Don't you love it when you stumble across a read where the author is so thoroughly on your own wavelength that you feel comforted in knowing that, in fact, you are not alone and that other sentient beings are reacting to the same stimuli you are responding to in exactly the same way and drawing the same conclusions?

So it was when I read the excellent commentary by Caitlin Johnstone in The Inquisitor, The DNC Is Playing Chicken With Progressives

Johnstone's thesis is that once again, Progressives find themselves in a dominance stare-down with the Democratic Party PTB.

The DNC has not backed down one inch from its path. From the announcement of Wall Street crony Tim Kaine as Hillary’s running mate before the email scandal, to Sanders delegates being locked out of the room for the vote on superdelegates just after, to adding Wasserman Schultz to Clinton’s campaign after her unabashed flaunting of the Democratic Charter, they continue to stare progressive voters right in the eye, fully confident that a Trump scare campaign will be enough to make them turn and chicken out, and go back to obedient slavery.

It's that same old deja view all over again isn't it? Haven't liberals been in this same place oh so many times before? Haven't we always had to bow back down before the status quo because the monster behind the other door was simply too scary to contemplate? Haven't we always slunk back to the rear of the herd with the assertion, "Just you wait, next time it will be different!"

We promise ourselves that this will be the last time we vote for the lesser evil, that next time, when the Republicans mount a moderate, sane, Republican that offers only equal evil, we will finally break from the ranks and exercise our individual right not to vote for the Democrat. We will put our hands our our ears and sing "La, la, la, la" when they trot out as reliably as Auld Lang Syne on New Years Eve, "Supreme Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court."

But as Johnstone points out, there is one salient, critical difference this time around. For the first time, the Democrats couldn't even be bothered to pretend that they cared about or needed the primary voters at all. They pre-selected the candidate, did everything they possibly could to weight the election in their favor, and deployed all manner of unsavory and disgusting election tactics to achieve their pre-ordained end.

The Democrats and their candidate have proven by word and action, both overt and covert, that liberals don't really matter, progressive goals get lip-service, and they are just sorry that they have to go through with this stupid charade every four years. Once the renegade Sanders voters are once again successfully rounded up and branded with the giant LE (lesser evil) on their hindquarters, then they are off to hunt the really valuable (to them) demographic- moderate "swing" voters, the polling equivalent of Kobi beef to the power elites of the Democrats, the swath of the electorate they have always hankered for and just never been able to get on the plate. And so begins the pander, the triangulating, and the parsing of the stands they were forced to assume for the primary.

The Democrats get away with this BS every election cycle because we let them get away with it. We often refer to the kabuki played out by our legislators, but we fail to address our own role in this ritual theater. The Democrats behave the way they do to their liberal adherents because we have proven to them time and time again that it works. Why should they ever abandon such a successful strategy? As voters we have demonstrated our own inadequacies by holding our breaths and turning blue on a schedule as predictable as a tide table and then trudging off obediently to the polls to thwart the Republican bogeyman.

At some point we have to be honest with ourselves. The Republicans will always offer up a candidate who is anathema to our common goals and shared values. The Supreme Court will always have vacancies to fill.

Since the introduction of the DLC, Third Way types into dominance in the leadership of the Democratic Party, the party has behaved in a manner that shows they believe progressive voters have no power, or more importantly, no power we are willing to use in a constructive manner .

When we sit out elections as happened in 2010, we empower our opposition and place ourselves at an even greater disadvantage. Worse, we strengthen the party overlords' argument of "see, what happens when all the bad little Democrats stay home?" or even more horrible, give credence to theories that the country is growing more centrist when in fact the opposite is happening among the great unwashed - we are growing more frustrated, more impatient for tangible results and more politically left.

According to Johnstone's great article, the culmination of this primary was that despite all the conniving and manipulations, there was a great breakthrough, the formerly powerless and impotent group of disgruntled peasants managed to breach the moats and climb the walls and make enough of a nuisance of themselves that attention had to be paid. Based on the evidence of this primary, it looks like the 99% have finally developed enough critical mass at the polls to make the argument that the time for an effective third party has finally arrived. Her conclusion, which I share is:

Progressives can stare right back at the DNC and refuse to be scared into turning. What have we got to lose at this point? The Democratic party has already proven that it’s evolve-or-die time for its life as a major political party. Finally, the slave gets to choose. Do we make them evolve? Or do we kill them off forever with a new progressive party? Two delicious prospects.

It looks as though the leader who was instrumental in storming the barricades, Bernie Sanders, has chosen the evolution route, although that remains to be verified. IMO the Democratic Party has acted in poor faith and has deservedly alienated permanently a large percentage of their voters they professed to represent. I count myself among that group. My personal decision will be to vote for Jill Stein and to for once not to be stared down into acquiescence and compliance to a Party that has not served me well for quite a number of years now. IMO it's well past time for them to reap the harvest they have sown.