I'm a life long Democrat...

[Javaman]

:rant:

Growing up on Long Island, I was one of the few, at the time, that continued to support the Dem's even while those around me had their political orgasm over ray-gun. I saw through his bullshit at the time and knew, one day it would come back to haunt us. And haunt us it has.

Now 30 years later. I'm still a Democrat. However, I'm a Democrat from the past and I'm now here to haunt you all

We have lost the house. Big fat deal. Why do I say that? Here's why: we have so compromised our principles as a party, that the things that I stand for: equal rights, pro-union, pro-choice, fair wage, people first, no corporate control, championing our basic freedoms, smaller military, a more efficient government, health care for all, etc, appear to have been so completely watered down and that we are now so far down the rabbit hole, that those traditional beliefs seem almost quaint.

I sadly shake my head in wonder. What is wrong with us?

Have we chosen the path of least resistance so as not to upset the apple cart of institutionalized politics? We have fell for the "keep our powder dry" crap for so long. I don't know about any of you, but I hadn't seen any of our Dem reps or congress people use any of that "powder". They were so into trying to "work with the repukes" that they failed to notice that their "powder" had blown away.

On the surface, trying to work with the repukes in a bipartisan sort of fashion, is very noble, but in reality, below the surface, it's fucking crazy. We are a polarized nation. Any one with an ounce of brains will see that.

Time after time, the repukes threatened a filibuster only for the Dem's to back down. Just on a fucking threat! WTF?

Some here saw what happened yesterday as, "what do you expect, when they don't listen to the base and side with the right wing?" or the other groups of, "wow, I can't believe that just happened".

Folks, politics is a full contact sport. The Dem's lost because they tried Queensberry rules in a cage match brawl. That certainly won't win you any fights. If they continue to feel they are above it all and don't want to get down to the level of the repukes, I have to sadly say, we are going to lose many more elections in the future.

Also, now that the repukes are in the majority in the house, will the Dem's now bend to their will instead of taking the same tactic that the repukes did by stonewalling everything we did? I certainly hope they do, but somehow, I don't think they will. We will then continue our slow and deliberate slid toward the extreme right. And perhaps much further.

The deal is this: we have to stop looking at trying to win just the next election. We have to look down the road. Have a plan for the next 6 elections. Game out scenarios in which we win or lose in various situations.

The current leap frogging from one loss or win to the other is killing us and will eventually kill us unless we change our perspective.

And not only do we have to plan for the future, we have to start encouraging young people to get involved, not just calling and walking, but running for various seats. They are the future. Period. We have to put people up to run, even when they don't have a chance in hell of winning and we still must support them. We have to start being competitive. All races have to matter. No more cutting losses.

The Democratic party needs a massive reform. The party of today, is very far cry from the party of old. As such, because we have moved so far from our roots of progressivism, the party of FDR is but a slogan and not a reality.

We are into a new reality of increase poverty, a growing gap between the haves and have nots, a much smaller voice for our own rights, etc.

And as such, instead of setting the agenda, we allowed the right wing to set it. And again, as a result, here we are.

Here is my plan. It's a very long term plan. Still very embryonic.

We support Obama for 2012. If he loses, we start a new party. Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) or the New Progressives Party.

This party would return to the core principles set down via the new deal. If a traditional Dem doesn't choose to adhere to those basic principals, we don't support them AND run someone, anyone from our party against them. Even if they lose, they are still out there punching.

While I find the half witted ball licking tea party morons...morons, they are at least trying (much easier for them with massive corporate support). We, on the left, belly ache and still put our eggs in the basket of a party that is eroding before our eyes. Eroding due to their willingness to compromise the Democratic Parties basic principals.

We lost big in the house, this should be a gigantic fucking wake up call to us all.

It's time to learn from our mistakes, and turn them into positives.

The Democratic Party of today is not the one I believe it. If Feingold and Grayson can be voted out, then we are in very big trouble. They are the ones who closest epitomize who we are as progressives. They are not gone. They may or may not return. If I was them, I would start a coalition of Progressives. From that, great things could grow.

I'm not done just yet. I will wait till 2012. It may or may not be too late by then, but I first want to see how the repukes shoot themselves in the foot.

When they do, and they will, it will be at that time we must push hard and continue pushing to crack their base. We had a massive opportunity this election and let it slip through our fingers. The traditional repukes and the ball lickers were at odds and the Democratic party did nothing to exploit that. This should have been a landslide for us, but because our party is afraid of attacking, we the base are left holding the bag of ineffectual campaigning based upon "what if's" and "fears of speaking out".

We have to stand up and stop backing down to right wing stupidity.

Because if we don't, I fear for our immediate future. And frankly, Victory Gin gives me heartburn.

:rant:

[OHdem10]

1. Amen!!!!!

[End Of The Road]

2. I'm a life-long Democrat, too...

I never found anything about the Republican Party with which I felt I could identify.

And now I'm having more and more difficulty finding things about the Democratic Party with which I can identify.

I'd be sad if I weren't so frigging scared.

[RKP5637]

3. RECOMMEND!!! n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. K&R

[hfojvt]

5. What's wrong with you?

You grew up on Long Island. You've gone country, back to your roots. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVAQqreCyeM

[hamsterjill]

6. The Things I Stand For, Too!

"we have so compromised our principles as a party, that the things that I stand for: equal rights, pro-union, pro-choice, fair wage, people first, no corporate control, championing our basic freedoms, smaller military, a more efficient government, health care for all, etc, appear to have been so completely watered down and that we are now so far down the rabbit hole, that those traditional beliefs seem almost quaint."

Those are my values, as well...and I see less and less of those values being given importance by the Democratic leadership. It's time we get back to the fundamentals.

And if Democrats are ever back in power again as they were for the last two years, they need to learn to USE that power and ram it down the Republicans' throats. The Republicans, after all, do that very well when they are in power.

[glowing]

7. I can only read history books. I was born in 1979.

I've only known crap. There has to be something to stand for and fight for so we can have some enthusiasm.

The gov went to Scott. The man should be in jail; he stole money taxpayers with Medicare fraud.

People didn't come out. People sat at home. GOTV was horrible down here. Today they need to start rebuilding a democratic Florida for 2012.

[Javaman]

9. Run for office. :)

You are quite a bit younger than me.

Run for a local seat.

We have to start pushing the message of "we can be better than this". Much better. People don't have to sit back and take it anymore.

My mission now is to encourage young people to take part and run.

[glowing]

60. I would love to. And I'm going to look into openings I might qualify for.

However, I'm in a very red area.. And messaging is tough. Florida isn't easy with no funding and dems that run the show who don't seem all that different than republicans at times. And it's such a transient state. It's tough.

[mike_c]

8. why support Obama in 2012?

I mean, I completely agree with most of your post, but that part seems hollow. Obama is part of the reason dems are in this mess-- it would only make sense to support him in 2012 if, between now and then, he becomes the sort of full on FDR style liberal democratic warrior that we need-- in essence, if he truly LEADS the charge to the left and helps us articulate a completely different vision for America's future. I just don't think that's likely. Do you?

And if he doesn't, why support his warming the chair for another four years?

In any event, I'm reconciling myself to the circumstance that I'm becoming a "tea-bagger from the left." I'm so discontented with today's democratic party that I can't even think of myself as a democrat any longer. I want alternative plans for the future-- genuine alternatives that will take the nation in a liberal direction, not just more democrats in power. I no longer WANT the America we've been living in for the last several decades. Frankly, I'm ashamed to be an American in that America.

The most compelling thing about your OP was the comment about the need to think strategically and for the long watch. THAT'S where we will consistently bump up against the consequences of staying on our current trajectory-- and by that, I don't really mean the back and forth sharing of political power dems and repubs are currently doing. I mean facing the long term consequences of our national values and our leadership priorities.

I knew the democratic party of today was lost when it tried to "fix" the current health care delivery system in this country rather than looking forward to a day when an alternative model made today's health insurance companies utterly unnecessary. We do not need a democratic party that is wedded to the mistakes we've already made or committed to maintaining power and privilege. We need a progressive party that fights for a different world, that seeks to make the world better by jettisoning the mistakes and misdirections of the past. We don't need to go forward-- we need to start over.

One criticism aimed at the tea-baggers-- legitimately, I think-- is that their anger is deepening but their set of solutions is vague and inchoate. They are becoming a potent engine for destruction, largely because they lack any real vision of what to rebuild after they've torn down the institutions that are the focus of their rage. That is what WE must avoid. We must build a progressive movement from the left whose focus is on building a different vision for the future rather than on having temper tantrums in the present. The tea-baggers simply want to tear down the state they perceive as antithetical to their philosophies-- they really don't have any coherent vision about "what then?" That's one of the things that makes them so dangerous.

We need to do better than that.

[Javaman]

11. I wil take Obama warming a chair over any repuke. that is way I will support him until 2012. nt

[mike_c]

15. ok-- I think we misunderstood one another....

I agree-- I don't think we really have much choice BUT to support Obama UNTIL 2012. I thought you meant supporting him IN 2012 for a second term. That wouldn't make much sense in the context of the rest of your OP.

Frankly, building a leftist movement will ultimately REQUIRE that we withdraw support from people like Obama who, when it is all said and done, are champions of the status quo and beneficiaries of it. We simply can't have it both ways.

[Javaman]

20. Life is indeed complex.

And like I stated in my post, this is still very embroyinic in it's concept.

A great many things are to be flushed out if this is a path we, as progressives, wish to take.

[bobbolink]

46. So, can we line up the steps of this new movement? Can we be RADICAL and get to the root of the

ills and define what is truly needed to mitigate those ills?

Can we do that?

[mike_c]

48. I think that is precisely what we need to do....

Like I said, I'm becoming more and more accustomed to the notion that I belong to some leftist analogue of the tea party. They seem to have become a political movement because their anger tapped into a broader dissatisfaction on the right, and because the press found them to be just the thing to create controversy and sell interest. But at the start, it was just a bunch of people who got together with regular conference calls to discuss their common angst and the changes they wanted to see. I think there is plenty of similar feeling on the left.

That is precisely what the left needs to begin doing-- creating an agenda for change and reform, complete with long and short term goals for changing national policy, at home and abroad. We need to start with some shared visions for a DIFFERENT America-- not a discussion about how to keep or wield political power, but first a clear liberal agenda. Unhappy with the nation and it's policies? What would a better one look like to committed liberals? That's where we should start. A new vision.

And I think it should be a REAL alternative vision, so radical is looking good this year.

One item: no corporate personhood, and we need to work toward democratic socialism in the northern european mold.

[bobbolink]

50. As long as poverty heads the list, I am IN. REAL issues, REAL ideas, REAL solutions.

I just today met another disaffected Dem, and he wants to discuss this.

I say, Strike. While. The. Iron. Is. Hot!

Seriously, there ARE a few of us.. we can do this.

edited to say... we won't have the fancy corporate buses, but..... ^_^

[mike_c]

51. poverty needs to be at the top of the list of issues we're concerned about....

Poverty creates many of the problems that the right exploits to achieve it's soul-crushing objectives. I wrote somewhere else today that stopping the wars immediately would free up something like a billion dollars a day to invest in America. Imagine what we could do with that kind of support for social reform.

[bobbolink]

53. Every Federal dollar of Food Stamps returns $1.74 to the local economy.

You see? We have the beginning of a movement!

Lets roll with it!

[LiberalEsto]

58. +1 nt

[Historic NY]

10. A new party is the answer? Not, it never works out, history is littered with them.

[Javaman]

12. So what do you suggest? more of the same? nt

[Historic NY]

14. Your hope to sphion off voters from Democrats will only sink you deeper...

no third party has been a force ever beyond Ross Perot. Whats the last election the Green Party captured?

Ny used to have a Liberal Party is long gone
The Independence Party has been hi-jacked by the GOP

[Javaman]

16. Still you offer no alternative suggestion. I'm still waiting. nt

[kick-ass-bob]

17. We have 4 unofficial parties right now, encompassed into 2.

Hell, maybe it's even 3, but probably not.

We have the left (Feingold, Kucinich etc), we have the moderate slight left leaning (blue dogs? Obama?), the right leaning (name someone), and the far right (teabaggers).

As we can see, we don't have to have a real party, just a movement within a party. Regardless of how successful teabaggers were with their candidates, some were and are now in office, and it got them out to vote. "Hey! That's neat! We have a party!"

One key is to target those seats with our own 'party' so the choice are the crazy-cakes who will most certainly implode on themselves so we are the good alternative.

[Javaman]

21. Well stated. nt

[Hell Hath No Fury]

13. I can barely recognize the Democratic Party these days.

There are certainly individual members who I respect, but, as a whole, the Party leaves me uninspired and unimpressed.

And if they spend the next two years selling me down the river in order to "compromsie", I will be done with them for good.

[Howler]

18. True. n/t

n/t

[Catherina]

19. I was with you until "support Obama in 2012". Sorry, no can do. n/t

[Javaman]

22. Please, expound on your reply, I'm curious. nt

[Catherina]

24. To quickly quote you

(because my ride is almost here), "The Democratic Party of today is not the one I believe in".

I agree with that statement and, in my opinion, that's because New Democrats like Obama are heading it.

Obama is no progressive and not even a liberal. The Clintons were right about him being an opportunist who just had a pretty speech. We got snowed by a pretty speech masking itself as antiwar. We got snowed big time and I won't do it again.

Mr let's-drop-drones-on-kids-in-Pakistan can not count on me no matter how many crumbs he starts to throw in the next two years.

My ride is here. Later.

[Javaman]

28. I agree with what you are saying...

For a long time, I have been slowly moving to thinking more like an Iconoclast. Prior to Obama, I had pretty much given over to that concept.

Obama came along, he was a breath of fresh air initially, via his ability to orate.

I'm not so naive to believe that Madison Ave doesn't play a huge role in promoting and marketing the brand of president, however, I did believe that given the previous 8 years anything could be better than what we had.

So, I put aside my iconoclasm for the moment and supported Obama.

I hate both wars. I also hate the rhetoric that gets played as fact in the public arena; in regards to our foreign policy.

While I supported Obama's initial domestic policy (much as changed since then), I never supported his continuation of bushes* foreign policy.

And as a progressive, I am for immediate withdrawal, but as a realist, I also am aware of the mess that we created over there and pulling out immediately would cause a massive vacuum. In the end, because of corruption and lies, poor policy, stupid decisions, and the over arching influence of the military industrial complex; pulling out right away, sadly, doesn't appear on the radar.

Wars are now a fundamental part of our economy. And I think, what some people are trying to do, is figure out a way to withdraw and not completely destroy what is left of our economy.

There is no easy answer.

But for me, the answer is, time for something new. Where wars aren't the answer, were the military doesn't soak us all for 50%+ of our taxes and were we the people take importance over corporate interests.

Believe me, I do completely understand what you mean.

[laughingliberal]

23. Good post. One thing, though, is it's not always about 'working with the Republicans.'

Our party now contains vast number of true believers who drank the supply side, pro-bidness koolaid.

[Matariki]

25. Your narrative that nothing progressive has been accomplished, is part of the problem.

sure, there have been disappointments, but a lot of good has been accomplished as well.

http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/

[Javaman]

31. While I agree with this on the surface...

there has been basically no immediate effect upon the average person.

Let me ask you something very simple

Virtually all the TARP money has been paid back, virtually all the bailout money to the car industry has been paid back, why then, isn't that same money now being used to create a jobs program for the people of this nation?

This is my point about the Dems of today (speaking of congress people) they are so apt to help the corporations but give short shake to the people.

Not a few economists have been writing about creating a WPA type works program or even a CCC, but alas, nothing has even been tabled. Nothing has been promoted. Even if hints are dropped, it's quickly quelled.

Obama's first 6 months were very good, but soon after it sort of pancaked. Why is that? what was different between that first 6 months then those that followed?

It's been said that Obama is working on policy and not politics. That's fine, but in the real world, politics is what gets votes and politics is what invigorates ones base.

Calling people the professional left or "retards" does not exactly inspire people to support.

We as a nation are dangling from a rope and all they push out are stats. Stats are fine, but any statistician will tell you, stats are only as good as the people who is pushing them. The reality is: we still have heavy unemployment that hasn't gone down and welfare and unemployment rolls are going up.

He did some good stuff off the bat, but the things that matter to the average person, like jobs, need to happen now.

[a la izquierda]

26. I'm only 33...

but I'm with you 100%. I bawled my eyes out last night when I heard about Grayson and Feingold. I don't live in either of their states (I live in Oklahoma, lord help me), but they meant something to me as a progressive. Their losses affected me deeply.

[a la izquierda]

27. I'm only 33...

but I'm with you 100%. I bawled my eyes out last night when I heard about Grayson and Feingold. I don't live in either of their states (I live in Oklahoma, lord help me), but they meant something to me as a progressive. Their losses affected me deeply.

[Uzybone]

29. How will this new party be started?

The tea baggers and their ilk have plans and execute...we just have aspirations..

[Javaman]

32. Like I said...

It has to start with putting people in races. Run for local spots, build from there. Stand by ones principles. Be inspired by Senators Grayson and Feingold. I have met both men, they were the real deal. No BS.

I'm not saying be a belligerent idiot, (the tea baggers have that cornered) but don't back down in the face of abject stupidity.

We are smart enough and clever enough to deflect even the most hardened attacks.

Young people need to believe that they can make a difference. If they are lost we all lose. They have to carry the torch, they have to light the fires and they have to revive what we all have lost.

[Historic NY]

35. I live just north of NY city in a county where Dems outregister Reps..

and we can't even elect a Democrat to an assembly seat. Mind you there are 3 cities here. If Democrats won't elect Democrats, what makes you think your will get elected? My entire town has been red since 1982. We have had phony insurgencies where a Repuke runs as a Dem and then changes back.

Lofty goal, perhaps gaining local control of the party will lead to change, bucking the tide won't.

[Javaman]

37. It's not a lofty goal.

You just have to keep trying.

I find it odd, that you consider not giving up a lofty goal.

It takes pressing the message, pounding into people.

It may not work the first, second or third time, but you have to keep pushing it.

People, when spoken to reasonably and have propaganda refuted, will come around.

[Jackpine Radical]

36. The Teabaggers also have Koch money, etc.

I don't see any sugar daddies in the wings for a progressive movement.

[Javaman]

38. So just give up, right? nt

[Jackpine Radical]

43. Wrong, of course.

Pointing out a problem is not the same thing as giving up. I think the changes we need to make are very deep ones. The reality is that we, both the nation and the world, are speeding toward a wall, and the election just accelerated us toward that wall. Many things are coming to a head simultaneously, or nearly so: Peak oil, global climate change, collapse of the American (and perhaps European) middle class and factory-based virtual enslavement across the Orient, etc. Whatever we are going to do, we need to do it quickly.

[Javaman]

47. Anyone can point out the problems

it takes creativity to come up with a solution.

you are passionate. Give a solution some thought.

I refuse to give up.

[WillyT]

30. + 1,000,000,000... What You Said !!!

K & R !!!

:kick:

:hi:

[reggie the dog]

33. sounds good to me

[Laelth]

34. Well said. k&r n/t

-Laelth

[felix_numinous]

39. K&R

[vietnam_war_vet]

40. Your observations ring true in our household.

Thank you. My wife and I are both life-long Democrats. We're both educated (M.Ed for me and Ph.D in Deaf Ed for her), intelligent, informed, and able to do what an ever-increasing number of our citizens seem no longer able to do: think critically.

My wife sincerely wishes that the Republicans win the White House and a majority in the Senate in 2012. Then, she'll just wait for the Republican amoral leadership to complete the job that Bush/Cheney started: the literal bankruptcy of our country. She feels that only then will our citizens finally wake up and smell the coffee concerning the Republicans.

Her "Plan B" is for us to just move out-of-country -- Canada or Chile are leading contenders.

As for me, I've always been very diligent about doing my civic duty and voting in every election, from small local elections to national ones. How could I not do so after two tours of duty in the Vietnam War.

I now feel that my participating in the just completed Midterm 2010 elections will be my last time voting. Our two-party political system is dysfunctionally broken and now controlled by amoral corporate mega-bucks (thanks to SCOTUS Republicans and the United decision). That's it for me. No mas. -- Michael

[derby378]

41. Hear, hear!

It's time to take our party back. Tim Kaine must resign as head of the DNC.

:applause:

[Optimistic]

42. Well If the Tea Party can

Then we can to.
The good news is I saw a poll that age 18-29 voted 69% voted Democratic, So their is hope for the future

[ElsewheresDaughter]

44. I'm almost 60 and for the first time in my live I give up...I quit!.....

fuck it....America gets the government it deserves!

I have knocked on my last door, I have manned my last phone bank and I have cast my last ballot!

I'm weary and weeping.

but when I heard President Obama and Harry Reid speak about compromise and bipartisanship today...it was the final straw.....and I weep.

[Javaman]

49. This is why we progressives have to teach the youth and inspire them.

to make them understand that things can get better, it just takes hard work.

It's we progressives that continue to feed into a machine that quells our voices that frustrates us.

I know you are tired, I am as well, but I will be damned to allow my actions to continue to feed into the continual dismantlement of our rights.

We regret what we didn't do, not what we tried.

give it a few days, perhaps, you will give my post another read then. :)

[sulphurdunn]

45. Liberals need to start forming your PDP now.

By 2012 it wouldn't be able to win an election at the national level. However, if it represented 5 to 10 percent of the vote (and it easily could), it could possibly determine which party does win. That's minority power, and it would make the power brokers in both parties piss their pants.

For the sake of the future of our republic and of our children, it's time to let the Democratic Party know that the support of liberals is conditional and that liberal voters can and will turn national elections by either voting for the party that represents their interests or by undermining the party or parties that don't. Semper Fi. :patriot:

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. What you are calling is for MOVEMENT politics

something not seen in the US for decades...

And it is high time people do this... not in 2012, but now.

Several of us have pointed this out already.

Oh and I will hate the flames, but believe it or not, NOT all tea partiers are your enemies. The leaders yep... the funders, absolutely but some in the base are populist are pissed and would take ANY effective populism...

[GeorgeGist]

54. Perhaps Obama should compromise ...

and become a Republican.

[opihimoimoi]

55. I am also....my father taught me the difference...he was right...they are selfish pigs

[bullwinkle428]

56. Michael Moore suggested the genuine possibility of a 4-way

Presidential race in 2012, if very little changes between now and then.

[Angry Dragon]

57. K&R

Count me in

[The Uncola]

59. I'm in, but I propose that we push...

..for Obama to NOT run for a second term, and if he does, mount a dedicated, serious primary challenge to unseat him. He IS the face of the Democrats biggest problem, capitulation. Quite frankly, I think that if Progressives don't seize control of the Democratic Party within the next year, it's over. This Nation will slide into something we don't even want to consider.