Likewise, I think if the best we can do is aim to swap out a Democrat here and there, you're making individuals accountable [but] not affecting the accountability of the party at all [any time soon]... - Roquelaure

This recognizes and addresses, I think, the overall dynamic of the arbitrary but entrenched two-party system which excludes other viewpoints from the national debate because it can, having no group of non-Party challengers in Congress. And that ties in to who really pulls the strings in Congress, which is not the individual legislator as a general rule, so long as they belong to, and rely on, a Party and its funders

[...]

In short, unless and until there is either public campaign financing, or a block of alternative voices, outside Party, in Congress, Accountability Now will certainly have an effect (perhaps especially by effectively modeling and educating, with its different approach to the issues), but the fundamental, transformative changes and reforms we need in Congress (including a rebalancing between the Executive and Legislative Branches) seem unlikely to materialize without a direct challenge to the corrupt Party system. -- pow wow

Exactly pow wow. Maybe Glenn, et al. will listen you to you.

Though I think you are being overly optimistic when you flatly state that "Accountability Now will certainly have an effect." Regardless, modeling and educating can certainly be done from outside of the Democratic Party machinery so why not make that choice from the start?

And of course none of this answers the question as to how we force them to actually institute the new rules - eg. publicly financed elections, instant runoff voting, strict laws against and harsh punishments for pay to play activities, etc. - which will eventually marginalize them.

(plus I was up all night trying to find a copy of the latest Windows 7 beta to play around with. Having a permanent 24/7 connection to the 'net courtesy of my friends at UT has put a smile on my face and my fingers dancing across the keyboard :-)

Windows 7? Ugh.:) Ditch Windows and go with the stable version of ELive Linux. Then, when they get the ELive+Compiz version stable go with that one.

http://www.elivecd.org/

If you want a nice stable version of Linux with a larger following you could also go with Ubuntu or its most popular progeny LinuxMint (I am currently using Mint while I wait for ELive+Compiz).

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Actually while Ubuntu is a nice distribution and could certainly be the one to cause some grief for MS on the desktop there is only one problem: It is a bastardized version of Debian and I've read quite a few complaints about its standardized bearer of the Linux flag.

I've been playing around with Mepis and Knoppix and still have a fresh burn of OpenSuSE 11.x to install. Why Windows 7 you may wonder when I am familiar with Linux and actually still run OS/2 as my primary desktop operating-system?

Well, it is real simple: Previous critics of Vista have been raving about how v7 is what Vista should have been. Being as I passed Vista up and stuck with XP Pro for my win32 partition it only seems logical to me to see for myself what all the hoopla is about.

Plus quite frankly, and it pains me to say it, but Windows is now not a total piece of shit like its previous incarnations of the DOS based releases. All my hardware is just plain usable, and of course the software selection is totally incredible. Yes, there are lots and lots of junky win32 apps that simply suck but when I find a gem it is a real pleasure to install and play around with it.

So my system is a triple-boot at this time:

1] eComStation 1.2 (latest IBM blessed release from Serenity Systems)

2] Windows XP Pro SP3

3] Linux of one flavor or another, as yet to totally decided.

You *must* have various ideas or thoughts about what to do. Toss us something here to nibble on. -- KB4Hire

Of course. Everyone has ideas swimming around in their head. It is a dilemma and I really appreciate your sincerity but I think I will pass for now.

[big snip]

You're changing the subject from what I asked. Which I totally understand. The way you slam Glenn and various writers here you'd have to present a 100% foolproof, completely detailed plan to satisfy your less-than-ardent supporters here on Glenn's blog.

Speaking for myself, and it is only my opinion, but you need to flesh out your complaints some with some real options. You are becoming nothing but a shrill voice screaming into the void with the same redundant, endless rants over and over again, thread after thread.

Basically you are becoming that which you so much complain about.

I'm chiming in late, but I think you're on to something very important.

It gets to my concern about what people like to consider "their" Democratic (or Republican) Party - a federal Congressional Party on which they, and even many Democratic legislators, in fact have little influence:

Likewise, I think if the best we can do is aim to swap out a Democrat here and there, you're making individuals accountable [but] not affecting the accountability of the party at all [any time soon]... - Roquelaure

This recognizes and addresses, I think, the overall dynamic of the arbitrary but entrenched two-party system which excludes other viewpoints from the national debate because it can, having no group of non-Party challengers in Congress. And that ties in to who really pulls the strings in Congress, which is not the individual legislator as a general rule, so long as they belong to, and rely on, a Party and its funders.

I have much more faith than Glenn seems to have that Americans would rise up to support a current Congressional incumbent who openly renounces their Party membership, for principled, coherent reasons, and runs as an unaffiliated, non-Party candidate. Obviously, though, that would be far easier with a known funding source than without, in the current corporate-financed campaign environment.

This aligns with the fact, cited by Larry Sabato in his "Room for Debate" column in the NYT recently, that 66% of Americans don't strongly identify with either Party in Congress. The nation is sick beyond sickness of the false choices we are given by the two Parties. The nation would be far better served if Parties (not to be confused with principled ideology) started taking a back seat in Congress. Current Party structure facilitates and empowers corporate control, and that control needs to be shattered, as you rightly indicate. How many of those 66% ignore Party primaries, but would come out to vote for an independent candidate in a general election?

The binary nature of the Parties that control Congress - a Congress in desperate need of fundamental reform - leads to a Party reaping rewards from national calamity if the other Party is seen as primarily responsible (which today, often means the other Party's president according to corporate media coverage). Thus, Pelosi lets Bush wreak havoc to reward her Party at the polls, and the Republicans now threaten to block legislation that may help the nation stop foundering, in order to reap rewards at future polls because of a hoped-for failure of a Democratic Party presidency. This is Party politics with the nation's welfare itself as the punching bag for Party wargames, rather than in service to an effort to genuinely promote the national welfare in a meaningful way, Party credit notwithstanding.

In short, unless and until there is either public campaign financing, or a block of alternative voices, outside Party, in Congress, Accountability Now will certainly have an effect (perhaps especially by effectively modeling and educating, with its different approach to the issues), but the fundamental, transformative changes and reforms we need in Congress (including a rebalancing between the Executive and Legislative Branches) seem unlikely to materialize without a direct challenge to the corrupt Party system.

Nancy Pelosi's words yesterday, in response to a question Jane Hamsher was able to ask her (huge credit to Jane), illustrate so many of the problems with a Party-run Congress:

http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/03/nancy-pelosi-on-stimulus-i-couldve-fast-tracked-it-much-faster/

My commitment is to all of my members, and every day is a new day for me. They voted wrong one day, I need 'em for another vote the next day. So I don't have any "list," A. - Speaker Pelosi

Voted "wrong"?? How does a Member of Congress, voting their conscience and honoring the will of their constituents, ever vote "wrong"?

We did [the stimulus bill in] one week and one day. ...-snip-... We had hearings, but we also had hearings on the amendments, markups on the amendments -- we had 26, 27 hours of markups on the amendments.

- Speaker Pelosi

This is intentionally deceitful, as far as I know. Congressional staffers - of both Parties, including from the House Ways and Means Committee - were shown on C-SPAN, before the stimulus bill was passed, pointing out that the bill was privately written [it has never been made clear whether this was with or without a great deal of deference to the detailed input of the Obama transition team] over the holidays, while Congress was in recess, and was essentially "pre-conferenced" between House and Senate for the most part.

The hurried, pro forma public hearings were thus a sham for show, and Pelosi knows that even members of her own caucus have sent a letter requesting a return to "regular order" because of the secret dealmaking that resulted in the hugely significant stimulus bill (and other recent legislation):

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-warn-leaders-to-resume-regular-order-2009-02-02.html

So we are an independent branch of government. We have our own process as to how we bring legislation to the floor. We work closely with the Obama administration to move their priorities forward... - Speaker Pelosi

How can Pelosi have it both ways? She either operates, as she should, as an independent branch of government, or she "works closely with the Obama administration to move their priorities forward." Mostly, those two objectives appear to conflict. Party is what Pelosi serves, far more than her branch of government, or the nation's Constitution.

Nevertheless - and crucially - Pelosi's Party powerbrokers are empowered to call the shots for all "Democratic" Representatives and thus for the House itself - unless groups of legislators, which somehow never seems to include the "Progressive" bloc, demand otherwise, and have the numbers to challenge her when aligned with the voting posture of opposing, lockstep Republicans.

P.S. A good shorthand way for journalists to describe Accountability Now might be to say that it aims to "reform Congress" - a goal most Americans would agree is worthy and overdue, and which removes Party as the focus.