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Well... blast
On the good side, the single-party lock on executive and legislative branches has been broken. Excellent. That was entirely too lopsided.
On the bad side, a single party now controls (barely) both halves of the legislative branch... and in two years it's almost certain they'll hold the executive branch as well...
...and we'll be right back where we started. Crap. Watch the insanity begin again as The Other White Meat begins *their* feeding frenzy.
Can a brother get some *balance*??
All I can hope for is that in two years the Congress splits again.
On the bad side, a single party now controls (barely) both halves of the legislative branch... and in two years it's almost certain they'll hold the executive branch as well...
...and we'll be right back where we started. Crap. Watch the insanity begin again as The Other White Meat begins *their* feeding frenzy.
Can a brother get some *balance*??
All I can hope for is that in two years the Congress splits again.
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Balance isn't going to get us Habeas Corpus back. Balance would slow down and even out the changes happening, meaning we'd be settled where we are, and where we are is a scary, scary place to be.
"back where we started"-- back when I word-associated "politics" to pork-bellies and term limits? Please, please, please. Now I associate "politics" with journalists being handed over to military processing, holding facilities in my city imprisoning people without charges, people of color being threatened with arrest by uniformed officials for showing up at the Ballard locks with a camera, ordinary protesters being held days in warehouses without access to blankets, food, hygiene, or medication on the authority of party leaders.
Yep. Dems suck too. I know it. But in between Senator Bedfellow and Senator McCarthy, I'll dance in the streets for Bedfellow. My only hope is that the Democratic Party will take this as a mandate to restore civil liberties with reactionary zeal; my greatest fear is that they will try to capitalize on the increased power themselves, and change nothing.
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I'd love to be proven wrong, of course. I'm just not holding my breath.
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Yeah. If Clinton had used the opportunity in his lap to relinquish the still-standing increased executive powers back from Nixon/Johnson... well, we might still be where we are today but it wouldn't have been quite so durned *easy* to get us here. :(
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*sigh*
Hence, my appeal for balance. I *hope* that these insane and frightening moves will be rolled back, but... without the two sides being in tension and causing a *dialog*, I don't see it happening. :/
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... which I wouldn't have counted on with a republican congress.
Frankly, I'd rather have a democratic congress and a republican president than the other way around, but we'll see how the wind blows.
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I just don't see that steamroller being backed up if the Democrats take a sweep of the executive and legislative branches in 2008, as some apparently do. It's been stopped, and frankly, that's all we can really hope for in our political system.
I agree with your assessment about which party has seemed better suited to which branch over time.
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I am not necessarily convinced that the dems have a lock on both the executive and legislative branches in 08. 1. the dems have approximately 12 months to prove that they can keep it together and be disciplined legislators--never an easy task. and 2. Neither party has a truly viable candidate. Hillary and McCain are lightening rods for controversy. McCain is a lot more conservative than most people realize and folks who might have supported him previously--might feel burned by the lies that bush &co have espoused--the wolf in sheeps clothing scenario as it were. And Hillary is hillary. You want to talk about polarization. Put together the "dream" tix of obama and hil and lets see what happens.
I love hillary--always have--but she won't be the 1st female prez of the US, it could be Ms Nancy "2 heartbeats away" Pelosi. Now that would be worth the price of admission to to some of the uber conservative places in the country, if it ever happened. Oh Darth Cheney is thundering around his undisclosed location over that one. Just don't go hunting with him Nancy;)
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The polarization drives me *insane*... we've got 5% at either end driving the bus for the other 90%. (Call it 10%/80% if you want, but it's still all out of proportion...) There's really no need for it... except that we're locked into this kamikaze course thanks to an entrenched two party system mentality. :P
ANYwho...
I think you're right about the middle going "Whaaaaa?", but I do believe that the middle is much larger than either party wants to believe. They each like to think that they represent 45% of the US, with their opponent being a paltry 15%, and all they have to do is get a quarter of the remainder to win. In reality, I think the party rhetoric exemplifies that 5-10% on each end, and the majority of most folks look at both ends of the spectrum like they're the cross-eyed cousins at the family reunion. Yeah, they're technically family, but... yeesh.
We're just one big dysfunctional family letting the drunk uncles steer the dinner conversation.
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I had a long-winded followup for that sentence (long-winded? me?), but it was too depressing. I will summarize by saying: Enjoy your feeble victory, foolish mortals, for the erosion of your rights will resume sooner than you believe.
Mwahaha...oh, never mind.
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Whay is that the worst part? Because those issues get all the press, and the real issues, the important issues, the ones that actually affect a large percentage of the populace. that determine the overall course of our society, get completely ignored.
And the two parties actually _agree_ on these "hidden" issues, and their position IS THE WRONG ONE FOR OUR SOCIETY.
Communication policy--both parties tend to allow large corporations to increase their stranglehold on broadcast media, squeezing out independent voices.
Education--The average kid graduates from high school without the basic reasoning skills necessary to do the research and find out for themselves the likely long-term outcomes of the votes they cast. This was true in the Seventies when I started to observe the educational system (and the products thereof), and it's equally true today. Neither party has done a damn thing to correct this, even though it's nominally a prominent part of the platform of each.
The outcome of just these two issues is to produce an electorate that doesn't get the information they need for informed choice, and that doesn't have the skills to analyze that information if they did have it.
And as long as uninformed sheep are easier to convince to vote your way than informed, thinking individuals, neither party has any incentive to change things. No party does, so don't think that some magical third party will save us, even if one could get a foothold and by some miracle, approach 30% representation. Or even 10%.
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/election2006/results/
PS Don't assume that you can figure out my position on one of the above issues based on my position on another. You can't. Oh, yes. I am an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a question. Except for the fact that I will shout my opinions to the world at the slightest hint of provocation.
PPS Argh, now I'm not just depressed, I'm also pissed off, and that after an election result that was as good as it could possibly have been, in, as you correctly point out, the short run. Thank you _so_ much.
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(BTW, I agree with much of what you said...)
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Oh, and that NPR link was intended to point out the fact that after the elections, we have two "independent" Senators and _no_ independent Reps in Congress. Two. Out of five hundred thirty-five lawmakers, _two_ have no overt ties to the political machine. I forgot to replace the explanatory sentence after I deleted it.
Two!