this isn't about the south being 'racist' or whatever. this is just an example. racism is a problem here but we have come a long way since those times, although in this region cultural conservatism still remains dominant. but now it's not about race issues, it's about anti-abortion and anti-muslim sentiment primarily (the latter is debatable but still not the point of this post).

where i'm going with this is as the southeast transitioned from democrat to republican we saw for about two and a half decades a new breed of politician arise - the "southern" democrat which is usually synonymous with the "conservative" or "blue dog" democrat (although the blue dog label goes outside the south).

comparing numbers it seems fewer and fewer of these southern democrats remain as the political civil war between the now defined liberal party (democrats) clash with the now defined conservative party (republicans).

i fear the last wave of moderate southern democrats will be tossed out by their own parties or by continuing abandonment of the democratic party in the south. most bluedog democrats are from the south and the districts that had elected them out of habit of voting democrat are now likely to make the transition with the rest of the south to republican.

so why am i concerned about losing moderate democrats? because moderate democrats are more in line with what I think the Republican party should be, instead of the wingnuts we have running the joke of the Republican party now. The conservative democrats gave you the option to support government, support consumer protections, and support healthy working class wages WITHOUT supporting issues such as abortion, affirmative action, overly aggressive social programs and spending, other typically democratic special interest group agendas, etc....

this isn't about my particular position but I know that MANY moderate americans would like to support government regulation of wall st. and investing in our own country (vs. making war) without having to support the moral positions the liberal democrats as a whole have adopted.

this leaves many voters alienated...

we need more guys like Zell Miller, former governor of my state of Georgia during the 1990s.  

so no one can stop capitalism. not right in it's tracks.

the two parties allow you two choices: Democrats = capitalism with regulation and a slow progress towards socialism. Republicans = protect capitalism, allow capitalism to continue it's abuse by neglecting to impose ANY regulation.

there's no doubt capitalism is an evil and more and more people are becoming aware. but powerful members of the soviet government i'm sure also knew that their communist system was a failure 20-30 years before the fall of the berlin wall, but they had no alternative without the nation dissolving into anarchy and complete economic upheval.

as we're beginning to see a reformed version of socialism which incorporates some of the elements of free trade (but kept in check by government oversight and regulation) is the way to go. this works for western europe and a different form that's based on communism but not the iron curtain philosophy works for china.

we will never be communist like china but eventually we HAVE to switch to the more socialist market regulation systems of our western european counterparts.

we have to do that or else the capitalists will continue to eat our middle class alive until it no longer exists and we begin to decay into a 3rd world standard of living... all while being heavily in debt to the capitalists just for the opportunity to live 3rd world. i don't think anyone wants that. these nutty republicans have just tricked ignorant people into thinking no regulation over the rich = freedom for everyone.

we can't kill capitalism right away though, i reiterate... it's like a drug we need to keep taking to survive. if we stopped cold turkey we'd go into a deadly withdrawal. use that as a comparison.

this is why third parties that lean extremely socialist are not taken seriously in america. everyone knows their policies would cause economic freefall and besides, the rest of the government wouldn't let their policies ride anyway. they barely comfortable working with obama and pressing these reforms through for him, even though they're all of the same party.