Thread: How long, how long will we sing this song?

Originally Posted by dblack

With progressives and liberals feeling betrayed by Obama's ready and willing pro-corporate acquiescence, and with sincere limited government advocates in the Tea Party setting themselves up for the same kind of disappointment with the Republicans I can't help but wonder. How long will we keep playing this two-party two-step? Is 'lesser-of-two-evils' starting to lose its allure? Is waking up to harsh reality as bad as sleepwalking?

I suppose it is similar to overcoming an addiction or dealing with abuse. First comes denial, then acceptance, then grief, then healing.

Andrew

So, you're saying we have to hit "rock bottom" first?

We haven't set up a concrete list of what government can and can not do.

Originally Posted by Commodore

We haven't set up a concrete list of what government can and can not do.

Well, we tried. But not everyone was willing to follow it.

Originally Posted by dblack

Well, we tried. But not everyone was willing to follow it.

Time and technology do play a role in the evolution of those roles, but never the purpose.

Originally Posted by Commodore

Time and technology do play a role in the evolution of those roles, but never the purpose.

Well said.

Anyway, I was looking for thoughts on how we might break ourselves out of this trance. What will it take for people to keep falling for the same tired lines, and voting for the same corrupt parties? I've thought before that a different voting mechanism would help, approval voting for example, but before we could do that there would need to be significant consensus that there's a problem. And most people seem content. Or perhaps just complacent. They seem willing to write off the empty rhetoric and false campaign pledges as a standard practice of politics.

Originally Posted by dblack

With progressives and liberals feeling betrayed by Obama's ready and willing pro-corporate acquiescence, and with sincere limited government advocates in the Tea Party setting themselves up for the same kind of disappointment with the Republicans I can't help but wonder. How long will we keep playing this two-party two-step? Is 'lesser-of-two-evils' starting to lose its allure? Is waking up to harsh reality as bad as sleepwalking?

Isn't it a study in irony to look at congress' (lack of) approval rating and then look at the American people who are too apathetic to do anything about it? (except grumble a tiny bit) Remember Obama talking about the car being driven down in the ditch? It doesn't take a genius to figure out everyone on the hill has a hand on the wheel.

Originally Posted by dblack

Anyway, I was looking for thoughts on how we might break ourselves out of this trance. What will it take for people to keep falling for the same tired lines, and voting for the same corrupt parties? I've thought before that a different voting mechanism would help, approval voting for example, but before we could do that there would need to be significant consensus that there's a problem. And most people seem content. Or perhaps just complacent. They seem willing to write off the empty rhetoric and false campaign pledges as a standard practice of politics.

Honestly, the longer this goes on, the more I think it will take blood. Hope to hell I am wrong though.

Originally Posted by ThorHammer

Honestly, the longer this goes on, the more I think it will take blood. Hope to hell I am wrong though.

How will we get the young to stop texting and the old out of their Lay-Z-Boys so they can take up the cause?

Originally Posted by dblack

With progressives and liberals feeling betrayed by Obama's ready and willing pro-corporate acquiescence, and with sincere limited government advocates in the Tea Party setting themselves up for the same kind of disappointment with the Republicans I can't help but wonder. How long will we keep playing this two-party two-step? Is 'lesser-of-two-evils' starting to lose its allure? Is waking up to harsh reality as bad as sleepwalking?

God only knows. Maybe it will end soon who knows. Here's something interesting to read and consider:

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Julian Assange’s Information Coup: The Long Tail of Regime Change

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If you break the links between conspirators, you decrease their control. The “traditional” way is to do this is to cut off the head of the snake, but what Assange is suggesting here is that technology has given him another way to accomplish the same goal.
...........
Here----> Julian Assange’s Information Coup: The Long Tail of Regime Change - Big Journalism

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Who knows how all this may, or may not, play itself out.

No matter the case, I think people are becoming more aware of this "two party" system lie we're forced to continue perpetuating.

It's like the IRS.

We could kill it easily. But we won't.

Why ?

Because we're to lazy, stupid and scared to work together and do it.

It seems that the underlying problem causing stagnation in the West is the general acceptance of the kind of Marxist ethics that brought down the Soviet Union and is threatening Greece, Ireland, and other countries. It espouses a "To each according to his needs", consumer-based, entitlements-driven economy, with a divorce-lawyer mentality that what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, rather than a production-based, producer-driven economy.
http://books.google.com/books?id=B6W...page&q&f=false
It’s doubtful that one government-school educated person in a hundred will either seek or find any flaws in the argument for a Marxist ethics above. So, what we have in the West in general, IMHO, is generally a morbid authoritarian Marxist ethics.

However, the US also has a morbid authoritarian theological wing that comports more with the authoritarian theology of the Old Testament-- "an eye for an eye", "kill the Philistines and bring me their foreskins as proof of your good deed", kill the infidels, stone the adulterers, kill the homosexuals, and so on. These would be the Dick Cheneys and other neo-conservatives, the Orthodox Jewish Bibi Netanyahu types, the Ayatollahs, and other Judeo-Christi-Islamic fundamentalists whose answer to many alleged problems is "Kill somebody", which seems inconsistent with the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

So, what we seem to have in the US is two competing sets of authoritarian ethics, and very little in the way of a Golden Rule, live let live, ethics. Unfortunately, we may well be singing these two competing songs until the economy collapses as with the Soviet Union.

Originally Posted by dblack

With progressives and liberals feeling betrayed by Obama's ready and willing pro-corporate acquiescence, and with sincere limited government advocates in the Tea Party setting themselves up for the same kind of disappointment with the Republicans I can't help but wonder. How long will we keep playing this two-party two-step? Is 'lesser-of-two-evils' starting to lose its allure? Is waking up to harsh reality as bad as sleepwalking?

Actually I think the best chance to get away from a very entrenched and even highly protected 2 party system is getting much closer. I think that when the folks finally realize we will stay at 17 per cent unemployment, and the checks finally do run out, this will create a grassroots movement that one or the other party will not be able to bring unto their fold.

The only way to get out of this 2 party deal is from human suffering, something that is no longer in the realm if ideology, but something one feels intently, physically. This horrible jobless recovery may be the catalyst sorely needed to effect real change in our broken system. Short of that, I just cannot see the changes. Since I am convinced more and more Americans will suffer in the next couple of decades, I look for a big 3rd party grassroots movement, coming from the folks screwed by offshoring and free trade, and the treason committed upon the average American.

Originally Posted by dblack

So, you're saying we have to hit "rock bottom" first?

No, i think the current stage is denial.

Andrew