Not One Penny More. Zip. - Democratic Underground

David Zephyr

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Mon Jan-04-10 06:44 PM
Original message

Not One Penny More. Zip.

Have you heard enough of the drumbeat already? What drumbeat? That would be the orchestrated drumbeat coming from the Democratic Party Apparatchik, that with very few variations is essentially this: left-wing activists, and much of what makes of the core of the Party base, must be "patient" "pragmatic" and "more understanding" with our "new" Democratic President and our Democrats in Congress when they go back on their word, when they break sworn promises and when they continue to promote Republican and reactionary policies themselves.

This Party Line paints the Left with quite an insulting broad brush these days as "irrelevant" or "spoiled" and, humorously, as essentially a group of "non-voters" within the "netroots" who don't "understand how Washington really works". And the Party Line has its paid propagandists and hired guns from phony progressives like Lanny Davis and Donnie Fowler to Harold Ford, Jr. and a host of others greased with corporate money who are providing the talking points to rank and file Democrats in order to gloss over the treachery of the Apparatchik's betrayal. And disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the Apparatchik has employed its own busy bees to work the the progressive blogs with their Party Line of predictable "cut and paste" justifications of imperialistic war-making, corporate sellouts, and compromise after compromise.

For in spite of their great protest and disdain of what they mock as "the non-voting netroots" and the irrelevant internet Lefties, the Apparatchik apparently is very worried about this modern marvel of unfiltered communications between Democrats hooked up on the internet. So worried that they have their phony "independent" posters employed working the blogs that they ridicule publicly, but sweat about among themselves privately.

But be warned, my fellow irrelevant netrooters, the same corporate financial largess -- that quietly purchased our government and, perhaps as much as 75% of our two party system and that gobbled up most radio broadcasting, television broadcasting and cable along with printed media during Michael Powell's heyday under they banner of "Media Consolidation" -- can just as quickly open up its weighty checkbooks to either buy off blogs completely or to purchase enough microphones at the blogs to disrupt them enough with their Party Line so as to make them ineffective.

Like Pirate Radio, we may soon have to have shifting Pirate Blogs.

Of course, aside from the Internet, all of this is nothing new to the Democratic Party. It's the age old war between progressive activists and our Party's politicians, the Establishment against the People. In not-so-polite company, many of us call this what it really is: class warfare, also known as "the history of all hitherto society." Yes, class warfare exists even within the Democratic Party. It always has.

The predictable thing is that this age-old tug-of-war within the Democratic Party is always so less obvious when Democrats are out of power. Why? Because Democratic politicians can pretend to be on the People's side because, after all, they are "powerless" to do anything anyway. Oh, but let them slide into those luxurious paneled offices, let them have that gavel to pound or that pen to sign laws into enforcement and my, oh my, do things change. Just like in George Orwell's "Animal Farm", the pigs begin to act and look just like the very humans they criticized and replaced. Funny how that happens, huh?

As long as Democrats are out of power, it costs our elected Democrats absolutely nothing to gin up the base with the old time religion of anti-war rhetoric we love to hear! These crafty politicians can pound a podium as good as a pulpit with their hell-fire and damnation preaching against the abuse of civil liberties here at home and the denial of civil rights to all Americans. Hell, even I fall into believing them. They can slip off those Brooks Brothers suits, slap on a pair of jeans and roll up their shirt sleeves and promise everything the Left has been denied for generations...because it costs them nothing.

When they are out of power, our Democratic politicians will swear how committed they are to protecting the reproductive rights of all American women and girls, they can rattle on that they are indignant at the second-class citizenship of gay and lesbian Americans, they are bombastic about American militarism abroad, they will rant and rave about how "uncivilized" America is not to have a single-payer healthcare system like the rest of the world, they will scowl and howl against corporate giveaways and loopholes and those "terrible" global trade deals! But like I said, it doesn't cost them anything, because they are not "in power" and can always drone and whine one of their favorite hymns "our hands are tied; we're not in power."

I have lived to see some real and measurable progress in my lifetime. But, as Professor Howard Zinn pointed out long ago, all progress in this nation, be it social, legal, environmental, civil, racial or economic has come from what he calls Direct Action by the people rather than from Electoral Action by politicians. The greatest American that ever lived in my eyes is still the former Frederick Douglass who said "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Politicians never concede power to the people unless they have to -- when a demand is made. Direct Action

I have given thousands upon thousands of dollars over my lifetime to Democratic Party politicians -- that's what I call them now, not elected officials, but politicians -- and I can now make the retrospective judgment that most of that money was wasted. I wonder to myself: what did all that money buy?

Still, this Old Leftie has a himself a "pragmatic" side, too. And in this Age of Pragmatism, I think I'm going to exercise it more.

So, this year, 2010, I have my own New Year's Resolution which seems sensible to me and yes, pragmatic:

I will not give another penny to any Incumbent Democrat who voted for all three of the following:

1.) The Iraqi War
2.) The Senate version of the current Health Care Bill.
3.) The Bush and Paulson Bailout

I don't see how anyone could say that I'm a pouty "purist" when I will let my fellow Democratic Politicians off the hook on two out of three of what I consider truly shitty votes.

So, here in California, I will cut Barbara Boxer some slack because she, along with a brave minority of a few Democrats who bucked the party, voted against Bush's illegal war. That single vote will allow my pragmatic side to donate to her Senatorial Campaign this year. Also, because Jerry Brown is not an incumbent Governor, I will also happily give money to his campaign. But, Senator Feinstein has three strikes against her and is thereby not eligible for my time or my money should she run for office again. Her war-profiteering husband surely can make up for my paltry absence.

Still, on the national stage, I will no longer give as much as a copper penny to the DNC or to any Democrat who has three strikes against according to my most pragmatic (and forgiving) policy.

They will not get one more penny from me again. Zip.

And, they probably won't need it anyway, they have their corporate sponsors now to take care of them.

And finally Happy New Year to all my fellow "irrelevant netrooters".