Negativity Towards Democrats

I'm suggesting that people that put party and politics ahead of the good of the country and the Constitution need to be replaced as soon as possible. This includes those that are in the pockets of corporations. Cleaning house of corruption, of those that don't respect the people, and of those that are so weakkneed that they can not be counted on to stand behind the strong members of the Democrat party need to understand that they can be replaced by those that are more answerable to the people.

1 - was this republican big-tent you speak of before the 70s? Because I'm not familiar with it: The GOP claim it more recently, but it is a bogus frame that sought to co-opt what I believe (and no doubt some real political wonk will correct me on) was FDR's original brand. The real big tent has a liberal/moderate/conservative spectrum within it's ranks, is racially diverse, tolerant of different people or views, sees overall quality of life as a goal rather than trying to whitewash being selfish, embraces rather than denies the benefit of all that we do by working together (roads, hospitals, schools), tries to protect the weak or unlucky rather than ignoring them or blaming them, REALLY supports troops and veterans and demonstrates this by compensating them for having sacrificed so much. The big tent generally believes our nation can always improve, and we're not afraid to second-guess our elected representatives or to disabuse them of the notion that they're our *leaders*.

2 - Before I go on to the false analogy... how's that wingnut faux-fat tent shnizzit workin' out for you? Because the majority of folks I know didn't get a 1% raise last year, let alone last month to compensate for inflation kicking in nastily thanks to Republican misdeeds. Have they made any progress on anything in the 14 years since Newt's infamous Contract With America? Or in the 30+ since Pres. Reagan began peddling his craptabulous trickledown wares? Meanwhile, the real Big Tent and it's precursors got us Social Security, health care, better schools, desegregation, the GI bill, college educations galore, an unprecedented boost in quality of life, a workweek that included leisure time, good paying jobs, clean water, clean environment, and programs for consumer product safety: that's quite a litany from unions and Dems and progressives and DFH's. Deficits and tax breaks, wars and free trade agreements so defective that they devastate US and foreign economies but sure do prop up a few corporations hardly seem like a legacy the GOP should try to brag on.

So, if we demand better of our representatives, the only way this resembles the infamous School of Atwater is both use political repercussions for a representative's actions. Meanwhile, the unholy alliance of reactionaries (business or religious) wasn't about what was in most citizens' interest. Both have an agenda, and with one's money and the other's manpower and zeal, we've been royally screwed these last thirty years. You know this, down inside, or you wouldn't be here at 43sb. There is no analogy, Eric. We're just advocating doing the same job that's always been needed to get citizen-oriented change enacted: we're tracking issues so we can either hold our representatives' feet to the fire or roust someone better in time for the next election.

Oh, and we're altruists usually. My politics are rarely in my best interests. They help people I know, instead.

There are plenty of issues that don't need to be labelled with a 'centrist' view to progressives: you're either in favor of fixing "X" or you're not. Off the cuff with a poor example, let's talk business-friendliness. I'm a business-oriented kind of soul and I hate to see local businesses driven out, so I'm opposed to letting WalMart find loopholes that do just that. Hating a predatory realtor or MLM or Paycheck-Loanshark or a company that puts their employees into the poorhouse isn't some exclusively liberal view.

Nor are zoning laws or quality standards. Or believing that religion and government should keep a glass wall between 'em wasn't remotely unconservative to my grandpa's generation of Republicans (all now long deceased, so you'll just have to take my word or a historian's on this claim).

I'm for, not against, locally-sustaining private industry. I'm trying to thin the herd of the SOB's and rat bastards, or at least create economic guiderails that make the good companies and the good jobs flourish rather than starve at the SOBs' hands. It's like weeding a garden.

Government serves best when it adjusts the economic path to make it so Healthcare and Pensions are built into the cost of business. When a sane amount of money is budgeted for food safety. When abuses of the system lead to the same sort of import embargoes that we see Japan and European nations do to us when these food safety breakdowns scare them away from our beef or produce or poultry. When jobs and pensions are such that thirty years of hard work is by itself enough to let people scale back or even retire, rather so many people finding themselves doomed to work endlessly until they die.

Are you really arguing that we should not keep track and pick candidates that do our wishes? Can't be, 'cuz that's assuredly how I personally pick candidates. Pure and simple. What matters most shifts, but I have a short list pet issues, and I don't usually feel compelled to share 'em as if they're THE list. They're just my list. If we sit down and talk politics, I'm more interested in hearing your list, because then I can say: ah, yeah... I'd say X is your candidate because (insert policy argument). But groups like us (or moveon or even the village idiot) pointing out the contradictions a representative makes isn't the same thing at all as the behind-the-scenes armtwisting practiced by Dobson, Rove, DeLay and so many others.

One last thought: Centrist purges in Idaho are't from this. IMHO, they're precisely because the wingnuts got too big for their britches recently. There are some powerful arch-conservatives that think that the state composition is 70% republican, rather than 35R, 40I, 25D. Their rightward push (I call it 'eating their own kind') is hubris, nothing else.

And if Bink get hubris, I'll grab a torch and march with ya for his castle. But seriously... neither you nor me nor Bink will have that kind of power any time soon so you're plum-nugging futs to say he's as bad as Rove (now there's a rat bastard needing a pitchfork rotisserie experience).

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