So why not campaign for that instead of throwing money away with capital-activism plans like Accountability Never or wasting time campaigning for some faux liberal candidate? Campaign for it! What if the netroots leading bloggers began that campaign? What if they asked us to go door to door and "canvass" for something like a general strike? Isn't that worth the try? What if they had used their collective platform to advocate for direct action instead of voting for the LOTE?

Not that I feel compelled to answer you, but:

1) I don't consider donating to Accountability Now to be "throwing money away" despite the fact I don't believe it will yield the long-term results I'm looking for. It is a good thing trying to get better, and I could after all, be wrong in my prognostications (and I'd love nothing more).

2) I did not campaign for Obama or any candidate in the past election, as I felt all of them (who were not marginalized by the MSM) sucked.

3) The idea for a national work stoppage is nothing new, but only recently have I come to the conclusion that it is one of the only real ways any substantive change will ever take place. These things have worked in other countries, but by far the largest obstacle is changing the mindset of Joe and Jolene SixPack, as decades of relentless MSM propaganda and consumerism have squelched the activist mentality of most people (see "Fat, Dumb, and Happy).

I have started a blog to discuss many of these issues, and, if this idea ever caught on with the "big" bloggers out there like Glenn, etc, I will be the first to volunteer in as large a capacity as I am capable of, given the fact I still have to put food on the table and help raise 3 kids.

4) I freely admit to not having the organizational skill set to successfully spearhead such a campaign, in addition to believing it would be beyond a Herculean effort to make happen in any meaningful way. Personally, I think more personal pain and suffering on a widespread basis will be needed before large numbers of US citizens will ever think seriously of taking to the streets and reclaiming their gov't from those who've stolen it from us.

5) Finally, you of all people have about zero credibility telling others what they should or should not be doing, given your penchant for constantly bitching up the comments section and tearing down everyone's efforts without ever making any substantial contributions yourself or offering up any concrete solutions to the issues raised. Why DO you even come here, indeed?

I think that both are mistaken in believing that we can vote our way out of Empire. The massive, blood-and-money-soaked machine will either be peacefully subdivided into reasonably-sized pieces, or it will collapse under its own weight and well hopefully have a chance to fight for representative democracy beyond Thunderdome. But - as my girlfriend says - size matters. Once government reaches the scale of intercontinental Empire, organized citizens can't reasonably fight for control against moneyed interests.

A couple of things:

1) I generally enjoy your posts, PDA, whether or not I agree with them. I think they add value here.

2) Like Adnoto, I also do not believe we can vote our way out of Empire. That is why I remain a very skeptical supporter of the Accountability Now thing. It's a great effort, and one I will continue supporting with money and getting the word out, but ultimately, I believe it is too much of an uphill battle to succeed enough to bring the kind of substantive change this country desperately needs right now. It can certainly slow our descent into an utter banana republic of epic proportions, but it won't stop it.

Personally, short of outright revolution, I believe only a massive, unified work stoppage of epic proportions would have any chance of changing anything of substance in how our gov't operates and (dis)serves the public. And trust me, I have no earthly clue how to make something like that happen. I can only imagine organizing workers in key industries, like trucking, airlines, healthcare, etc. to all stop working at the same time, in order to cause enough short-term suffering and inconvenience on a mass scale so as to wake our somnambulent citizenry up to what's happened to their gov't and their country.

I would settle for voluntary and comprehensive lobby, election, and campaign finance reform, fire the entirety of Congress, and go from there. But that ain't gonna happen. It must be forced upon the oligarchs whose greed is destroying everything which made this country great. Simplistic? Apocalyptic? Maybe. But I've been reading here for years and really haven't seen many other ideas which will return the gov't back to the will of the people, either in whole or part. Of course, I realize what I'm saying really amounts to "stopping the Empire," but I guess we all have to rationalize now and then.

Anywho, while I still do it faithfully, and will continue doing so until something better happens, voting really is for suckers. At least, the suckers who want this country to be what our founding fathers set it out to be. Voting works great for the elite and powerful who already have control of near everything that matters. Just look at the latest ridiculous law Glenn writes about today for exemplary proof of that.

PS: If anyone wants to get on the massive work stoppage bandwagon, count me in as a state organizer--Missouri. Heh.