I’m saddened for all of my friends and relatives who worked so hard on the pavement and on the phone to get Obama elected. And I wished Obama well. He could have been a great President.

But I didn’t vote for him in 2008. And I certainly won’t in 2012, either. I refuse to cast a vote for any candidate for any office with a D or R after their name. (I will consider any other candidates on the ballot, but I seldom vote for minor parties for national office.)

My usual practice is to patiently write in the name of a person I respect and admire who meets the legal requirements of each office. (This involves a modest amount of effort, expecially for local and state elections. For example, I must find an Attorney General write-in who has been admitted to the bar in my state.)

I don’t subscribe to the notion that “there are no differences” between the Democrats and Republicans. That would be a silly as saying there are no differences between leperosy and the plague. Leperosy is a disfiguring disease that leads to lingering death. The plague kills much quicker and leads to an agonizing death.

So I refuese to vote for either leperosy or the plague. But I always vote, in every election, for every office. The vote is the only weapon I have. And it is far too precious to waste on Democrats or Republicans.

I don’t imagine that the Two-Party system will be destroyed in my lifetime. [I have developed a plausible model of how the joint D-R stanglehold on American democracy might be broken eventually. (It doesn’t involve the sudden rise of any of the minor parties, incidentally.) No reason to bore anyone with it here.]

Whenever I despair, I return to the wonderful vision of ordinary people with sledgehammers bringing down the Berlin Wall. I never, ever thought that would happen in my lifetime either.

So each time I walk into a voting booth, I take another swing at the Two-Party system with my sledgehammer–my vote–chipping away as best I can, trying to weaken the Two-Party wall.

For what it’s worth, I wrote in Bernie Sanders in 2008.

No one who would act against our public interest should be exempted from this contempt. While it is true that Obama and the present congress is what has to be dealt with, they do need to be dealt with. Action is called for not just grumping.

Donating money to our supporters is one aspect surely and one should should reward those officials who act on our behalf, although it is rather unseemly to go that route. But there are many other options for the public who is being taken for fools and dupes to react. There is something craven in not doing so.

Obama is unreliable and has made his proclivities for siding with big comapnies already clear, there is no need to doubt that these are his truly held preferences because he acts on those. What we need to do is to likewise act on our own behalf. It is action that is called for.

Whatever form this action takes it must show results. Incessant protesting to our reprentatatives to commit to the PO publicly and factually revealing in print whatever may be compromising their reluctance to do so should be pursued.

However one should seriously think about forming a concerted campaign based on the single issue of public finacing of health care at least to a significant extent. The goal should be to make our representatives, congressmen and senators alike, commit to that publicly. That is an attainable goal and it will make a difference. Their unwillingness to do so will mean that we will support a candidate who is willing to commit to that.

Joe: Add in how he promised to be a “fierce advocate” for the gay community and now can’t do a fucking thing to move his supposed agenda along, and I think the list is pretty complete. I knew that things were going to blow as soon as I heard that he was picking Rahm for Chief of Staff and Geithner for Treasury. Wall Street and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce won. Us? Not so much. Great work.

from http://icantbelieveitsnotademo…..nths-.html

Hence, I think one could add to your list an abject and phony press, that has no intention of reporting the truth, whose occasional “exposes” are meant to display show for those who still believe this is a democracy, and not the authoriatarian-controlled plutocracy that is actually is.

Did you already forget Sotomayor? Imagine whom McCain would’ve nominated! But I digress and you guys are right: doesn’t matter who’s president and she’s probably a horrible corporatist beneath all that personal achievement and moderate judicial philosophy anyway so to hell with her…

Must get back to respecting the feelings of the majority of the board here: Obama is a traitor who is going to destroy the country and is a jazillion times worse than Bush I & Bush II & Nixon after a trip through the teleporter from The Fly. All because it’s not happening fast enough and this whole legislative process is really just a horrible misrepresentation of the Peoples’ Will and why won’t Obama just declare Martial Law already and unilaterally proclaim John Edwards’ health plan the law of the land and set up the guillotine in the Mall and begin the beheading of conservatives, moderates, compromisers and those deemed Not Liberal Enough by a Council of Real True Americans from FDL?!? Waaauuuuuaaaawwww!