BULLSHIT that it's a victory. Let's get our compasses straight as Democrats.

[woo me with science]

175. Ah, the throwaway line. The Third Way chutzpah

that deliberately, implicitly attempts to deny or brush past the billions and billions in corporate money flowing through Washington, into both parties, and also into corporate media and our electoral system. The sheer audacity of your challenge is laughable, as though we were all unaware of the systematic changes that have been made in this country over the past 30 years, not only to entrench corporate influence but to increase it and lock out potential challengers through redistricting, campaign finance restructuring, corporate control of balloting and access to debates, massive lobbying and financial cronyism and a revolving door from the halls of Congress to the corporate lairs of CEO's.

It's always a facile, utterly disingenuous throwaway challenge: "Just run someone progressive," when the truth is that the system itself has been captured and in most cases makes running for national office without deep, corporate pockets, or against a corporate-selected candidate with those deep pockets and the media machine behind him, virtually impossible...and staying uncorrupted once inside that corporate-ruled world even more difficult.

We have a deep, *systemic* problem of corporate money and power in Washington, driving corporate-enriching policy in both parties at the expense of and against the wishes of the people. The Third Way, of course, denies that blatant systemic problem, because they are an instrument *created* by moneyed Washington to perpetuate it. Isn't that delicious?

It is easy to throw out facile, snide comments that deny a blatant reality. You cannot sustain your Third Way fantasy of our electoral system and also explain why most of Congress are millionaires with extensive corporate ties, and why legislation coming out of Washington now routinely bears no resemblance to what the people have repeatedly said we want, but great resemblance to the interests of the corporate backers.

Let me repeat that, so you won't ignore it *again,* or so that you will embarrass yourself even further if you do: The people have expressed our views over and over again. The polls consistently and undeniably show a desire for policies significantly to the left of what is being imposed on us, over and over again. Americans by massive margins and across party lines want SS and Medicare benefits protected, and do not favor austerity. Americans by large margins and across party lines would rather curtail military spending and tax the rich than cut these programs. Yet still our politicians meet in smoke-filled rooms and emerge with proposals for exactly the opposite. It would be hilarious - the stuff of Monty Python - if it didn't translate into millions of men, women, and children impoverished and in despair. And it keeps happening, over and over again.

Why are approval ratings for Congress in the toilet? Why are they in single digits? Because Congress no longer represents us. Because policy now is driven by corporate influence, rather than the wishes of voters, and people are sick and tired of being lied to and stolen from by politicians toadying for Wall Street.