Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 07, 2011

Is Neil Simon going to get royalties for this?

It’s hard to imagine that Joanie’s granddaughter, who manages to keep a snake in her Back Bay apartment, will show much enthusiasm for Elizabeth Warren’s campaign to protect consumers. On the other hand, she gravitates naturally toward groups like the OWS crowd. Perhaps Leo can set her straight on the issues involved. When will he and Joanie meet?

If Warren is elected to the U.S. Senate, it will be largely with Trudeau’s help.

Whom is ‘Warren’ mentioned in the first panel?The British press have not mentioned any politician of that name. Only recent stories on the BBC website when I searched related to Warren Buffet. In an earlier arc Joanie mentioned an ‘Elizabeth Warren’ which according (BBC News again) to my search is a Harvard Professor (but the news item was Sept 2010).Is the Warren referring to her and a consumer agency?Thanks

Single girls’ rooms tend to be quite messy.

One Massachusetts poll shows Warren beating Scott Brown by a few points; another shows him beating her by a few points.

Currently, the US Senate has two “independents.” One is Bernie Sanders, who is actually a socialist (unlike what the right calls our President). The other is Joe Lieberman,who had called himself a Democrat until he was defeated in a primary then filed as independent and was backed by the Republicans at the expense of their own candidate. both Sanders and Lieberman caucus with the Dems, but Lieberman votes with the GOP far more often. There are smaller parties, ranging from the Greens (same as yours for the most part) to American Independent (far right), Libertarian (don’t get me started), and Peace and Freedom (communist). Some states have their own parties, like Minnesota. But it has been very rare for anyone outside two parties to rise up. That tends to presage one of the older two achieving obsolescence. Unless they kill themselves off, the way the GOP appears to be doing.

Nice footwork, Blue. I don’t agree with everything — such as the P&F Party = Communist — but nice footwork anyway.

I thought that was a good intro to the American political spectrum. I learned a LOT from Peace and Freedom. She had a beautiful lisp and manner of speaking.

That’s “Democratic” campaign. Amazing how much trouble some folks have with that basic point of English grammar. Though it is one of the vagaries of English that for some words the noun and adjective are identical and some not. You can be a Canadian (n.), a Republican (n.) or an American (n.) but you can’t be a British or a French, or a Democratic. You can have a Canadian (adj.), Republican (adj.), or American (adj.) campaign, but you can’t have a Briton, Democrat, or Frenchman campaign. But perhaps I misunderstand, Parrot. Perhaps you are being wilfully ignorant just to make a point. “Grammar? Grammar! I don’ need no stinkin’ grammar!”

Ah, Romantics. I wonder if anyone who might be called “working class” knows anything about this party, or would buy their platform. Of course, such a party is irrelevant in this country, though it is nice that some people still have dreams of a better world.

Win 51% of the vote in any one state, you get two senators. Win 25% of the vote in every state in the union, you get nothing. Live in a state that is either strongly blue or strongly red, and you are effectively disenfranchised. How much of our low voter turn-out, apathy, and cynicism comes from the fact that so many of us know that our opinions have no voice in Washington and never will. I have voted in several elections in which no one even wasted the party’s time and money running against the incumbent. We rail against totalitarian states and present many of our citizens with one-party rule. Then, it takes 70 times as many votes from California to elect US senator as it takes from Wyoming. Even in the House of Representatives, Wyoming is over-represented compared to many states. Representatives (who are supposed to be close to the people) now represent more people than any Senator did in 1800. Each Rep has 50,000 constituents in 1800. Now they average about 700,000. No, I don’t want a House of Representatives with 8 or 9 thousand members, we have outgrown the system the Founders put in place. But a parliamentary system with proportional representation is so very much more democratic. I have no doubt that with such a system, we would have large and flourishing Libertarian, Green, and other parties which would enable us to hear more than two polarized sides, in which every citizen could feel himself a stakeholder in the system, and not merely a passive victim of a system in which he can only choose between a party that only leans in his direction, and a party that doesn’t even do that.

An even worse problem, Doughfoot: Does this particular psittacoid poster even understand the definition of “nihilistic”? Perhaps s/he means “anarchistic”. 

BTW, I’m no Hollywood Hispanic, but isn’t the clause: “I doan need no steenking grammar”?

ELIZABETH WARREN FOR PRESIDENT.  Why not?  Let her bump Obama off his perch with a primary challenge as RFK did to LBJ. On second thought, maybe its better to let Obama stagger drunkenly through his second term, in case he wins, and then let her run as a Senator, in case she wins, with a full term behind her belt buckle. The female Hillary came close to winning the nomination; maybe the female Elizabeth can come closer, close enough to win it. 

Cheese and crackers, this is tough. (I’m an independent.)

I hope Alex doesn’t have any marijuana. It’s not good to have a snake in the grass.

Mike31g

I love my American friends, I really do, but they tend to forget every now and again that there is a ‘rest of the world’ out there

The ins and outs of Canadian politics, as with the British version, escapes their media and attention (that’s not a bad thing — why should they care about the minutia of my neck of the woods) but they sometime forget the reverse.

We outside the USA don’t know all the goings on between the Dems and Reps and, personally speaking, don’t want to now or care. I know enough about the general drift of American politics, especially as it affects Canada, but otherwise I have things in my life I care about much more than which rich, spoiled and out of touch American politico is messing with the people (s)he is supposed to be representing.

We listen to CBC and BBC, and read Al Jazeera. It’s interesting and enlightening to see how the rest of the world views us.

I like Warren for President. right now.

By the way Rick is dressed it is safe to assume Rick is on the road covering the campaign and Joannie is up in Boston. This means… Jeff is HOME ALONE! Last time he set the pool on fire.

Democrats and Republicans, the two major evils of the U.S.

Mike’s URL for The Independent takes you to Rupert Cornwell’s editorial, which does indeed offer an bracing view of “the American political system . . . from an extrernal viewpoint.”Cornwell’s political astuteness matches anything that has appeared so far on today’s Doonesbury forum. He cares very much about our paralyzed government and notes that the next major crisis—-as significant as those in 1932 and 1980—-is schedule to occur exactly one year from today.Here are a few prophetic excerpts:“Nowhere is the disillusion . . . greater than in Americans’ views of their political system. When times were good, the imperfections did not matter: the federal government was traditionally a remote entity, and the checks and balances contained in the constitution were designed to keep it that way. But when times are bad, people look to Washington for solutions.“No wonder Americans cast around for new saviours. No wonder the emergence of protest movements on both left and right, and no wonder the popularity of unconventional politicians such as New Jersey’s blunt-spoken Republican Governor, Chris Christie, or Elizabeth Warren, Harvard professor, Democratic contender for the Senate and scourge of Wall Street and the financial industry.“One thing, however, is sure. In this dark American moment, the stage is set for a populist. It could be the incumbent president, lashing heartless Republicans for their pandering to the rich. It could be a Republican who convinces his countrymen that Obama is leading the country to ruin. Or could a third-party candidate somehow become the outlet for the general exasperation with the status quo?“Don’t write off the notion entirely. After all, the eccentric Ross Perot launched his candidacy only six months before election day in 1992, and won almost 20 per cent of the vote—-in an age when America’s problems were a 10th of what they are today. One way or another, 2012 could yet be the “watershed” election that 2008 was not."

I really wish Bob Massie could have stuck it out to the Mass. Primaries. He actually campaigned for the nomination and spoke to issues for the State and Country and saw the connection of the variety of issues.

“Also, our Union is one formed from several disparate Colonies/States, which have great internal governmental structural independence of their own” …Much as our political system in Australia – a federation formed from several nonindependent colonies, but the difference is that our system seems to allow a bigger voice to more than the two parties. We tend to be governed by two parties but there is enough flexibility in the system to allow minor parties to sometimes even hold the balance of power. Perhaps that’s because we MAKE everyone vote. It seems an inconvenience but allows a bit more equity. We also play with electoral boundaries a bit to permit a bit more equity in the vote (in general). Our senate has equal representation by all states. Some think that this gives a disproportionately high representation for less populous states,but they are often physically bigger states with greater infrastructure costs so it allows them to maintain at least some infrastructure…But you wouldn’t know that because Americans don’t really look outside their own backyards that much.

Ms. Warren is a loon

It’s not only grammar, spelling’s a problem too, Doughfoot. Just be glad Pekerfaced didn’t say “Demc*rat*” … oops, now I’m doing it.

 Elizabeth Warren for President in 2012!

 Barack Obama for National Dogcatcher in 2012!

Then Lunartic and Insanatic must be the ones to beat.

I’m spelling in Strine (there’s one for you to work out).

@basshwy:

a. Doesn’t “Strine” mean “Australian” (pronounced with an Australian accent)?

b. As far as I know loons are indeed at risk of extinction. [As a Canadian, I have long found it ironic that we put two species of animals on our money that are at great risk; loons and polar bears.]

In the case of loons, it’s due to acid rain, which poisoned the lakes and interfered with the correct development of their brains. For example, a female loon would lay eggs, but not feel the instinctual need to incubate them, so she would just abandon them.

This is something I heard about some years ago, so I don’t know what the status is now.

Sigh.

@RinaFarina:Yep, you are indeed correct. We put animals on our coins too, and the Platypus is a bit under threat. We put the queen on the back and she (or the monarchy)’s under threat in Australia. threat

It’s always nice to hear the Commonwealth’s subjects point of view. They say Rina’s the first one in Montreal to run out in the street and curtsy when the queen comes to visit.

It’s always interesting to see that England is still in denial. We’ve got our own great white queen now…I could make comment but won’t.

RSRussell,Thanks for the link.Palin Drome,Glad you appreciated the link to the Independent article, I thought it was excellent.Doughfoot,There was a referendum on PR in the UK, neither party fully supported it, and it was predictably voted out (partially due to apathy). I would be extremely surprised if it ever happened in the US.