Friday, August 24, 2007

A lot depends on who's in the saddle.

I'm still around.

Besides the usual craziness that surrounds pretty much everybody I know with a family (work, kids to practice, finding a way to get dinner before 8:30, rabid hamsters) I really haven't been able to bring myself to write about politics; even when I have the time.

For most of my life I've been a Democrat but also what I'd term a "wide-eyed" Democrat. I'm a Democrat that's never suffered under the delusion that my party is fully functional nor that inaction of all of it's platforms would somehow be a magical panacea that would cure all of the ills of American society.

What's kept me calling myself a Democrat and occasionally volunteering has been the simple fact that, for all it's dysfunctions, the Democratic party is the single organized body strong enough to stop the great evil that threatens our country: conservative Republicans.

When the Democratic party fails to fulfill even this role then I'm left joining many progressives who've supported Democrats and who made '06 possible asking "what the hell's the point?"

There has been so much outrageous stuff happening this last seven years and all we've had out of the leaders in the Democratic party are excuses. I'm tired of it. If FDR were to come back to life and see what's become of the modern Democratic party he'd get up out of his wheelchair and kick the living crap out of Pelosi and Reid, not to mention weenies like Ben Nelson and Washington's Brian Baird (a sucker for the Bushies if there ever was one.)

Politics is about leadership. The mealy-mouthed, hide-under-their-desk when it counts cowardice that the Democratic party has been exhibiting ain't it. We don't expect our leaders to all be Michael Jordan. We do expect that, at the very least, they'll get off the bench and get into the game.

3 comments:

Swinebread said...

You said it. Plus if you’re an independent you get a lot of crap in the mail.

Don Snabulus said...

I obliquely agree. I have seen where the DLC types can get very aggressive and decisive when it comes to their favored candidates being challenged by more progressively-minded Democrats in promaries. They just can't seem to do it against their supposed adversaries.

I think the reason is corporatism. Democrats are afraid to stop stuffing their pockets with all that corporate cash for fear that they will lose power to Republicans, so they keep selling away their power to these interests.

The end result is that we end up with a bunch of Democrat-talkers with Republican voting records and silence on issues that corporate interests want Republicans to win.

I guess I would say that the Democrats have sold their soul to the devil and it is ALWAYS pay day for the devil.

(BTW, It should be obvious that I am referring to corporations that participate in power politics and not the majority of businesses who legitimately stick to doing business.)

Dean Wormer said...

Yeah, that sounds about right.

It's sad because it's so obvious that it'd take an epic meltdown of the economy for the system to right itself again and voters to see those big corporations aren't really the benign institutions they seem to think they are.

Even then history shows us it will not be permanent and corporations will, given time, worm their way back into a position of influence.

Sigh.