Most recently the Moratorium has gained momentum with the lack of support to defeat Prop 8 in California and then the complete silence on Measure 1 in Maine. In the last couple of months high profile/large donors to the Democratic Party have been climbing aboard the "Don't Ask, Don't Give" movement. It grew even larger after the New York State Senate rejected equal marriage because 8 Democrats joined with the Republicans to defeat it. As one activist said, "Many of us just wanted to throw up. Democrats put out one hand to ask for money and with the other they stab you in the back".
And now the DNC has spent almost $500,000 on television ads for Sen. Ben Nelson in which he proclaims that he helped change the Health Care legislation to exclude the Public Option.
The question many should be asking is why they would pay for ads maligning the Public Option at the same time the party was rallying behind that very proposal. The Press Secretary for the DNC sent out a statement in response which basically said they had spent money to support Nelson and Lincoln and Dorgan and they will continue to do so.
They are supporting those who have been blocking passage of significant health care reform while the base wants them to be pressured to support it. Clearly these people are so isolated from the base of their party that they are going to lose it.
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4 comments:
Boo! Hiss! The Democrats have one value only - profits before people! And people are so far off in the distance they'll never be found.
I am totally disgusted with the Dems. And then there are the EVIL Republicans....
Thanks for this update.
In our study group we have been studying the scientific approach to phenomena. The guiding principles of science and Marxism-Leninism require that we look at each thing and see its history and what acts internally and externally to change it and understand that everything is in motion. Let's apply this to the Democrats as we apply this elsewhere. A particular move by the Democratic leadership may indeed disgust us---should disgust us--but can we find in the Democratic Party forces of change or not? How did the leadership arrive at this point and where is it going? Where is the De3mocratic Party as an institution going? Do we affect the Democratic Party positively or negatively with criticism that blankets the party? These are open questions that we should struggle with.
A class analysis of the Democratic Party is easy to do and very clear..clearer every day. And anyone who has spent any time working within that party knows that it is not democratic. Taking a look at the platform of the DP it is irrelevant to the interests they represent.
Unions on the other hand are clearly class based and democratic (generally). This is where our time and energy should be expended. My concerns are not how criticism of the Democratic Party affects them - but how it illuminates class interests...
Annski makes good points but I think that we would disagree about what a class analysis of the Democratic Party would reveal. Since most of the core forces that can create real change in the USA have, or seek to have, repreesentation in the Democratic Party (alongside of people who do pretty sleazy things on occasion) a class analysis is needed and needs to deal with the position of those core forces in the DP. If it truly offered no alternative or just offered illusions of change we would have higher numbers of people not voting and/or the creation of viable third, fourth and fifth political parties. I'm less optimistic about unions than Annski is, but I think she hits an important point when she highlights their importance and how criticism of the Dems affects the unions and illuminates class interests. That final point of hers is the deal clincher in any real conversation about workers' political power today.
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