In my email box this morning

The Obama Effect: The demise of the Democratic Party and a gift to the country

The “Bubble” of false consciousness afflicting the American nation may be at last on the verge of deflating.

The decision to escalate the Afghanistan War should put the final nail in the coffin of “change” and “hope” that Democrats and others crawled into when they supported Obama. The evidence that Obama is every bit the representative of the corporate oligarchy and no less a corporate shill than the rest has been mounting for nearly a year-or well before the election for the cognoscenti. Only fanatics could have heard Obama’s speech on Afghanistan and failed to hear the resonances of Bush. But the writing was on the wall over a year ago when Obama supported the bailouts of the banks and brokerage firms that leveraged their destruction of the economy on the foreclosures of homes. Few could miss the fact that the health care reform bill, should it ever pass, will be another unwarranted and gratuitous bailout-this one of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Obama diverted the legitimate anger and energy for real change and scuttled it under the fraudulent tent of the Democratic Party. He led millions to the cliff; they are now falling off in droves. Those who’ve not quite gotten to the edge screech and yell: “Wait! Give him time!” Those who gave warning from the outset are not busy casting nets. We welcome the demise of the Democratic Party.

And that is exactly the Obama Effect. Every last tissue of belief in the Democrats should by now be shred and cast aside. The Democrats are no less the corporate bailers and militarists than the Republicans. They hand trillions to the banks and brokerage firms; they dissolve union contracts and send the workers to the dogs; their unmanned drones bomb Pakistan, killing and maiming innocents and displacing tens of thousands; they sell the same lies about the wars-that they have to do with terrorism or democracy rather than oil and other resources-as their predecessors; they fund the very enemy that they claim to fight; they keep up the same contracts with Blackwater and its successors; they vote for the same war funding; they carry out the same secret renditions; they sanction and continue the same spying on US citizens; they exonerate torturers and war criminals from the previous administration; they are war criminals in complicity with other war criminals.

For those who hadn’t quite gotten the point before, thanks to Obama’s euphemistic and high-flown rhetorical excesses, no one can now believe that another Democrat, even an apparently more “left” one, will ever deliver a thing that he or she promises. Obama has filled the Democratic hot air balloon to the limit and it has burst. It falls like a failing parachute along with those who trusted it.

Despite all of this, or rather because of it, Obama has given, albeit unwittingly, a great gift to the majority. He has shown those who still have brainwaves that nevermore should anyone other than a corporate shill believe in a Democrat for any positive change in terms of the vast majority. The one thing that Obama has changed: the credulity accorded Democratic demagoguery.

Am I merely opening the door for the Republicans to fill the vast void of credibility left by the Democrats, you ask? To answer requires some clarification. The Democrats are one of two levers by which the ruling oligarchy controls the political process to their nearly exclusive advantage. This isn’t a new development-it has merely become too obvious to ignore. The Democrats have left this void. It is not my doing. I recommend that it be filled by a working-class party movement-not a green party, not a libertarian party, not an “independent” party, but a party that is aligned with the vast majority-a party of the workers- workers of farms, of factories, of schools, of construction sites, of the auto industry, of the retail industry, of the research firms, of the institutions of higher education, of banks, of city and other governmental offices-of those who make their livings not from profit but from wages. Every other party in every other country has ended up being just another lever of the ruling oligarchy.

Only a working-class majority can overcome the power elite and end the wars. Only a working-class party can change the socio-political and economic conditions. Only a majority party can deliver to itself health care coverage. Only a majority party can save the environment. Only a majority party and order can put production on a rational basis for their own benefit and not the benefit of a tiny minority.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Obama. He has finally dashed and destroyed the false hopes in the Democratic Party and the political system as it stands. Obama was the false prophet of change. Now let the real change begin.

http://www.greanvillepost.com/?p=2066

Now I can sleep well tonight. I was so worried. I couldn't see any way to save bourgeoisie society. There didn't seem to be any answers, any plan. But now we can "let the real change begin." Now we can all go back to our lives rest easy. All we need is the right choice in the voting booth. The right organization to write checks to and volunteer for.

"Teacher, teacher call on me! I have the answer! We need a new party! Then we will have a choice. Then things will be OK."

Where did I leave my magic wand? Poof! A new party! Put your wish lists together people! We, the bourgeoisie intellectuals, are back in business! We can "recommend" things! Our friend here recommends "a working-class party." He says that "every other party in every other country has ended up being just another lever of the ruling oligarchy" but I guess if we call this new party a "working class party" that will mean that it will be different.

He presents this as some brilliant insight: "I know! We need a party that represents workers! A party that represents the majority!" WTF? He is describing the problem (in a very weak and limited way) and presenting that as a solution.

Of course the "Democrats are no less the corporate bailers and militarists than the Republicans." What the author refuses to see is that he himself and his friends and allies are the problem. "No, no, if I just had the right choices at the ballot box, then I would vote for the good stuff, so that makes me a good guy, see?"

I don't know, maybe the guy is on the right track, but I am getting tired of these kinda almost but not quite Socialism ideas, these radical politics that keep politics strictly confined to electoral choices and parties. I think that many bourgeoisie intellectuals know that some sort of workers movement is going to happen, some sort of assault on Capitalism, and they are scrambling to get their footing, to get out in front of the parade, and in the process gentrifying and moderating everyone's thinking about it.

This business of the "corporate oligarchy" as the enemy (or the PTB or whatever), and melodrama about the betrayal by the Democratic party and the recommendation of what amounts to no more than a new and improved Democratic party along with a revival of all of the illusions about electoral politics - all of that is a way to avoid and deny that it all must come down. People are desperately looking for some nice and pleasant path, one that co-opts and steers any and all resistance.

We won't be "opening the door for the Republicans" - as though that were the worry - because we will call what we are doing "forming a new workers party. Get it? Workers! Aren't I brilliant? I mean as bad as the Democrats are, we certainly wouldn't want Palin and her minions of toothless inbred rednecks and fundies to gain power!"

What might the response be to what I am saying from those who like the ideas in this essay? "Will you radicals EVER be happy?? Here we have offered some very good ideas, but you are just negative about everything!" In other words, there is exasperation and frustration that we won't knuckle under, won't stop talking and "do something," won't be "constructive."

What does that amount to? What does that really mean? The bourgeoisie intellectuals want to put it all to rest. They are immensely uncomfortable. They want to come up with something, anything - "we will form a new party!" - that we can then all "work on" and so feel good about ourselves. This "new party" will then become a platform from which to attack the Left and the radicals. "Hey we are making a new party that addresses all of that stuff you have been complaining about! But still you won't shut up!"

It all must come down. That includes first and foremost overthrowing the small army of fake-left bourgeoisie intellectuals who keep coming up with these "radical" and "alternative" ideas. The author is not talking about fighting for the working class, he is talking about protecting and preserving the status and position of the fake-left intellectuals. "Here is your brand shiny new party, all you malcontents, blue collar workers and other inferior forms of life. Now will you shut up and get in line?" The author is not talking about overthrowing Capitalism - he doesn't even identify it as the problem. He is desperately scrambling for something that will co-opt opposition to Capitalism and save it.

They have lost their faith. Endless sellouts, lies, and betrayal are the direct result of their fantastic notions and "hopes".

But, they don't trust anything else either. In the back (or sometimes the front) of their minds, they suspect that they are doing as well as they could be as adjuncts to the man. They don't trust "the people" (let alone the "people of the world"), they don't trust "democracy", and they don't believe they have the power to change anything... so, we have the "paint ourselves into a corner" proverb - radicalizing further and further on a path that nobody really believes can bring any relief at all. We have hard-edged talk. The right-wingers (the so-called "teabaggers") are identical. We have constantly escalating talk without the slightest hint of a program.

That is the challenge which blows all this peripheral bullshit apart:

What is to be Done? / Watcha wanna do?

they have to preempt it, they have to "provide" the leadership - don't you know? They can't "trust" the people (i.e. "sheeple") to take leadership away from the elites, then you might get (gasp) uneducated or lower-class people in charge - and that wouldn't do! These Liberal-Progressives are scared to death of class consciousness. They don't want it, got no use for it.

"What is to be Done? / Watcha wanna do?" You have to be careful to whom you pose those questions. The rabble will not answer in the way their betters would approve...

In 1996, when OCAW (now part of the Steelworkers, I think), UE, The California Nurses, Communication Workers, FLOC, UMW and a few others formed the US Labor Party, the AFL-CIO turned on them like rabid dogs. Virtually all the Internationals helped the Democratic Party discredit the LP as a dangerous, too radical program for the labor movement. Reading it now, it seems pretty tame. Maybe these third partyites could start with this:


A Call for Economic Justice: The Labor Party's Program

http://www.thelaborparty.org/a_progra.html

Preamble
We are the people who build and maintain the nation but rarely enjoy the fruits of our labor.
We are the employed and the unemployed.
We are the people who make the country run but have little say in running the country.
We come together to create this Labor Party to defend our interests and aspirations from the greed of multinational corporate interests. Decades of concessions to corporations by both political parties have not produced the full employment economy we have been promised. Instead income and wealth disparities have widened to shameful extents.
We offer an alternative vision of a just society that values working people, their families and communities.
We, the members of this Labor Party, see ourselves as keepers of the American Dream of opportunity, fairness, and justice. In our American Dream, we all have the right:

* To a decent paying job and a decent place to live
* To join a union freely without fear of being fired or other retribution
* To strike without fear of losing our job
* Not to be discriminated against because of our race, gender, ethnicity, disability, national origin, or sexual orientation, at work or in our communities
* To free, quality public education for ourselves and our children
* To universal access to publicly-funded, comprehensive, quality health care for all residents
* To retire at a decent standard of living after a lifetime of work
* To quality of life in our communities enhanced by a fully funded public sector.

The Democratic and Republican parties serve the corporate interests that finance them. We oppose corporate power that undermines democratic institutions and governments. We oppose corporate politicians and parties that provide billions in corporate tax breaks and subsidies to the rich, selling themselves to the highest bidder. We reject the false choice of jobs versus environmental responsibility. We will not be held hostage by corporate polluters who poison our workplaces and our communities. We reject the redistribution of billions of dollars of wealth from poor and working people to the rich. And we reject every opportunist who plays the race, gender, or immigrant card to keep us from addressing our real needs, and the needs of our families and communities.

Our Labor Party understands that our struggle for democracy pits us against a corporate elite that will fight hard to retain its powers and privileges. This is the struggle of our generation. The future of our children and their children hangs in the balance. It is a struggle we cannot afford to lose.

Or, nothing but shit jobs. How's that SEIU workin out? Welcome to the new world, where you can pay union dues AND still qualify for food stamps.

These Limo Liberal think tank articles burn my ass.

Oh Gosh! Now that the Democrats have been EXPOSED we'll all join together and make real hope and real change. WOOHOO! Jesus Christ on a trailer hitch. They're PANICKED at the reality of the Democrats dropping the "left"hand screen on the whole scam. Oopsy!

There are millions of people out there who ALREADY KNOW THIS! They don't vote, or they Vote The Bastards Out. They're actual real live "working" class and underclass people. Who knew that these unwashed riffraff hordes had already figured this stuff out?

OMG what if they're already an actual movement?

:scared:

And what happens if they find representative leadership?

:scared:

...and the effort dates back to the 1980s. William Winpisinger of the IAM talked about it. Lots of unions were back and forth on the idea. Democrats? No, Labor Party. No, Democrats. Etc. It's probably too late for the original concept.

As far as a "program" goes, it is FDR's second Bill of Rights which is OK as far as it goes but these days you have to add "How?", you have to add nationalizations (while the issue is on the floor) and you have to add a negative section (the mood of the day) on top of the positives... i.e.:

"Working people will never be safe and never be able to recover their access to democracy as long as the power of the Military/Industrial complex goes unchallenged... Yet, military production has only been private for a relatively short time... All military industries must be nationalized and banned from participation in national policy... yadda, yadda"

The attack must be much sharper.

If I remember correctly, the LP failed over the issue of electoral politics. There was a huge schism, between those who wanted to run candidates (either in opposition to the Dems or "pro-Labor" Dems running on the LP line), and those who wanted to build a power base, and then consider electoral politics as a tactic. Once the pro-election forces prevailed the Dems and the Federation destroyed the party.

You're right about the sharpness of the attack. I mention this as a historical document. Wasn't long ago, and it would still be miles ahead of Labors current program. Don't know if you looked at the entire document (I just posted the preamble), but it gets sharper in places:

9 Stop Corporate Abuse of Trade
Our Labor Party will actively promote a strategy of international solidarity and cooperation with labor movements and labor parties in other nations through the exchange of information, worker organizing, collective bargaining, and other actions and strategies that demonstrate our commitment to work together to confront the global attacks on our environment and living and working conditions. We oppose all policies instituted by corporate-dominated lending institutions like the World Bank that force developing nations to lower the wages of their workers. We will especially strive to bring pressure to bear on those U.S.-based transnational corporations that are violating labor rights in other nations of the world, and to fight against any U.S.-based policies that would undermine the rights of workers in other nations to organize. Finally, we demand that our government stop doing the bidding of global corporations and stop using military and foreign policy to prop up anti-labor regimes that violate human rights.

12 Revitalize the Public Sector
The public sector has gotten a bad name because much of what passes for government today is a way to enrich the wealthy at our expense. Through government, Corporate America receives its long list of welfare in tax breaks, subsidies and cost-plus contracts. Even worse, as sales taxes, payroll taxes, and property taxes on working people have been unfairly increased, many important public services have been sharply reduced. Corporate-backed politicians are using the anti-government sentiment they have so carefully engineered to kill vital programs that many employers have always despised. If corporations continue to get their way, OSHA will be gutted, our environmental and labor laws will be worthless, our public health system will be dismantled, and the safety net and public universities will be only a dim memory. It's time for working people to put an end to this nonsense.

The Labor Party stands firmly opposed to the privatization and contracting out of public services presently performed. A government that works for us would provide critical goods and services that can not, and should not, be run for profit. Our kind of government would: regulate and limit the destructive effects of corporate greed implement our program to guarantee everyone a decent job ensure quality health care for all rebuild our infrastructure and expand mass transportation continue to provide high quality postal service clean up and protect our environment help enforce workplace regulations provide quality education, housing, and child care for all protect our social security ensure adequate national defense. We can fund all of these programs with a more equitable tax system that sharply increases taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Additional funds can be gained by eliminating unnecessary and wasteful military spending. Let's get government to work for us, not for the corporations.

I hate to admit that I know very little about the Labor Party. I will rectify that. Thanks...

The reason that the idea got initial support was that it didn't force the decision between those who wanted out of the Democratic Party and the Labor Pols who just wanted a "stalking horse" with which to threaten the Democrats (the proverbial hobby of Democratic "liberals" - even "labor liberals" if such an oxymoron can exist).

The other problem was that the idea sits at the cusp of two eras: On the one hand, it was proposed by those who were seeing good organizing successes and "radicalization" from the previous era, and, on the other hand, it was being proposed at the beginning of the era of runaways which all but broke the back of the labor movement. I'm not at all surprised that it ran into major fractures.

On the body of the program itself, I looked at it and agree that the rest is much sharper. Still, the decade and a half in between has permanently changed many perceptions. I am certain that various radical thoughts that the authors agonized over in the original are now widely accepted.

"Pfft... When do we get to the radical part?"

It's not quite that cut and dried, but you get my drift.

Libs, moderates, progressives, socialists, independents (including 10 million Bush 2004 voters) who wanted change.

He won by 22 million votes, but the media says he won by 9.5 million...and that's just what the PTB wanted. A super mandate would have made it more difficult for the PTB to avoid a modicum of change.

So here we are.

This closes the book on the Democratic party. Obama makes Nixon look like a genius and Reagan and the Bush's at least true to their word. Of course, Obama is only standing on their shoulders while putting the icing on the cake of Clinton's agenda: NAFTA, failed health-care reform and the dismantling of Glass-Steagall.

The OP is right-on.

Now the public will finally realize why the Dems have remained silent about election fraud over the past 40 years - as their average winning 4% True Vote margin turned into a 4% recorded vote loss in the presidential and midterm elections since 1968.

So what now?
Where do we go from here?

I would say, pull back from the electoral confusion for a bit... and from the Democratic Party. Go through the Alice in Wonderland door that the "Teabaggers" have made. Do exactly what they do... from the other end. Start with town meetings and the rest. All those Republican Officials have it too easy. You like mass movements? Well, why didn't you say so? Democrats too... Don't lecture us. We are here to lecture you. The issues are:

Jobs
No more Cutbacks
No more foreclosures
No more War
Health Care

...in that order. No detail, no policy... we want it now... and that's it. Start local and start with hostility to both ends of the political spectrum.

The troops are labor, lefties, social groups, churches, everyone. If it works, move on to rallies and maybe this: http://socialistindependent.org/board/index.php?topic=201.0

Build towards a rudimentary program first, before any discussion of political parties, yadda, yadda.

Why follow the teabaggers? Because they have demonstrated one way in which local political action can be organized in the present day... It's not the only way but why experiment? And if union guys can't out-organize the reactionary dipshit brigade while still asleep, then I am Ben Bernake (I'm not).

Why do it now? Because it has become clear that no political party represents us.

That's what I would say if someone was to ask me.

at best, for choices set-up by the system, for the system. There will never be a vote that endangers the system - won't happen. All voting in this country is for king and queen of the High School prom. The rest of it is just capitalism at work. You have to eat it, because there is no recourse - that is what powerlessness is all about. So it doesn't matter if Obama voters are pissed, it will all just go on until it cannot go on anymore...

No One Is Going To Save You Fools
by thereisnospoon

Wed Dec 16, 2009 at 04:28:17 PM PST

Before I explain the generic insult, let me first make something perfectly clear: I am your enemy. That you don't know this is understandable: after all, people like me prefer it that way. But until you understand just what you're up against and why, you're going to continue to lose, and look like fools in the process.

Barack Obama has indeed sold you out. He and many of his Democratic colleagues have sold you out on healthcare, and they've sold you out on financial reform. You were looking for a savior, and you've been had--not an altogether atypical result for those looking for a strong leader to "save" them.

He hasn't done this because he's a bad guy. In fact, he's a great guy. I think he's doing pretty much the best job he can. He's sold you out because he's not afraid of you. And really, if I may be so bold, he shouldn't be afraid of you. You don't know who really runs the show, and you're far too fickle and manipulable to count on.

The first thing you need to understand about healthcare reform is what Jane Hamsher identified long ago: nothing--absolutely nothing--is going to trump the White House's deal with PhRMA and the insurance industry. The question you need to ask yourselves is: why? If you're intellectually mature enough to get past "personal betrayal" as your best answer, you'll be on the right track.

While you ponder that one, you might want to also consider why nothing has been done--nor will anything serious actually be done--about financial industry reform. Standing up to the financial industry in the current political environment should be a no-brainer. So what in the heck is going on here? If you can think past shadowy conspiracy theories and possible personal enrichment for the Obama family, you'll be doing the kind of thinking that will help actually solve the problem.

The problem is people like me, and the people I work for. I'm what they call a Qualitative Research Consultant, or QRC for short. Here's my website. There's even a whole association of us who meet regularly to discuss ideas and tactics. Together with the AAPC, the MRA, the AMA, ESOMAR, and a whole host of other organizations you've never heard of, we have more power and control than you know. We're extremely good at what we do, and we do it all behind the scenes, appealing to and manipulating your subconscious brain in ways that your conscious brain has little to no control over.

Give us a little money to test some things out, and we can work magic. Our business is persuasion, and we're very good at it. Just watch PBS Frontline's series, The Persuaders to get just a small inkling of what you're up against. We can make a company that earns a 38% gross profit margin manufacturing purely propriety products seem hip, cool and progressive. We can take sugar water and sell it back to you as a health drink, and even Whole Foods shoppers will believe it. We can take 30 different brands of vodka with almost exactly the same ingredients, and make you understand instantly just what kind of person drinks which brand, and how much you should expect to pay for each, without a moment's thought. For any given category of products, I can show you a bunch of different brands, and you'll be able to tell me a wealth of information about each one, despite the near absolute similarity of their actual products to one another. One exercise we QRC's like to conduct involves actually turning a brand into a person in a group discussion; it's called personification. And you wouldn't believe how effectively and universally we can tailor a brand's image, right down to what kind of car that "person" would drive, and what music he/she would listen to. So much attention has been paid to Naomi Klein's outstanding Shock Doctrine, that few pay much attention anymore to her far more provocative and important work No Logo. If all Americans truly internalized the message of No Logo, people like me would be out of work, and we could really reform this country.

For a little coin, we can even make poor people hate inheritance taxes, just by using a few little words that work. The biggest difference between Obama and FDR/LBJ is that people like me weren't really around back then. As the TV show Mad Men can show you, our industry was just getting off the ground in the mid-1960's. And while it's true that the Democratic ad consultants of the 1980's and 1990's and early Aughts were wildly ineffective, that says far more about the prevailing consultant class in the Democratic Party than about the power of ad consulting in general.

So here's what you have to understand. If the health insurance and financial industries really felt scared by any particular politician or political party, or their lobbying efforts were inadequate, they could throw them out of power in a heartbeat. With a wave of their hand and a few billion dollars or so in our direction, the pharma companies and Goldman Sachs could absolutely destroy the Democratic Party in 2010 and beyond. The only reason they don't do so is that it's cheaper and easier to buy a few key Democrats off instead, and intimidate the rest. Plus, they don't have to run the risk of a right-wing populist backlash, either.

That's why Barack Obama can't renege on his deal with PhRMA: PhRMA almost singlehandedly destroyed Hillarycare in 1993, and spent the money to tip the balance of the elections in 1994. They can easily do it again. So could Goldman Sachs and the rest of the financial vampires. Rahm Emmanuel knows this, too: the deals are in place in return for their holding their fire.

And each and every one of you is being taken for fools. You work for an election or two to put chosen leaders in place, and expect those leaders to work their "leadership" magic to ram reforms down the throats of the corporate sector, failing to understand just how fully the corporate sector holds the cards. It's not the campaign contributions: it's the persuasion money.

You're looking for a savior. And like that Savior of biblical fame, s/he isn't coming, as long as there are people like me out there. I personally won't work for a company or organization that goes against my personal convictions. But 99% of us certainly will.

If you want to win, you will ORGANIZE. You will organize in the same way the Right has done for the last 40 years, and you will spend money on persuasion, where it really matters. You will, in short, make the politicians as afraid of you as they are of them. The Right has built vast networks of think tanks, newspapers, periodicals, cable news channels, and political advocacy organizations to spread their finely tuned, well-honed messages. Their politicians may fail them, and their actual policies may be deeply unpopular, but their message machine nearly always works its magic to get them what they want, even when Democrats are in power.

That's partly because the American political Right never quits and never gives up. They know that organization is the key to their success, and they don't trust politicians to do their work for them. Democrats, on the other hand, get disappointed and quit when our politicians don't pan out the way we wanted. That's why we lose.

As the healthcare debacle went on month after month, I didn't ask myself why the Democratic politicians weren't pushing single-payer or Medicare for all. I wanted to know where the Left-leaning organizations were. Where were the think tanks, the message machine, the newspapers, the whole infrastructure? Where were the national, well-tested ad campaigns pushing Medicare for All? Where were the free screenings of Sicko at major movie theaters across the nation, complete with sponsored food & drink for those who attended and signed up to take action? Where were the mid-cycle ads done by Madison Avenue professionals targeting specific Senators and making them deeply uncomfortable? Where, in effect, was the message campaign?

It didn't exist. What we had were labor unions and the AARP delivering generic hopeful messages without an ounce of the power or creativity that one might find in a random Budweiser ad.

If you want to win, ORGANIZE. Develop parallel organizations willing to persuade with the power and intensity of a corporation. As long as people like me are out there, and most of them are willing to work for the highest bidder, you'll need to stop looking for saviors, and instead learn to fight fire with fire.

The upcoming battles won't wait for us, and there won't be anyone coming to save us but ourselves.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/16/815429/-No-One-Is-Going-To-Save-You-Fools

So all we need to do is game the system in "Progressive Democrats" direction and what? We will still have everything we have now, only with "Progressives" pulling the strings and killing the brown people? So the message is that we can ad campaign our way to power? What a fucking joke...

Now we are pulling in the same direction, my friend.

"This closes the book on the Democratic party."

"So what now? Where do we go from here?"

is only applicable for the last 20 years or so which only begs the question of how he explains the previous 2 centuries or so..

http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoons/AnderK/2009/AnderK20091218_low.jpg

.

The "solution" ain't the message.

This is one of hundreds of such commentaries out there at the moment... All of them good, desperate narratives on how the people have no power - how they are overpowered - by the system that they were pledged to defend. It is all criticism and a part of a more conscious (class conscious) politics.

The "solutions" are all uniformly silly... even among "Socialists", even among Marxists, even on this site...

But, hey... It's all part of the "growing" process as the New Agers would say (and, part of the fracturing process).

The Democrats never saw themselves in the same boat as Republicans. Now they are brewing tea (and not the green kind).

So what form would presentations of a program take? I'm guessing that you think, at this point, it would be wherever and whenever possible without reference to an organizational center. Sort of a more disciplined style of the work that chlamor does?

This makes a lot of sense to me;
"Working people will never be safe and never be able to recover their access to democracy as long as the power of the Military/Industrial complex goes unchallenged... Yet, military production has only been private for a relatively short time... All military industries must be nationalized and banned from participation in national policy... yadda, yadda"

as part of a program that could be widely disseminated without an organizational center. In your opinion, has anyone already developed a broad statement inclusive of the many issues confronting us? Or does it have to be developed? Are you saying let's get the program out there and see who supports it?

There is no order dictated for such things. There is nothing which says that first you have a political party (or "organizational center") and then you have a program. The Communist Manifesto itself is an example of the opposite. It is perfectly possible to develop (loose) organization around some points of agreement. Such a thing is typically called a "transitional program" - "We reserve the right to demand a whole host of much more radical measures at a later time."

How is such a thing written? I have mostly negatives on that so far. It cannot be written by a "broad coalition", for example. It cannot attempt to policy monger even on the most basic level. On the other hand, it must be timely - right now - and not a generic document (so, no. There is nothing out there.). Such issues as:
"The banks must be nationalized", "Perpetual war must end." - these issues were the narrow perspective of Socialists just a few years ago. Now, they are true on their face and obvious to millions.

I think the effort needs more than a few people on an Internet board but not much more. I think elementary but openly political organization is a precondition. Still, it doesn't take much. I was serious about what I wrote to TIA above. I have been starting up some "teabagging". By this, I don't mean appealing to "teabaggers" (I would arrest them if it were up to me). I don't mean saying outrageous things. And, I don't mean organizing to counter teabaggers.

I mean organize to yell at politicians... all politicians.

1. Yell at politicians
2. Yell at banks
2. Invite everyone else to yell at politicians and banks
3. Rally to yell at politicians and banks
4. See who is yelling and write a program that reflects that "who".

I know it sounds silly but I am not really a silly guy.

Old man Marx said that Socialism would catch on first in these "advanced" countries. For the first time, I am getting the glimmer of how.

I was just cracking wise (and Dhal started it!!! *stalks off sullenly*)

Also, I think this is slightly more two-sided than you're indicating. Yes, the Sworn Defenders of the Faith are rattling the prayer beads. No, they're not about to lose their religion.

The conscious politics (conscious here meaning class conscious and self-aware, even though they are two lines on a collision course to intersect) is not coming from the same people, but rather from those who are being violently shit out the ass-end of the Democratic Party.

I do see the importance of whats brewing though ;)

...though everyone seems obligated to propose some sort of "solution", no matter how flakey. The lines are less clear to me. If we had declassed minor aristocracy around, I would keep an eye on them too...

than out any conception that things are so cleanly defined

Declasse minor aristocracy..funny thing, there seems to have a been a cutback in production of those. Still lots flooding the shelves though..