Cognitive Dissonance with Media & DLC Types

[Gringo]

The other day I heard Tweety carping about how "Democrats are politicizing Bush's now-infamous 16 words", and then showed some poll to back up his assertion. (Never mind the fact that there were hundreds of pages worth of lies and distortions by Bushco in the buildup to Iraq), then I hear tell that Lieberman is denouncing the "leftward tilt" emerging in the democratic party. I hear Bush enablers like Daschle being called "obstructionist" on a regular basis.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the democratic party has been unable to pass national health care, a living wage, and a host of other initiatives that would help this country immensely. Democrats were also instrumental in passing two of the biggest and most regressive tax cuts/service cuts in our history, as well as giving Bush the power to wage a completely fraudulent war.

Wouldn't it be fair to say that rather than the democratic party tilting leftward, it's been lurching ever to the right for 15 years now, and we're being trained to expect no progress whatsoever, but at best, a slowing in the damage to our economy and our government, and that anyone who tries to act as a traditional democrat, espousing populist egalitarianism and a moral standard for waging war, is being destroyed in a toned-down McCarthyist witch-hunt?

Does anyone perceive this, that people within our own party are trying to weed out the liberals, and leave the party utterly soulless?

Isn't it sad that we've completely given up on anything resembling a "New Deal" or a "Great Society", or even a "New Frontier", for that matter? Aren't those the things that made the democratic party great?

[whoYaCallinAlib]

1. Not trying to weed out liberals because we moderate/centrists

know we can't win the WH without our lefties and our lefties know they can't win the WH without the moderate/centrists. We'll all come together at the right time.

[damnraddem]

4. That depends:

if Lieberman is the Dem candidate, kiss moderates and lefties goodbye. It could be the death of the Dem Party. If Lieberman were the candidate, the Dem Party would deserve to die.

Someone like Kerry is a different matter.

[yella_dawg]

2. Sincerely

I believe we have been converted to a one-party system with the supposed Democratic Party reduced to a group of stooges, stalking horses, and "enemies of the state". Wellstone was a liberal populist democrat. Other populists were driven out in the 2002 mid-terms. I can't think of any federal politicians who I consider true liberal populists except for possibly H. Clinton. The "centerists" might be best described as fiscal and social conservatives and business oriented, which is the definition of a moderate republican.

I don't think there is an attempt to weed out liberals in the Democratic party. I think it's effectively, a done deal.

Anybody remember the hope we had coming out of the sixties? Civil rights, the space program, a clear lesson that war is bad, the sexual revolution, and mostly, just a overall expectation that there would be a brighter and better tomorrow? On January first, 1970, no one could have conviced me that the angry, greedy, selfish and short-sighted would take over the country. We'd won the big battles, and it was time to lie back and watch the future unfold.

I blame it on Disco.

yella

[Gringo]

3. There are minor things in your post I could nitpick about

But I like the overall gist, so I'll leave them be. The Zeitgeist of 2003 sucks so far.