the economic power centers, and their burgeoning middle classes will parallel ours in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, seeking the newest and latest and able to afford it.

David R. Remer-

Stephen D., it is truly amazing to me the intrinsic quality of your comments to continue to ignore the elephant in the room even after it has been pointed to many times by others in the room.

None of this reactionary stuff works by necessity. Republicans assumed that things might get better for them in 2008 (which was one reason they went on their record-breaking obstruction streak.) If you’ll notice, when legislation started getting passed in the early part of the year, Congressional numbers went up. Now that things are more stalled and conflicted, and people are seeing even popularly supported bills having trouble… Well, you get the idea.

I’m aware the Democrats won more for the objectionable actions of the GOP than the positive actions of the DEM. But from my perspective, that means advocating to my fellow party members and our leaders that we earn our success. You won’t see me being “realistic” the way some Democrats are.

But in terms of the Independent Voter’s retaliation? I have no illusions that we would suffer if they deserted us. They haven’t yet. So I’m telling the people in my party to keep these folks leaning our way through good policy and inclusive rhetoric.

The simple fact of the matter is, our nation’s people and their prospects, and their children’s prospects, are worse off today than they were in the 1980’s, and that is a direct result of the governance by Democrats and Republicans. Both parties continue to demonstrate that they work for the corporate special interests and wealthy campaign donors, instead of the nation’s and working people’s future.

Yes, I agree.

There’s no use disputing who was in charge, who participated. I would not argue for inherent superiority of either party.

But there’s something that has to be made clear. There’s a difference, over time, between the person who takes leave of ideals that would have fought back against such change, and the person who is actively committed to the destruction of the policy that was keeping people from being exploited and trodden underfoot.

Third Party Advocates often spoke of there being no difference. But how can we say that, after the extremity of what we saw under Bush and the GOP dominated Congress?

The Democrats in Washington aren’t exploiting the opportunity they’ve been given well enough. Many of them are still old guard, “experienced” in the ways of a once Republican dominated Congress. I would say they fear that under positive poll numbers lurk monsters of potential blowback if they confidently push the party line like it’s supposed to be pushed.

There may need to be some changes made in personnel, if that’s necessary. Some people who don’t question the gift the voters have given them to dictate policy once again. Who don’t make the mistake of thinking we dumped one set of corrupt folks merely because we as a nation didn’t like the party anymore.

Independent voters, for the most part, are identifying with Democrats. That’s part of how we won. Only nine percent of the independents alone reject both parties. Most either lean Republican or Democrat.

You can talk about the Independents leading the way, but Democrats actually made gains at the same time, and were close to the numbers that the independents got. It was less a flight from both parties, and more an organized flight by people to both alternatives.

The elephant in the Room here is a bruised and battered Republican elephant, which has leaked membership and identification.

No doubt, the two side are blamed equally by some, and it doesn’t help that some Democrats are failing to live up to their promise. But sit back for a moment: if (and I mean if, I’m being realistic here) the Democrats get their act together enough, and if the obstructionism loses steam, Democrats would likely end up with a long term political advantage.

You don’t like that talk, which is understandable, given your stances. So let me relate it to you in terms that would appeal to your sensibilities: the main issue voters have now with the Republicans is the fiddling while Rome’s burning. Crap was going wrong left and right, and they were folding their arms and shaking their heads with a pout on their face.

The Democrat’s advantage is marginal, but not insignificant. For all the corruption that still plagues the party, the Democrats have a greater reputation for getting things done.

Anybody who wants folks to forego their help will have to present a plausible alternative, a party or members of Congress that will do what others won’t. Practical votes and practical experience for dealing with issues. Look at Bernie Sanders. That’s how third parties can get things done: replace folks with nominal ideals with those who actually do things and have done things.

Oh, and labeling ignorance, spin, and sophistry for what it is, is not hostility. It is just calling a spade a spade. Of course, doing so may appear hostile to those engaging in deliberate ignorance, spin, or sophistry. That is understandable and predictable.

Never confuse a lack of filter on your emotions with honesty. I often have to delete one draft of a comment after another in order to come to one that does more than just lash out at somebody.

People appreciate reasoned honesty. They respect it. And often that kind of honesty holds more truth than that where people are simply pushing their ideas without a filter. It helps, if you’re telling it like it is, if things actually are as you say, and if you can relate that to people in a way where they don’t have your intemperate words to distract from your message.

Independents have shifted their lean away from the Republicans, towards the Democrats. Democrats have not lost, but gained numbers, in comparison to the Republicans. so the loss is not ours, mostly. It has not been an equal rejection of both parties. Independents are also not necessarily neutral, most favoring Democrats, a good proportion leaning Republican (though not at or near a majority as before).

Might people still want an alternative? Sure. Hell, quite a few Democrats would like some. The trick is, you have to convince them that this is for the best, that they are fulfilling their ideals by choosing third party candidates, not betraying them.

If you take an attitude that turns this into a fight, then you can’t win. People will be defensive when challenged, and prideful when insulted. If I weren’t more patient and understanding, I might be taking your bait, but not taking your point that well.

These sort of debates are pointless if we only reach those who would agree with us no matter what, because those people are typically already in our circle of friends, so to speak. It’s the people to whom we have weak connections that we need to speak to well, and that requires more than just the respect we think people deserve.

David, I appreciate your hanging with the principle of voting underperforming incumbents from office but I am asking a subjective question assuming that a third party has come to power at some point in the future and certain reforms such as abolishment of Corporate personhood and money is free speech. Assume campaign finance reform has been carried out and the Republic Sentry Party has the majority in both houses. Based on that assumption to whom should the FEC distribute campaign funds? To the political Party or to the viable candidates of each Party?

Sorry Roy, I apparently failed to address your question. Your question presumes that parties are essential to getting representatives elected. While that is their current overarching goal and reason for existence, parties are by their very definition, corrupting of the democracy (choice made by the individual people) which we both seek.

I would want to see the FEC abolished. I would want to see laws that mandate only individual contributions, capped to the mean of contributions made by all individuals in the previous election, and made directly to the candidates of the individual’s choice, and only to the candidate, NOT THE PARTY.

To contribute to a party is to contribute to the corruption of the one person - one vote for a candidate, which is the fundamental principle of democracy. Let the candidates manage their contributions and be personally responsible for their legal and ethical use.

The minute you have parties in control of Congress, and parties in control of the campaign financing, you have legislation which will meet the objectives of the parties, not the American people or voters.

I trust this will suffice as a direct response to your question, which I failed to address previously.

Stephen D., the polls going up earlier this year represented hope by the public, which polling now shows as hope dashed for growing numbers of that same public. The polls also show the public remains hopeful about Obama, but, pessimistic about Congress, which is controlled by who, again?

The American people are learning something during these times, something fundamental. You can place confidence and hope in an individual candidate and potentially see good come of it. But, current and past history is also teaching the public that putting hope and confidence in a party controlled Congress is an act of futility. As long as the Parties control the Congressional agenda, and Parties are mastered by the wealthy special interests controlling the financing of election media advertising and campaigns, the people will not have their agenda on the front burner in Congress.

And the people do have an agenda by a large majority. The people want Congress to stop letting money control their decision making. The people want government spending to be essential, necessary, and efficiently applied. The people want accountability for their tax dollars, their votes, and the actions of government which affect their their work, personal, and child’s lives.

The people want peace unless we are attacked, and retaliation toward our attackers to be swift, certain, and restorative of the peace. The people want our government to put Americans first, and foreign nation’s and people’s second in times of domestic need. The people want campaign finance reform that removes monied influence and dominance in controlling how representatives vote on legislation, and even how such legislation is drafted.

All these and more make up an agenda shared by the vast majority of voters. And your and the other Party are quite literally incapable of representing the people’s agenda. Obama is putting forth a herculean effort, your Democratically controlled Congress is now even fighting him on a growing number of the people’s agenda items.

Obama didn’t want the pork. Democrats insisted on it. Obama didn’t want credit card reforms which gave the companies 9 months to jack everyone’s rates up before losing that ability on past balances. Democrats in Congress insisted on it. Obama doesn’t want to alienate the public with a “socialized” health insurance system, but, many of the Democrats in Congress are insisting on it.

The people still look favorably upon Obama in a majority. They have not and will not approve of this Democratic Party led Congress because the Congress is not attending to the people’s agenda. They are attending to their own ideological and reelection campaign financing agendas. Of that, the public is very confident in.

David R. Remer-

All these and more make up an agenda shared by the vast majority of voters. And your and the other Party are quite literally incapable of representing the people’s agenda. Obama is putting forth a herculean effort, your Democratically controlled Congress is now even fighting him on a growing number of the people’s agenda items.

Let’s take the case of Kay Hagan. Recently she came out against the public option. That was not received too kindly by liberals, and there was a big push to let her know. Now she’s for it.

In my opinion, it’s difficult, its frustrating, and its like pulling teeth and toenails sometimes, but it can be done. We just have to be more committed to their accountability than they are to their irresponsibility. If they know that people will not tolerate their behavior, that they will lose support if they behave irresponsibly, they will take that into consideration when making their votes.

It’s not enough to vote out the irresponsible at the end of their terms. The pressure must be kept on throughout the terms. The folks there in Washington must KNOW in their gut that they have a constituency which they can’t shake off the attention of. That’s all that can basically lead them to disdain the attentions of this era’s courtiers, the lobbyists.

Congress is not meant to be a uniform body, but to represent diverse interests. Negotiating between them is painful sometimes, but necessary if our Democracy is to work in anything else than name only. Sometimes that means corruptions gets into the process, but like a papermaker squeezing the moisture out of the matted fiber, we must squeeze out the temptation of special interests with the knowledge that folks back home will hold them accountable.

I did not expect this to be instant. I expected to have to fight these battles. We’ve had the Republicans rising, imposing their influence for the last thirty years. For the last half of that time, we’ve had the Republicans in charge, and none too shy about jealously guarding their power. And for the better part of the last decade, we had Bush as president. Those are the pressures that many of these career politicians felt, and gave into. The Democratic Party, is rising, like ground from underneath retreating glaciers, from beneath a long period of Republican domination of policy.

It is necessary, then, to apply additional pressure to return balance to our politics. The question is how, and in which direction. But if there is a direction I think we should go, it should be away from the status quo, and whatever and whoever would support it.

Stephen D. said: “If they know that people will not tolerate their behavior, that they will lose support if they behave irresponsibly, they will take that into consideration when making their votes.”

That is the anti-incumbent voting strategy argument in a nut shell. Thank you for finally agreeing on this. For, how else are voters to express their dissatisfaction and hold their representatives accountable offering or withholding their support, than at the polls on election day? Their vote is their primary and most influential voice a voter can muster.

There are other modes of communication, but, none so real world as one’s vote when it comes to expressing satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the level of performance of Congress during one’s own representative’s tenure. If I am dissatisfied with Congress, then MY representatives were, at the very least, ineffective in bringing about th results I expected, and that warrants voting for a challenger instead. No point in rewarding ineffective representation, is there?

Thanks for that David. I received enough information to get me thinking ina different manner regarding funding elections. I agree that political parties, as we know them today, are at the heart of corrupting the elective process. However, looking to the future, post reform future, I see a party like Republic Sentry, void of the money influence could well serve the public in organizing and facilitating the candidates in their campaign. I would like the see the election process wound down to six months. I don’t believe, in that short time period that a novice candidate could efficiently organize and manage a large scale campaign irregardless of how much money they had at hand. The political party should act like a handler to the candidates or similar to an agent who works for one or several folks in the entertainment industry. Further, I can’t forsee the public hanging in with many campaigners espousing points of view of certain issues with no organized and well publicized agenda. A political party could do that well. An agenda should be devloped from a Party’s membership well in advance of the election period. A political Party would have the connections to media and support organizations, volunteers and the like that would facilitate a strong campaign. Therefore, I’m going to stick with the political Party concept and have the Party divy up funds. I believe making individual contributions to a particular candidate would be inefficient and who is going to monitor these donations for amount, foreign, legal, etc? I believe a more democratic system is for folks just to make a donation to the election process, to the IRS. The IRS will be the legal begal plus break the audit trail. The IRS will pass, on schedule, funds to the (rformed and reorganized) FEC who will account for funds, plan for future funding requirements and pass funds to another division of the FEC. This second division would determind which parties will receive funding and the amount based on several criteria such as the number of viable candidates being fielded by each candidate. This process should allow any candidate from any status in life to run for political office and receive adequate funding for his/her campaign. A candidate could complain to the FEC and the Party if they feel they are not receiving a fair shake in the process.
Any thoughts before I go to press?

David R. Remer-
I’ve been telling you for quite a while that I don’t mind the basic premise. I have no love for people in Congress or elsewhere not doing their jobs.

I think, though, that the idea is nothing new. Vote out irresponsible incumbents. Of course! That’s the point of Democracy, in part, the other part being that people are represented by those who share their views and concerns.

I also think the approach should be individualized, people tracking their politicians in particular. We should encourage people to be better at something they’ve been neglecting.

I believe, as well, that attention must be constantly paid, because the inattentiveness between elections can be problematic to what happens at election time on both sides of the relationship. If what a person is doing is not constantly on your mind, what emotional connection will you have to what that person does? And if you don’t have the connection, when will you respond to their actions? You won’t. If, however, pulling crap means that they are caught quickly and humiliated promptly, then the politician’s own self-protective instincts will come into play. They can then tell the lobbyist, “You know, I’d love to help you, but the last time I tried something like that, I spent weeks dodging the press on it, and the netroots people wouldn’t let up.”

If people really want to **** you over, they can do it, but most people want to keep things running smoothly, and they don’t want to have somebody looking over their shoulder constantly. They want their next term.

I think its important, at the same time, that we let these people know what we’re for, as much as what we’re against. They should know not only what is risky to do, but what is risky to fail to do. The key, I think, is to not let the Washingon disconnect happen in the first place.

Roy, if you can divorce political parties from fund raising victories, then political parties could have real use and assistance for our system. Of course, I see no way to divorce parties from fund raising.

But, you see, here’s the thing, with money, you can buy elections through control of the media and message. And that means, the political parties that now exist select candidates on the basis of their likelihood to win, not on the basis of their character, position on the issues, or values which they will take into office with them.

That is precisely the reason the Republicans both acquired control of government and abandoned their party platform ideology in governing. The Party controlled the candidate selection process on the basis of insuring their funds would be well spent on getting them elected. That is the Party’s only function. And since it is, there is no compromise on electability with the candidate’s qualifications, commitment to platform, or character. GW Bush was the most unqualified person to ever be nominated for President, but, he was chosen based on his electability, (i.e. name recognition and status as governor of Texas).

All parties who manage 10’s or hundreds of millions to elect candidates, must serve electability to the exclusion of any other qualifying factors. The money is too great, pays to many party members, and provides too much good life to party faithful to be risked on candidates of excellent qualification who may not be as easily elected as another with inferior qualifications and potential.

Political parties serve only one master, winning elections. Good governance isn’t even a factor in their decision of candidates to invest in, UNLESS that infrequent occurrence comes along when a very highly electable candidate also happens to be the best qualified of the field and best adherent to the Party rhetoric.

As we have seen time and again, party platforms are pretty meaningless once a person is elected. Once elected, deals and compromises are made in order to get anything done, and those deals and compromises nullify the party’s platform in office. Which means political parties are quite literally incapable of producing election winners who will adhere to the party platform.

That is why, I will vote for individuals, not for political party identification. I can hold my choice of a person for office accountable with my vote when they seek reelection. But, trying to hold a party accountable only results in musical chairs amongst the parties, and essentially, they are pretty much the same, serving only the master of fund raising and electing candidates, regardless of qualification or capability.

A Public Sentry Party, which committed itself to extraordinary qualified candidates of excellent character and committed to getting great things done for the American people, solving more problems than they create, and leaving this nation’s future better than its past, would get my support. But, that party does not yet exist. And I suspect it likely never will as a contender.

A political party with ethical and moral commitment to excellent governance is an oxymoron, as far as I can tell from our history of political parties.

Stephen D. said: “I think, though, that the idea is nothing new. Vote out irresponsible incumbents. Of course! That’s the point of Democracy,…”

So, why don’t we practice democracy as an electorate? The answer is: Political Parties. Political parties are dedicated to electing and reelecting those from their party, regardless of their competence, effectiveness, or even fidelity to the party platform. And since political parties control the message and media at election time with hundreds of millions of dollars, the record of incompetence, ineffectiveness, and even corruption is covered up, drowned out, and spun away by those political parties who serve only to elect and reelect.

That, Stephen, is an awareness, a level of sophistication of knowledge about advanced politics, that is permitting the growth of the independent voters numbers. They have advanced to graduate politics and recognize that neither of the duopoly parties is committed to good governance. That was never their charge or responsibility. Their charge and responsibility, from the 3rd presidential election in this country onward, was to elect and reelect those of their own party, no matter what.

That is core of the corruption of our political system that more often than not, results in incompetent, ineffective, and even corrupt individuals being elected to office and reelected to office. The parties the problem. The independent anti-incumbent voters will be the solution. When there numbers are large enough to force 40 or 50% of incumbents out election after election, the political parties will then, and ONLY then, acknowledge a new master, the independent voters, instead of the political money brokers, lobbyists, and wealthy campaign contributors with agendas very different that that which the people or the nation’s future demand from legislation and policy.

Of course, this projection assumes d.a.n’s projection does not come true first, that the nation and people are ruined, and forced to relinquish the system currently in place through education by hardship.

David,
Why I agree that Eastern and Western Medicine are merging after years of being divided. I see in the next 30 years many doctors and patients coming to realize that Individual Healthcare comes by educating the masses on why Folklure Remedies works.

For example; I have a family history of diebatics;however, after years of eating sugar I find myself on the other end of the problem. Now, the medical proffesionals can say that I am lucky to expreince generational gap, but I can also say that it is because I have always maintained a diet from a Child that includes eating homey and other natural sources of sugar.

Besides, I do believe My Peers and Community Elders need to look at building a Healthcare System for the Children of the 21st Century and not make the same mistakes that the Youth of the 60’s and Silver Spoons of the 70’s made in trying to build a Medical System to take of them when they get old and gray. Simply put! Do “We the People” invest in a Healthcare System to help the Youth of America or spend the money on a system that willl help those citizens over the age of 50 live to be a hundred?

David R. Remer-
We do practice Democracy. The Decision not to change your representative, senator, or president is still a decision, and people have every right to practice that decision.

In any system where a majority is important to getting what you want, the rise of political parties is an inevitability. People organize into factions, factions organize into parties.

And inevitably, folks are going to elect those who protect their interests. And the folks they delegate that guardianship will get other ideas about what their interests are, and are going to turn around and lead others to apply peer pressure to maintain those new interests.

Feedback, feedforward. Not perfect, no perfect relationship between voter and the voted for.

But just because it’s not perfect doesn’t mean it can’t be revised for the better.

The key, if you go back a little in my argument, is to remember that parties originally were, and still are, to a great extent, made of factions.

And given the margin some votes work by, getting the support of some factions can be critical, both in Congress, and in the electorate.

40%-50% of the incumbents is overkill, and thinking purely in numbers and purely in terms of carrying out the threat is limiting your options.

The key is to peel off the right constituencies, exploit the right chinks in the armor, and above all other things, educate people about what their candidates are doing. Nobody’s going to just kick an incumbent out without any motivation.

Inevitably, parties will soak up the loyalties of most people. Even if a decent size third party comes to power, that party will probably have to coalition to one or another party to form its voting bloc.

Back to square one. But the key there, and the key now, is to get the voters thinking of things in multiple dimensions. The good of the party might mean whatever brute force or other methods to get power, or it could mean taking pride in good government, and managing the party well.

Connections are what are important. The party and its members must have greater purpose