If Obama genuinely represented progressive causes, Don, I'd be very much in favour of him. I've seen little or no evidence that he does. I do not believe the Democratic Party (at its higher levels) has any intention of allowing a genuine progressive to be its candidate for president. The only genuine progressive they had running for president in the last election primary process was Dennis Kucinich, and he was shut out of the later televised debates on ridiculous technicalities, because he was making it quite clear in those debates that the other Democratic candidates were "emperors with no clothes", and that to vote for them was to preserve much the same status quo that existed under George Bush...only with a different phony Party in the White House.

The only progressive (meaning honest) Republican candidate in the last election was Ron Paul. He didn't become his Party's official candidate for president either.

I think it's virtually impossible for a genuine progressive...meaning an honest man who defends the Constitution...to be picked as the presidential candidate for either one of those Big 2 Parties, because they both serve the same entrenched interests (while parroting different divisive hoo-ha to divide the public into 2 opposing blocs and maintain the illusion of choice).

Where GfS and I disagree with you, Don, is not in the area of your progressive ideals......but in your continuing faith in the existing 2-party system, your faith being based on the notion that voting in the Democrats will save you from the Republicans!

Don......Americans need to be saved from both the Democrats AND the Republicans. They are the two wings of the same vicious bird of prey that rules over you.

I'll put it more bluntly: The Democrats and the Republicans are more or less what you'd have if the Nazis had decided to divide the Nazi Party into 2 supposedly separate parties and send those 2 parties out to the German polls for people to vote for. They're what you'd have if Stalin had decided to divide the Communist Party into 2 Parties and send those 2 parties out to the Russian polls for people to vote for.

It's a sham, Don. You really have just ONE Party in the USA. It masquerades as 2 separate parties. The 2 in the masquerade yell about different highly emotional trigger issues (such as Gay rights, creation vs evolution, global warming vs "deniers", etc.) because that works great to divide the public into frightened oppositional camps and it distinguishes the 2 parties as supposely different....but when it comes down to brass tacks...meaning war, law, and basic financial policy...those 2 parties both serve the same entrenched financial and imperial interests. The other divisive stuff is smoke and mirrors to keep you dreaming that you have a real choice in front of you.

There is the odd individual in each of those 2 parties who is a free man or woman and who speaks honestly about what's going on. The main 2 I can think of in that regard are Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. They have both chosen to remain in the Big 2 parties, because there IS no way of getting a 3rd party off the ground in the USA. Your ruling class has made quite sure of that through financial means and media control.

You live under a form of somewhat subtle dictatorship, Don, and it masquerades as a 2-party democracy. As long as it can keep enough of your citizens believing it's not a dictatorship, the illusion of that 2-party democracy can be maintained in the minds of most Americans, and the big phony game goes on.

*****

As for Canada....it's kind of like that here too...only not so blatantly bad as it is in the USA. I'd say that's partly because we're not a superpower, and partly because we have a more progressive foundation to work from here. But our various political parties? They sell out to the biggest financial interests, just like yours do.

And that's why fewer and fewer people here are bothering to vote in each succeeding election. They instinctively sense that their vote has become meaningless. (Note: I still vote regardless.)