This is how corporatists tie you in, btw. It could hardly work better if they actually planned the whole kabuki.

”Obama and the Democrats feel they have us boxed in. We need to get out of the box.”

well stated!

this should be commonsense by now, given the manifest failure of attempting to reform the (D) Party from within.

plus, for those who wish to remain (D) captured out of habit or loyalty or whatever, the mere existence of a viable 3rd (rather, 2nd) Party option will give (D) politicians huge leverage when they are being whipped by Rahm on issues like the supplemental.

”My constituents are restless! Some of them are no longer just voting for anyone with a (D) after their name – they may stay home or vote Green (or whatever) if I am forced to budget another $100 billion for missionless wars, while rejecting Single Payer Health Care that everyone wants!”

plus, geez, have some pride folks – the (D)’s who you labored so hard to get into power scorn you utterly once there. don’t be so co-dependent!

All that does (a la Ralph Nader) is peel off votes from the somewhat less crazies (Democrats) and throw elections to the real crazies (rethugs).

This is precisely what Obama is counting on and why he will continue to blow off progressives. Obama and the Democrats feel they have us boxed in. We need to get out of the box.

If we continue to use the usual tactics we most likely will wind up with the usual suspects.

I offer no alternative solution, except for strongly supporting the handful in congress (Whitehouse, Kuchinich, etc.) who seem sincerely committed to their role as public servants.

We need to stop thinking about working with Obama. There is nothing there to work with. We need to oppose him, his Administration, and his Congress.

The supplemental passed 226-202. While it is true that 170 Republicans opposed it and only 5 voted for it, the supplemental remains an essentially conservative Republican bill, just not as extreme as where the Republicans are now. The more important point is that 221 Democrats voted for it. This is far more than a few Bluedogs and weak-kneed turncoats like Schakowsky. Yes, 32 Democrats opposed it. But this should also tell us why Obama and Rahm don’t give spit for progressives. They don’t even make up 10% of the House. They make up even less in the Senate.

I favor fights like the one on the supplemental but the calculus is heavily against us. The only way progressives can stop Obama is if they combine with extremist nutcase Republicans. This is not a viable strategy. Obama’s response is to go even further to the right or to peal off what progressives he needs from the left with pork without accepting any progressive ideas.

Now when Obama’s policies fail, and they will fail, we can say I told you so and we can not support him in his inevitable re-election bid but that is about it.

Just my personal opinion but I think we should be using the next few years to elect progressives and work toward the creation of a progressive party. The current two party system gives us the choice between really crazy Republicans and somewhat less crazy Republicans (often referred to as Democrats). Neither has anything useful to say about the problems or the solutions to our nation’s problems.

Or did he just imply… and the foolish took it as a sign that he’d somehow be amenable to progressive ideas?

I’m not speaking of vague feel-good aphorisms from the last century… I’m speaking of him actively digging us deeper into the various holes as fast as he possibly can this very minute.