Many years ago, during the 1988 election, I started expressing my political feelings like this:

| Democrat – Republican | < $0.05

Algebra humor.  In plain text, that reads:

“The absolute value of the difference between Democrats and Republicans is less than a nickel.”

When I started saying that, it was true.

It’s not true anymore, and after thinking about it for a while I realized it probably hasn’t been true since the ‘92 elections, even though I was still saying it as recently as the late 1990’s.

I was wrong then, and to continue pushing this false equivalency is even more wrong now.  Worse than that, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the whole purpose behind the pushing of this notion is to increase cynicism among young people to keep them from coming out to support Barack Obama again this November.

The right knows that they can’t credibly gather a significant percentage of the youth vote.  They just don’t have it, save perhaps for some Alex P. Keaton types who haven’t figured out yet that not only was Reagan a horrible president, but that he wouldn’t make it past the primaries in today’s Republican Party…he’s too liberal.

The above video is the first of a two-part piece on Left Vs. Right in this country and why there not only is a real difference, but why that difference is absolutely critical to understand.  Yes, the Obama administration seems too cozy with big banks and Wall Street for my comfort at times…but the Republicans are big banks and Wall Street.  No, I’m not happy with the failure of the administration to condemn aggressive abuses of power by local police, especially in response to the Occupy movement, but I also understand that federal power is very limited in this regard and that any substantive reaction by the White House would result in at least partially valid charges of violating states’ rights and the separation of state and federal power as outlined in the constitution.

Like it or not – and I don’t, but I recognize the reality – bankers are US citizens too, and part of the government’s job is to recognize their interests and balance those interests as one factor in the overall picture of the interests of the people as a whole.  You don’t do that by locking them out of the discussion, any more than you deal with gay rights by refusing to give gay people a voice in their government, any more than you deal with women’s rights by refusing to give women a voice in their government.

There is a difference between recognizing that valid interest, and being bought and paid for by the banks, and that difference is one of the many that starkly separates the Democratic and Republican parties and their presidential candidates this year.  The video above explores more of these differences in greater detail, and I hope you’ll watch it. Part Two is called “Are You Better Off Now Than Four Years Ago?” and will be posted in the next day or so as I get time.