If The Democratic Party, In It's Effort To

[WillyT]

"Win", Goes Any Further To The Right...

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With the From wing of the Democratic Party ready to distance itself from Michael Moore, Joe Trippi, Howard Dean, and anything left of John Breaux, my 75 year old mother (and life-long Democrat) is pitching a fit and threatening to go Green. So am I. So are many others.

How far does one 'get down on their knees\bend over' in order to "win", before one loses their political\philosophical soul???

Do we need to set up a national petition to get a sense of the Democratic Party in order to let us all know where we stand?

Because it may be about time to choose sides now, in order to follow our paths toward the future.

**************************************************************************

So...

[Stand and Fight]

1. I'm not ducking out!

I'll fight for my dammed party just the same as I refuse to leave my country because things didn't go our way in this election. Changing parties is not the thing to do, because what happens when the Greens change or what have you? You can't run away from your problems -- you have to face them and overcome them.

[WillyT]

3. What I'm Asking Is... Isn't This The Time To Hash This Out ???

I'm willing to fight within my party to keep our roots intact. But I'm not willing to hash this out two months before the 2006 elections. I want discussion, debate, decisions, and answers now.

If we are gonna do the whipped puppy act for 2006, I'd like to opt out sooner than later.

So let's have a petition drive, and see where we all want to go, OK???

:shrug:

[Stand and Fight]

11. I'm with you.

However, I do question the validity of these online petitions -- especially with the dammed Republicans monitoring our site and signing them, so very nefariously, as well.

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

25. I have my lightsaber ready. RIGHT NEXT TO YOU!

Why would I vote for a fake Republican? I WOULD BURN IN HELL BEFORE I VOTE FOR THE REAL THING!

[ldf]

2. sorry

you do not reward incompetence.

the american people have to be given a real choice, and republite ain't it.

[haele]

4. Got to change it from within

Get in their faces, hold their feet to the fire and keep at it. No matter how far right they go.
Go ahead and withhold contributions from the big-name "righties" that are pulling us away from the center into the middle of the Republican Right - and be loud about it. Run for office against established party hacks and do a Dean on the local level; get rid of their base that way. Ultimatly, we have to starve the Beast from within.

Going Green won't help the Democrats. What do the center-right care about people who bail on them? Those people are no longer their base - nor can they really exodus that way in enough numbers to make a difference. It's the Dems who are starting to go 'Puke out of desperation or lack of a visible, viable platform that are making a difference, and these center-rights are too busy running around trying to pretend to be better at the opposition than the opposition is than actually sending a distinct message.

And that's what we have to make the supposed DLC understand. Clinton was an anomoly. Without the particular combination of his personal charisma and situational effects of the world issues at that time, he would never have been electible.

We must go back to progressive base, not our conservitive base if we will succeed. Our conservitive base over the past 50 years was originally voting Democratic instead of Republican for a specific reason - the inclusivness, the concern over poverty, education, and civil rights - the morals of the government's responsibility to economy and society. Not some individual ideological morals.

I know we don't have a traditional outlet for a progressive message anymore, but there are an increasing number of non-traditional outlets. And the Democratic Party has better stop being lazy and schmoozing around for press time on the major networks - and start exploring some new frontiers.

Haele

[imenja]

5. What do you mean by moving further to the right?

What issues are deal breakers for you?

[imenja]

6. Is it really necessary to so diligently plot . . .

the further demise of the party? Aren't they doing poorly enough to suit you as it is?

[WillyT]

8. Oh Please...

I was gonna post...

Just who do we throw overboard? Women, Gays, Minorities, Immigrants, The Disabled, The Workers, The Dis-Enfranchised, The Poor, The Homeless, The Persecuted, etc...

I didn't, because I thought that fellow Dems knew, that that was the Party they joined from the beginning.

Silly me.

[imenja]

9. how do they plan on doing that?

Why not focus on issues and values you see as crucial to the party? Let's think about what we want the party to stand for rather than who we can summon the most animosity toward.
DU are full of these kind of threads that are counter-productive. They undermine rather than enhance progressive goals. Focus on what you want changed and how, and communicate that to the party leadership. DU provides a great forum for us to discuss these kinds of questions, yet few want to do so. Instead people seem to want to spend all their energy talking about whom they hate. That doesn't bode well for the future of the party. It's up to US to change things. The party is at a crossroads and we have an opportunity to exert an influence in its direction, but that requires productive thought and conversation.

[WillyT]

10. I Agree That DU Is A Great Place To Hash These Things Out...

That is what we try to do here. But...

If we as a party are gonna, for example, join the middle\right against 'partial birth abortions' in order to get votes, then I want NOTHING to do with such a party.

If we are going to capitulate to the Flat-Earth thinking myopic pondscum that presents itself as the well-informed right, then I non-apologetically vomit and leave.

Let alone the fact that these idiots either don't know or don't care how SMALL a percentage the procedure correctly called Intact Dilation and Extraction is, when compared to total numbers of abortions. Nevermind that they are almost ALWAYS done with the life of the mother in mind, something that most hypocritical religious freaks and perverts are willing legislate right past. Argh...

If ANYBODY of any party wants to sit down and discuss, with science, statistics, common sense, and reason... I am there, in a love of country flash.

But to KNOWINGLY dance with the zealous jumpin Jehoshaphat's, and their moderate hand-maids, is appalling, and makes us all into...

Well... y'all fill in the blanks there.

:mad:

[AntiCoup2K4]

7. Fuck Marshall, From, Reed, and the rest of those treasonous DLC necons.

Anyone who cannot see the damage those assholes have done to this party since 1994 is just as blind as a red state Busheep who can't see how damaging his agenda is.

And it's no coincidence. The DLC is in with the PNAC Likud treasonists almost as deep as Junior is.

[WillyT]

12. Kick !!!

:kick:

[Mike L]

13. Greens are a joke.

[mandyky]

14. Anyone who voted change parties needs to check CSpan's

archive of today's show, the segment with Peter Beinhart, and consider cancelling subscription to The New Republic. I felt like I was kicked in the gut by about 1 1/2 hours of the Washington Journal today, all thanks to his article.

[formernaderite]

15. The republicans moved to the right and won...but not right away...

They knew they'd have to lose a few first after Goldwater. Centrists lack a cohesive message, and although it looks like a winnable idea, it just gives the republicans the opportunity to move further right and LOOK normal.
I'm not talking solely about the presidency either...but we're losing across the board with this strategy since 1992.
It particularly irks me that so many politicians are embarassed to state that they're liberal. I never hear right wingers shy away from their political leanings.

We have to embrace being progressive liberals and it may mean losing some more before we take back this country.

[nickshepDEM]

16. Think... Kennedy, Truman, FDR.... NOT Michael Moore, Barbara Streisand, PD

[sadiesworld]

18. Dead presidents vs. entertainers...

your point?

[nickshepDEM]

20. My point?

My point is that we need to embrace the democrats who made this country what it is today. Why are we embracing people like Michael Moor and P-Diddy instead of showing the American people the true roots of the democratic party. The average voter that doesnt come to DU (yes! there are democrats outside of DU) needs to be informed of the great things the democrats have done for this country in the past. And if they already know, we need to RE-INFORM them. Not lyrics from some rapper or films from some film maker. What have they done for the USA? What dues did they pay? Why are they shown as the new face of the Democratic party. Look all its over the news. MOORE HURT THE DEMOCRATS.

[sadiesworld]

22. "MOORE HURT THE DEMOCRATS"

What complete and utter BS. Just because it is "all over the news" doesn't make it true. The not-so-liberal-MSM is parroting a RW talking point, a talking point developed in an attempt to marginalize one of the few voices out there telling the truth about *.

The idea that Moore is the "new face of the democratic party" is equally ridiculous. You do realize he is a green, right? I'm sure he will be back to equal opportunity bashing in no time.

I'm all for "showing the American people the true roots of the democratic party". I'll be here waiting for that segment on the Sean Hannity show.

[nickshepDEM]

27. I believe that the average voter Democrat and Republican

looked at Michael Moore as an Anti-American. The average voter like my dad for example, a registered DEMOCRAT. He doesnt know all the bad things Bush has done. He is one of millions who still believe Iraq was involved with 9/11 because his president told him so. So, when he sees someone like Michael Moore who is not a political offical in anyway underminding the President during a time of war. He sees this as ANTI-AMERICAN. Therefore, he almost voted for Bush (before I talked him out of it) because he believed it was his duty to support the president in a time of war. This IS the mindset of the average voter who does not catch every headline that comes across the news or the internet.

[hughee99]

17. Know when to fold 'em...

I will fight for what I believe in for my party, but I will not vote for candidates, or a platform, that I do not. The true power to change anything in politics comes from the vote. A party will not abandon it's voting base, though it may sacrifice one group in hopes of gaining another larger group. I'm willing to compromise on some things, but not on core beliefs. If the Dems decide that they can get more votes by doing something that I am 100% against, I will do what I can to persuade them that this is not the way to go, and I will not vote for any candidate that stands by that proposal. If another candidate runs on a platform that I can support (regardless of their party), I would vote for them instead. If not, then I would write in someone else. I think it's important to vote in any case, just to let politicians know that there was a voter out there, who was willing to vote, that didn't support you.

[Bouncy Ball]

19. I'm not leaving the Dems

it's the Dems who are bending over and taking it and not screaming bloody murder that need to LEAVE. Now. Exit stage RIGHT.

This party is MINE and yours and yours and yours and yours.

FDR is probably freaking spinning in his grave.

[Lexingtonian]

21. voted 'Other'

I'm waiting until all this infighting is settled. I don't think the loudly overt ('DLC') or loudly latent ('D---') moderate-ish sorts will actually take control of the Party.

No following them, no bugging out.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).

[kentuck]

23. I think our base would be bigger in the present Dem Party than Green...

I would prefer we try to take back our own Party first.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. It's time to go and join the opposition.

The Democrats under the DLC have become the moderate (sort of) wing of the Republican party. They are in the process of committing slow motion suicide.

Green for me. It's easier on the nose.

[Walt Starr]

26. NO MORE NOSE HOLDING!!!!!

Even a millimetyer more to teh right, and I'm gone. I've had it with these wimpy ass corporatist bastards!

[nickshepDEM]

28. Yeah, vote Green.

Im sure they'll win a presidential election, one day. :eyes: