Are you still a democrat ?

[LC EFA]

The poor dummies are lost. The think they are democrats, when they're really much closer to communists.

MessiahRp  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Mon Jan-12-09 03:09 PM
Original message
Is anyone else questioning whether they are a Democrat anymore?   Updated at 3:09 PM
   
Edited on Mon Jan-12-09 03:26 PM by MessiahRp
With the DLC/Right Wing of the party now taking firm control and basically deciding that on the key principles of what we disagree with Bush on there might not be much change, if any at all, are you starting to question whether or not you're a Democrat?

I always considered myself a Democrat based on the principles that the Democratic Party looks out for the regular people, ie the working class and the poor... and Republicans looked out for the Rich and Elite. Democrats were tolerant and inclusive of people from all races, religions, genders and sexual orientations and Republicans were mostly a bigoted bunch that looked out for White people. Obviously these are generalizations but it does appear that these hold some water when you look at the views of the Republican party.

But that's really not how it has been for some time has it?

Democrats say they're for the middle class but they rarely ever talk about or defend those in poverty anymore in public because they allowed Republicans to win every single god damn PR war of the last 30 years and now in the media poor = welfare recepient and welfare recepient = too lazy to work and more than likely to be stealing from people who do work hard for their money.

So the poor is ignored or even attacked. "Entitlement Programs" are the first things people look to cut every single time we need to cut back on Government Spending. Money that goes to the poor, sick or elderly is the first to be attacked. And ironically enough when those cuts are made, that money is just spent in some other wasteful way probably tied to some political favors for campaign contribution pork thrown into one bill or another.

Those middle class voters they defend? The Democrats have shown them love by using their unions to get elected and then doing zilch to help increase union membership. Republicans seemed to have won this PR front as well. Of course since Democrats seem to attend every fight with a White Flag of Surrender up before the first shot well you're not fighting for anyone if you're too afraid to fight.

Heck they even have enabled the destruction of the Middle Class by approving of Free Trade agreements like NAFTA, Most Favored Nation Status to China and other free trade agreements across the world that have given those countries a leg up on getting our jobs... manufacturing and otherwise. Oh and let's not forget the bankruptcy reform they helped Bush and the GOP pass. Always nice to make sure Credit Card companies have higher status than citizens do here.

They also decided that whatever image there was of peace protesting hippies in this party was going to be smashed into smithereens. Democrats were jumping all over themselves to support Bush's War of Choice in Iraq and even after it was proven the guy lied out of his ass about all of it, they still supported his policies of torture and breaking the law to wiretap all of us and to copy everything any of us have ever said or done online. They also rushed to his aid with the surge and when a new Administration, a DEMOCRATIC administration was elected, they kept on Robert Gates who was Bush's guy and made sure people were aware of how difficult it will be to pull out of Iraq. After all, we don't want those expectations to be too high now do we?

Oh and Democrats spent the last two years in power protecting Bush by refusing to even consider impeachment or to take any serious actions on his officials that a simple court ruling putting the ball back in their court didn't pretty much end. After all the court said the duty was up to Congress and a Democratic Congress can't be seen doing their job.

Gitmo, the haven for torture? Well now it's going to be difficult to close. **** all the people there who apparently didn't do anything so wrong that our Government, desperate for convictions, could hang them on. Thanks President Obama!

In fact the same next President voted for telecom immunity on the FISA bill... think he's going to end wiretapping if he won't even prosecute it for the crime it was?

All the people he's appointed are right-leaning centrists. The same group of people that mostly worked with Clinton in agreeing with the Republican Congress during his term and the same group that were pretty closely aligned with Bush in his last one.

All of us on the left... or even just the majority of people who sort of expected drastic change after the past 8 years of complete and utter failure? **** you! We have our guy now and he can do no wrong. Drink the kool-aid or get out.

*sigh*

This isn't the party I envisioned when I started to consider myself a Democrat as a kid. I thought fighting for the regular guy meant actually fighting.

My party wouldn't cave continuously on one issue after another without usually even a whimper explaining our side intelligently in the media.

My party would see an issue like Gay Marriage and try to redefine this as a basic human right, not cower and let Right Wing Talk Radio own the subject.

My party would see Universal Health Care as a chance to really help all Americans rather than planning it in a way that enriches HMOs and Pharmaceutical Companies while likely failing.

My party would never think of Social Security, Welfare or Medicare/Medicaid as the first target for spending when we could cut military spending in half, not affect soldiers' pay or benefits and pay down our debt in less than a decade.

My party would look to find peace in places of misunderstanding, not pick Israel over the Palestinians no matter how wrong they are and no matter how much worse that makes our standing in that region.

I know some people are going to respond, "Well fine, get the hell out" or something of the like. They'll be angry I don't blindly follow Obama or say "he hasn't even taken office yet". But he's already making policy. He's already picked his team and his team has a track record that is pretty damn clear.

If the DLC/Right Wing Centrists have complete control of our party I guess I have to wonder... do I belong in this party? Maybe it's off to the Independent Wilderness where my vote will count less because I'm not someone who sees a (D) and thinks, "Yes I have to vote for that person regardless of the fact that Rahm Emanuel recruited them as a Republican, asked them to switch parties just so they could win and so they could railroad the liberal/progressive out of the primary".... but hey they're still a Democrat so they're not as bad as a Republican right?

But what about when Republicans have switched parties just to win...

Then who are we voting for?

Rp

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4814721

I often wonder which fantasy tale the primitives get their perception of conservatives (and liberals for that matter) from. It's clearly a book I haven't read.

Such disillusionment so soon after a democrat victory Republican loss is indicating that the next 4 years might be even more painfull to the primitives than the last 8, for the simple reason that their Messiah isn't going to deliver what they think he promised to deliver.

Jackpine Radical  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Mon Jan-12-09 05:16 PM
Response to Reply #2
68. A LaFollette Progressive here...
   
Edited on Mon Jan-12-09 05:18 PM by Jackpine Radical
LaFollette was sorta the Kucinich of his age, but a little more effective.

As for the rest of it, I'm willing to wait about a year and see what I think of the Obama crowd and its actions by then. Well, not exactly wait. I intend to be something of a pain in the ass to them.

How could someone be less effective than Kooky Kucinich ?

maxsolomon  (1000+ posts) Mon Jan-12-09 03:18 PM
Response to Original message
5. if i want to vote in the primaries i have to be a democrat
   
otherwise i'm a socialist.

Hey , at least you are honest about it.

Warpy  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)    Mon Jan-12-09 03:31 PM
Response to Original message
13. I'm a socialist. Socialists have a hard time getting elected

so I support Democratic candidates. However, it doesn't make me any less a socialist.

I see Obama as having an inauspicious beginning, but I have an album full of newspaper clippings about another Democrat's even less auspicious beginning, a rich team player who was surrounded by old conservatives from a long previous Democratic administration.

That Democrat was FDR.

We are ahead of the game now, much more so than when Clinton was elected. He was a southern conservative with no reason to change because nobody in 1992 admitted the financial problems of the past two administrations were systemic and needed more than a little tinkering. They're admitting that now.

I see Obama as more of a blank slate than I saw Clinton as a southern conservative. Obama gives us the possibility of meaningful change of a destructive system that everyone now admits is moribund.

FDR made huge blunders in his first two years like dumping farm produce in order to raise prices while people were going hungry. Likely Obama will make equivalent blunders.

However, the possibility is once again there. It hasn't been for a very long time.

Ever stop to wonder why socialists don't get elected dumbass ?

Obama is more a block of clay than a blank slate. He'll do what he has to do to keep most of the people that voted for him as happy as possible. Sorry DU but that doesn't include fringe whackjobs like your members.

[franksolich]

The jackpine radical primitive doesn't know excresence about LaFollette.

As is typical of primitives.

LaFollette--any one of them; there were three main ones--was nothing like Pedro Picasso's favorite presidential candidate, that big-earred goof from Cleveland.

And to top it off, they were Republicans, something the jackpine radical primitive probably doesn't know.

One tends to get impatient with the primitives; they just don't know shit about anything.

[Carl]

It is sinking in that they are irrelevant cash cows.

What isn`t sinking in is the reason they are irrelevant.....their positions are political suicide.

Dumbfuks.

[TheSarge]

It's funny to watch as their high idealistic view of their party turn to reality.

[BlueStateSaint]

H5s for both my neighbor and Tx.

[USA4ME]

I had an appointment to talk with my stock broker today.  He's originally from Chicago, actually graduated from the University of Chicago with an MBA in Economics, which is where Friedman's monatary policy was shaped.  He's fairly liberal when to comes to many economic ideas (like his desire for universal healthcare), but he's a capitalist and realizes that the way out of economic downturns is, in fact, the free market (though he does like some gov't intervention).

I say all that to point out that he agrees Il Duce is part of The Chicago Machine, and that The Machine is out to enrich themselves.  But I want to recall in words to you just how he described The Machine.

He basically said that they know better than to try and fight against big business, that they are fully aware that big business can crush them, and will do so.  They'd rather be in the vest pocket of big corps, pushing them occasionally towards certain areas, being their conscience from time to time, listening to them and trying to help them achieve their goals, but setting themselves up to take advantage of the gains.  Upon hearing him relay this to me, I told him that having read some of the liberal blogs, etc... on the net that the more vocal of the lib whackos have high expectations of repayment for what they've done to get him elected.  He just laughed, called them crazy, and pretty much said they're going to be relegated to the dark corner of the closet, but certain spokesmen within their groups would be massaged properly ( $$$$$$$$ ) so that when the time comes for them to rally the kooks, they'll fall in line.

Will they be upset?  Yes.  In the end, will they fall in line when it comes time to pull the lever?  Yes.  So it's the same story we already know about how the looey tunes are treated and how they will continue to allow themselves to be used.

I'm only relaying what he told me regarding how the members of The Chicago Machine operate.  We'll see what transpires over the next few years and match it up with how they've done business in the past, of which The Machine has a long and well documented track record.

.

[Chris_]

The poor dummies are lost. The think they are democrats, when they're really much closer to communists.

I often wonder which fantasy tale the primitives get their perception of conservatives (and liberals for that matter) from. It's clearly a book I haven't read.

Such disillusionment so soon after a democrat victory Republican loss is indicating that the next 4 years might be even more painfull to the primitives than the last 8, for the simple reason that their Messiah isn't going to deliver what they think he promised to deliver.

How could someone be less effective than Kooky Kucinich ?

Hey , at least you are honest about it.

Ever stop to wonder why socialists don't get elected dumbass ?

Obama is more a block of clay than a blank slate. He'll do what he has to do to keep most of the people that voted for him as happy as possible. Sorry DU but that doesn't include fringe whackjobs like your members.

Close -- but it is the agenda of his handlers that is important.  They want to destroy America, but they know they need to do it slowly.

The new fuhrer is just their hand puppet to get it done.  The black Ted Baxter will read their teleprompter no matter what it says. "The funny part was -- she is a Veterinarian!"