people talk about things being better in canada. some things are, for sure. it's a very simple reason - we have three major parties. now, the third party has never been elected, but the mere act of having three parties puts pressure on our "democrats". they're constantly forced to listen to a voice that is further to their left and adopt those policies. in fact, our "socialist" party (which isn't really a socialist party) is actually the opposition right now and our "democrats" are in third place. the reason that happened is that they thought they could get away with cutting services.
there have been periods in the past where america had a strong left movement. the reforms that roosevelt put through would not have been possible without a strong union movement, and the gains made in the 60s would not have been possible were it not for the groundwork that that union movement laid. there were big errors made in merging the left with the democrats. that has to be undone.
the situation is different: they shipped all the jobs off. so, there aren't any unions anymore.
but the only way out of this is to build a people's party that puts pressure on obama from the left. right now, the democrats take you for granted. you need to prove they can't do that if they want to win - make them lose and then make them listen. you have to tie electoral success to your demands being met.
