This is my argument against many of the efforts of the Democratic leadership Council (DLC) and those of the triangulating, tepid and greedy members of the Democratic Party. The DLC and its flock cozy up to corporate interests far too often in a manner that does not promote the common good–but certainly does benefit the DLC treasure chest.
I can hear it now so quiet down and actually think, not react–how does this make me an out-of-touch lefty? Or a radical leftist? Or whatever label the ill-informed, the lazy or the simply demogogic want to attach due to the intellectual paucity of their argument.
It doesn’t.
Employing common sense registers neither left or right on the political scale. I submit that one cannot fight for the public good while being monetarily subsidized by those financial entities who wish to subvert democracy for their own benefit. It’s impossible–conflicting masters cannot be served.
WHAT I WANT
I want laws and public policies that strengthen the commonweal, that benefit the lives of ordinary women and men. That is us, we are the majority.
I want citizen-legislators, not pols who bounce back and forth between government employment and lobbying for international corporations.
I want government enforcement of all laws against wrong-doing and malfeasance, regardless of the perpetrator’s political party affiliation.
The Democratic Party has a real chance for a national resurgence. But sadly, not because of what the majority of the party members have proposed, supported or accomplished but because of the immorality and ineptitude of the GOP.
Yes, there have been Democratic calls for a re-ordering of national priorities: raising the minimum wage, negotiating lower drug prices, implementing budget controls and the like. These are promising.
But the call for economic fairness, of restoring an equal playing field–a Democratic heritage, something the Democratic Party once stood for–has been deemed issue non grata because of the financial largess of corporate behemoths. Until this clarion call is issued, the Democrats remain part of the menage-a-trois of misconduct: the Dems, the GOP and international corporations.
This must end for an actual bona fide, trustworthy revival of the Democratic Party. Nothing less.
Read excerpts from a May 1, 2006 column by David Sirota in the San Francisco Chronicle that clearly delineates some of the above abuses::
…there no longer is a boundary between Big Business and government, and how our politicians are wholly owned subsidiaries of Corporate America…
…It is no longer big news when our own elected representatives aid and abet monied interests that are trying to crush ordinary citizens. Only when we start to consider it big news — and fight this takeover — will we finally get a political system that starts working for the public good…
Sirota notes:
* how the United States Treasury Department tag-teamed with IBM to smother pension plan legislation that would have required pension promises to be fulfilled
* how the release of a Commerce Department report on the effects of corporate outsourcing was buried by the Bush Administration until after the 2004 election and then replaced by a 12-page corporate-written summary highlighting the positives aspects of American jobs heading overseas
* how corporations are abusing bankruptcy laws to deny fulfillment of pension, wage and healthcare requirements to employees
* I am not related to David Sirota (never even met him) nor will I benefit in any way from promoting his new book Hostile Takeover. But let’s use his publication as a manifesto for re-inventing politics. Let’s try politics as unusual.
