I am an ecumenical Democrat.

[eyesroll]

LetÕs say the religious communities in your area are planning an interfaith charity carnival, with proceeds to be donated to establish a food bank. Who would you rather work with, the people who are committed to the cause, who are willing to put aside their differences to reach a common goal? Or, the people who use the meeting as an opportunity to preach the gospel of their churchÕs One True Faith, and let you know that you must repent and join up or be subject to eternal damnation?

IÕm willing to bet not many readers of this site would be too eager to work with people who lobbed insults and join-or-burn threats, in spite of a common goal. But the Democratic Party seems to do just that when it talks about "reaching out" to Greens, Libertarians, independents and others who might agree with them on some things and not others. (I speak as a card-carrying, dues-paying, showing-up, increasingly frustrated Democrat.)

Recently, FightingBob.com asked candidates for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair what they would do to bring Greens, progressives and young people into the party. Both candidates answered in positive terms, but I think they missed a crucial point that the Democrats wonÕt get most of the Greens (and quite a few progressives and young people) to join the party.

At least, we wonÕt get them to join or even come to our carnival to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl if we continue to throw some of the nastier epithets weÕve been throwing that they are loony leftists, spoilers, Nader apologists, shills for Bush. I have heard all of these and more flung at people who probably, in the long run, agree with the Democrats on many issues. To me, there is little difference between trying to get someone to join the Democrats by telling them they are sending the country to hell otherwise and trying to get someone to come to church by telling them theyÕre going to hell if they donÕt.

Perhaps it is an awkward analogy. But I consider myself an ecumenical Democrat, and not an evangelist. Perhaps by working together with others of like minds on a specific issue without insulting them or trying to "convert" them we can actually get things done.

(Cross-posted from FightingBob.com. Mods -- I wrote this. http://www.fightingbob.com/guestblog.cfm?PostID=1279)

[peacetalksforall]

1. I think Dems Indies, Greens are very close cousins who have gone

down different paths - either because of passion of single issues or unawakened consciousness of other issues. All have a skepticism about some traditional Dem leaders in high places and in the public face.

Ralph Nader doesn't differentiate about the differences between Dems and Republicans - he is right if he means there doesn't seem to be a difference at the leader level. At the common and little people level, there aren't grand differences.

The common people are at odds with our leaders. And this clash runs an amazingly close parallel to our relationships with corporations and benefits and how they fight us and take us down. Many of our leaders work for and benefit from the corporations. Many of the common people are being taken to the cleaners by the corporations.

We don't have democracy in this country any more (#1 support for this is that we don't have a vote - it gets stolen with the help of corporations and corporation supporters).

We don't have capitalism in this country any more. (our unions, our jobs, our wages, our pensions, our rights are being stolen and in its place we have spying operations aided by corporations and all the other stuff we talk about). In the meantime, the corporations don't even value this country enough to bank here or legalize their companies in this country and they take every advantage of our-of-the-country evasion of our laws.

We should tell it like it is. Our enemies are the people who work with the corporations to screw us from our teachers and workers pensions to our lighting, heat, and medicine and to our progress to protect and save the earth.

The problem IS NOT between political parties. We need to join hands and wake up.

[Tux]

2. I'd work with them

But progressives of all types need to address the real issues. Environmental issues are important as are economic ones. Libertarians tend to live in a fantasy world of perfect harmony with free trade and "honest" corporations. But we need to fix the economy, have corporations support America instead of 3rd world nations that sell to us, and make a tax code so simple, even evangelicals can use it. Once done, we can have the 90's back with restrained capitalism that protects workers, consumers, small businesses, and corporations from CEOs that harm their business (think GM, Enron, Ford, etc).