The Real Democratic Party

I am sometimes admonished for drawing distinctions between Blue Dogs, DINOs and others repugs in dem clothing, and those I salute as Real Democrats: Liberals, Progressives and other members of Paul Wellstone's Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

"You can't say that," the critics whine. "The Democratic Party stands for inclusiveness. We don't reject people because they disagree with us."

OK, first of all, that makes no sense. The whole point of a political party is to bring together people who agree on a particular set of principles.

Second, the post-1972 demise of the Democratic Party can be tied directly to its willingness to draw to its bosom the poisonous asp of republicanism.

Down With Tyranny examines what the Democratic Party stands for.

With Blue Dogs and DLC scumbags endeavoring almost as hard as their Republican allies to maintain the status quo, derail health care reform, turn back the clock on women's choice, deny equality to gay men and women, ignore the dual looming climate change/energy crisis and, most important, keep the corrupt corporate money flowing in their direction, I thought it might be a good time to re-familairize ourselves with something Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a great Democrat, said when I was just a schoolboy, working for him (as an elevator operator in his NYC campaign headquarters):

In this entire century the Democratic Party has never been invested with power on the basis of a program which promised to keep things as they were. We have won when we pledged to meet the new challenges of each succeeding year. We have triumphed not in spite of controversy but because of it; not because we avoided problems but because we faced them. We have won not because we bent and diluted our principles, but because we stood fast to the ideals which represent the most noble and generous portion of the American spirit.

Make no mistake: genuine health care reform with at minimum a strong public option is the live-or-die moment for the Democratic Party. Anyone who opposes it not only hates America and Americans, but hates the Democratic Party and wants the Democratic Party to fail to death.

Read the whole thing.