5 September 2005 - 4:48pm
Whose government is it, anyway?
Some 25 years ago, the Democratic Party did something precipitous: they abandoned progressive values in a political gambit to ride the coattails of the conservatism that was sweeping the country. Like Judas, they cried, "I'm not liberal. I don't even know any liberals!" The gambit paid off in the form of two terms for Clinton, and massive losses in Congress.
Yet they've stuck to their guns, under the guidance of the DLC. They generally backed many of the conservative attacks on our government infrastructure. They are culpable.
And now, in the disastrous man-made disaster following Katrina, We The People are paying the price.
The loudest howls have been in the indifferent, contemptuous, ineffective and arrogant responses from President Bush and his minions. It's bloody obvious that FEMA, now a part of the Department of Homeland Security, has been rendered all but totally ineffective -- and even obstructionist.
Imagine if this had been a terror attack. Clearly there is no preparation to protect the people. Clearly the federal government has squandered the past four years since 9/11.
But let's face it: There's plenty of blame to go around. We have local officials to slacked or fell down on the job. We have state officials who seemed to think protecting property from looters was more important than getting drinking water to desperate survivors. We have police doing their best to impersonate blackshirts.
What went wrong? One can point to a number of things, from beaurocratic incompetence to, as conservative Robert Tracinski claims, welfare shirkers and criminals who chose to die rather than do anything that doesn't involve government handouts.
But what caused this obscenity that is still unfolding is a political culture built upon this pernicious notion that the government can't do anything, that the government is the enemy, that government should be gutted, disabled and dismantled.
Obviously, some strong and effective government could have come in pretty handy this past week. In fact, a strong and effective government could have prevented this horror from ever happening.
We're paying the price. Our leaders failed us. And we failed ourselves by not demanding better of them. Not only is New Orleans under 25 feet of water. Conservative ideology is all wet as well. Protecting the people isn't up to the private sector. And it involves a lot more than sending in boys with machine guns.
This is OUR country, and it's suffering. And this is OUR government, and it's broken.
So what are we going to do about it?
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Speak out about this - Dennis Kucinich and Gen. Wesley Clark. That's the extent of the opposition party. I say we get behind them and push. Neither of them backs down from a fight, and that's what we need right now.
Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements
Is he going to run in 2008 for President?
How many of them are finding themselves having to vote against themselves now that the party seems to have met jebus and is calling for an "exemption" for survivors who will find themselves subject to the new anti-bankruptcy laws?
Maybe it's time to take a closer look at the Libertarian Party?
I hate the fact that the Dems are so willing to sell out key components to its base because they know we're all too aware that if we abstain or vote for a 3rd party candidate that we're stuck with Repubevangelicals. The Democratic Party of PA (that might as well be Republican considering the whole situation around the pay raise) is doing just that by completely refusing to allow are real primary against Casey (who is notorious for blowing big leads) by Pennacchio because the latter has no name recognition and they think the former can split the Santorum vote (being that casey really seems to be more of a moderate republican with religious right agrrement, and possibly ironic, on abortion & stem cells/fetal tissue - lord knows if he'll support use of hormonal contraception, I doubt it). Mind you, Pennacchio wouldn't consider running independently if he loses the primary because #1 he promised to support whoever wins & #2 it's unknown how a split would work out and any chance it would work in Santorum's favor is what prevents it from occurring.
Democrats would demand party accountability or split it only when there's one hell of a schizm in the republican party that splits its vote. This is our country and our lives, it sucks how badly politics can screw it up.
Perot supposedly split the vote, and Clinton won two terms. The math can work both ways.
What many Dems, Repubs and independents are seeing, though, is that the elected leaders are not in fact representing the people, but representing corporations, powerful interests -- anyone but the people.
If the Dems lead a march further right, they're going to find themselves marching alone.
I've supported Clark from the beginning-- he's outspokenly in favor of womens' rights, standing up AS a Christian against the "Religious Right", and most of the progressive values I support.
I'm with MediaGirl, I only barely consider myself a Dem-- they're going to lose a lot of us if they keep marching to the "center". I would be a centrist in almost any other civilized nation, yet here in the USA I'd rank as a "loony/fringe leftist". So the Democrats' march to the "center" is actually a march to the way-right on the global scale, and I won't support that for a moment. Nor should anyone. One big and one little right wing won't make an airplane fly.
...is that "moving to the center" of what passes for politics in this country is the same as moving to the center of the core values Americans hold dear. Such is not the case. Just look at the politicians' virtual stampede to make women into breeder slaves, despite the fact that the majority of Americans support reproductive rights (and most of the rest support practical approaches to reducing unwanted pregnancy, which these self-proclaimed "pro-life" politicians actively oppose).
The Democrats are largely to blame for this. By abandoning any sort of defense of progressivism and liberal thought, they've effectively let the political discourse drift rightward. Now they don't know how to change their tune, either because it shows them for the hypocrites they are, or because they simply don't know how to talk about liberal values ... or because they're afraid of Karl Rove and want to play nice and not make him mad.
This is a wake-up call for the Dems, but I really wonder how many of them are up to the challenge. Ironically the Dems' best articulator of progressive and liberal values has been John Edwards, who has so little public service experience (because he's not in the rightward mainstream).
Clark talks a good talk when it comes to Iraq. And I liked him in the campaign last year. But despite I've not seen the side that's "outspokenly in favor of womens' rights." I looked at his website a few weeks ago, and found only passing reference to "defend the right to choose" buried way down the list. I wrote to inquire about that, and try to learn what his positions really are, but received not even an autoresponder email. (His campaign really needs to get with the "Web 2.0" world -- which is another irony, considering that Kos is his biggest fan.)
We'll see what happens.
Meanwhile, I'm afraid these relocation camps are going to turn into concentration camps -- you know, to protect them from crime, right? How bad will it get before it gets better?
belongs in the Green party. Feminism is one of the key parts of their platform, and the party may be just starting here, but it exists as a thriving force in most other industrialized countries. I'm still a registered Democrat, but I give money to the Greens, and may bolt at any time.
Here's what we know. 1) The Dems take us for granted 2) They might not win with us, but they will surely lose without us. 3) they are not currently an effective opposition party.
Therefore, I say we demand total adherence to a feminist platform of free choice and social reform, and they start kicking some evil elephant ass or they can kiss our asses good bye.
Any thoughts?
Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements
I'll see if I can find the link, but I already read that the ones in Utah are behind barbed wire wih military guards at the only exit.
Support the Women's Autonomy and Sexual Sovereignty Movements