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Showing Original Post only (View all)It's time to examine where my loyalties lie, you judge, I'll just explain my position. [View all]
From my perspective, the party I joined thirty five years ago was a party I believed in and so gave my loyalty, It was the party of The New Deal, The Great Society and at the time I joined also the party of civil liberty and equal rights. I see a party in 2013 that is not that party. The question of my loyalty now becomes murky. I think my loyalty now only belongs to my class.So many here and in the party leadership are comfortable and this place of comfort has made them cold to the reality that is daily life for a great many people.
They make many assumptions from ivory towers of middle class or wealth with little awareness it would seem of those that are lower middle class (quickly falling into poverty even tho they work harder with multiple McJobs than they did before lower middle class meant poverty).
As to the poor - they seem completely oblivious to them and convince themselves that welfare reform didn't harm anybody, it did and does to this day I assure you, it was not a pragmatic solution to a "welfare queen" problem handled well because a Democrat helped to all but destroy it. It will not be a brave pragmatic solution to "earned benefit queens" as they collude yet again with republicans to begin to shred these last vestiges of the new deal and great society.
They cause the poor to become poorer still while applauding the politicians responsible. Their applause and support are what make them just as responsible as their political idols.
They think this is a game, or a sport with my team and their team, not realizing or caring that the ball that is tossed around in this sport is a child that only gets to eat at school and will soon lose that food, or the ball is an elderly widow or widower that can only afford to take their medicine every other day or maybe will freeze to death in a small flat during a winter they could not pay their gas bill (this happens ALREADY).
There are many other balls tossed around for their sport and amusement, too many to list them all here, some are dead or dying, some are living under a tarp in a vacant lot hoping the cops don't roust them or the suburban teanagers don't decide to slum it and amuse themselves by assaulting them while laughing and taunting the "bum" for cell phone footage. Some of these comfortable people give advice to "the poor that in fact do ok". One of them suggested dumpster diving as a viable and reasonable option.
Too many of them applaud policies and politicians that make all these problems worse, they need to get it through their heads, many are dying and more will die of poverty, this is no game and the poor aren't doing ok, they are doing worse all the time with less help available all the time.
It is not serious, pragmatic, or brave to cause more people to suffer and die in poverty because it is referred to flippantly as "eating peas" or "being adult". It is not pragmatic even when the ones shipping away the jobs or destroying welfare "feel your pain". It never was bravery, but cowardice. It is not balanced when an increasing number of people fall into poverty and die while others become wealthier at an exponential rate.
The punditry, politicians, and comfortable may think it is a fun sport full of serious brave adults that make hard decisions.
Cowards all really, making easy decisions, easy because their decisions don't harm them, but rather the poor they barely acknowledge exist for the profit of the wealthy.
Sometimes they even have the gaul to pat themselves on the back and reassure each other "the poor in fact do ok".
I feel very sincerely about these class and poverty issues, I give my loyalty completely to the forgotten, struggling and increasingly poor working classes that birthed me. You decide if that makes me disloyal to this board or the party that has all but forgotten us for donations and pyrrhic election victories, because I will fight tooth and nail against any one of you or any elected Democrat that is harmful to my class, in other words harmful to most of America.
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It's time to examine where my loyalties lie, you judge, I'll just explain my position. [View all]
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
OP
The 99% are stirring, we may overwhelm the bastards with numbers and take back our party
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#12
I completely agree with where our loyalties should be. And that the party we joined was the most
sabrina 1
Apr 2013
#5
I can see that people are waking up (except for in the bubblesphere of TV and DC)
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#10
That's true. It definitely did begin then. But we didn't have the internet then so it was less
sabrina 1
Apr 2013
#93
The way they use the term shared sacrifice is an insult to our intelligence and innate morality
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#15
This concept of voting on issues, not canditates, is brilliant. Seriously. Wish I
Stardust
Apr 2013
#109
We need to take this party over. They keep shoving us socialist progressive types
Cleita
Apr 2013
#38
Very interesting, there's a lot I didn't know about our history either and in many ways I have Bush
sabrina 1
Apr 2013
#42
TWO commies... Someone will be here shortly to accuse us of planning to take over DU!
idwiyo
Apr 2013
#31
I consider you reds allies, were it not for Communists the "New Deal compromise"
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#52
There are no differences between us really. Socialism and Communism is not something that can be
idwiyo
Apr 2013
#75
Personally, I love history but I've become skeptical about who to trust anymore. nt
Stardust
Apr 2013
#108
I don't know, but I hope it is not 'even more extreme poverty', that spark may involve
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#58
We could move a whole lot more of it if so-called Democrats weren't making Republican proposals
sabrina 1
Apr 2013
#45
'Con los pobres de la tierra'. With the poor people of this earth I want to share my fate.
Tierra_y_Libertad
Apr 2013
#29
I am WITH you, Dragonfli! New Dealer-bred, born in '49; it defines me and my politics.
WinkyDink
Apr 2013
#33
Think back to Obama's reaction during the State of the Union to Citizens United . . .
SleeplessinSoCal
Apr 2013
#40
I did. And he's blaming this President for things FAR milder than Clinton did...
Cooley Hurd
Apr 2013
#51
I didn't use his name, but who else "felt my pain" while exporting our jobs via NAFTA?
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#65
I read that you meant Clinton. Yes, yes he did begin the rightward slide of this party.
ancianita
Apr 2013
#70
He spoke about the downward slide of the Democratic Party over the past twenty years. I think that
sabrina 1
Apr 2013
#78
No, I was working while volunteering to help real poor people on the lower west
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#61
I'm sorry, I misinterpreted your post to mean I was wrong to criticise him and so
Dragonfli
Apr 2013
#71
Excellent heartfelt post, thank you for speaking up for the poor. So few do it any more.
sabrina 1
Apr 2013
#82
You're fine. I'm with you as a progressive social Democrat. I'm for constantly confronting the DLC-
ancianita
Apr 2013
#69
Maybe all of us should thank (or blame) our teachers who taught us to value principles.
AnotherMcIntosh
Apr 2013
#80
Our plight today is the far end of an unbroken chain of actors and events going
Egalitarian Thug
Apr 2013
#116
Those w/ the luxuries of job, home, health care, vs those who don't reveals how being comfortable
midnight
Apr 2013
#102
K&R for the weekend. More and more of us are coming to this understanding every day. n/t
Egalitarian Thug
Apr 2013
#111