Through The Looking-Glass

The whole smoke and mirrors act that’s going on over there is an attempt at consolidation of the Democratic Party’s takeover of the Republican Party’s one time position at center-right and fully conservative on the political spectrum. This has in fact happened, and is being glaringly highlighted almost daily by the conservative positions the Obama administration has taken.

1. War Maintenance. Pull-down in Iraq is made up for by expansion in Afghanistan. This way the MIC and war profiteers can keep the money flowing.

2. Domestic Spying/Decimation of the Bill of Rights. Nothing has changed, Obama’s got DoJ defending illegal policies of the Bush admin.

3. Energy Non-Policy. Huge new subsidies to coal, nuclear and petroleum/natural gas industries, pittance for renewables or necessary infrastructure (grid replacement).

4. Women’s Rights. Under the bus right at the HIR starting gate.

5. GLBT Rights. No one’s allowed to talk about it – Don’t ask, Don’t tell.

6. Nuclear Slouch. Too sloppy to be called “policy,” Obama has authorized the production of new nuclear weapons and the new START is a joke. He’s still wasting trillions (when the accounting’s done) on a missile defense system that can’t be made to work and couldn’t prevent an attack if it did work.

Just some of the offenses against actual used-to-be planks in the Democratic Party platform, that long-time Democrats have always supported and reliably voted for even when the candidate him/her self wasn’t much to brag about. So much for “Change We Can Believe In.” Hell, it’s not even change I can justify voting for!

Now, since the Republicans have managed to chase their ‘base’ all the way into completely marginalized sedition, it’s a good thing that there are sane people in the Democratic Party to triangulate into the vacuum to become an acceptable conservative party. It’s just that this leaves the liberal left – you know, the other half of the political spectrum – without representation. As well as without a political party they can embrace.

So when I see “More and Better Democrats” over at GOS I have to admit that the purity troll gangs over there (operating with implied if not direct approval of the management) are right about me. I am no longer a recognizable Democrat and should not be allowed to express my not-pure opinion on the party blog.

I didn’t leave the party, it left me. And became the ugly right-wing abomination that stole the once good name of Daily Kos. But I found DocuDharma and all these nutty Dharma Bums who kinda felt the same as me, and that’s been nice. I don’t agree with everyone about everything here (how boring would that be?), but I like you all.

So I’m breaking one of our very few rules here and writing about the situation per DD/DK, and Buhdy’s public exposure of a problem that’s always been there simmering under the surface, and occasionally explodes. It’s exploding again now. Buhdy, they’re done. Really, honestly, it’s over. They just don’t know it yet, but it’s entirely obvious to the political factions that pay attention to such shit. The Democratic Party has won, it’s taken the conservative high ground the Republicans abandoned on its trek out of Egypt. No one has yet claimed the high ground the Democrats abandoned…

We should do it. I don’t know exactly how, or how to lasso the right people into the gig, but there very much needs to be a center-left/liberal political party in this country that still can hold planks that the Obamabots have pulled so rudely out of the platform. Civil rights, constitutional protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights, for all citizens in good standing. Energy policy looking at the future and not the past. Foreign policy that doesn’t deliberately oppress whole populations for profit or start resource wars and sending the poor out to fight ’em. No more threatening to make humanity extinct if somebody says or does something ‘we’ don’t like.

We don’t need to waste valuable time and energy fighting old battles with old foes – we need to admit they’ve lost us, and devote ourselves to developing a political party to take up the slack. They’ve lost ALL honest liberals, and make no secret of the fact that they don’t want honest liberals in their new territory. Fine. Half (actually more than half) of the citizens of this country fall into the center-left to liberal range on important social issues. Teabaggers like to pretend in their astroturf, bermuda shorts way, that they’re being oppressed. We liberals are now out here blowing all alone. The party threw us all under the bus.

So I say fuck ’em.