Yes I'm disappointed, this is not my father's party nor the party of my dreams...

[HereSince1628]

This is neither my late father's labor-based democratic party, that endured from FDR to LBJ, dedicated to maintaining opportunity for all to rise among social classes, nor the progressive democratic party of Bobbie Kennedy, that in 1968 the idealistic among us baby-boomers dreamed could be.

This is the PDC, the Perverted Democratic Party, led by, and replete with, Political Careerists and Kulaks who, on the recommendation of marketing masters choose to name themselves THE Democratic Leadership. These are 'political' pragmatists passive to aggressive corporate greed. These are opportunists who offer little to curb excesses but much to insure campaign donations. They have twisted the liberal ideology of tolerance into passive acceptance of ill-treatment of the commonwealth. What "is pragmatic" for them is doing what is needed to keep their heads above the rabble by ingratiating themselves to the powerful.

It feels, as many on DU have said, not so much a political 'party' but a political death watch--the overseeing of the demise of the middle-class. As Paul Krugman recently wrote it is a nation being driven down darkened avenues that are turning into gravel and that have no working street lights. With the dwindling fortunes of the middle class this country is losing the core group of people whose aspiration to a better life powered a willingness to pay taxes to build a physical and social infrastructure that served all classes and which was the real treasure of this nation.

With the changing nature of the political reality, we have lost shared purpose and we are crumbling. Politicians not only balk at 'bridges to no where', but at the anchors of public health envisioned in the 1890's (municipal water, sewage treatment, inspected food, parks/healthful recreation), highway maintenance, public safety, education, disaster recovery (Katrina), retirement (attacks on Social Security) and care for the elderly and infirm (disparaging of Medicare). In dispair we on the left watch fights for maintenance of the Common Good ended before they start as the Kulaks in DC shrink before the reassignation of public good turns social welfare into demonic 'socialism.'

So much for the aspirations to become a great society with gleaming cities on the hills of an enduring landscape.

[niyad]

1. k and r

[ixion]

2. second that...

[snagglepuss]

3. Well said.

:kick: