Macroning the American Body Politic

Almost election day... here we go again. Democrats think they have the momentum.  Given it's a midterm, it should be so. However, the anti-Trump party has little imagination, so I predict little change.

Regardless of what happens next month,  the 2020 political vision of the status quo is clear: Americans are angry and tired of being angry; convince voters that extremism is the problem and repackage imperial corporatism as the moderate, sensible, centrist, bipartisan voice of independent American leadership in the world.

This strategy gets played out in one of two ways. First a "moderate" take over of the Democratic Party facilitated by the migration of disaffected Bush/ McCain/ Romney pragmatists from the GOP, resulting in the nomination of a Harris/ Warner type ticket.

A more likely scenario is to allow the Sanders/ Warren/ Gabbard progressives to have their day but form a bipartisan, "centrist ticket" led by No Labels/ Americans Elect/ Change the Rule to steer America away from the extremists who want to take us over the cliffs of insanity.

Of course, the policy platform of this Macronesque messiah will differ zero in actuality from the current duopoly's austerity, empire-building and maintenance program.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, except in tone and at much lower decibels.  All that remains to ask: will it be Haley/Warner or McCaskill/Corker?

Why Populist Poser Is Prez and Dems Are Playing Russian Roulette

As far as I know the general election exit polls never asked the questions: "If you voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, who did you vote for today?" Had the sophisticates of the mainstream media and the unbiased analysts  of the polling agencies asked that question, you and the Russian Roulette press would know why Donald Trump is now our president. 

One year ago Michael Moore wrote these prescient words:

The Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few places left in society where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that might look like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of Minnesota elected a professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do this because they’re stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of statesman or political intellectual. They did so just because they could. Minnesota is one of the smartest states in the country. It is also filled with people who have a dark sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their version of a good practical joke on a sick political system. This is going to happen again with Trump.


Here and elsewhere I tried to talk folks into a different strategy. Rather than kamikaze the nation by voting for Trump or staying at home because there's nothing better to do or voting for a war-mongering, say-anything-to-get-elected candidate, I advised vote for Jill Stein. 

And now we have Donald Trump. Of course the play on this is "Nader!" But had all those Sanders voters who went kamikaze in those key midwestern states instead gone tacticallyand/or principled Green, Hillary Clinton would now be our president.

And across America... 
had the despairing bothered to check in and vote with their hearts,  
and
had the headless Sanderistas who voted for the guy who told them to vote for Clinton instead voted for the Jewish woman, 
President Clinton would have a Green thorn in her Democratic side. 
And this Green thorn might even be getting federal matching funds in 2020.

And the Democratic party and their MSM pigeons would not be playing Russian Roulette. 

Ho Hum... Let's All Be Dumb

I did not vote for Donald Trump. His racist, sexist, and xenophobic rhetoric, his southern strategy on steroids may or may not reflect his heart but if it doesn't, his opportunistic methods make him, in my opinion, unfit to serve in any public office, let alone the presidency.

The hypocritical support he won from fundamentalists and right wing evangelical leaders is also immensely disheartening to me as a Christian and a pastor. His impulsivity worries me greatly and I fear that he will do something extremely foolish.

All this said, the new red scare tactics of the Democrats troubles me even more. I assume the Russian government is capable of hacking  the DNC and I take for granted that our discredited intelligence services got it right this time.

Even if the Russians hacked the DNC for the purpose of undermining Clinton, it is ludicrous to believe that the American people were any more influenced by Russian subterfuge than they were by the corporate propaganda that has determined every election for the last 40 plus years.

Of course I expect the Democratic party to make Trump into an evil monster the same way the Republican party did Obama. This is the same old smoke and mirrors, bait and switch game that successfully distracts Americans with cultural issues that are never going to make a difference in their economic lives.

For all the hysteria about our deeply divided government, the evidence shows that on all major economic and foreign policy issues, the two parties are in agreement. We serve the interest of transnational corporations, and any claim to the contrary is a bump to pick your pocket.

So please when someone starts going bonkers about Russia influence, remind them of how we hacked Angela Merkel's email and tell them to google Stuxnet. Gore Vidal was right. We are the United States of Amnesia.

And no... I don't think that inauguration day demonstrations are going to change anyone's mind about anything. What we need to do is ask our Democratic senators and representatives to do the right thing and offer this deal to the Donald:

Deeply cut or completely eliminate all payroll taxes and double or triple the COLA for seniors each of the next 8 years. Tell him we want to block grant $2 trillion in new infrastructure spending. Grant him the low ball compromise of  $1 trillion, but if he wants to simply flatten corporate income taxes and subsidize the purchase of public infrastructure, filibuster him the rest of his time in office.

Of course there is no way the bi-partisan austerity fetish is going to be replaced with simple,clear policy that would put money in every American's  pocket. We are more likely to get a bogus loophole-closing, fair share everywhere tax reform package that brings the top rate back down to 36%, or maybe so the Democrat's can claim victory, 37%.

Yeah... we will likely get an $8 an hour minimum wage that covers everyone making less than $25K with a promise to raise it to $10 by 2021 if inflation rises above 5% annually.

An infrastructure stimulus that privatizes large chunks of new toll roads will keep unemployment from soaring and provide just enough consumer confidence to allow interest rates to climb and credit card purchases to soar. We might see the unemployment rate rise to 6 percent by 2018 but be back down to 5.6 percent by 2020.

Trump will boast that he has created 12 million new jobs and the Democrats will argue that it was only 10 million and real wages have fallen. Half of America will say they are better off  than they were 4 years ago and we will get Trump back in office while Democrats retake Senate and House by a slim margins.

Abortion rates will remain the same and gay people will still get married and divorced just like straight people. A few more people will be able to buy guns. The death penalty will be less popular but African-American and Hispanic men will get the needle at the same rate they are now, more often than white guys. Trump will be on his way to breaking Obama's deportation record, Raul Castro will die, and Mormons will build a hotel in Havana.

Does anybody want any more no-brainer predictions? The honeymoon with Putin will be over in less than 2 years. Drone and cyber warfare will increase on all fronts. Ok... enough.

As cynical as I sound, I still think there is hope but it is going to take some out-of-the-box effort and a huge amount of patience. Next time... a strategy. And if enough Trump populists figure out they've been had, it just might work.

Stay tuned.

Saving Bernie Busters from Themselves and the World from Clintonian Plutocracy

There will be denial for days and maybe weeks to come, but in the end Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Could things have been different with all open primaries, more polling  places and less voter suppression? Certainly!

Sadly, none of that matters now. Yes, we need to reform the process of future nominations but right now we need to deal with the reality that Hillary  Clinton will be our next president.

Yes, you heard that right, my Bernie or Bust friends. Every time you make claims to the contrary, hundreds of Sanders supporters decide to keep Trump out by voting for Clinton.

It is time to stop the futile call to defeat Hillary Clinton as punishment for all the dirty political chicanery she has used to deny Sanders the nomination.

Sadly, painfully, but undeniably, we are stuck with her. She is a war-mongering, corporate-pandering puppet for the status quo, but she will be our next president.

The strategy of trying to scare Democrats into voting for Sanders for fear of her not being able to defeat Donald Trump has clearly failed and further use of it is going to backfire in a landslide victory over the weakest camdidate the GOP has ever produced.


What Bernie or Busters need to focus on now is persuading as many Sanders supporters as possible to send her and the Democratic party a clear message: No more Libyas and no more Wall Street dominance over the treasury and treasures of our country.

The only way to make this happen is to threaten her with 8 million progressive votes for Jill Stein this year and the prospect of 20 million four years from now. She will not listen to reason or passion or to voters who stupidly write in votes for a candidate who supports her and does not want to be a write-in candidate.

She will, however listen to 10 million progressives breathing down her neck and the way to make that happen us to get Jill Stein above 5% this November.

The way to get the Green Party over the threshold for federal matching funds in the next presidential election is to persuade enough Sanders supporters that they can vote their consciences twice without spoiling the election and making Trump the president.

Let me be clear... this is not about promoting the Green Party; this about keeping the peaceful green economy at the forefront  of our national agenda. This is about agreeing with Bernie Sanders' assessment that nothing  short of a political revolution will bring about the democratic change that we need to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility.

Clinton must be radically transformed or at least sufficiently restrained if we are to have a chance of not being the permanent  victims of global corporate totalitarianism. 5 million uncounted votes for an undeclared and uncertified write-in candidate will only embolden the puppeteers who pull her strings.

Fortunately, all of the fuss about the danger of not voting for the lesser evil is made a moot point not only by the gift of Donald Drumpf but because the Libertarian Party,  in nominating two very popular former governors, will give both  establishment voters and  pissed off Paulians an option which will more than offset Green defections.  And if Gary Johnson and William Weld are not status quo enough, clandestine Clintonites or Romney write- ins will do the trick of denying Trump 10 million votes.

In short, the approach should be: let's  keep the pressure on by dismissing the barely remote possibility of a Trump White House and liberating Sanderistas from sheep dogging fears.

Let's  get it done now!

Waging Holy War in the American Apocalypse

Our political system has made both major parties totally unresponsive to the wills of their largest constituents. In an addictive effort to gain and maintain power, politicians of this corporate duopoly have become totally beholden to a small minority of people with seven and eight digit incomes. In America bribery is not only legal but mandatory for elective office.

I am not sure how to slay this two-headed beast but I know such a coup requires that Americans across the political spectrum understand the difference between an enemy and a rival. Rivals are competitors who play by the same rules and will sharpen one another through open debate and find win-win ways to move our country toward the blessings of life, love and liberty.

As things go now we are being manipulated into moving in just the opposite direction. Like the ancient Romans we are baited by the principalities and powers, the rulers in high and dark places into cheering on the gladiators, believing that when our team loses we lose to our rivals and the only way to victory is to utterly destroy them.

Deep down we know that the game is rigged for no one's benefit but the sponsors of these despicable distractions.

With gatekeepers at every entrance and exit, we cannot enter without a ticket and when we enter, we cannot escape the kill or be killed atmosphere on the field and in the bleachers.

O that we would boycott the putrid festivities of these pernicious parties and form our own. The seeds are there... Green, Libertarian and Constitution but we buy the lesser evil plant and eat the fruit to our own destruction.

However, too often when we dare venture into one of these new parties, we find people running the show who are addicted to the same old tribal tactics and filled with sectarian certainty of their exclusive claim to righteousness.

O that we could find some organic seed uncontaminated by the wind blown patented lies that hybridize and homogenize us. And every time we get a toe hole in the cement, we are sprayed over until every grass root is replaced with mint green astroturf.

O that we could find some common acreage to sow our separate plots. Would that our plots were not against one another but aware of one another's mutual needs and common enemy, and that this mutuality and commonality would lead us to share resources and burdens and open us to bartering for one another's crops, growing to appreciate that each has something different that can make a difference for all.

But let us not pretend that we alone or together will be triumphant this side of the eschaton. The gatekeepers of our real enemy will become advanced forces with heavy artillery should they smell what we have cooking, they will send insurgents to divide and conquer as they have always done. But let us be ready to turn our enemy rather than scapegoat our friends.

O yes! Rivals can be or become friends. Most of us come to know our rivals in our own families. Why should we be surprised at such a gift given for our mutual advantage to all who will gladly grasp it?

Green, Libertarian, Constitution... and let's add Labor to these truly representative parties. Although we have separate priorities and agendas let us not deny the dream of reconciliation even as we work for the the only way forward through equitable and principled compromise.

And let us be clear that election precedes legislation as deliverance precedes the law. Let us meet each other where we are in this wilderness, knowing we shall never enter the promised land as separate tribes and that there is much good work yet to be completed even in a land flowing with milk and honey.

After we cross the river we will find giants ready to devour us. We will certainly be scattered and have to resort to guerrilla tactics. Each of us may find ourselves with a captain not of our tribe on their gerrymandered fields. Let us be willing to sacrifice our desires for immediate and total victory so that we may use the best available weapon to vanquish our real foes.

On a field annexed by a tribe riding elephants, it may be better to use a Constitution sword or a Libertarian catapult. On a field occupied by a tribe driving donkeys, it is probably better to draw a Green bow to launch a Labor arrow.

Remember that many of our families were forced to labor in our homeland while we were exiled to islands and deserts. If we could cut through a few little briar thickets, we would find we have friends among the groves of a great forest. When they see us emerge in the distance, they will uproot every diseased tree. And when our jubilee is complete we shall sow new gardens with plows made from our swords and reap a plentiful if not final harvest with pruning hooks fashioned from our spears.

Let everyone with ears hear what the Spirit is saying in the assemblies.

The Last Electoral Hope for Drowning the Corporate Pharaoh: Parting the Red Sea with Green Guerrilla Tactics and Blue Republican Partners in the Politics of Urgency

The following post is told from the perspective of a peaceful green progressive but it could just as well be told from an anti-interventionist libertarian point of view.

We need a realistic strategy that puts principles above party while recognizing the limitations of both the Green and the Democratic parties in electing a peaceful green progressive president.  This would mean of course electing as many Greens and truly progressive Democrats as possible to local, state and national offices.

We also need to recognize that gerrymandering of districts restricts how many US House and State congressional races are within play. The GP will probably not win any elections above small city mayor within the foreseeable future without some very outside the box electoral tactics.

Any strategy which is going to elect Green candidates above small city mayoral races will need to garner precious political and financial resources. Some have suggested suspending the GP's anti-corporate financing pledge. I am opposed to this as it could set a dangerous precedent which undermines the principles of our party, but even if we tapped green corporate money, we would still need far more radical tactics to make anything significant happen.

So how might we deal with this dilemma of needing to win election to state and national offices given our financial limitations and the political inertia of gerrymandered districts?

I would suggest that we look first to districts and states where the incumbent is retiring. Next we should focus on solid Democratic districts and states among these open seats. Finally, we should narrow these down to where the Democratic primary is closely contested by several candidates.

Once we have determined these districts and/or states, we need to find two principled peaceful green progressive candidates for each, one to endorse within the Democratic party and one to run as the GP nominee. We need to make our endorsement of the Democratic candidate conditional on her or his willingness to endorse the Green candidate should the progressive green Democrat fail to secure the primary nomination. As an added incentive, we need to promise that should he or she be the Democratic nominee, the Green Party candidate would withdraw from the general election and endorse the Democratic nominee.

Given this scenario of de facto fusion candidacies within reliably Democratic states and districts, we should be realistic about where this is most likely to occur and focus resources in these few areas. My guess is that given the precise mathematical rigidity of 21st century gerrymandering, we are more likely to elect progressive Democrats to the US House and Greens to the US Senate and state legislatures and executive offices.

These scenarios are more likely if Greens are willing to make realistic assessments not only of viable districts but also be willing to garner resources through cooperative voting tactics with Libertarian party and Constitution party candidates. I know this is a distasteful tactic but if we are to get the resources we need to make the difference that urgently needs to be made, we must be willing to exploit our rivals and "plunder the Egyptians."

So how do we part the political Red Sea?  We must be willing to to talk with outsiders of contrary ideologies and convince them that we need one another's help if we are going to drown the corporate Pharaoh.  This would require supporting libertarians and cultural conservatives both inside and outside of the Republican party in Red district and Red state primaries. It might require green, libertarian and cultural conservative candidates mutually endorsing one another and encouraging pragmatic crossover voting and discouraging Quixotic candidacies in unwinnable districts and states.

These measures may seem desperate and morally untenable but the real urgency of time and circumstances demand it. Those who wish to justify refraining from such urgent  tactics in favor of puritanical politics must give evidence that our planet and the cause of peaceful democracy have several election cycles remaining to turn the tide of global warming and to overthrow  the catastrophe  of corporate cannibalism.

Once we are convinced that Roosevelt did need Stalin to defeat Hitler and his fascist allies in Europe and Japan (or to put it more modestly, that Washington needed Rochambeau to defeat Cornwallis), we can add to this mix a realistic strategy for the 2016 presidential election. Anything short of a Green/Libertarian alliance ticket has zero chance of winning the White House for outsiders.

Given that such a ticket is politically impossible, what might we hope to realistically achieve? There might be a hope that a strong Green Party national candidacy would produce coattails down ticket. That is certainly a limited potentiality but insufficient to meet the urgency of the hour. What we might be able to do is seize substantial leadership posts and with them the ability to move good legislation to both floors of the capitol if we can mount a presidential campaign which throws an indecisive general election into the congress.

How can this power play be made? It requires much the same tactics outlined above. We need to find candidates both inside and outside of the major parties. For example, Dennis Kucinich could challenge Hillary Clinton in the primary and once the corporate hammer came down on him, he could endorse the Green Party ticket, preferably an hour or two before Clinton makes her acceptance speech. The GP ticket must be a solid one. I sympathize with efforts to recruit Bernie Sanders to bear our banner. With enough cajoling, he might just do it, but we need him in the VP slot so we can undermine the Hillary and the potential Susana Martinez candidacies with Jill Stein at the top of our ticket.

We ought to direct our resources toward winning Vermont and/or assisting the Republican nominees to victory in Ohio and/or Pennsylvania. Even then this Kucinich-endorsed Stein/Sanders ticket may still not be enough to force the election into congress. We would stand a better chance if we also did mutual endorsements and crossover voting with the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Andrew Napolitano (backed by a well burnt Rand Paul) in our three target states and their five target states of New Mexico, Kentucky, Nevada, Colorado and North Carolina. Of course, we ought to avoid wasting precious resources campaigning anywhere outside of of these 8 states except to help a few local and state candidates in viable elections.

The likely outcome of such a strategy in the presidential race is that the house chooses a Republican president and the Senate has a very close vote which is decided by Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders. A deal could be made in such circumstances to elect Julian Castro vice president. (Yes .. I do suspect you will reconsider your dismissal of this post when you discover that Clinton/Castro will face Martinez/Huckabee in the corporate showdown.)

The election of an Hispanic Republican President and an Hispanic Democratic Vice President with Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders dictating the Senate agenda and overseeing President Martinez's  cabinet and court nominees along with a chaotic and closely divided House (perhaps with a Democratic majority electing a Republican president) could be disruptive enough to start a real revolution that brings the corporate PTB to their knees.

In any case,  more conventional, imitation corporate campaigns in '14 and '16 will get us nowhere.

Time to get out of the box and make something real happen or else just admit you don't really feel too threatened by corporate totalitarianism.

Fess up and tell us why we need to wait on the timid tactics of tribal politics and fairy tale fearfulness.

Trans-partisan Strategy and Tactics for the Next 8 to 12 Years

Now that the 2012 elections are history, clear-eyed progressives and reality-based libertarians can both say unequivocally, “We lost big time.” Those who try to make excuses or bask in how much better Ron Paul did this time around are whistling in the dark. Progressives who have stayed with Obama believing that he’s the best that we can do or that he is even one of us anymore are completely deluded.

I know that is not the best way to begin to communicate with my targeted audiences, but it has to be said with crystal clarity… there is no way on earth that either libertarians or progressives can, over the next 12 years, win a majority in the Senate or the House or get anywhere near the White House, not if we continue to go at it alone. This is true whether one chooses an inside the major parties strategy, an independent strategy or a sectarian party strategy.  Even if there were one among us with Ross Perot’s money and charisma, we will still lose. We lost and any repeated or better funded, more polished version of any of the tactics and/or strategies deployed by Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein or Rocky Anderson will lose.

The numbers are not there for either libertarians or progressives. The numbers are growing in both camps and it is probable that one of the two will at last dominate one of the two parties. My bet is that libertarians are more likely to take over the Republican Party in the next 20 years than are progressives to do the same with the Democratic party, given the inability after 4 years of Obama for many of us to know what the word means (not mention the previous support for Dr. Poser Progressive Dean… a libertarian at heart if anybody’s still interested).

What is needed is clearly a real coalition/alliance strategy that is willing to fight both inside and outside the major parties and from the bottom up at local, state and national levels.

By coalition/alliance I do not mean clever PR from one side toward the other which says out loud, “We have so much in common!” But then thinks, “If you just let me use you this once, you’ll see how smart I am and let me have you my way all the time.”

What I mean is an intentional and real but temporary partnership between two ideological forces who know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are no match going solo against the two-headed corporate beast. If you have not reached that conclusion yet, don’t waste your time reading any further.

This coalition/alliance must be specifically policy-based and must have some very concrete economic compromises firmly in place if it is ever going to see the light of day. Thinking we can all get together around anti-war, hemponomics, and get out of my bedroom politics has already failed miserably. There have to be some major and concrete compromises on economic policies  concerning debt reduction, federal spending and taxes. If you can’t see the necessity of that, again, you should have stopped reading after the previous paragraph.

I have and will continue to set forth and seek proposals for building this essential economic platform but for this article, I want to focus on the political strategy and tactics of this alliance. With an economic compromise in place, we can win but not without a realistic political strategy of naming friends and foes, recruiting and promoting tenable candidates and working on the inside and outside of both major parties.

Naming our friends and foes ought to be the easiest step in the process. A litmus test is already in place. It’s called the NDAA.  Every libertarian and progressive organization and individual ought to pledge right now to support or not oppose any of the Senators or Representatives who have opposed or voted consistently against the NDAA over the last 4 years, or for that matter have seen the light over the last 2 years. What’s the problem?

The problem is Michele Bachman just voted against the NDAA.  I can’t see many progressives or libertarians being thrilled about the idea of allowing her to stay one more day in the congress. Maybe there is a libertarian Republican or a progressive Democrat who can beat her in the 2014 election and if so, by all means, make it happen. However, if Bachman’s seat is like the vast majority of House seats, safe for incumbents until gerrymandering recommences in 2020, then for goodness sake, let’s not waste time or precious financial resources trying to do the impossible.

Impossible… that’s right. It is all but impossible to beat incumbent House members once they have served two terms.  This may mean we have to focus on state legislatures and the US Senate.  Maybe with very selective targeting, we can move the number of pro peace and civil liberty Representatives up toward 150 or 160 by 2016 and with the right executive coat tails, maybe we reach 218 by 2018 or 220 by 2020. In any case the strategy and tactics for getting there are the same up and down the ballot.

Let us think about this for a moment with a few examples. In California, there is no use opposing Feinstein or Pelosi although neither of them are ideal progressives and the latter of them should be in jail with George W. right now. We might however be able to take out a Lindsey Graham if a libertarian rebellion can ally itself with a progressive Democrat. Put Jim DeMint and his recent rejection of the NDAA and the US Senate to the ultimate test.

Or perhaps there are a select few House seats where a neo-con Republican or a blue dog Democrat is vulnerable. I would look for seats where the incumbent neo-con just defeated a one or two term blue dog or vice versa. In the NC-11 race this year, blue dog Heath Shuler’s chief of staff got shut down by Vance Patterson who will probably turn out to be another war-mongering, chicken hawk homophobe spouting free market rhetoric to insure military contractors in his district get their fair share. I hope he turns into the next Walter Jones but just in case he’s not and the demographics are plausible, let’s take him down. Here’s how:

Gather all 13 Greens and all 22 Libertarian in the 11th district and get them together with liberty minded Republicans and progressive leaning Democrats and independents to find a candidate who is progressive on issues of war, peace, and economics and moderate on civil rights and liberties. What we would be looking for is a combination of Jill Stein and Virgil Goode, if you can imagine that. Progressives, pinch your noses or cover your ears when this candidate talks about God, guns and gays and tries to tell you not to abort a fetus just because we find out it’s lesbian.

Libertarians, you do the same and hold your breath too when this same candidate talks about the rich coughing up their fair share so we can pay teachers, pave roads and subsidize local farmers’ markets. Vote for this culturally conservative and economically progressive William Jennings Bryan throwback in the Democratic primary. And progressives if she doesn’t win the primary, join with the libertarians in supporting their independent candidate in the general election. If tact 1 works out, we get a shot at ending the neo-con, blue dog dance in NC-11. If not, then tactic 2 punishes Democrats and scares the living daylights out of Republicans.

The same sort of tactic could be played out in a few districts and several states. In the case of the Senate we can aim our sites at the most vulnerable violent corporatists. Any Senator regardless of party who won by less than 4 percentage points in the last election and who consistently kowtows to corporate lobbyists and mercenaries, preferably in smaller states, needs to be hunted down and targeted for replacement. In many cases, libertarians and progressives may have to bite their lips when it comes to cultural issues if they want to get done what needs to be done.

Obviously, even with the platform and the above mentioned tactics in place, US House and Senate races are going to be extremely difficult so we may all need to do what none of us really wants to do, start small by finding, equipping and running the most suitable candidates for local and state office. We may not win another single Senate or House seat before 2022. We may have to aim for state legislatures so we can gerrymander the districts in our favor in 2020. It’s a tedious and nasty prospect but it might be our only chance of pulling America out of the muck and mire of crony corporate corruption.

While we lurk low, we can also aim high with an inside/outside double team tactic in the presidential race. This year, I failed miserably at persuading my fellow progressives to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primaries and caucuses.  Next time around, we will not have an incumbent to herd the tribe. I will not be trying to convince progressives to vote for Rand in the GOP primary, and Blue Republican, Robin Koerner  (I love that Brit we’ve smit)will hopefully be doing it my way this time around.

What we need are 4 candidates in cahoots with one another while running for president. It may be the most improbable strategy in political history, but it is the only chance we have of wresting the White House from the military industrial catastrophe’s empire building and maintenance strangle-hold any time soon.

The four candidates are two libertarians and two progressives. One libertarian (Rand Paul) runs inside the GOP while another runs as a Libertarian (Gary Johnson). One progressive (Barbara Lee…you thought I was going to say Dennis K.) runs for the Democratic nomination while another runs as a Green (Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson…for goodness sake, somebody check an ego! It’s about policy and winning… not personality and making a statement!) . The point is we need one and only one progressive and one and only one libertarian running inside the Democratic and Republican parties respectively. We also need to expect these two candidates to fail, maybe finish second, more likely finish third behind 4 pseudo puritan candidates. (I know…  I can hear all the blades clanging against Don Quixote’s sword! “Total victory and unconditional surrender are nigh at hand!” Please…you were supposed to stop reading several paragraphs ago!)

When we face up to the inevitable defeat of the insiders, we can begin to talk about part 2 of this guerrilla tactic. Sometime between Super Tuesday and convention time, the insiders need to drop out and a week or so later endorse the two outsiders. Imagine the scene: July 4, 2016 inside independence hall in Philadelphia…. (Can somebody book the venue of Obama’s best speech now?) Dennis Kucinich and Rand Paul, surrounded by Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, Virgil Goode, Barbara Lee, Ron Paul, Justine Amash, etc., announce that they are endorsing an independent ticket of Gary Johnson and Bernie Sanders.

Can you imagine the shock waves ringing through MSNBC and Fox board rooms as they and all the corporate media cabal  scramble to find a way to pre-empt and dismiss this story?!

Admittedly, such a scene is a long shot, but if unemployment is hovering around 7%  (or worse if we are in the full throes of austerity) and we are getting news of CIA agents killed in Iran and a satellite successfully launched by North Korea along with competitive brinkmanship rhetoric from Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton, we might just see it.

And one more piece to this political puzzle: It might be easier to get Mars and Venus to switch places without crashing our rock, but with this and all the other tactics, we need the GP, JP, LP and CP to suspend nominations and start endorsing Democrats and Republicans in the primaries and independents in the general elections.

I don’t know what it will take to get libertarian, progressive, and yes, even cultural conservatives to do the right thing, but if you’re still reading this, maybe you can begin to imagine the outlines of a hopeful and realistic strategy to rescue a nation from imperial disaster. The tired virtue of patience and the reluctant will to compromise might be necessary, and it might even be too late to wake up from this corporate nightmare, but what other strategy is there? Do tell if you are still reading.