Learned Helplessness
With election mania gearing up, I just want to make it very clear that I vote for Democrats out of survival, not affinity.
My current fervent desire to see the Republicans thrown out of power is a reaction to their profligate, criminal actions of the last 6 years. However, you won't catch me waxing poetic about Democrats.
Remember, these chumps voted for the current credit-card-industry written lending policies in this country, they voted for the cruel bankruptcy laws we recently enacted, and they sat there assessing the political winds of invading Iraq instead of standing up against what they knew was wrong.
So they frequently embrace the very wrong side of issues out of naiveté, cowardice, or cynical political calculation. And that makes them bastards.
However, they’re better bastards than the incompetent pigs currently running this show. So vote for ‘em.
But I’m not going to be satisfied with more of their bullshit. I hope that Lieberman is just the first of many “status quo” Democrats to get their asses kicked out of the party to make room for new progressives who actually want to cause significant, long-term, positive changes to this country.
One of my favorite political activists, David Sirota, regularly rails on this point, as seen in this article. (You can also read his blog here, which I highly recommend.)
Even when the Repubs were doing well under Bush 41, Limbaugh chastised them daily for not being hard-core conservative enough for him, and he eventually helped push that party FAR to the right.
While Limbaugh is a lying drug head, I want to see the same purging and re-focusing of the Democratic party.
They have to start taking chances, showing backbone, and truly inspiring and leading this country.
Otherwise, they’ll just lose the house again in 2 years, and a lot of people are simply going to stop voting due to learned helplessness.
My current fervent desire to see the Republicans thrown out of power is a reaction to their profligate, criminal actions of the last 6 years. However, you won't catch me waxing poetic about Democrats.
Remember, these chumps voted for the current credit-card-industry written lending policies in this country, they voted for the cruel bankruptcy laws we recently enacted, and they sat there assessing the political winds of invading Iraq instead of standing up against what they knew was wrong.
So they frequently embrace the very wrong side of issues out of naiveté, cowardice, or cynical political calculation. And that makes them bastards.
However, they’re better bastards than the incompetent pigs currently running this show. So vote for ‘em.
But I’m not going to be satisfied with more of their bullshit. I hope that Lieberman is just the first of many “status quo” Democrats to get their asses kicked out of the party to make room for new progressives who actually want to cause significant, long-term, positive changes to this country.
One of my favorite political activists, David Sirota, regularly rails on this point, as seen in this article. (You can also read his blog here, which I highly recommend.)
Even when the Repubs were doing well under Bush 41, Limbaugh chastised them daily for not being hard-core conservative enough for him, and he eventually helped push that party FAR to the right.
While Limbaugh is a lying drug head, I want to see the same purging and re-focusing of the Democratic party.
They have to start taking chances, showing backbone, and truly inspiring and leading this country.
Otherwise, they’ll just lose the house again in 2 years, and a lot of people are simply going to stop voting due to learned helplessness.
posted by Highly Agitated at
9/05/2006 07:03:00 PM
5 Comments:
Here here! I'll always choose a bastard over a pig.
By
Anonymous, at 6:20 AM
The libertarians suck ass, too. How can you look at the bullshit that corporations pull and possibly argue that the free market is the answer?
By
Anonymous, at 8:14 AM
I'm in total agreement, although I really think what needs to happen in this country is to get rid of the "two-party" system that has a strangle-hold on us. How will we ever have real change when every state is hacked up into zones based on whether they're predominantly Republican or Democrat? I consider myself neither...I refuse to ever vote a straight ticket(which is one of the worst things anyone can do). I'll always vote for the person I think will at least lie the least and try and do what's right for their constituency.
But you're right, getting the idiot Republicans out of control of congress will be a start, then we've just got to get that idiot out of the whitehouse!
By
Forcemaster2000, at 6:18 AM
Man, you're playing my song when you talk about banishing the 2-party system. Talk about a ridiculous plan.
It is impossible for a third party to ever compete in this country, which means we're all stuck with just 2 groups, both of whom love cuddling with corporations.
By
Highly Agitated, at 8:16 AM
Wait; where did you guys say the party is?
By
481, at 2:07 PM
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