Glenn,

It was refreshing to read your update and this:

Of course that increases the frustration and cynicism level, but at least for me, it hasn't crossed into the type of defeatism -- or at least resignation over the prospects of doing anything about it within the system -- that many commenters in this thread and, increasingly, many others are urging.

Along with pointing out the accommodating nature of the Democrats, this is exactly what I have been saying, when I pop up to say anything at all, and you knew I would. Those of us who have been advocating third party choices are not at all defeatists. We have been arguing exactly what you argue and have been trying to show you that what we say is not "outside" the system. Our system is mutable and that is, as you point out, exactly what the Founders wanted. Moving our political system towards a more Parliamentary system with many factions "inside" the governing system is not antithetical to neither the American Way nor the Constitution. I mean, the Two-Parties have been changing the operational laws of the government for many many years. This is why they are entrenched in our lives and seem to many to be hopelessly entrenched. Of course: they are NOT hopelessly entrenched.

It is really as simple as this: voting for a candidate, whether they be Rep, Dem or 3rd party MUST BE DONE according to a strong sense of morals, a set I KNOW you have, Glenn. We third party advocates point out that voting for Democrats (as you say: generally, not individually) is much like voting for Republicans. This is precisely because of the rules they (Dems and Repubs) have made in the *operation* of our government. They have made it a game of keeping their job, rather than working "For the People." When I vote for a third party candidate, I know that when I am 80yrs old, I will look back and know I made a choice based on morals, not feelings.

We CAN change this government. And *one* way, a way that already has its feet on the ground, is through third party advocacy. With a morally strong third party, good laws from "either side of the aisle" will be enacted. Because, in order for the law to be enacted, the third party would have to be convinced it was a good law. With even more parties on Capital Hill, even better laws would be enacted.

Peace,

-Derek Java

Only slightly O/T. From "Raw Story"

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Backing_down_on_demands_for_Iraq_1005.html

Senate passes intelligence bill after Democrats back down on presidential briefings, CIA jails

After a stalemate of over two years, the Senate passed the 2008 Intelligence Authorization bill Wednesday, with Democrats ceding a key provision regarding pre-war Iraq intelligence that Republicans had decried.

Sources close to the Senate Intelligence Committee say one of the compromises Democrats made to ensure the bill’s passage was to remove language demanding the White House turn over all Presidential Daily Briefings on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. Democrats are said to have been hoping to establish whether President Bush mischaracterized intelligence in the lead-up to the conflict.

“The provision on the PDBs was dropped because Republicans objected and were blocking consideration of the bill,” a Senate source said Wednesday.

The request for the PDBs, which also included briefings for President Clinton on Iraq, was part of what is known as Phase II of the Senate investigation into Iraq prewar intelligence, the source added...

Only the second paragraph of my letter is a quote from Glenn. I mistakenly used tags instead of

tags. Sorry about that. Perhaps Salon could edit my post?

Thanks.

-Derek

I hope my own posts haven't been interpreted as advocating defeatism. I think the degradations we are seeing now were made possible by a vast, slow restructuring of American society/political economy that is not often examined here. And that it will take decades of convulsion---convulsion, not voting, not letter-writing---to move us on to the next stage. (I don't believe there is ever any going back---even if a sort of "restoration" is achieved, it will only be a compromise. That's how these things work.) This is a revolution 50 years in the making.

Despite the obvious advantage to the Right that was 9/11, much of the administration's policies seem so flimsy to me that I can imagine a few choice SCOTUS decisions flipping the whole mess on its back: the administration has been out on a limb for several years now and has covered its vulnerabilities only by neutralizing the other branches of government.

Still, it's the complicity of various elites that has allowed the neocons to to take their gamble, and win. So far. Despite this complicity, the shortest path I see to a collapse of this administration and all it stands for is for it to take all the rope that has generously been provided it, and hang itself.

And even that won't lead to a restoration. I don't see the Constitution being restructured to be more modern/European, however obvious the advantages, without a civil war or occupation. Think the Marshall Plan in reverse.

Glenn,

You're on the money, and you're not the only one who notices the caving of our "opposition" party. Look at the approval ratings for the White House and Congress and you will see that the American public is with you.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/10/04/national/w082948D43.DTL

Congress's approval is at 22%. This is not as right-wingers like to claim because the American people want "bipartisanship," but because the public voted for change last Nov. A party shift in Congress has not produced the level of change in policy that people wanted.

I think the timidity of the public is a result of observing Congress. Congress's behavior has to do with the fact that our "enemy" is Arab and or Muslim. There is a racial component to the war on terror that no one likes to talk about. "Corporate interests" do not begin to touch the cultural underpinnings of acquiesence to torture, lawlessness, invading another country (Iraq), not accepting the outcomes of an election we pushed for (Palestine), and political lethargy.

The demonizing of the Arab world, "Islam," etc. that Congress and the media have been involved in prior to 9/11 helps explain why post 9/11 the entire country could move away from its constitutional bearings. It's not just the "Islamofascism" crowd but also the "liberal" anti-Arab intelligentsia and media that played a role in crafting the idea of the "good" uses of American imperialism, the "anti-American" nature of the "left," etc. after 9/11, the "bad" Saddam Hussein.

I would venture that if the behavior of the Bush administration targeted any other group--Africans, Asians, Latin Americans--the American public would be less willing to go along for the ride. Its political conscience would be more troubled by waterboarding prisoners, if those prisoners weren't Arab men.