Agree or disagree? "In reality there is no political left in America"

[billbuckhead]

The Democratic party hasn't really been a liberal party since before WW2. Dems really have been playing defense since the New Deal. Labor unions are in full retreat. There are no parties left of the Dems that even have the potential to win at the state level. God bless Bernie Sanders and Vermont but that's cause it's so close to Canada. Nadir and many Greens seem more like saboteurs than leaders. Beside African Americans, there are no really reliable liberal supermajority voting blocks to offset the electorally strategic edge the Pukes have in the fundamentalists.

[Midnight Rambler]

1. I think that's true as far as the pols go

It seems pretty obvious that there's no shortage of liberal voters out there. But when it comes to the leaders, you have a point. For the most part, they're just typical politicians, more interested in their own re-election than real principles.

[Nite Owl]

2. So why aren't they trying to

pick up the voters on the left? I mean they spend so much time and energy trying for the elusive middle why do they ignor the left? Not disagreeing with you, it's a good obsevation. Are they too afraid of losing the middle? Most of the middle won't go for the right wing fundie group I really don't think that they would. Corporate donations maybe.

[Midnight Rambler]

3. Exactly. They don't want to upset the status quo

The AM freaks have been savaging the left for so long they've become too afraid to associate themselves with it for fear of losing their precious seats.

[leanin_green]

4. There is a political left, however. . .

most of us don't really look to politics to create change. I would have said that we don't vote anymore, but, we do. Usually for Democrats in the hopes of trying to have our voices heard. The lesser of two evils sort of thing. I guess I'm just waiting for a candidate that sincerely touches the issues I care about. Many of us agree with what Ralph Nadar said in 2000. Some voted for him(I almost did)but I just can't give up on trying to reclaim my party's soul. The pendulum is beginning to end it's arch to the right and soon we'll be back in vogue.

[kpete]

5. Sometimes I think

I am it

[applegrove]

6. Surely you can be "left" & into world trade. Not the neocon way - seems

South America doesn't trust neocons... Bush sure messed up that - but, yes, some people in the "left" see themselves as people of the world and know that it is only more open trade that will stop poverty in parts of the world. They also know that prices will come down for some things (right now clothing) as wages stall. So real dollars will even out - when food is traded globally especially.

Universal health care, international soft-politics, a mixed of programs and tough regulations to keep corporations in line... these are all part of the left.

Surely the left gets to retrofit itself every few hundreds of years as reality changes.

The reality is that the U.S. will do well by selling the stuff it does best across the world.

This does not mean that we allow for "suicide" seeds and other wet dreams of the right.

It means we go boldly into the international scene with bravery and with an understanding that the old days of "all money & profit going to America" is over. That that was just a quirky bubble. Based on slavery in the U.S. making parts of America really rich as it got independence, while markets in the rest of the world were struggling for every dollar that could be loaned.

Now is the chance for all those countries to have enough wealth (if they get access to world markets for their goods) to participate in middle class life. And a chance for America to sell its knowledge and knowledge based industries to these middle class (who - in fact - are rich by any measure of man-kind, the middle class are actually quite well off in terms of choices when compared to most).

The left in the "third world" is begging for open markets and less bullying by neocons. But open markets.

The fact is the left from around the world should get together and fight "suicide seeds" and all manner of corporate monopoly ... together.

We in the West - need to accept world trade is the best way to help the poorest. And the best way to help the poorest have the means to stand up to Wolfie at the WB and BORAX (or whateverthehellhisnameis) at the UN.

For sure the right would love to keep the "lefts" of the world divided. So that they can only work together issue by issue - instead of all together with the same platform.

The world has changed. It is smaller. When oil is $130 a barrell you do not want to be buying all your food from farms where machines do all the work (USA). Cause you will not be able to afford that food.

The left hasn't gone anywhere. It is trying to adjust. Trying to understand what is fair. And what is normal when you are not the richest country in the world while all the other "blocks" are destroyed (Europe after the war, South America by rich vs. poor, Africa by colonialism, Asia because their democracies were so young). US doesn't live on that planet anymore. There was a time nobody, but nobody could compete. That planet is gone. There will be other blocks that will be bigger than the US.

Your gortez (or your nanotechnology item) coat technology either sells to all of them (include Russia, China, Brazil & India who will be 20 times bigger than the West in terms of middle classes), or you close your borders and sell gortez to Americans only.

You cannot have it the old way.

[Kolesar]

8. Good stuff

It is like there is whole book of great material written at DU every week, and never enough time to read it all.

[applegrove]

13. Thanks.

[ElectroPrincess]

7. My GP Doctor claims he's "liberal like me" because he listens to NPR

Too funny! :P

[Chemical Bill]

9. Other - the political left candidates...

are the only thing missing. I think they die young, or have their growth stunted (not by cigarettes, but by big money and the media). There's plenty of political left in the streets, bars, and workplaces.

Bill

[ulysses]

10. I suppose it might seem so

if one is of a mind to dismiss a number of them in disparaging terms.

Yes, there is a left in America.

[nosmokes]

11. other - there's a left, but i don't think the democratic party

represents it any longer. certainly the DLC doesn't. there are leftist democrats, but why should they hafta fight their own party? true, the greens have a long way to go, but i think that's all the more reason to get involved now, to energize the populist base of the green party now so that in 15 or 20 years the greens can be a real force that can't be ignored. then either the dems will go back to representing the people or the political landscape will change. FWIW, i think the GOPosse is having some of this same struggle between the neocons and the moderate conservatives who are looking to the libertarian party as an alternative.

[LSdemocrat]

12. There is a left, we have the smallest left of any industrialized country

[applegrove]

15. Only if you equate "left" with no world trade. Trade is actually a Liberal

thing. Cause it took the power out of the hands of a few rich classes & trading companies & the churches. And put trade in the hands of small, med, & big business.

Now big business morphs into the powerhouse. But that does not mean that trade is not supported by the left in Asia, Africa, Russia, Europe, South America.

They like fairer trade. They hate George Bush.

[Davis_X_Machina]

14. Using the most readily accepted definition..

...of the left -- the one used outside the US -- it's true.

See Seymour Martin Lipset's It Didn't Happen Here for the gory details. (Oxford University Press has the paperback on deep discount in their Winter Sales area.)

[Totally Committed]

16. The Left has been ignored since WWII. eom