Would we have any meaningful politics in this country if HRC got her way and crushed "activists"?

[Ken Burch]

Activists are the ones who did the hard work that led to every important change this country ever had.

If it hadn't been for the "activists" in the labor movement, working people would have nothing at all.

If it hadn't been for the "activists" in the civil rights movement, Lyndon Johnson would never have tried to get the Civil Rights or Voting Rights Acts passed, and we'd still have Jim Crow.

If it hadn't been for the "activists" in the antiwar movements, we'd still be bombing Vietnam, Reagan would have sent U.S. combat troops into El Salvador and Nicaragua, and we'd have tens of thousands more U.S. dead in Iraq(and yes, it's horrible that we'd have had the same number of Iraqi dead, but that's because "moderate" Democrats sold out and let Bush have his war instead of listening to activists and filibustering the IWR to death, as they easily could have.)

If it hadn't been for the "activists", we'd still be in the minority in both houses of Congress. It was the activists who went out and did the hard work of flipping Congress when the "pros" would've been happy to stay in a minority with only a few seats more.

Activists are what make our party matter.

No Democratic administration can prosper by leaving activists out in the cold. The 1994 Congressional defeat proves this.

HRC needs to accept that activists matter as much as the big donors in the convention luxury boxes.

It's about respect.

AND it's about "getting things done", which requires activist mobilization on a constant basis to counter the unrelenting right wing.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Recommemded!

The Founding Fathers were also "activists.":thumbsup:

[AtomicKitten]

2. It's easier for me to digest this kind of duplicity when it's in your face like this.

No question where she stands, and I really wonder why she cannot or will not embrace the Big Tent notion that was always a basic tenet of the party.

[cliffordu]

3. K&R. Don't let this die. It's not trivial.

:kick:

[davidpdx]

4. She expects us to be like the Chinese people and fall in line

with what her and Bill tell people to do. We are dead to them.

[sandnsea]

You're all mixed up

It takes a President to get things done.

She already disrespected Dr King, it's no surprise she'd disrespect modern activists too.

[Ken Burch]

5. If HRC does somehow get nominated, she'll have a deep obligation

to apologize to everyone in the party with progressive principles.

She'd have the nomination locked up if only she hadn't treated "the democratic wing of the Democratic Party" as the enemy.

I defy any of her supporters to defend the tactics she's used. Or to explain how she could possibly govern as a non-conservative if she gets nominated by bashing activists.

We're the soul of the party. And a lot of us ARE working-class. She still thinks "working-class whites" mean people who act like characters in THE DEER HUNTER.

[HooptieWagon]

31. But to the DLC we ARE the enemy.

DLC: Republicans = good, progressives = enemy.

The DLC is the Trojan Horse the corporatists have established within the Democratic Party. That is why HilLiary is willing to poison the well and destroy the Party to keep Obama from winning the GE... big business is panicking over the possibility of an agent of change in the WH who represents a huge groundswell of activists and grass-roots crying "enough".

[Submariner]

6. How soon she forgets what activists can do

In Bush world activists are muted compared to what it was in LBJ and Nixon world.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/submariner/vvawrichkids.bmp

[Kurovski]

7. K&R. (nt)

[Ken Burch]

8. Thanks, kurovski.

n/t.

[FrenchieCat]

9. I'm not accepting any apologies from Ms. Clinton.

She has offended me in many ways, as I belong to various groups that she has dismissed or simply smeared.

She is dead to me.

[dkf]

10. She doesn't want activists, she wants followers

She wants to set the agenda and the policy according to what she wants to do. Reports that she was upset at the NAFTA vote stated that she disliked it simply because she wanted to do health care first. In addition, she held all meetings to form health care policy in private and behind closed doors. When groups sued to see who had participated in the meetings she took it to the court. From Wikipedia:

The First Lady's role in the secret proceedings of the Health Care Task Force also sparked litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in relation to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) which requires openness in government. The Clinton White House argued that the Recommendation Clause in Article II of the U.S. Constitution would make it unconstitutional to apply the procedural requirements of FACA to Hillary's participation in the meetings of the Task Force. Some constitutional experts argued to the court that such a legal theory was not supported by the text, history, or structure of the Constitution.<13>Ultimately, Hillary Clinton won the litigation when the D.C. Circuit ruled narrowly that the First Lady of the United States can be deemed a government official (and not a mere private citizen) for purposes of not having to comply with the procedural requirements of FACA.<14>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan

[mcctatas]

11. OMG!

that sounds like.....

A cult! ;)

[dkf]

12. haha.

too funny.

[johnnydrama]

13. well actually

it sounds like Dick Cheney.

[barack the house]

14. In speaking against activists it is clear a person aligns themselves against the people. No doubts.

[susankh4]

15. We would have meaningful politics in this country if....

we had a multiparty system.

The Dem. party is a moderate party that leans left. Former attempts to drag it further left have failed. There is a reason for that. 50+ of the voters have to agree in order to elect a Dem Prez.

50%+ of this country is not liberal or progressive.

Not by a long shot.

[Ken Burch]

23. The polls show that "the country" is with "the activists" on the issues.

"The activists" want real universal health care, a quick end to the war in Iraq, and more funds spent on domestic issues than on militarism. "The country" agrees.

And 1994 proves that tugging the party RIGHT doesn't work as sustainable Democratic politics either.

Our party doesn't have to leave activists out in the cold to win the White House. In fact, 1994 proves that leaving them out in the cold hurts us.

We do need electoral reform(an end to the Electoral College, proportional representation, IRV, public funding of elections) though, in order to make our elections matter as much as they should. This country needs to abandon the Washington Consensus as much as the world needs to resist it.

[bvar22]

24. You are ABSOLUTELY wrong!

When polled on the issues, the overwhelming MAJORITY of Americans are very Progressive.
The biggest obsticle preventing Americans from getting what they want is the LOCK on government by our (corrupt) Two Party Only system.

Here is what the MAJORITY of Americans (Democrats AND Republicans) want from OUR government!

In recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic Party:

1. 65 percent (of ALL Americans, Democrats AND Republicans) say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.

2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed "social conservatives").

3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.

4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.

6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.

7. 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down."

http://alternet.org/story/29788/

8. Over 63% oppose the War on the Iraqi People.

9. 92% of ALL Americans support TRANSPARENT, VERIFIABLE elections!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x446445

[susankh4]

25. Alternet?

They make interesting reading. But they are terribly biased.

If what they say here were true... we'd always have a Dem Prez. Think about it. The GOP would be dead in the water.

We don't. They are not. I rest my case.

[Ken Burch]

33. The reasons we haven't always had a Democratic president have little to do with ideology

It's much more to do with our party's inability to find nominees who look and sound "presidential", or who won't defer to incumbent Republican presidents like most of our nominees do during debates(Carter and Clinton were among the few who didn't, which has much more to do with their winning than any "moderation" on their part), with our nominees being unwilling in most cases to fight back against smears(or to do so before it's too late, as was the case with Kerry, who waited for a month before responding to the Swift Boaters, thus making his eventual response irrelevant), and with their unwillingness to defend our party's core values, thus convincing nonideological voters that our values our actually as shameful as the Right makes them out to be.

And if voters really were as anti-liberal and antiactivist as you think they are, wouldn't HRC, the much more conservative candidate, be running a MUCH stronger race against McCain?

The fact that she isn't discredits the whole "moderate" case.

[fed-up]

16. follow the money-activists give time/labor-DLCers give money nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Did Hillary ever go through an activist period?

Or did she go from Goldwater girl to DLC proto-type?

[Ken Burch]

19. For a few years, she pretended to be a feminist and to have Sixties values.

She could never have held them sincerely and abandoned them as thoroughly as she did.

[HooptieWagon]

32. Yes, she served on the WallMart BoD when they were busting unions.

So she WAS active... for corporate interests.

[4themind]

18. It'd look like this (video)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo>

[Lisa0825]

20. Thank you!

"Activists are the ones who did the hard work that led to every important change this country ever had." AMEN!!!

[mdmc]

21. I think we would

Really, you should know that Obama will do nothing in the white house except break our hearts. If we got our hearts broken by a dlc triangulator instead, at least we can start over with a real deal progressive party.

[Ken Burch]

30. You're saying we'd be better off electing somebody who'd leave us out in the cold?

Why do we HAVE to settle for that?

And why assume that Obama would "do nothing"? The man's not a saint, but at least under him we'd be heard.

[Bonobo]

22. Hey now, let the Hillary supporters have their illusions. They think they're the Progressive wing.

Obama is a Republican in disguise.
Obama is a Black radical in disguise.
Obama is a wimp in disguise.
Obama is a scary black man in disguise.

[DearAbby]

26. I believe they

take all of us for granted, They dont have to answer to us...even think they can put us down. Really where else can we go? They have us over a barrel. She must feel, she has our vote, no matter what she does or says.


Where else do we have to go?

[Blue State Bandit]

27. Would we even be a Democracy/Republic?

[cottonseed]

28. Maybe we'd be one step closer to a viable 3rd Party.

[anonymous171]

29. She really is more like LBJ and Nixon in this regard.