That our government is owned by fortune 500 to the detriment of the people and that our elected officials will sell us out time and again is nothing new nor will it ever get so old it dies. But, that does not mean that progress is impossible, quite the opposite. It just means that we have to find the way to play this game to win rather than getting all discouraged and not playing it. So, this is how I think we should play the game of politics as voters, as a group of like minded voters:
- Don't love your politicians. Use them for what they are worth and replace them. Politicians are a dime a dozen. You can always trade up. You have to trade up. It's the only way to make progress and progress is the only way to preserve a Democracy.
- Don't cry and take your ball home when your elected official betrays you. You knew this day would come. You prepared for it. Take care of yourself. Get a new elected official.
- Don't waste your time telling your elected official what is wrong. These people are smart. They know how bad they are fuking you and they don't care. Tell them what is right. Specifically, tell them who is right to replace them. Sing the praises of their replacement and how much you have and will do to elect their replacement.
- Sort your options in increasing benefit and work your way up from where you are to where you really want to be, step by step, or leap by leap if you can get it. Replace your tools along the way as they break.
- Stick together. Work together. Give each other hope. Destroy the opposition.
Grayson 2012 FTW!
There, that's not so complicated, is it? Doesn't it feel better to think positive? To think of getting a new improved elected official that will surpass the old one even if he is not perfect and does not give us everything we want immediately on a silver platter? Progress is not perfection. Progress is Trading Up. Never stop trading up. Primary the bastards every chance you get. Let them know every time they fuk you that they are inadequate and expendable. Just, don't say it directly. Introduce them to their replacement and explain how wonderful the replacement is. Don't stop smiling if they cry.
Update 0: Just adding some more thoughts. The people pushing for the lesser solution are the ones to primary. The people pushing for the best solution are the ones to place in leadership.
Bernie Sanders, for instance, is fighting for Single Payer yet all he may have to vote for is extending the medicare age limit. Blanche Lincoln would just as soon see no reform, so Primary her political career to oblivion!
A quote from Robert Naiman's Can Arlen Specter End the War in Afghanistan? diary:
If you look at how the Israel lobby or the gun lobby or the anti-abortion lobby have influence, it's not by their members saying, "Well, so-and-so isn't good on our issues, but he's good on other issues, so I'm going to vote for him anyway." They have influence by rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies. As they say in the labor movement, the women's movement, and the civil rights movement: "We have no permanent friends, and no permanent enemies. We only have permanent issues." Right now, Arlen Specter is a friend of the peace movement, because he's supporting the peace movement's permanent issue: opposing the Afghanistan war. Let's reward our friend Arlen Specter - and use his candidacy as a hammer to end the war.
Update 1:
Dems have painted themselves into a corner as usual. They agreed with us that the HC insurance industry is a dishonest gouger driving us to ruin and presiding over the deaths of millions of Americans and that the Public Option is the best way to keep these lying ruinous gougers Honest and to stop the gouging, ruin, and carnage.
Now they want us to give even more money to these lying ruinious gougers. And they wonder why they're out of power half the time.
Well, the Democrats are well on their way to snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory as they are want to do, in the usual manner. The Great Sellout and it's attendant Circular Firing Squad has begun, again. As usual, the ConservaDems pump the bill full of poison pills and the cowards just gobble them up taking the blame for the crap bill and giving the rethugs the red carpet back to power.
For once, I wish Progressives would stick to their principles and goals instead of listening to ConservaDem self-fulling bullshit. Stick to your principes, Progressives, and let the damn ConservaDems stick to theirs. Let the ConservaDems obstruct. Let them go the way of the Rethugs. Let the public see them for the problem they are. Stop bending over backwards for these bastard. Stop taking the heat for them. Stop gorging on the poison pills you fools.
Call them on their bluff, make them filibuster and vote no and let them take the heat rather than trying to sell us the CONservative bill of goods.
Primary the ConservaDems!