The reality that the most important quality right for our party leadership is the ability to "reach across the aisle." That is right next to the quality of being deemed acceptable by Republicans.
The reality that some matter more than others when it comes to decision and policy making. In true reality, only a very few matter. Again, it has been that way forever...it's hard to get them to listen to what progressives want. Witness the Iraq War, the bankruptcy bill, the FISA fiasco to name a few.
The reality that even though we as activists and progressives and liberals are needed at election time, we get little say in between. Not really complaining, that's just the way it is. Some lately have said I am too negative. I don't think of it as negative, I think of it as facing the political reality that we really are only necessary at times.
The reality, the hardest to accept, that our party instead of investigating the harm done the last 8 years is planning a more conciliatory theme. The reality that we worked so very hard to save Social Security from Bush's privatization schemes....only to have to save it again from the conservatives in the Democratic party. I hope I am wrong there, I hope it just involves some tweaking of the levels of what is paid into it. It sounds like more, though.
The reality that someone who got the party off its butt in 2003, making it possible to stand up against Bush who appeared invulnerable at that time, who was instrumental in major wins in 2006 and 2008....could be shuffled off to the side so easily. Just as though he never was on the scene. Like he had never been.
It was a dark eight years, especially near the beginning of Bush's appointment by the Supreme Court. It was a time of feeling hopeless. So when we sensed hope in 2003, we really got excited, perhaps naively so.
In 2000 all was good in my mostly Republican family. They were fine, we were fine, we never discussed politics. They were all in love with Dubya...one even sending us a photograph of himself with George W. They all called him Dubya, and they all listened to Rush. Trouble is I did not know they considered Rush the final word on all things. I found out soon enough.
During the 2000 recount, a relative called and said "can't you idiots there in Florida get it right?". Those were dittohead words, but I did not know it then. After that there was a time where things were strained, but 9/11 sort of brought us all around again.
I was naive enough to think that since two lines of my family were military, officers, that they would just know we were attacking the wrong country when we voted to invade Iraq. I made the mistake of mentioning it. No, they did not know that. They thought Iraq caused 9/11. Oops. That decision of mine to discuss it with them led to years of division, and years of silence among us all.
The divides were deep. Naive me, I had thought that if I presented facts about the lies Bush was telling that my congressmen would wake up....that my family would see what was happening. What an error that was. I never listened to talk radio, and that was my mistake. I did not realize what others were hearing, I did not know how the radio hosts were doing propaganda about the war.
The family has finally began to sort of make peace since the country began to fall apart, when there was no more denying what harm had been done. I had a harder time coming around by then...because I had finally realized that college-educated intelligent family members were fans of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. We are all still trying, but not quite there yet.
From a naive sort of hopefulness to happiness that we have a good president...to realizing that that now progressive groups are meant to help push and echo the president's agenda. That's a good thing in some ways, but for those of us who started speaking out and thinking independently when our own party helped take us to war....it's kind of hard to accept.
I miss the empowerment.
When Howard Dean started his campaign we got on board from the earliest beginnings. We felt empowered, like we really could matter, like we could change the party from one that acquiesced to an incompetent president to a party that proudly stood up for what was right.
And we did
acquiesce, often and a lot, to the Bush agendaIt was not just Dean's opposition to the war, it was the fact that we saw someone on TV who was talking in plain language. It was not just about Iraq, it was about the fact that someone actually admitted we had enabled the Bush policies to succeed by refusing to take stands against them. Just talking in a common sense way about things which had been so much discussed in memes and talking points. He said a lot of things people didn't like. They especially didn't like it when he said we were no safer with Saddam capture. It was considered heresy, even within our own party.
As we learned of the torture going on, as we saw the bodies of Saddam's son displayed so blatantly on our TV, as we saw the botched hanging of Saddam....I figured people would really start speaking out then. Surely they would see the outrage. Very little changed.
After the campaign was over, we still had hope. We worked with the DNC and DFA actively, still believing what we did mattered. It was about empowerment and it was about inclusion. We felt a part of things. We felt politically included and felt like it mattered.
It wasn't just Iraq. There were other things. The taking away of our civil rights to make us safer. Our party went right along with that. There came the fearmongering, the terrorist talk, and the utterly simplistic method of playing to the least educated among us. The flag waving, the Bible thumping. It worked. Both parties did it.
Fear is a powerful weapon indeed.
We had more hope after we took back Congress in 2006. It was an exciting time. We were feeling good about ourselves for contributing to the wins by our party. But then suddenly a man named James Carville went on TV at least twice saying Dean had failed and must step down. He implicated the Clintons and Rahm Emanuel in his attacks, and no one ever denied.
We still hung in there, donating monthly to both groups..the DNC and DFA. We still thought we could be important to the party and bring change to it.
Then when we won even more seats in the House and more in the Senate and took back the White House in 2008....we felt good about it. We thought efforts would be recognized and appreciated. It seemed natural that someone who devoted four years to help bring that about would at least be mentioned by name by party leadership.
The rest is history...and the chairman was not even invited to be at the changing of the DNC guard.
Alternet about DeanWhatever the case, it's appropriate that Dean spent his last day as Chair of the DNC not in Washington, but in the South Pacific, visiting Democrats in
the U.S protectorate of Samoa. His visit to the micro territory was the final piece in his jigsaw puzzle of his promise to visit every Democratic organization on U.S. soil, the perfect capstone to a tenure defined by his goal to build up the party from sea to shining sea, in states ranging across the red-blue spectrum (and, in the case of Samoa, beyond.)
....In reflecting on Dean's legacy, the most obvious place to start is the
current Democratic trifecta. As was given cursory mention in his absence in
Washington, Dean leaves office with the Democrats in possession of both
houses of Congress and the White House. When Dean ran for president in 2004,
Karl Rove was speaking seriously about a permanent Republican majority.
Today, it makes more sense to speak of a permanently shrinking Republican
minority.
We went from despair in 2000, more despair for our country when we invaded Iraq. We began to feel hope from the Dean campaign...like we were included and mattered. The inclusive feeling was the secret of the enthusiasm. The party leaders failed to see that, and they have yet to understand.
We saw that the strategists and consultants just went on TV and sent messages to the upstarts who thought they could change things.
The reality set in. The reality is we have a very fine man as president, but his administration appears to have shut out one of the main architects of the party's great success the last 4 years. The DNC now is the keeper of Obama's huge files. It's goal is to push his policies. That's how it has been through the years. That's how it will be. It's not a bad thing at all, but it is hard for some of us not to express our opinions.
The media which for years has used the talking points of the right wing...has made the Democratic leaders afraid of those who are outspoken. Fearful of those who say things that offend Republicans. It has made the Democratic leaders able to all too easily ignore the "liberal" "activist" wing of the party.
Can they ignore us this time? Can they only give lip service and keep the activity and excitement going?
We will matter again mightily in 2010 and 2012. But unfortunately, the ones who matter more right now are the ones who got us into this mess. The "moderates", the "centrists", the "corporatists".
No longer politically naive, just seeing the reality.
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