Treachery

What's the big accomplishment of getting 420 pieces of legislation passed in one chamber of Congress but not the other? It only becomes law when both chambers pass it and a president signs it. I know most of you know this, but for those who don't: Professional Democrats, all Democratic politicians in office, whether they are calling themselves progressives, liberals, Blue or Yellow Dogs, are the same and working to achieve the aims of the DLC and transnational corporations over the best interests of the People. If they are a professional political and member of the Democratic Party, and in Washington, they have bought into and are supporting the culture of transnational corporations as their real constituents. Their only problem with this is that corporations don't vote, and politicians need votes to get into office. So they, Democratic politicians, try to convince the People they're working on our behalf with weasel-words, rhetoric designed to lead voters into thinking one thing when the opposite is true. Obama can say, "I got health insurance for the People", but having health insurance isn't what Americans wanted and isn't what Democratic voters put Obama and Democrats into power to get for them. Having health insurance isn't the same thing as everyone being able to get affordable, quality medical treatment. Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it. They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corporate legislation) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituents come election time. Those in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislation (like a public option or access to abortion), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries. Here's an example of how they tag team us: Lynn Woolsey, head of the Progressive Caucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq. She, and congressional Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplemental emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significant here). Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and haven't done it. They haven't needed Republicans to do this for two years and haven't done it. As the head of the Progressive Caucus, Lynn Woolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislation that didn't include a public option. Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge. Unbeknownst to Lynn Woolsey's constitutents (it was never reported in her district's newspapers­): Progressive Congresswoman Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressive Marcy Winograd Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of Bush-Cheney's policies, and wars, and let Obama go Bush-Cheney even better, by letting Obama assert, unchallenged, that presidents have the right to kill Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret. Democrats have abdicated their Constitutionally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the Bush-Cheney administration, and still don't with one of their own in the White House. The problem is with the Democratic Party as a whole; primarying Obama (and/or running liberal candidates against imcumbent Democrats in primaries) isn't going to solve the problem, if it's even possible to solve it and save us all (if they haven't managed to game the entire system to keep them in place until we descend into banana republicanism).

I suppose if there are any real and true Democrats left in the DLC-controlled Democratic Party, they might stage a rebellion and a revolution within the party itself, but there's no role for the People in that (unless Democratic voters are willing to get active, join and participate in the Democratic Party en masse now). It's more likely that an internal purge (without the outside new blood of Democratic voters joining the party and becoming active internally within the party) would just be a bloodbath, leaving the Democratic Party in ruins. There's something to be said for that, but it would revitalize the Republican Party, by driving the DLC Democrats to the Republican Party, swamping and taking over the GOP from the extreme rightwingers controlling it now. That may be the only way for a viable third party, encompassing the values and ideology of the left, to emerge and become viable.