I fear that we're heading toward another Chicago '68.

[Union Yes]

Progressives are angry with the Dem majority, no doubt. Patience with the President is wearing thin.

As a gay man, I feel completely shit on by my party and Prez.

Please understand, I want this President and this Congress to succeed in every way.

Obama inspired me and millions of others and gave us all a lot of hope. Since Inauguration, it's been one slap in the fucking face after another.

Dems how about throwing 1 bone to the left?

Just 1.

The last thing our country needs is for our party to be torn apart. But I fear it's inevitable.

Remember '68 and the damage it did to our party. We're heading down that path again, sadly.

Why can't people ever learn from the past?

Before you blast me for blasting the Dems, please walk a mile in my gay shoes and see life in America through the eyes of a gay person.

When you've been treated like a second class citizen, then feel free to criticize.

Also, you don't need to be gay to feel shut out by the Dems.

All progressives have been told to go sit in their corner by this Dem majority.

[KittyWampus]

1. work to get progressive Dems elected where you can. That's the solution. And the Republicans are

imploding.

I get the frustration and share in it, especially as regards MY singular issue.

BUT, things don't happen overnight. I think a lot of Democrats and Lefties are willing to put their shoulders to the wheel.

[leftstreet]

2. There are no "singular issues" - we all stand together for Human Rights

or we fail

[KittyWampus]

50. We all work together to reform our Banking System

or we fail.

[Union Yes]

3. You're right. I feel that the Dems are throwing away a golden opportunity to really change America.

And that's sad.

So many people are counting on them and so far the party is laying a gigantic egg.

[T Wolf]

4. Oooh, you're gonna catch shit for this. For what it's worth, I agree. Libs are getting

the sit down and shut up treatment on far too many issues from "our" Congress and administration.

They are going to have to make a hell of a lot more progress on many issues to get the kind and level of support from the left in 2010 and 2012.

That being said, IF the wars are over, the economy is rebuilt, full civil rights are available to all Americans, the criminals from the Bush years are held accountable,... there could be a resurgence in support from liberals. But it does not look promising right now.

We have to understand that the center-right and further right are now the base for most politicians in our party. The left is just there for money, election work, and votes.

[WI_DEM]

5. I don't know but from what I see most democrats I know think Obama is doing a great job

There was just a poll out yesterday too showing he has 92% approval among dems only 8% disapproval (less than the percentage of dems who voted against him in 2008). I guess there is a chance that Obama will be challenged on the left in 2012 but on the whole if the economy is better, he delivers on health care, and the war in Iraq is over, I doubt it. I don't think that Obama is any less liberal than Bill Clinton (who gave us NAFTA & Welfare Reform) who also upset some on the left but he wasn't challenged in 1996 and won re-election. If Obama is challenged in 2012 it will probably be by Kucinich.

1968 was a remarkable year. It dealt with a war which divided the party. On domestic policies LBJ, Kennedy, and McCarthy were pretty much in line, it was the war which caused division. I don't see anything remotely like '68 on the horizon for Obama.

[Oak2004]

17. "Most Democrats" don't pay attention to the issues.

They register as Democrats because that's what mom and dad, or their buddies, or the really cute candidate they met were. They may or may not vote. If they are more politically active they start to pay attention to politics either A) when something really bad happens or B) about three months before an election.

"Most Democrats" couldn't name a single cabinet member outside of Secretary Clinton (and even then maybe not). "Most Democrats" couldn't cite anything from the Obama campaign other than "Yes we can".

Opinion polls of the sort you refer to are of far less predictive value than is tracking the opinions formed by those who actually follow the issues closely. And when you look there, what you see is a significant decrease in support.

[WI_DEM]

23. Actually most democrats I know do pay attention to issues and are now working hard

for Senator Feingold. They don't agree with everything Obama has done but they do think he has been doing a good job and they aren't single issue voters. DU tends to take itself way too seriously. You would think that DU and it's, what few thousand active posters, single handedly elected Obama when the truth is that a good share of those who criticize Obama daily never supported him in the primaries and probably voted Nader or Green or some other third party in 2008.

[nichomachus]

21. Fantastic -- then they won't miss my money n/t

[truedelphi]

27. You need to know, before you quote this survey so much

Only 32% of all Americans consider themselves to be Dems.

That is better, but not much better, than the 28% of all Americans who consider themselves Republicans.

So the remaining Forty percent of all Americans are simply looking for candidates that vote in policies that Middle America wants and needs. Granted, maybe two percent of these people might be John Birchers or skinheads, but the remaining people want policies that will allow the middle incomed person to quit getting shafted.

Middle America wants
1) Pro women's rights
2) pro gay rights
3) end of endless warfare that saps our budget and takes people's lives
4) UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE
5) a serious attempt to get the economy headed away from Wall Street and back toward Main Street.

[Hippo_Tron]

6. You have every right to be angry, but I hardly see another '68 on the horizon

Obama's approval ratings have remained in the 60's for the entirety of his presidency which means that most people are satisfied with the job he is doing and those that aren't are mostly the teabagger crowd.

He is absolutely dragging his feet on these issues just like Kennedy did with civil rights. I am glad to see that some of the states are leading the way, though.

[T Wolf]

37. "the entirety of his presidency" - hey, it's only been five months. you have to give him more time

before you herald that "Obama's approval ratings have remained in the 60's" line.

[Hippo_Tron]

40. It's very uncommon for Presidents to have high approval ratings for this long...

Usually they have approval ratings in the 60's during the transition and honeymoon and then the moment there are a few hurdles they drop to the low 50's or even the 40's. Obama has had more than his share of hurdles yet the American people are still firmly behind him. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

[TheWraith]

7. You REALLY need to get off the internet some time.

DU is a reality distortion field, wherein people make things up and dwell on utter negativity. The REAL reality is that Obama's doing a tremendous amount of good, and he still has a 95% approval rating among Democrats.

[cali]

8. It's possible. Before today I would have said it's unlikely but

Obama's defense of DOMA is going to send a tremor through the progressive community. Who knows what the aftershocks will do?

[Union Yes]

11. I hear ya. And believe me, it's the last thing I want to see.

I'm very frustrated with the direction of this party.

I want to see the Dems succeed and win even more seats in '10 and '12 but the path they are taking us down just doesn't click with the whole party of the people concept.

I guess all I can do is keep making phone calls, vote in the primaries and volunteer for progressive candidates.

[bvar22]

44. Succeed ?

If the goals are:

*fight AGAINST basic Civil Rights for some people

*Increase "Free Trade" and the flow of Middle Class Jobs leaving America

*Bust UNIONS and force the remaining Middle Class jobs to "compete" with 3rd World Slaves

*Channel Tax Dollars into the pockets of the Health Insurance Industries

*Shower the failed Wall Street Bankers with more tax money

*Subsidize "Too Big to Fail" and ignore Fundamental Problems with The System

*Increase Military Spending

*Permanently Occupy Iraq with "Residual Forces"

*Expand the bloody Occupation of Afghanistan and escalate hostilities into Pakistan

*Protect War Criminals and Torturers

*Co-Sign the Unitary Executive established by Bush

*Ignore or Expand Environmental Rape (Mountain Top Removal)

*Entitlement "Reform"


...if THIS is the direction "The Democrats" are heading, then I pray they FAIL.

[Union Yes]

47. Totally agree.

I could've worded that much better.

I think we both know that in order to succeed, the party needs to adopt a much more progressive platform. Following the same failed policies of Bushco will doom us.

[bobbolink]

9. Do you sincerely think you are more left out and ignored than poor folk?

Do you really?

Do you think there is less support for you here at DU than there is for poor folk?

Do you support poverty issues?

[readmoreoften]

20. I'm sick of this crap. What the hell makes you think LGBT issues AREN'T a poverty issue?

I'm poor and I'm LGBT and the laws stacked against us make poor LGBT people poorer than poor straights. There is no such thing as "supporting poverty issues" there is only destroying the mechanisms that impoverish working-class people and those who have been push below the working class. Criticizing the Democratic party's failure on LGBT issues is hardly abandoning the poor. Pitting LGBT rights against the rights of the poor is a divide-and-conquer strategy that benefits no one but the rich and greedy--so why are you handing it to them on a platter? Start fighting for the rights of LGBT poor people, along with the rights of all other poor people.

LGBT people are AS A GROUP, poorer than heterosexuals. This is statistical fact.

As far as trans people are concerned, about 17% are homeless even in San Francisco. 30-37% have been physically abused. The median income--in San Fran--of MTFs is $744 a month and the median income of FTMs is $1100 a month-- IN SAN FRANCISCO. Imagine how bad it is outside the San Fran ghetto. Imagine how hard it is for trans people who have kids.

As a transman, my partner will have stable legal identification to have an accurate driver's license, accurate social security information. Because of this he may be denied the right to open a bank account. He can be denied the right to vote because his card info will not match his gender. Trans people account for 40% of all police-initiated violence against LGBT people. If he is pulled over, he risks violence. If he tries to buy beer, he risks violence. Anywhere he needs an ID card, there is a risk.

While upper class LGBT people like Mary Cheney are given a pass, working-class and poor LGBT people are subjected to nothing but job discrimination and violence. Same-sex marriage helps protect the poorest among us from state and social violence and it helps us survive in the event of the deaths of our partners and families.

http://www.transgenderlaw.org/resources/transfactsheet.pdf

So the question is DO YOU CARE ABOUT POOR PEOPLE? Or do you only care about poor people that look like you? You want to end poverty? Stand and fight, learn about the issues of people who are different from you, and build solidarity.

[Deja Q]

29. I happen to be GLBT (FWIW) and I'm sick of all sorts of crap too.

See one of my other responses if you want to talk percentages.

And I agree; it is wrong for the double standard (e.g. Cheney and Bono getting a free ride while most don't. Thank you for mentioning the double standard... do you have an actual solution to the problem of the double standard? I wish I had. :( )

[Midlodemocrat]

52. +1

:applause:

:yourock:

[bobbolink]

54. Then where are you when we are asking for calls, letters, etc?

if it's in your best interest, then why aren't you joining with us?

Our invitation has been to ALL. You're the one holding yourself out, not us. I won't reply to your attempt to slime me or the rest of us working on poverty issues. YOU HAVE OPTED YOURSELF OUT, not the other way around.

Have a good day, now.

[Deja Q]

26. Uh-oh.

:hide:

[Union Yes]

28. Do I think I'm more left out or extra special? Not at all.

I said at the bottom of my OP that you don't have to be gay to feel left out. That in fact almost all Progressives are being left out.

Now on to poverty.

I believe poverty is a scourge, a cancer, and a gross violation of human rights.

I support with all my heart..

Real affordable housing. Not some windbag Pol campaigning for it then turning his back to the poor once elected.

Single Payer Universal Health Care for ALL, especially the poor. Death Care for profit to me is genocide on the poor. We both know how devastating lack of affordable health care can be to the poor.

$13 an hour federally mandated minimum wage.

Day care assistance for low income working families.

Equal access to health care for mental health services. Mental health issues drive too many into poverty.

Early childhood education.

Access to quality education for all.

Access to tuition assistance or better yet, free college for all but thats prob a pipe dream.

Education is poverty buster #1.

Unemployment assistance to those laid off.

Reemployment assistance through community employment centers.

Strong, well funded and high tech libraries.

One of the most proven poverty busters- the right to organize and/or join a union.

I'm only getting started....

Hope that answers whether I care about poverty.

Peace

[bobbolink]

53. Thank you! That is quite an extensive list, and I appreciate it.

I very much appreciate that you put HOUSING at the top of your list!

"I believe poverty is a scourge, a cancer, and a gross violation of human rights." VERY well said!


I would probably quibble with "Education is poverty buster #1." Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs states it accurately... if you don't have basic needs met, you can't go beyond that. So, having adequate HOUSING, food, clean water, etc., would come before education.

Also, there are LOTS of us who have great educational backgrounds, but due to various circumstances, we are in poverty not of our own making.

[sniffa]

32. Woohoo!

I love it when you show up.

:woohoo:

[county worker]

10. Damn it it all! Progressive are just a small part of the electorate!

Jeez, I'm getting a little tired of this shit that 10% of the electorate should get 100% of what they want or they are going to take the ball and go home!

The biggest block of voters are independents not progressives! Stop the f...king whining already!
If you thought that electing Dems meant that the country was turning hard left, I'm sorry no one promised you a rose garden!

Get real for a change!

[G_j]

12. really?

you're a little tired of this shit?

and anyone should care about your precious feelings..why?

you're telling people to shut the fuck up?

get real, indeed!

[rucky]

15. What do you think of Obama's DOMA statement?

[Deja Q]

25. Don't bother. I've used the __% vs 100% analogy too. In real life, Spock would have become a pariah.

You know, that meaningless drivel like 'the needs of the many'...


And 10% is only an estimate anyway...

In a way, it's sad. 18,000 people in California vs 36,000,000. Only 2000x as many people. I'm not exactly hetero (as if you cared to know), but that's not even 1% who want to be partnered, which would include me but I am not going to go into reflections of my personal life (which don't help the cause either but that's another story)... If the total GLBT population in a given area is 10%, having less than 1% in the same area wanting to marry/civil union/etc, it's not going to be an easy thing to win, much less convince to argue in the first place.

Especially when the media looks at the most bizarre elements of Pride festivals and then decides we're all like that... (shh, don't say that here -- there are many pro-GLBT boards that actually allow real conversation and you won't get killed in some bullshit mob mentality by daring to speak what happens rather than blindly supporting idle fantasy...)

I agree; those who are so militant that they want their way 100% - they really need to grow up and make their own country. I'll admit, some CEOs are the same way, so the "mindset" is inevitably universal...

[BLS]

13. Forgive me, but I'm not following this much lately...

What happened (or didn't happen) that I missed?

[Mari333]

14. gay civil rights is one of many disappointments for me

there are plenty of others:

LEGITIMATE LEFT ANGER



There has been a lot of left-wing teeth-gnashing over the policies of the United States' fake-progressive president Barack Obama. Left-progressives' anger with the Obama administration is understandable given the new White House's actions to (for example):



* Significantly expand the reach and intensity of imperial violence (replete with the mass slaughter of civilians and the related escalation of targeted assassinations) in South Asia.



* Promote a notorious assassin and death-squad leader (Lt. General Stanley A McChrystal - former chief of the military's special Joint Special Operations Command) to the position of Commander of U.S. Forces in the newly merged "Af-Pak" war theater. <1>



* Sustain the criminal occupation of Iraq beneath rhetoric of withdrawal. <2>



* Increase "defense" (empire) spending, consistent with the following statement in a report issued by the leading Wall Street investment firm Morgan Stanley one day after Obama's presidential election victory: "As we understand it, Obama has been advised and agrees that there is no peace dividend."<3>



* Revive military commissions.



* Continue the practice of renditions.



* Maintain secret prisons for persons "held on a short-term, transitory basis."



* Continue the unspeakable torture of prisoners by an "extrajudicial terror squad" (Jeremy Scahill's description of the Pentagon's sadistic "Immediate Reaction Force" in Cuba) at Guantanamo Bay. <4>



* Advance the policy of "indefinite detention" (potentially permanent incarceration) for Guantanamo prisoners for whom no legally compelling evidence can be marshaled.



* Intimidate England (with a threat to withhold intelligence data on potential terrorist attacks!) into preventing a Guantanamo victim from having his day in court on the Bush administration's torture practices. <5>



* Sustain the Bush administration's abrogation of habeas corpus rights in regard to the roughly 600 "enemy combatants" kept at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan (where people rendered out of other countries like Yemen and England can be considered "war <-zone>" prisoners!. <6>



* Advance nauseatingly specious legal and moral arguments ("better to look forward than backward") to prevent serious federal investigation of the Bush administration's human rights crimes.



* Sustain George W. Bush's domestic wiretapping program.



* Invoke the "state secrets" (akin to the divine right of kings) doctrine to prevent disclosure of evidence in response to lawsuits emerging from Bush era rendition and surveillance policies.



* Suppress photographic evidence of U.S. torture practices.



* Justify all this and more in the name of the supposed "global war on terror" that was supposedly launched in legitimate defense against the supposedly unprovoked jetliner attacks of September 11, 2001.



* Disregard qualified progressive defenders of civil liberties and human rights from consideration for appointment to succeed Supreme Justice David H. Souter and to thereby counter the hard right leanings of the court's conservative majority. <7>



* Send clear signals of intent to roll back and partially privatize Social Security and Medicare benefits.



* Betray campaign pledges to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to insert stronger labor and environmental protections. <7A>



* Betray campaign pledges of serious intent to advance an elementary and overdue labor law reform (the Employee Free Choice Act).



* Force and approve an automobile industry re-structuring that drastically cuts domestic autoworkers' jobs, wages and benefits while subsidizing General Motors' further shifting of jobs abroad. <8>



* Advance a tepid, business-friendly health care "reform" that leaves the leading parasitic insurance corporations (major campaign sponsors of his) in power.



* "Methodically erase single-payer advocates from the picture" (Glen Ford) of health care reform despite the fact that a majority of Americans have long favored a single-payer ("Medicare for all") health insurance system. <9>



* Spend trillions of federal dollars on taxpayer handouts to giant Wall Street firms who spent millions on his campaign and who drove the economy over the cliff. Obama's Wall Street bailout rejects the elementary bank nationalizations and public financial restructuring that are required to put the nation's credit system on a sound and socially responsible basis, choosing instead to guarantee the financial, insurance, and real estate industries' toxic, hyper-inflated assets while keeping existing Wall Street management in place. It amounts to a giant effort to "keep perpetrators afloat" (liberal economist James Gailbraith) through a scheme in which the government takes more than 90 percent of the risk but private investors reap at least half the reward.

[Union Yes]

34. Totally agree. I would expect that list from a Rethug Prez/Congress.

But from Dems?

It's almost enough to turn me off from the democratic election process for good.

Is it still worth showing up at the polls on election day? I guess I still will begrudgingly.

[fujiyama]

16. Haha yeah right

People were fucking drafted in 1968. The students and others were protesting their friends and brothers being killed in action.

Obama has a 60%+ approval rating with 89%+ approval among Democrats. No, I don't agree with his DOMA actions but some folks on this site have little sense of reality or perspective.

[jberryhill]

18. Lots of time before 2012

I don't mean that as "you need to be patient", but in terms of where we are headed, that's a long way off, politically.

[nichomachus]

24. Yeah -- but if the GOP takes one house of Congress in 2010

2012 will come one hell of a lot faster. A lot of the first-time voters who came out in 2008 because Obama was on the ballot won't be there in 2010. At the rate he's pissing off his core constituencies, he could be in deep shit in 2011 -- if the people he's pissed off just sit on their hands -- and he could be facing one or both houses of Congress in GOP hands.

His second two years would be worse than the first and he could be setting himself up for a primary challenge. You don't really think BIll Clinton is sitting home reading Vanity Fair and eating bon-bons all day. He would give up sex for a chance to be back in the White House.

(OK -- just kidding about the giving up sex part.)

[jberryhill]

49. Bill Clinton?

The DADT guy? THAT Bill Clinton? You understand he can't be elected again, right?

But, Constitution aside, let me get this straight, unless Obama gets rid of a law that Clinton signed, then folks will support Clinton?

I believe that Obama is seriously overdue for a policy statement and some guidance in this area, and I'd put my money on a legislative initiative after the summer recess.

[Deja Q]

19. If everybody walked a mile in everyone else's shoes...

That's why so many people have opinions attributed to the intellect accorded barefoot people...

It's easy to say "Just walk a mile in MY shoes." I'll try using that once or twice myself and see the response by doing so...

[konnichi wa]

22. I was there in 68. I still remember how to get there.

You're absolutely right...I'm too goddamn old to wait decades AGAIN.
:grr:

[Union Yes]

30. Do you see any similarities...

between now and the months leading up to the '68 convention?

[konnichi wa]

31. I see similarities in mood and reaction but sadly there doesn't seem to be much

enthusiasm to actually like -do- anything. Too much bother for today's "radicals" (boy there's a hot one)
:eyes:

[Downtown Hound]

33. We had the RNC last year

That was a hell of a bang. Will something like that happen to Democrats? Perhaps. It's way too soon to tell. But I can tell you this. As I posted on this site the day it happened, two weeks ago I was arrested for civil disobedience when the California Supreme Court issued its ruling on prop 8.

The group that I was involved with initially were hoping to get 30 people to volunteer to be arrested. But they had such an overwhelming response that they bumped their goal up to 60. Guess how many people ended up being arrested? 211. Over seven times what they had originally hoped for. And what's more, most of those people joined us at the last moment. They were just ordinary protesters and passers by that saw what we were doing and joined in.

Yeah, there's A LOT of anger in the land. LOTS. Eight years of neocon fascism and now more of the same wimpy Democratic leadership that enabled it in the first place. So if one little group can get that much response in the streets on the spur of the moment, imagine what we could accomplish if we really get organized.

[Marr]

35. Here's the thing.

Obama and similarly-minded DLC sorts control the party. They *want* to drive you off, or at the very least, they don't care if you leave. They would much prefer to drive off progressives and control the middle field of "moderates", which is to say, big business, yuppies, bigots with a sense of public decorum... that whole crowd. That's where the money's at. They don't *care* about progressive issues. They're career party members. They're in it to win money and power for their political faction, and that's really all.

Since our government structure pretty much guarantees a two-party system, anyone who can win over the middleground will turn the other party into a niche club that services only it's base. DLC types think they can turn the GOP into a kind of right-wing version of the Green Party, and settle in to a long, profitable life as permanent majority party insiders.

[live love laugh]

36. YCIDN (Your concern is duly noted) nt

[Bluebear]

41. Wow.

[struggle4progress]

38. Yeah, Chicago 1968 worked out well for us, didn't it? First, the Chicago cops kicked the crap

out of everybody -- and then the media reframed the whole thing as if it were a leftist riot -- and Nixon rode to victory on a "law and order" platform.

[Union Yes]

42. Thats exactly why I dread the thought of it happening.

[anonymous171]

39. If that happens the American left is as good as dead.

[datasuspect]

43. and that has been the plan all along

[datasuspect]

45. if corporate dems don't dislodge their lips from corporate ass

and rally for some real populist REFORM, then the 2000 coup still remains in effect, the junta has just changed its public face.

[Name removed]

46. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[deaniac21]

48. Happens every time.

[HughMoran]

51. I certainly can sympathize

I predict that Obama will fulfill his promise to gays in January of 2012.

[saltpoint]

55. In 1968 Gene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy were taking on LBJ, who

was presiding over a disastrous, spirit-crushing and generally pointless war in southeast Asia.

Humphrey, no matter his individual virtues, was felt by many to be a company man for LBJ's war. Chicago, even before RFK was murdered in Los Angeles, was going to be a contentious fight to the finish.

Sometimes I think about whether JFK could have defeated Goldwater, had Kennedy lived. It seems to me Kennedy would have prevailed. Johnson went on to face and crush Goldwater. The reports from SE Asia were increasingly concerning but critical mass by voters had not yet been reached.

Vietnam was a tremendous, and extremely sad, failure. That failure of the United States, in addition to the deceit to obscure that failure, at last rose in the populace to critical mass. Dr. King warned that the bombs we were dropping on southeast Asian villages would explode in the streets of America. The nation was humiliated and at critical mass in that humiliation. Many people were furious with the betrayal, with the bloodshed, with the economic disparity of the zips codes of those drafted, and of the duplicity of their leaders who underestimated King's admonishment.

People who watched Walter Cronkite every evening eventually reached the disturbing conclusion that the hippies were telling the truth and the Joint Chiefs were lying.

McCarthy and RFK rode the wave of that critical mass awareness as far as History would let them. Humphrey "won" nomination even as the Chicago Police were holding a gun to the head of folk singer Mary Travers in the streets of that city trying to get her and her two friends, Peter and Paul, to stop singing "Blowing in the Wind." Kids hurling coarse insults at police; police night-sticking kids right back; swirls of tear gas wafting about Chicago. Those were the images being piped into the living rooms of the nation.

We are nowhere, nowhere, nowhere near there right now.