A diarist on Daily Kos, tmax, dared to suggest that Obama should start his own party, a Progressive Party, no less, one that would be free of party insiders and actually Get Stuff Done.
He was of course forced to meekly apologize for his heresy in advocating for a third party. And here I thought rigid enforcement of a doctrinaire party line only happens in little Marxist grouplets.
It is no coincidence that two of the most popular websites devoted to supporting the Democratic and Republican parties have explicit rules and regulations prohibiting the discussion of third party and independent alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans. The surest way to be booted from the Daily Kos and Red State is to advocate for rational alternatives to the major parties.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. The powers-that-be at Daily Kos and Red State do not want substantive reform and they sure as hell don’t want systemic change. Goodness no, craziness like that could complicate things, preventing them from reaching their true goal, which is to be major players in their respective parties. They don’t want to upset or break up their parties, instead they want to control them. Regardless of their intent, that means little or no change can occur.
One of the primary functions of both parties is to take genuine dissent, channel it into the party, co-opt it, then render it meaningless. The Democrats did it with the Iraq antiwar movement and Republicans are doing it with the Tea Party now. Both are beyond the possibility of reform.
And, ahem, what planet is tmax on, thinking Obama is a progressive?
This would always happen at DKos, and they’ve only been getting crazier there since their view of reality (OBAMA IS A SAINT!!!!!1!!) and reality have been matching up less and less, and so obviously not matching up. It’s really just a mentally toxic environment.
Absolutely. It is near-derangement to think Obama might lead a progressive party or that the Democratic Party can be reformed from within, and then be free from all that icky DC insider politics and corruption by financial interests. Oink oink flap flap
Perhaps purges like this will actually help to bring more people to consider third parties, if like minded individuals capitalize on this….
It’s the same way in so many places though. I used to actually like Mother Jones, for instance, but this week I got the magazine and it was all just attacks on Republicans, with no (or close to no) substantial, non-partisan journalism. And I’ve been getting emails from them pimping for Democrats. It’s disgusting.
It’s a shame Ross, there doesn’t seem to be any progressive media outlet that doesn’t wear any “partisan blinders” towards the Democrats.
They are few and far between. Democracy Now! is always great, as is CounterPunch. There are some good podcasts out there and websites (like this one). But mostly they’re confined to the, as Jane Hamsher described it (and now she seems somewhat comfortable in it), “the veal pen.”
I used to write for a music magazine. Once you start getting to be friends with people at the labels and with the bands, it becomes increasingly difficult to pan their latest release if you think it sucks.
Ditto for the whole process of getting plugged into the journalism machine in DC with all its perks and access to inside info. Slam the president too much and all that nifty insider access goes away. Plus, once you start doing fund-raising, either for yourself or your PACS, you become even less likely to seriously rock the boat because it might upset your donor base.