BETRAYAL / David Podvin

[Caro]

MakeThemAccountable.com

BETRAYAL

By David Podvin

In 1965, the year following Lyndon Johnson’s campaign declaration that an activist federal government must focus on meeting the needs of the average Democratic voter, Democrats controlled 363 House and Senate seats (57%). By 1976, the party had begun a corporate-financed transition towards the middle, and Democrats had 351 seats (55%). In 1980, near the end of Jimmy Carter’s centrist presidency, Democrats possessed 335 seats (53%). By 1992, after drifting further to the right during the Reagan/Bush era, Democrats held 323 seats (51%). In 2001, following eight years of Bill Clinton’s “Third Way” approach that marginalized liberalism, Democrats were down to 262 seats (41%). And today, with the party so non-ideological that the voting public tells pollsters it stands for nothing, Democrats have a grand total of 246 congressional seats (39%).

There is an overriding reason that the Democratic Party has become the political equivalent of Betamax, and it has nothing to do with the malevolence of the Republicans or the mendacity of the media. When a political party consistently betrays its own loyal followers, especially in circumstances involving life and liberty, the inevitable consequence is an excruciating descent into oblivion.

The problem has recently been highlighted by two tragic events…

Click below for more.
http://makethemaccountable.com/podvin/more/050922_Betrayal.htm

[slor]

1. Thanks for posting n/t

[teryang]

2. Corporations and finance rule America now

The Constitutional forms are a mere facade.

[Callalily]

3. Mr. Podvin brings up

some excellent points. Yes, as usual Dean is outstanding. He is never afraid to speak out, he consistently comes up to the plate first.

[Riverman]

4. Evil will Prevail when Good Men, and Women, Do Nothing, I

fully agree with this article and elected Democrats - now this week, especially the Leahys in the Senate will guarantee that the US Supreme Court will swing to and stay on the far right for generations.

GREAT JOB DEMOCRATS - THIS IS YOUR LEGACY!

[Boomer]

5. Nominated

[rosesaylavee]

6. Kicked. Nominated. n/t

[JNelson6563]

7. The DLC must die

and their suypporters need to quit drinking the kool-aid....

[klyon]

8. I will only vote for candidates that speak out against war

all war

I see no one that can really lead. No one ........
I may vote a blank ballot

KL

[Fridays Child]

9. What would happen to the Dems, if a breakaway Dean party formed?

I know that I'd leave the Democratic Party, in a heartbeat. I would hope that some of the authentic Democrats would come over, too: Al Gore, John Conyers....

[vard28]

10. Those two names seem to go together well... n/t

[Fridays Child]

12. Al Gore and John Conyers? On a ticket, you mean?

I'd vote for Gore-Conyers. I'd also vote for Gore-Dean.

[enough]

11. Great article.

another snip>

Americans haven’t embraced the GOP agenda, but they have rejected Democrats in favor of leaders who are more resolute. The electorate has done so despite polls showing that voters usually agree with liberals. The Democratic Party is out of power because people think it is weak, and nothing projects weakness quite like betraying your friends. Contrary evidence notwithstanding, congressional Democrats persist in believing that it is tactically shrewd to treat their supporters like shit. Putting aside the immorality of the approach, it is a strategy that neither motivates the faithful nor inspires others to join the cause, and that has left the party in a decades-long down trend.

The goal of patriots must be nothing less than a return to the glory days when the Democratic Party dominated the political landscape with an activist social agenda that aided the common citizen. History verifies that Democrats gain control of Congress when they behave as partisan liberals, a designation that merely connotes representing their voters’ interests. For many years, red states like Idaho and Indiana re-elected liberal senators who vigilantly defended constituents from predatory conservatives. In 1980, these Democratic stalwarts became collateral damage when the ever-so-moderate Carter was repudiated for being too weak. Not too liberal. Too weak. Nevertheless, the party establishment subsequently concluded that backstabbing its progressive base was essential for survival, and as a result Democrats are now at their lowest congressional ebb in more than a century.

The winning will resume when the treachery ends, but the treachery will not end until the traitors have been intimidated into fidelity. Recent events verify that the unprincipled Senate Democrats are impervious to the pain of the people who elect them. These cowards are motivated by fear, and they currently fear provoking conservatives more than they fear betraying liberals. That must change. Once a disloyal Democratic senator has suffered retribution in a primary, the others will yield to the will of the rank and file just as they have long yielded to the right wing. Until then, all Democratic voters will lose their liberty and some will lose their lives because the people they have elected to defend them have no intention of doing so.

[KoKo]

13. "Backstabbed." Podvin says it.

And, that's the way many of us feel right now. I'm glad he's addressing the issue that none of our Democratic leaders expressed OUTRAGE at what was going on in NO's and the rest of LA and MISS.



Nevertheless, the party establishment subsequently concluded that backstabbing its progressive base was essential for survival, and as a result Democrats are now at their lowest congressional ebb in more than a century.

[xxqqqzme]

29. backstabbed? I felt abandoned

after the '00 re-count BS. That the party gave up after that infuriated me. I was ready 2 fight; they were putting their gloves away and slamming the locker door.

[Cocoa]

14. I'd prefer the dems do concrete things

The abstract "identity" stuff is important, but to me should take a back seat to concrete things that don't get a lot of attention, but which affect people's lives in a huge way.

For example, we should be pressuring our reps to fight for increases in LIHEAP, the federal assistance program for home heating. I don't know how many people realize how expensive this winter is going to be for people.

[Cocoa]

15. not just dems: independents and republicans too

politics and ideology are fine, but I want them to govern too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1804425

<snip>

That’s why some lawmakers want to boost funding for the program from nearly $2.2 billion to as much as $4 billion to avoid a home heating crisis in many states.

“While $3-a-gallon gasoline is a family budget breaker, $3-a-gallon heating oil is a life-or-death matter,” said Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt.
Lawmakers are floating several bipartisan proposals to add between $1 billion and $2 billion to the heating aid program.

Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, proposed raising the funds by $1.3 billion in a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee signed by 41 senators.

Another bipartisan group of 81 lawmakers is urging congressional money committees to boost the funding by nearly
$2 billion. Just keeping the program’s 2001 purchasing power would require $4.9 billion, they said.

Iowa’s McKim said households that need help to pay for heating bills should apply early for the grants, which are given out on a first-come, first-served basis for those eligible.

“Get in and apply early,” McKim said. “This is the year that states will be running out of money.”

[bvar22]

16. Worth a kick and a nomination.

I will be forwarding this column to my Democratic Reps!





Republican GREED has now KILLED more Americans than Al Qaeda!

The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners)
at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[mom cat]

17. Kicked! Nominated! and put in my favorites. Thanks for this article.

It articulates so well the rage I feel about being duped for two long. It seems to me that we have two puppet parties and one puppet master.

[paulk]

18. Podvin completely ignores a few things in his "analysis"

The shift of the segregationist Dixiecrat south from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican over the last 40 years, a shift that has everything to do with racism and nothing to do with a "corporate financed transition to the middle". In fact, the Democratic Party in the south has been punished for moving to the left...

He ignores the gerrymandering of the House, where a 98% incumbancy re-election rate has turned it into such a farce that no conclusions on voting patterns can be drawn.


He also ignores the Senate's inherent distortion of representation. In the last three election cycles over 200 million votes were cast in races electing 100 Senators - Republicans won 46.8% of those votes - Democrats won 48.4%. Yet the Republicans hold a 55-44 majority. In 2004 alone Democrats won 51% of the votes, yet Republicans won 56% of the contested seats. Democrats recieved 2.8 million more votes in Senatorial races than Republicans in 2004 - yet we lost 4 seats.

Podvin's arguments that the Democrats have lost power because of a move to the center are based in wishful thinking, not reality. The numbers don't lie.

[Jim Sagle]

19. Sorry, but Podvin's right and no one believes your BS.

[paulk]

20. I can see you put a lot of thought into your reply

You've presented such a compelling argument, Mr. Sagle.

[nvliberal]

24. Actually, Jim,

a lot of us DO believe the poster's "b.s.," for it is rooted in reality.

Moving to the center was the ONLY way Democrats, who faced one defeat after another following the 1972 debacle could remain a national party. That's the reason the fascists have done everything they can to subvert our presidential candidates and presidents such as Gore, Edwards, Clinton, and Kerry.

They have a far greater sense of the political landscape than do most of the posters on this board and the left-leaning blogs, which sound too much like Green Party talking points.

Podvin is repeating Green Party crapola.

[Jim Sagle]

31. No he isn't, as you'd know if you actually had any familiarity with his

work. He's a diehard, yellow-dog Democrat.

If you read him carefully, he's not insisting on leftism, he's insisting on partisanship.

Anyone who thinks he's wrong has been asleep for that last 25 years.

[QC]

28. Post Summary: Plop, Plop, Plop. n/t

[karynnj]

21. Far more sensible analysis

Lyndon Johnson even realized that this was likely to be the cost of the civil rights act when he pushed for it because it was the right thing to do. If you look only at the Senate, comparing the parties of the Senators in Johnson's time to now - the difference is in the South. But many of the Democrats in the South were segregationists. The only way they helped liberals is that as part of the Democratic caucus they voted Democrat for the Speaker or Majority leader.

Last year, we had a bad hand to play in the Senate - 5 seats that were up were in the south. Possibly if Breaux (LA), Edwards (NC), and Graham (FL) would have opted to stand for election, we would have done better. If they all won,(47,1, 52) would be easier to deal with, although still bad. (I'm not sure if Zell Miller running - on either parties line would have made things better.)

The other thing that cut against the Democrats, is that with the shift away from industrial jobs, the most powerful unions lost an enormous amount of power. The union, more than anything else was able to clearly spell out that the Republicans favored the privileged.

Another factor, was that there are now a huge number of people who came of age when Reagan was President. In the late 60s early 70s, being a college Republican or in ROTC was a good way to be very very lonely. Apparently this is now no longer the case - I was shocked when a niece ruled out the college I went to as having way too many conservatives.

[sandnsea]

22. He ignores so much

He also ignores labor's annoyance with hippie peaceniks which contributed to McGovern's loss and subsequent losses. Inflation and high unemployment in the 80's that put a huge burden on all working people leaving them not too sympathetic to the economic plight of anybody else. The programs that he talks about that Bush cut were programs implemented by the traitor of all Democrats, Bill Clinton. Not to mention Pelosi being the one that asked for the emergency Katrina session.

It's easy to make a case if you make up the facts as you go. It'd be nice if Podvin put that much effort into discrediting the party that really needs it. He wouldn't even have to lie to do it.

[Q]

23. I'm sure that your...

...repeating the DLC's talking points was unintentional. The DLC loves to travel back to the 60s and 70s to rationalize their failures today.

The DLC controlled Dem party abandoned labor in order to please their corporate masters. It had nothing to do with 'hippie peaceniks'. NAFTA was only the beginning of a series of policies that turned America into a nation of slave labor.

It's too bad that so many Democrats can't see the forest for the trees. They keep insisting that 2 plus 2 equals 5 and that the party's move to the 'middle' and their abandonment of traditional values have nothing to do with going from a majority party that held power for decades to an irrelevant minority party that 'stands for nothing'.

With the DLC still in control and the party leadership unwilling to confront the Bush pirates head on...expect yet another loss in 2008. I guess they can always blame the 'hippie peaceniks' once again.

[sandnsea]

25. McGovern too???

An anti-war candidate who wanted to give every American $2,000 a year to help alleviate poverty... a corporate whore? He was slaughtered before NAFTA or anything similar occurred.

The article goes back to Carter to lay out its corporate whore case. Why is that acceptable for the writer or the article and not anybody else?

Realities are realities. Some of us lived through all these times and have listened to people complain about unions, interest groups, social engineering, etc. Saying that the country wants a particular economic or social policy doesn't make it so. This country is full of independent capitalists who don't want anything the Democratic Party has to offer. Rush Limbaugh got popular for a reason.

[paulk]

26. empty rhetoric does not an argument make, Q

It's so much easier when you can dismiss another's POV with words like "DLC talking points". It's a cheap tactic that doesn't even begin to address the OP's post.

Unions have been losing power for many years, as the effects of automation depleted rosters. I worked a union blue collar job for over twenty years - in 1979 there were over 90 people on my craft's roster, when I left in 2000 there were fifteen. And all the other crafts I worked with and around suffered the same fate. It wasn't because of NAFTA, either - it was because the company needed fewer employees to do the same amount of work. And two thirds of the people I worked with voted Republican, anyway...


What traditional values have the Democrat's abandoned? Segregation?
The Democratic Party moved to the left in the South - and that, more than your move to the "middle" has been what cost us. As I posted above - Democrats have out polled Republicans in the last three election cycles (including the presidential races, I believe) - yet we've lost seats - lots of them - because our system favors rural (and southern) states over urban. That's why we're losing - the DLC; the so called move to the middle have nothing to do with it.

The Republican Party has managed to split this country along lines defined by social issues, not economic ones. That's why my above mentioned workmates voted against their own economic self interest.

The left ignores this at it's peril.

[nvliberal]

30. We HAVE to reiterate the 1960s and 1970s,

because the younger generation, especially those on the left-leaning blogs, have NO CLUE about the electorate. THEY, like the McGovernites of 30 years ago, think they are the mainstream.

It's like we have to go through this crap every generation that ultraleft ideas will NOT fly with the public.

I for one am sick of it because it helps the other side.

[elehhhhna]

27. Betamax. Yep. Or 8Track tapes. Good analogy.