Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Great Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind: bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

We are back where we started. Can we honestly say that the leaders of BOTH halves of our ruling party any less monarchical that were the British rulers of the colonies? The Hessians may not be quartered in our homes, but our pockets are picked to fund a huge death machine, both in a giant military as well as our increasingly paramilitary police forces and prisons. How many office holders are the children of office holders? We have ruling families nearly as well-established and powerful as the Lords of England in the 18th Century. The streets of New Orleans were stalked by private, heavily armed mercenaries, tasked with protecting property over serving suffering American citizens.

We are in this mess because large varieties of belief and opinion have been wiped off the field of political battle. In Virginia, once the province of true leaders like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, the voters have a choice between two militarist warhawks, one an obvious racist and the other a published misogynist. In Pennsylvania, either the Democrat or the Republican will push for taking away women's freedom, a battle between a wacko theofascist and the rightwing Catholic scion of a politically connected family. Thanks to the machinations of Schumer and Emmanuel, many races this November are between the VERY FAR RIGHT and the RIGHT. Some choice, and now Meteor Blades, who likes to tell us about how many important leftist movements he's been involved in, wants you to shut up if you have any problems with that.

Should these center-right and rightwing Democrats win, they will swell the ranks of the sort of folks who cross the aisle to shred the Constitution. They will tell you, should the Donks take back one of both Houses of Congress, that we the people will be rewarded with important Dems getting Chairmanships on important committees. Tell me, does anyone believe that a majority in the Senate populated by increased numbers of Blue Dogs and DLC/NDN corporatists will vote for a true liberal for any of those posts? Durbin would not be allowed anywhere near the Speaker's chair. Pelosi will be headed off by Steny Hoyer. Conyers will be passed over for some comfortably corrupt hack. Is there any reason to believe that the Dems would ignore seniority any less than the Republicans do, or will they elevate aisle-crossing rightists over a more loyal center-leftist? Michael J. Smith over at Stop Me Before I Vote Again:

What makes the Democrats tick? Surely, you'll say, it's the obvious thing -- the thing that drives any political party: the desire to take power.

I don't think so. Oh, they'd love to wield power if it fell into their laps -- as they hope it will do next month, thanks to the almost incredible blundering of the other side. And if there were some risk-free way of gaining power -- some Big Red Button they could push -- of course they'd push it.

But these are daydreams. The real, workaday, nine-to-five job of any Democrat is to hold on to what he's got, and risk it as little as possible. And I think that once we really take this idea in, it has some pretty important implications.

They won't do anything to risk their fat checks and juicy perks. Elevating genuine leaders would risk pissing off the corporate paymasters.

So easily do the faux-liberals at the big orange ballot-heeling operation fall in line with the likes of Reid, Clinton, Schumer and Emmanuel. How dare they tell you that you should still your voice, sacrifice your ballot, swallow your issues in service of a profoundly broken party? Too many of us are silent already, and our small voices are drowned out by the din of shouting money ... how exactly does the great "liberal" warrior expect change to ever happen if we all meekly knuckle under? JSP again:

If the party were about taking power, you'd think they would figure out that what they're doing is not working -- that they're failures. But they don't see it in that light. Every incumbent occupies his seat because his strategy worked for him; every incumbent is in fact a success story, and you don't change a successful formula.

That's why the only way to make them change is to make the strategy stop working. As long as they get a pellet when they press the triangulation lever, they'll keep pressing it. If they get an electric shock instead, they'll stop. A donkey is at least as smart as a lab rat.

Which brings me to my point: defeat is the only electric shock that will get the donkey's attention. And I mean defeat in the general election, caused by a "spoiler" third party, which is the only effectual kind.

Primary defeats, like Lieberman's, while satisfying, are more difficult to accomplish. Typically there is only one "progressive" challenger, so it's a head-to-head race -- no three-way splits. And then, of course, the only people who come out for primaries are the party faithful. And usually, the challenger is not a millionaire like Ned Lamont.

Moreover, even when primary challenges are successful, they don't necessarily succeed, as in the Connecticut debacle, where in spite of his primary defeat, Lieberman appears to be on his way back to Washington.

But when a third party really makes a long-standing party strategy stop working, then something has got to give.

Keep rewarding their selling out of your rights, opportunities and future, and you're helping in your own exploitation. If your local candidate doesn't share your values, then vote for someone who does. The lesser of two evils is still an evil. The far-right took over the Republican party by voting for third parties, by staying home, by writing in doomed candidates. After enough Republican bi-partisans lost, the rest got the idea. The only way to save this country is for the left to accept that this is a project that will take years, that it will have to start locally and build outward and to quit voting for obvious traitors to our ideals. Shut up and go along, and you're part of the problem.

Cartoon stolen from Almeida Cartoons ... with appreciation.