Smells like ... Lysistrata

A left-wing tea party? You have my attention. This link will take you to a Salon.com article about such a possibility. In the last paragraph author Elias Isquith states, "If the left is going to have a Tea Party of its own, it’ll have to do it by making its peace with the Democratic Party and supporting grass-roots candidates willing to change it from within." I beg to differ, sir. If the left wing is to have success it must ensure that it is the Democratic Party that must make its peace with the left. They must see that, in order to win elections, they must offer viable solutions to the Republicans and the Tea-Party nuts. This in addition to supporting grass-roots candidates.
I venture to say that the left-wing version of a Tea Party should avoid dressing in goofy costumes and spouting out-dated axioms that most young people won't get the full meaning of. In fact, it wouldn't hurt if the we old geezers button our lips and allow the young to speak more.
Far from shying away from third parties and embracing Democrats as our only hope, we must deny our votes as Lysistrata  denied sex. I certainly oppose the very concept of not voting at all. No, everyone must vote. Never vote Republican; they brought us to the brink of bankruptcy and despair. Do not vote for a Democrat unless you truly agree with them; no more 'oh she's better than...' And, you know, when all else fails and you just can't support any candidate, vote for Mickey Mouse.

Michael Dunn joins George Zimmerman as harbingers of Wendy Davis' gun-toting America.

So Michael Dunn is not guilty of first degree murder? Now we add listening to loud music to walking at night as potential invitations to getting killed, not ignoring the two young men's main crime - being black.
What cause do you most accept that Democrats as a party do not embrace - the environment, economic justice, free elections, gun control? It makes no difference, Democrats as a party are not there for you. There is some wiggle room, I suppose for both the jurors in the trials I refer to and the Democratic Party. Jurors are charged to apply laws as they exist at this time. They may not have approved of Michael Dunn's actions, but they might have felt he acted in some sense within a law of which they disapprove. Democrats may, in their hearts, want gun control, living wages, etc., but, I suspect, they believe that their own personal re-election is the most immediate issue, so that they can eventually support what their hearts say is right. It is this belief we must prove wrong.
The descent of this nation from Jimmy Carter's presidency to today is all the proof we need that the Democratic Party is as much the enemy of progress as the Republicans are the engine of destruction. Democrats actively worked for the defeat of Carter and thus, they worked for Reagan. Democrats were not blind-sided by Supreme Court decisions that are geared to make it ever more difficult for democracy to come to the USA. Republican think tanks signal their long-term goals. There are no surprises. Democrats were as timid as the American People were bold in 2008 and 2012. Obama's election was a watershed moment of Populist potential and Democrats let it go down the drain.
To hell with them. I feel strongly that only in the election of a President should we vote for a Democrat. In ALL other races I feel we must send a strong message - vote third party until Democrats wake up! It is for this reason I accept the seemingly inevitability of Hillary and for this reason I hope to God the Democrats of Texas reject Wendy Davis. No Democrat should cross the line. Gun rights cannot be expanded in the United States and Democrats simply cannot be given a successful candidate on that issue as a role model. Please, Texans, chastise Wendy Davis!

The time to support third parties is now!

I keep hearing people quoting, whether knowingly or unknowingly, a great Jimmy Dale Gilmore song about facing the inevitability of death: “And you might as well choose right now, it’s love or fear.” Who will you travel with? he asks. Politics is the context of those I’ve heard say that lately.

       Reading the news that Obama has relented on his reelection promises to increase taxes on all Americans who earn over $250,000.00 a year AND to leave Social Security alone was a shock. Listening to one of my favorite radio shows, the Stephanie Miller Show, I heard her say once again that “Obama plays chess, the Republicans play checkers.” I too have been an Obama apologist, but no more, even if he is playing some kind of chess. I can’t support a chess game that involves lying to me. And if he wins, for whom has he won? The Democratic Party, I assume. I am 62, so what does the Democratic Party mean to me now? It is the party that actively encouraged and participated in the cover-up of JFK’s assassination, and that, I now think, was the end of America-as-we-thought-it-was. It is the party that supported two hugely expensive and wrong-headed (in blood and treasure) wars: Viet Nam and Iraq. Those are just the biggest examples of misguided military actions supported by Democrats. It is also the party that gave me Social Security and, soon maybe, Medicare. I say gave me, but of course, I paid in to these insurance policies. Thank God, it was the party that eventually cooperated with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. It is the party that has capitulated on environmental progress, the party that cooperated with Republicans to establish a fascist world-wide “free trade” umbrella. It is the party that lost, temporarily, Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat! Ok, it’s too depressing to go on. The hope offered by Obama is now proven to be a change too far – too far to prove real.

       I will not go off on the Republican Party in this blog. I am not and never was a Republican although I once thought John McCain offered hope and voted to reelect him as a Senator in the 1980s.

       So, here’s where I am at: I could never be a Republican and now, I won’t be a Democrat either unless an almost impossible thing happens. That would be that the Democrats in Congress, en mass, oppose Obama’s stance and force him back to his campaign promises. He would thank you for it as would all of us who voted him in. The continued growth of Presidential power in America must end. The Congress must take back its Constitutional powers. No more wars without a Congressional declaration of War. No more compromises on core Democratic values such as Social Security. The Military/Industrial and now, /Secrecy Complex must be confronted and unfunded, leaving a true civilian-led military that is lean and mean, and then TAKES PROPER CARE of its soldiers. The dangerous Supreme Court decision that corporations are people must be debunked.

       Oh yeah, there’s more, but on to my main point. George Carlin was right. America is a club and you and I don’t belong. So, what to do? Well, the radical idea that Americans are going to overthrow the government by force is so ludicrous I won’t even go there. That is the sick underpinning of the Republican Party! The complacent idea that ONE person, the President, has the power to fix America’s ills is actually a plea for dictatorship which will never be benign. It is un-American to the core. The thought that you go vote and things will be made right your way is delusional unless you have contributed somewhere around $100,000.00 dollars to one of the two parties. I disagree with George Carlin on refusing to vote. That’s the ONLY thing we have, and that only when we overwhelm voter suppression and fraud with huge numbers.

       So, I’m going to vote, but with a big difference. I’m going to ALWAYS vote third party in elections. In primaries where there is no third party on the ballot I will vote for the Democrat I like best and if I don’t like any, I’ll, I'll...hell I'll decide in the voting booth. I could vote for Ron Paul in the same way I have voted for Democrats - on balance, if his policies were implemented in a way undiluted by Republicans (big if) America and the world would be better off than having a Republican in office.  To be specific, we'd shrink the Pentagon and Secrecy organizations and keep our military ready, but at home. Peace might be allowed to break out! But I won’t vote, as one young man I know, for Mickey Mouse. It's not a joke, it's the fate of our species! Our vote is our last best hope and continuing to vote for a Democratic Party that will not become as liberal as its base is a losing proposition. Most have either been bought out or scared out, and I don’t doubt that, for some, the fear is reality-based. For others, it’s merely a fear of losing elections. Let’s make ‘em shiver. You’re too old to be in our nest, we’re pushing you out. Straighten up and fly right. (No pun intended.)

 postscript: I can think of lot's of counter arguments and expansion and explanations, but I'll do that only if there are comments made.