Mick is over at one of his other sites causing unrest:
Do they [the Dems] deserve to win? Are we really going to be any better off with a party that has grown used to making excuses for torture, supporting govt spying, prosecuting an illegal war, and abetting the growth of imperial powers in the presidency as if they aren’t worth worrying about?
Short answer: Yes, it matters if the Dems win but they do not deserve it.
Over at Thomas' place, the question of idealism and pragmatism is being discussed around the idea of impeachment. The failure to impeach Cheney and Bush could certainly be added to Mick's list of Democratic failures. At this point in the debate I don't know if I'm an idealist or a pragmatist but I know that I'm voting for either Clinton or Obama and maybe one of them twice. So I'm not in favor of sitting this round out no matter how badly the Dems have failed to challenge the president's lawlessness or how disappointing the presidential candidates are to this Roosevelt Democrat. That's pragmatic, right? But here's where I get starry-eyed and it has nothing to do with any candidate -- I remember what Grace Lee Boggs told Bill Moyers:
BILL MOYERS: The conundrum for me is this; The war in Vietnam continued another seven years after Martin Luther King's great speech at Riverside here in New York City on April 4th, 1967. His moral argument did not take hold with the powers-that-be.
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I don't expect moral arguments to take hold with the powers-that-be. They are in their positions of power. They are part of the system. They are part of the problem.
BILL MOYERS: Then do moral arguments have any force if they--
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Of course they do.
BILL MOYERS: If they can be so heedlessly ignored?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I think because we depend too much on the government to do it. I think we're not looking sufficiently at what is happening at the grassroots in the country. We have not emphasized sufficiently the cultural revolution that we have to make among ourselves in order to force the government to do differently. Things do not start with governments--
...
BILL MOYERS: You know, a lot of young people out there would agree with your analysis. With your diagnosis. And then they will say; What can I do that's practical? How do I make the difference that Grace Lee Boggs is taking about. What would you be doing?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I would say do something local. Do something real, however, small. And don't diss the political things, but understand their limitations.
BILL MOYERS: Don't 'diss' them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Disrespect them.
BILL MOYERS: Disrespect them?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: Understand their limitations. Politics — there was a time when we believed that if we just achieved political power it would solve all our problems. And I think what we learned from experiences of the Russian Revolution, all those revolutions, that those who become-- who try to get power in the state, become part of the state. They become locked in to the practices. And we have to begin creating new practices.
BILL MOYERS: What will it take for this next round of change that you see as promising? What would it take?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: It takes discussions like this. I mean, it takes a whole lot of things. It takes people doing things. It takes people talking about things. It takes dialogue. It takes changing the whole lot of ways by which we think.
BILL MOYERS: Do you see any leaders who are advocating that change? I mean, people that we would all recognize, anybody we'd all recognize?
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I don't see any leaders, and I think we have to rethink the concept of "leader." 'Cause "leader" implies "follower." And, so many-- not so many, but I think we need to appropriate, embrace the idea that we are the leaders we've been looking for.
Really embracing what Dr. Boggs is talking about means staying involved, even in a small way, in governance. Dropping out isn't an option. Voting alone isn't enough but everyone doesn't need to run for Congress either. There's a middle ground in there that more people will have to find and hold if we're going to get real change in the way the country is run. It won't be glamorous ground. Finding it will be easy but holding it will be a ton of thankless work and you're going to meet some really annoying, even truly horrible people along the way. But picking a few issues and getting active on them really is the only way that anything will ever get better no matter who wins what election.
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