Dick Gephardt and Greg Craig had a price and special interests paid it. Therein lies the tale of a Democratic Party that has blown one of the great realigning landslides in political history, and stands on the brink of losing enough seats in Congress to destroy any hope of the change that voters demanded in the elections of 2006 and 2008.
Gephardt is a man I once believed could have been a great president himself. Craig is a man who has done much over many years for the values that make our country great, and was treated shamefully and shabbily by President Obama and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel during his recent removal as White House counsel.
The fact that Gephardt and Craig could make such runs for the gold reminds us that what should have been a historic moment of great national change in a presidency that could have been reminiscent of Roosevelt and Kennedy has become the latest shame of business as usual in Washington. It is the latest proof that even the best and brightest of the progressive insiders are insiders first, progressives last, when the big money beckons.
The greatest threat to the Democratic Party and progressivism in America is not Sarah Palin. It is not the tea party right. It is not the Republican Party. It is not Rush Limbaugh. It is not Fox News.
The greatest threat to the Democratic Party and progressivism in America is the lobbyist-industrial complex that always obstructs true change, always seeks to destroy the greatest programs for reform, and always poisons and corrupts whatever it touches with the corrosive stench of money that buys government and greed that destroys change.
The story is as old as original sin, and as new as the latest Senate fundraiser seeking campaign money from bailed out bankers while banking legislation is pending on the floor of the U.S. Senate. As Welch said to McCarthy: have they no shame?
Which is worse, a former governor buying sex with money while he heroically tried to prevent the scandal of our times, or a sitting Senator selling legislation for money, after tolerating the greed that caused the scandal of our times, and now seeking money from those who profitted from their greed, which tore apart the economy of the nation while the fundraisers continued unabated?
It was the Republicans whose philosophy of anything goes, laissez-unfair, Darwinian distortions of capitalism that have nothing to do with capitalism, or freedom, or democracy, that did the most to cause the crash of our times.
The sheer gall of Republicans wrapping this travesty in the flag of our nation, draped in the words of capitalism and freedom, is only exceeded by the sheer stupidity of Democrats who take money from the same interests, and fail to fight for the true reforms, and surrender the public outrage against economic injustice to the phonies and charlatans and yes, a fair number of bigots, of right wing partisans and what is called the tea party movement, who the patriots of Boston in 1776 would sue for slander if they were here today.
But it was the Democrats who created the conditions of the crisis when a Demcorat was President in the late 1990's and made a Faustian bargain with Republicans, fueled by Wall Street money, fomented by Wall Street greed, in a bipartisan destruction of the reforms put in place in the 1930's to prevent another Great Depression.
Here is a truth: the presidency that began with so much promise with Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger singing of freedom in the shadow of Lincoln on the Washington Mall became the secret meetings with hospitals and insurers that sold out the public option, and the exodus of thousands of Gephardts and Craigs from the mountaintop of a presidency that should have aspired to Kennedy, to the valley of pollution pouring money like oil from K Street to both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Working for leading liberals in Congress is now the farm team for the main event, rushing through the revolving door to seek riches from the law firms and lobbying firms and public relations agencies that serve the pharmas and insurers and bailed out masters of the universe who ask what their country can do for them, and take what they can while the getting is good.
This is the Democrats' lobbyist-industrial complex, as dangerous and destructive and real as the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about, so brilliantly.
The Republicans have the same lobbyist-industrial complex, but at least their shameless greed is consistent with their hideous and heartless ideology of anything goes, laissez- unfair where the rich get richer because they are supposedly better, and the poor get poorer, because they are supposedly not. They call it moral hazard when we try to help the poor, in their latest slander of the Sermon on the Mount, which they utter waving the American flag in one hand and the Bible in the other, understanding neither, and abusing both.
The President I worked so hard to elect is fond of saying, along with his accolytes who visit the cable news in the guise of being Democratic strategists, often taking Gilded Age money unknown to their viewers, that "the left and the right are both unhappy and this is good".
Well Mr. President and Mr. Emanuel, I will be damned if I will be equated in this public relations lexicon of triangulation alongside Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, as equal evils to be triangulated against by Democrats who insult the people who worked to elect them, and then wonder why many of these voters, insulted and demeaned once too often by Democrats they considered their friends, may not vote on election day.
Let me explain this plainly to certain Democrats in Washington who are slow to understand but quick to grab the money and celebrate themselves in the trappings of power they may well soon lose:
In a midterm election, it is the base stupid. It is the base, moron. It is the base, idiots. It is the base, fools. It is the base of progressives that is the only way to save the Democratic Party in November, and it is the lobbyist-industrial complex that is the surest way to destroy the Democratic Party in November.
It is time to sweep the stench of money from our poisoned government in Washington. Time for public financing. Time for lobbyist reform. Time to bring back the public option. Time to tax the Wall Street bonuses. Time to move more boldly to break up the banks. Time to disclose how bailout money was spent. Time to fight for jobs. Time to fight for new energy so that the solar panels and wind farms are not manned by those who speak Chinese.
Yes, Mr. President, and yes, Rahm, it is time to recognize that the left is right, and the right is wrong, about offshore drilling.
Progressivism stands in crisis. The presidency that began with so much promise stands on the brink of a gigantic and historic electoral disaster in November. Those of us who fought for real and powerful change did not fight to enable Democrats with the most greed to grab for the most bucks, in a corrupted system that creates outrage throughout the Republic and disgust towards both political parties.
Democrats have to understand with clear and courageous eyes that the lobbyist industrial complex that now permeates the party, and shares an ocean of corruption with the Republicans we condemn, is driving the party towards defeat and driving the nation towards a continuing disaster.
Democrats have to understand that they must choose, between those who elected Democrats to office, and those who exploit that election in this lobbyist industrial complex that will destroy the party of Roosevelt and Kennedy, and can bring Republicans and extremists back to power in a few short months.
Democrats must choose the hearts and souls, the spirits and aspirations, the small donors and hard workers who believe that Democrats must stand for, and fight for, an America that is a better and nobler place even if it is sometimes the hard and difficult thing to do.
Democrats should slam shut the revolving door against those who exploit their election victories as nothing more than another chance to get rich quicker, or the nation will leave Democrats behind, damned by history as the change that could have been, but never was.
One group are still supporting Obama and rationalizing Obama's actions and saying with a straight face what a terrific job Obama is doing. Then there's the rest of us, who generally agree Obama is, politically speaking, the devil. It is problematic that these two types of progressives can or even should try to join forces. Their differences are not at all trivial.
The bifurcation of the progs came into sharp relief when the healthcare bill was passed. All of a sudden, it was as if you had to decide whether to keep on defending the Dems (with particular reference to the Executive Branch), or give up and possibly quit the party. The Obama boat was leaving the dock, and progressives had to decide whether to jump onto the boat or stay on the pier.
I don't think this division amongst progs can be healed, because Obama and company have proven to be such bad guys politically that the mere act of defending them damages the party. This means the pro-Obama progressives are actively damaging the Democratic Party.
From taxes, to energy policy, to immigration, healthcare and whatever other idea you can come up with, President Obama camapigned on a position that often highlighted his "moderate progressivism". The man's Presidency had the "juice" to shifted the core paradigm of this country's center forever, from a center-right to center-left.
And, instead of supporting him, clowns like you kneecap the guy because he's not a socialist. truly sad
The American public did not rally to Barack Obama because he was calling for "liberal" policy solutions. The American public never called for Medicare for all, an immediate pullout of all our soldiers everywhere, the end of offshore drilling, the government nationalizing all the banks, or any other nonsense idea that you hold as dogma. The American public rallied to Barack Obama because he carried an clear message for his belief in a functioning federal government while also clearly presenting the limits of what the federal government could do.
He's taken fortunes in corporate campaign cash.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
And then you wonder why on issues like health care "reform" he threw away his campaign platform against an individual mandate to buy private insurance like it was yesterday's newspaper, and not only didn't stand up and and fight for a public option or Medicare buy-in, but actively worked to sabotage any form of public option as part of his unholy deal with the hospital, insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
The President may not be any worse than anyone else in D.C., but our corporatist President have proven through his appointments and actions that he is willingly part of this problem, not part of the solution.
"I have squandered my resistance,
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises."
Well, it's politics, of course. Yet, we've folded our aces at every opportunity -- never owning the argument, never standing on principal, drowning in the belief that bipartisanship would be our life raft when in fact it was 2 a.m. on the deck of the Titanic.
I am also reminded of the people slowly filling Grant Park. If they -- if WE -- are lost, the Democratic Party deserves to wander the politic desert. But before the conservatives with their broken moral compasses think their way is clear in November, I would advise them to revisit the night of November 4, watch the people fill the park again -- there is a yearning in America and it is NOT for the lies, fear and greed of the right.
This whole election and aftermath has been one of the most disappointing experiences of my life, and I am not 'young' anymore. More and more, I am seeing that we were lied to, and misled. Deliberately misled. No wonder young people are turned off by 'politics'.
"It is time to sweep the stench of money from our poisoned government in Washington. Time for public financing. Time for lobbyist reform. Time to bring back the public option. Time to tax the Wall Street bonuses. Time to move more boldly to break up the banks. Time to disclose how bailout money was spent. Time to fight for jobs. Time to fight for new energy so that the solar panels and wind farms are not manned by those who speak Chinese."
Make all candidates
sign a binding leagl contract,
to vote for outlawing all political contributions as the bribery they are,
and publicly financing all eletr4cions,
with free equal prime time for all candidates on the ballot.
second,
The DLC is conservative: "The model on which the Democratic Leadership Council was built was the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. Founded by "Scoop" Jackson Democrats in response to George McGovern's massive loss to Richard Nixon in 1972, the CDM was dismayed by two presidential election losses and the organization's
goal was to steer the party away from the New Left. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council
Grayson, Dean, Kucinich and much of the Progressive Caucus ARE real founding father type liberals.
Vote liberal in the Primary, and democrat in the election.
History is full of examples where sites of terrible social undoing have been destroyed in a conscious effort to repress the memory of evil deeds, and a superstitious attempt to prevent their recurrence. And so I suggest we raze K Street, ... leveling every office of every lobbyist, for the damage they inflict upon our government and thereby, upon our people.
So complete is the control of Lobbyists, that corporations now stand as equals to human beings, but with budgets that lay waste any chance of an honest discussion of election issues. Why would a member of Congress deign to see a constituent in their office, when the Lobbyists arrive daily by the dozens with sea chests full of campaign money to be placed on any subject the candidate, ... and they are always running for re-election, might suggest. No harm no foul, ... thanks to the Supremes.
I have written before that I held no expectations whatever for Republicans. But those of us who expended shoe leather on Obama's behalf, have every right to be disgusted with a large part of what we now see.
"It is time to sweep the stench of money from our poisoned government in Washington. Time for public financing. Time for lobbyist reform. Time to bring back the public option. Time to tax the Wall Street bonuses. Time to move more boldly to break up the banks. Time to disclose how bailout money was spent. Time to fight for jobs. Time to fight for new energy so that the solar panels and wind farms are not manned by those who speak Chinese."
So you're AGAINST all of that? What are you in the middle of? Watching Glenn Beck?