"We warned the president -- don't ever, ever agree with the Republicans,"

[Warren Stupidity]

156. Kolko is a great but forgotten voice.

I stumbled across him in the late 70s, and it was like a light went on. He put the whole bent system into proper perspective.

The poster you are responding is not going to debate the issues you laid out, but I think you know that.

There is a core problem with our republic: pervasive corruption, and that corruption has a strangle hold on federal and most state governments. The electoral process currently holds no hope of real reform, as it's structure precludes empowerment of an actual reform party. We are left voting for the facade of a labor party, knowing full well that it is just the "less rightwing alternative". We have witnessed all the symptoms of the core problem in the ACA. We needed healthcare for all, we got insurance reform, we needed to cut the for profit insurance industry out of the system, we got them baked into it with a mandate. And now we are going to see even the miserable pathetic reforms we got scrapped by the most vicious rightwing court in nearly 100 years.

We cannot gain effective reform at the ballot box. We are not going to occupy our way to a mass protest movement that forces the issue. The duopoly will make sure that we are not so put upon to actually revolt, and even if we did they are well prepared for that nonsense.

It seems pretty hopeless to me. We will all go vote. Perhaps Obama will win, perhaps he wont, but the long rightward slide, this 30 year spiral, is far from over.