Both Parties Are Not Alike

I keep hearing people saying that both parties are the same, because both the Republican and the Democratic Parties are corrupt. Yes, to some extent that is true...both parties are influenced by corporate interests, but that truly is where the similarities end.

Also, while the DFL is most definitely influenced by corporate interests, the GOP is owned by the Corporations, bought and paid for. There is in reality a gigantic difference between being influenced and owned.

Anyone who seriously believes that Corporate influence in a political party is all that matters is basically viewing politics in an extremely narrow minded way. Corporate influence in American politics is just one thin slice of the overall political pie and that is a severely limited way to judge an entire political party.

I'm a tail end baby boomer, born in 1964, I grew up in the era where JFK was the symbol of all that was right about the DFL. I am old enough to remember what the Democratic Party once was before it started leaning right and embracing more conservative values post Reagan. I have watched the DFL become the moderate Conservative party in the US as the GOP has become slowly but surely a far right religious extremist hate group that has no business even being in American politics anymore.

Today's Democratic Party is not the DFL of my youth, it no longer truly represents Liberal minded Americans...and yes, a new Liberal political party is desperately needed in the US...but seriously...anyone who thinks both the GOP & the DFL are opposite sides of the same coin has not been paying attention.

There is still a world of difference between the GOP and the DFL if you are a woman, LGBT, low income or a minority. The GOP is waging a war of oppression against everyone who isn't a rich white heterosexual male, and they are winning because they have convinced a generation of 20-somethings that both parties are exactly the same so there is no point in voting. They have spent the last 30 years dumbing down America through their corporate control of information and when mainstream media failed and the Occupy Movement rose up to try to educate and inform the Nation, the GOP seized on another way to hold on to their control...APATHY

The GOP had already seized control of the lunatic fringe with the Koch Brothers funded Tea Party...but the Occupy Movement threatened to educate and inform the children of Reaganomics, the youth that Fox News & the GOP had spent 30 years indoctrinating was suddenly on the precipice of becoming informed, joining forces with the Liberals and rising up against them. The GOP couldn't afford to let that happen.

But, how to nip it in the bud when America's youth yearned for revolution? It was actually quite simple and the GOP easily infiltrated the Occupy Movement and quickly spread the seeds of mistrust towards all politics...they played the Anarchy card and won big. They easily removed the possible threat of millions of young voters by getting them to believe that both political parties were equally evil and that voting was pointless. A political strategy that has worked countless times throughout history and America's disenfranchised youth were easy targets.

All politicians know that the easiest way to win an election is to convince the opposition not to vote...that their votes don't matter. Better yet, convince them that not voting is a form of protest and make them angry at everyone to ensure that they don't vote. Make them feel self-important, as if they know a secret and everyone else is blind. The GOP has succeeded in doing just this within the Occupy Movement by feeding their anger towards the Corporations to the point where they are blind to all other issues.

The Anarchy faction in Occupy has grown significantly over the winter...they are young and angry and are so focused of corporate corruption that they have a tunnel vision that leaves them blinded to all other issues except for how they relate to corporate corruption. Over the winter they have chased away many of the older and Liberal activist claiming the Liberals are trying to co-opt the Occupy Movement, all the while not even realizing they have become GOP puppets and that the Right Wing has effectively silenced them by convincing them not to vote.

There is currently a tug of war going on in the Occupy Movement between the Liberals and the Anarchists that threatens to derail the entire Movement...and all I can say is well played GOP...well played.