Woke up with a MAJOR hangover this morning. Was sitting in front of my computer last night till the wee hours, swilling vodka, and spewing rant all over the Alito threads.
I mean, let’s be clear. This was a BIG one, and we lost. And frankly, all the talk about well, we put up a good fight, it was a longshot anyway, hey we got 25 Senators to vote for a filibuster — it doesn’t get it for me. I long ago gave up on “moral” victories; there are no moral victories, only moral defeats.
And there is no satisfaction to be gained from them.
The even sadder thing about all this is that this was a winnable fight. With planning, with coordination, with discipline, with focus, with LEADERSHIP, we could have sent this right-wing radical back where he came from. A President who is recognized by the majority of the people of this country as an abject failure, nominates a judge whose views are soundly rejected by the majority of the people of this country, a judge who lied and obfuscated his way through his confirmation hearings, who will now proceed along with his radical right-wing cohorts on the bench to roll back decades of settled law and social justice, who will slap down ordinary citizens who have been wronged or hurt by corporations, who will provide any legal fig leaf to cover this administration’s totalitarian gonads, and our “leaders” in Washington failed — FAILED — to stop him.
Yeah, I have long since given up on expecting anything more from them, although I participated in the futility of phoning and emailing my Senators (at least MY two — Leahy and Jeffords — were among the 25). Yeah, I knew it was futile, but a part of me tried to believe — WANTED to believe — that maybe because this was so important, we might just pull off the miracle. No such luck. Knowing the outcome beforehand didn’t make the letdown when it happened any easier.
Hence the vodka-swilling.
But that was last night. Today comes the question of what do we do now. MSOC is fed up with the Dems and is planning to become an Independent. Boston Joe wants to start a third party.
Me?
I’m doing two things.
First, I plan to stay in the Democratic party. This is not MY party any more; hasn’t been for years in fact. It belongs right now to those jerks in DC. I’m gonna work to take it back from them. I’ve never in the past defined my political activism in strictly “party” or electoral terms. I still don’t, but the total failure of Dem establishment to put up even a minimum of a fight on something as important, as crucial as we have just been through, tells me I need to pay more attention.
Dean’s got it right; rebuild the party from the grassroots. Reshape the party into what it needs to be: a voice for the common people against the onslaught of corporate greed, a defender of social justice and a citizen’s right to be safe and secure in his or her home and possessions from the prying eyes of Big Brother government, an advocate for fiscal responsibility that fairly balances the spending priorities of the government and fairly apportions the burden for paying them, a strong defender of the security of our country and its citizens that recognizes that national security is more than macho posturing and military hardware.
I’m tired of those who keep trying to tell me that I have to dilute my principles to create a big tent. I’m all for a big tent, but you gotta pay the entry fee. I don’t need or want Ben Nelsons and Robert Byrds in MY Democratic Party.
That brings me to the second thing I plan to do. The thing I begrudgingly admire about the Repugs is that they enforce discipline on their members. Toe the line or there’s retribution. It’s time the Democrats did the same. I will remember yesterday’s vote. Every DINO who sold out their party, who sold out their country will be targeted. I will work my ass off to see every one of those traitors politically defeated. Maybe it won’t be this election cycle, but, as they say, revenge tastes best when served cold.
Payback’s a bitch. I’m gonna pay those traitors back, and take back MY party in the bargain.
I hope you’ll join me.
I’m an independent and I plan to register as a Democrat. I realize I won’t get the candidates I want unless I participate more than I do now. Writing and posting at blogs isn’t enough.
I guess that’s where I’m at too.
Thanks for posting.
Well, what do I say that you havent already said! I am an Independent and will reamin one till the last breath I take. I have been one all my life. I do fight the fight with the democrats tho.; otherwise, why would I be here! You are right withthe payback thing. I have been telling my democrat friends to fight fire with fire..not cold water. They have got to be come outspoken and really mean it from the bottom of their hearts. They look at me like I am some radical from hell! That goes to show me anyhow who they are! and what they are made out of! What can I say…I know….. anyhow, thanks leftvet for your input. It never hurts to say how you feel….
We’re not radicals. The Bushies are radicals.
We are mainstream Americans fighting for the American way of life that they are trying to take away.
I did not say WE are radicals..I said they look at me like I was a radical. I know differently tho. Yes the busies are radical..actually they are insane radicals.
Sorry, but I am a radical, big time–and people who are calling the Bushies “radicals” are just flatout wrong about the meaning of the term.
Radical means “going to the root of the problem”, so please don’t throw it around as if it were a bad thing.
And frankly, one reason the dems are losing support is that, instead of moving to the left (in the direction of us LEFTIST radicals who, because we want to go to the ROOT of the problem, have mostly thrown in the towel on politics altogether), they keep moving further to the center/right. What do they think? Do they think they’re going to win over REPUBLICANS? (Ok, let’s be naive!)
Left-wing intellectuals who have extensive experience in Europe, for example, know that the American “left” would be considered center/right in Europe. From that perspective, there is NO Left left in this country.
Someone somewhere (don’t recall who or where, only that it was here at Boo) posted something today about going after NON-voters–and that’s a strategy point I’ve addressed many times over.
Well, who are the non-voters? Most of them are on the far LEFT. As the political spectrum has shifted ever further to the right in the past 20 yrs, those folks basically fell off the radar–and many of them quit voting .
One thing is clear: the repugs have de facto mobilized ALL the votes and voters they can ever hope to get. They have tapped ALL their resources.
The dems have not done so: in fact, they’ve managed to alienate voters on the far left by becoming more and more and more and more like the right.
Getting NON-voters out is key. Non-voters on the left. To do that, the party is going to have to learn to live with “radicals” like me. And if they can’t, my question: what the hell you gonna do with us? What’s your plan for us left-wing radicals? Are we supposed to rot in hell? What? Where do we fit in the Dem scheme of things?
Or are you just going to keep berating us for voting Nader? Or Perot? Or anyone who, from our perspective, is getting closer to the root of the matter than either of the two prongs in the current one-party system?
Going to just keep blaming us for the fact that Dems lose the elections? Gonna just keep blaming us for telling the dems: hey you’re not representing my interests, or are you going to give something to vote FOR?
If not, what do you suggest we do with our “radical” agenda–that is, the agenda that would like to fix the ROOT problems rather than continue working within the same busted system? Are we supposed to STFU? Quit voting? Yeah, most of us have done one or the other or both. I have done neither, and won’t.
But it’s a serious question, one that I have posed again and again: what is the Democratic plan for the disenchanted folks on the left? The left-wing intellectuals, for example, who’ve quit voting b/c they see no difference between right and left? American Indians who don’t vote for the same reason? Other minorities, (the contingent of Black citizens who have stopped voting because they don’t feel represented, for example, is HUGE.)?
What’s the plan for us? Who do you suggest we support if we cannot in good conscience support either of the two candidates offered by the one-party system?
(End of rant. But indeed, I would like an answer to this question.)
There was a group of college students in the eighties- called-Lead or get out of the way.That is what I am feeling right now.
is:
You guys haven’t led. You FAILED as leaders.
I and my friends are gonna KICK you out of our way.