Your Nader comment seems completely beside the point. You are a Paul supporter from what I can tell. Paul is a Republican. He was not at the Republican Convention and I don’t think he was asked to speak. Where was Paul insisting on going to his own Party’s convention?

Nader had his own convention as an Independent. Your argument, such as it ease seems exceedingly weak.

As a Paul supporter, Giorgio, I’m asking for an answer from you.

If this is not clear evidence of chicaney, you tell me what is !
In http://www.puppetgov.com there is a survey going on the fairness of the US electoral system. So far 78% of those surveyed feel the system is UNDEMOCRATIC and FLAWED. If this is a reflection of what Americans think on the whole, isn’t it time to overhaul this rigged system?

After reading Norman Solomon’s counterargument to Gonzalez, I agree with him. VOTE for the lesser of two evils, Obama!
Then after the elections join Ron Paul’s Campaign for LIBERTY!
As for voting for Nader or any of the others is a dead loss!
Nader lost a grand opportunity to become a National and World celebrity ( and his electoral chances would have skyrocketed) if he had insisted on his rights to attend the Republican convention as an observer and not submit meekly to the cops’ charge of trespassing and threat to lock him up.
24-48hrs in a prison cell would not do him any harm and would reveal to the world that the American electoral process rivals that of a banana republic like Zimbabuwe.

point well made on the proportionality of analogies issue in regard to Australia — apples sure aren’t oranges. As well, the regional and national links certainly need to be extended and developed.

Brain’s identification of the need for rejection and localism couldn’t be more accurate.

Organization NOW is imperative for real changes LATER, whatever progressive momentum has thus far been built needs to be maintained.

Normon’s diagnosis of Obama being hardly progressive should be apparent after this overkill of a campaign trail, and hence as the author states, “The best way to avoid becoming disillusioned is to not have illusions in the first place.”

While a McCain/Palin victory would be abominable compared to a win by Obama/Biden, the stage has already been set by their predecessor for persistent abuse of Executive power and a continued shift toward fascism. I don’t recall hearing Obama mention the need to restore Constitutional liberties to the people, or Congressional oversight to the system.

With Obama’s more refined sense of charisma and intellect over McCain, it’s easy for the public to dismiss the possibility of ongoing Executive power usurpation by a guy like Obama. Until he proposes eliminating the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act, I can only muster up a guess that Bush’s fascist track will be sustained by Obama, but even more so should the country see a McCain victory, and eventually by Palin if she were to ‘wo’man the post.

Best to all.

I think DB agrees. The point about localism is that it is about place. It is a powerful organizing principle for a progressive movement.

In New England we have local organizing which has created both regional and national links which extend into parts of Canada.

This is not theory, it is real and now. We need to extend it, build on it and transform the dominant narrative and power structure.

Organizations, such as PDA, imo, are counterproductive becasue they seem to believe that they can wed themselves to the Democratic party and transform the Party and thus the polity through infilitration. It’s not only futile, but dangerous to a serious progressive movement.

Furthermore, realize whent the Dems take over, much of the center of power will be a combination of neoliberals and blue dogs. “Progressive” Dems will be as dead in the water as Kucinich has been for all these years.

Change can only happen outside the centers of existing power structure – hence localism and the movement to build solidarity globally.

Localism implies solidarity when it’s accurately implemented under a system that is defined by the two. Localism and solidarity should be pursued with respect to this system, not in isolation.

You write “The Left currently lacks the necessary cohesion needed to build solidarity” – but it’s not the Left that needs the cohesion. These local groups linked together into regional organizations will be formed largely of regular people. One of the great adversaries for us to defeat is a lack of cohesion, a lack of solidarity, within the general populace.

The job of the Left is not to represent this system, but to contemplate it, experiment with it, create it, and promote it, such that the general populace will be turned toward it and finally, exist within it.

One thing the Left needs is enough consensus that this is the right course in order to go through the process of creating this system.

Part of this process for the Left is to join the local organizations that exist right now which one might reasonably conclude could be part of this system.

Clarity is extremely important. Localism and solidarity is not mutually inclusive and my remarks does not imply that localism and solidarity is zero sum. What I am saying is that localism and solidarity are two complementary concepts.

The point is that localism does not imply solidarity among the disparate locales or sects. With Localism can also come xenophobia. I bring this up especially in light of how communities on the Left are still terribly divided on race and class issues.

The Left currently lacks the necessary cohesion needed to build solidarity. Therefore while I am not against “localism” but localism alone will not engender change. That can ONLY come from solidarity.

Solidarity means when one of us is attacked, all of us are attacked – and all of us need to strike back.

The problem is we always want to start at some kind of apex, some central place. Localism is about partnerships, not hierarchies. It is about human-scale communities; and then connecting communities across regions and globally. It’s happening. Will it become the core organizing principle? That remains to be seen. But it is a significant alternative to what we have and I think it holds great promise on many levels.

So, this is not a zero sum game of local versus solidarity. I do agree that we need to be very weary of the corporate and political powers that have proven very successful at undermining any attempt to create viable alternatives. Third parties are but one small example of what happens when you confront the status quo power structure. The Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) has tried to coopt this, but they’re too bundled into the Democratic Party to really do anything. They represent the negative air sucking out of the progressive movement.

So, for sure, solidarity is essential for both “defensive” purposes as well as assuring a connectedness so essential to a sustainable planet.

The major challenge is keeping this clean of duopoly party politics where it will be suffocated at birth (hence the concern with the PDA).

And what happens when the ruling class decides to step in or better yet STEP ON your utopia? You better have some means to defend it. While your idea of “localism” sounds good a better game plan IMO is SOLIDARITY. Without solidarity you can forget about self defense.

Precisely!

We hope it goes bankrupt real soon. It’s too big for its boots!

End the war? Nah, let’s redeploy!

Spying on Americans bad? No, spying good! Just don’t
overspy. Then it’s okay.

Stop corporate corruption? Nah, we’ll just give ‘em all the money they
want. Then maybe they’ll let up a bit.

Impeach Bush? Heck, no! Just because someone has destroyed the
country, not to mention millions of lives, is no reason to remove
them from office. And if you want to, you’ll have to get by me!

I said what about universal health care? What’s that again?

Get with the program, Mr. Solomon. The Democrats, even good ol’ Mr. Change We Need, are just as corrupt, detatched, and beholden to the corporate lobbyists buying them lunch every day as the Republicans. Only an idiot still believes in these crooks masquerading as the saviors of the common folk. It’s simply their trick of the trade. They act so sympathetic to the little folks’ problems, knowing the little folks don’t check their track records or current progress, because they’re too busy watching American Idol. In the meantime, they’re voting bills into law that are killing us with their Republican pals over eighty-five percent of the time. “Reaching across party lines,” as they (for some reason) proudly boast. There is a reason you hear the word “bipartisan” so often these days: Because they’re two sides of the same coin, deliberately keeping a true hero of change like Ralph Nader out of the clubhouse.

In a true and functioning democracy, people have a right to vote for the candidates they chose. Do you have a problem with this? Do you rail at Republican voters for stealing votes from the Democrats?

If the Democrats are losing votes to more left-leaning candidates, and it is causing them to lose elections, they can choose to move more to the left. If moving towards the left causes them to lose votes from the right, then they are in a dilema, because it would seem that they have no reason for existence. If they move to the right just to win elections, then they are an active part in the drift towards the right, and have abandoned any left-leaning credentials they might have had.

Well may you be worried about another four years of Republican “rule”, but the problem of the faux-left (faux-gauche?) Democrats will not go away by following your strategy. You should be berating the Democratic voters for stealing votes from Nader.