Reply #45: how?

[m berst]

Great post mzmolly, very passionate and well explained.

I have been a Democrat for 40 years. 40 years ago my positions were not considered too radical nor "far left" nor was I derided and ridiculed as being on the fringe. My positions haven't changed, so something else must have. It was not until recently that I have had other Democrats tell me "don't let the door hit you on the way out" when I dared to point out the rightward drift of the party, or told that I was a whiner or a crybaby or a purist.

It was not until recently that I had to defend social security, the progressive income tax, protection for labor from unfair foreign competition, the fallacy of the "free market" concept, and dozens of other issues to fellow Democrats. I can argue the liberal and traditional Democratic party view on these issues well, because I have been arguing with Republicans on these issues for decades. I never thought that I would be arguing with Democrats about them, and now when I do I am accused of being divisive or of preventing unity.

There is no arguing principle in the face of this horrid doctrine of "practicality" though, because the people you are arguing with start with the position that you are wrong. That means that there is more resistance among Democrats to liberal ideas than there is among Republicans. Since I am defined as "far left" and since that automatically means impractical, and therefore delusional, there is no reason for them to listen to me at all. At least Republicans will listen.

People say, well, too bad, you can't have what you want, and the Democratic party is still not the Republicans, and you have no choice in any case. Well, I can be "not Republican" and "not get what I want" without any help from the Democratic party, can't I? If I have no choice, then why choose at all?

It seems to me that the party left me. So be it. I am not whining - God, I am tired of hearing that one - nor arguing.

We may be witnessing the death of liberalism, and there may be nothing we can do to stop that. For me, that makes politics irrelevant and no longer of any interest. The death of liberalism doesn't represent merely "losing" political elections to another political faction. It represents the death of civilization and a return to feudalism. If that is where we are headed, then we can get there without wasting any time on the party. We would better focus our efforts on surviving the slide into the Dark Ages or building a true liberal movement, would we not? Sooner or later, when sewage is running in the streets, people are starving and the population is illiterate - those were the pre-liberal conditions - people will be ready for liberalism again.

I have this unfortunate image now of the Democratic party. They are the ones who hold my arms behind my back while reactionary right wingers pummel me.

During the campaign, there were Democrats saying "we will get to all of those issues after we accomplish mission one - ousting Bush! Right now we need unity and practicality." Well, the campaign is over. Why is the practicality, run-to-the-right, abandon traditional liberal positions, unity talk worse than ever now from those same people? I call that bait and switch and I think we were lied to by many people, while we gave our loyalty, our labor and our money to the effort.


on edit - a word was missing