As corporate ideologues continue to dominate Republican Party primaries and Democrats continue to ignore or brow-beat their base while pushing policies that benefit the wealthy and powerful, many activists and voters are wondering how to restore democracy for the 99%.

Some favor street activism like the Occupy Movement, while others turn to on-line activism like petition signing and blogging.  These efforts are worthwhile and represent the birth pains of democracy, but elections matter.  Until politicians fear losing their seats, or lose their seats, the 1% will continue to write the laws that the majority of us will dutifully obey those laws.  Politically, I have always tried to use my time to work within the Democratic Party to get “better Democrats,” but, as clearly illustrated by the 2010 shellacking, many working people rewarded mediocrity with apathy; choosing not to vote for the lesser of two evils.  How would these people respond to something new?

When Democratic Party bosses continue to offer up empty, populist rhetoric as an appetizer, while force-feeding a long list of corporate candidates and policies such as the $700 billion bank bailout, do these actions give recent third-party efforts like the Justice Party a realistic opportunity to win?

I think it is worth listening to Rocky Anderson (Democrat turned Justice Party), who will be on the Norman Goldman show (being guest-hosted by Adam Klugman) tonight.  The show runs on WCPT locally, live from 5-8 p.m., (820 AM, 92.5 FM (west), 92.7 (north), 92.9 (south)) or you can follow the “Listen Live” link at the top of the WCPT page.

I was reading Albert Einstein this morning and his famous definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results,” seems to apply to our money-dominated political system.  How do we fix it?  Is the Occupy Movement enough or do we need a strong third party to represent the 99%?

Most recently in my life I have been more attracted to the Occupy Movement than I have anything political, but the Justice Party has me asking lots of questions.  What is the Green Party doing to capitalize on the mood of the country?  Will the Greens combine efforts with JP? What will organized labor do?

At a minimum, we need to have this conversation.  To be part of the conversation, call in during the last half hour of the show – 888.321.6001

Tags: 99%, democrat, Green Party, Justice Party, MoveOn.org, Occupy Wall Street, Rocky Anderson

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 27th, 2011 at 3:53 pm and is filed under The Front Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.