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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:15 AM
Original message
who better represents the Democratic Party?
None of this anonymous poll crap. If you think it, let us know.

1. Professional poll-takers, strategists and assorted wonks.

2. Actual, flesh and blood Democrats who drive trucks, teach kids, heal the sick, sweep floors, work back offices, work front offices, raise kids singlehandedly, build buildings, build cars, build justice, fight fires, fight crime, fight for the poor and sell all manner of things.

?
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elshiva Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:18 AM
Response to Original message
1. No. 2 of course! Surely you jest!
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:18 AM
Response to Original message
2. False Dichotomy
Your poll sets up a false choice. BOTH are necessary for the Democrats to win elections and fix the mess these Pubbie fascist bastards have created.

Why divide? We need to stick together.

Spare me the "workers of the world unite" rhetoric.
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Cheswick2.0 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:22 AM
Original message
the OP didn't set up and either/or question so why are you?
He said which served the party better.

BTW, what the hell is wrong with the workers of the world uniting?
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:24 AM
Response to Original message
6. He Presented Two Choices
Edited on Thu Jan-13-05 12:26 AM by rwenos
Any polarized, overstated choice between two extremes presents a false dichotomy -- i.e., a choice between two poles. The reality of the Body Politic is more nuanced.

You should have recognized my reference to "workers of the world unite." It's the first part of the last line of the Communist Manifesto. The rest of it is "you have nothing to lose but your chains."

That kind of rhetoric we don't need.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:28 AM
Response to Reply #6
9. ?
You should have recognized my reference to "workers of the world unite." It's the first part of the last line of the Communist Manifesto. The rest of it is "you have nothing to lose but your chains."

That kind of rhetoric we don't need.

You're the one who brought it up.
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Cheswick2.0 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:33 AM
Response to Reply #6
11. But he didn't say you could have one or the other
I do recognise the quote about workers uniting. That is what will have to happen eventually if you don't want a bloody revolution. People will only participate in thier own distrustion for so long.

But in fact you are the person who Quoted the communist manifesto. Why?
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:40 AM
Response to Reply #11
13. I Quoted Marx to Show the Futility of Presenting That Choice nt
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:41 AM
Response to Reply #13
14. what choice?
I haven't presented Marxism as a choice.
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:46 AM
Response to Reply #14
16. Your Initial Question put the Workers on One Side . . .
and the consultants, wonks and elites on the other side. It appears to me that this choice presents a classical Marxist position. That's why I quoted Marx -- because you presented a question, the major premise of which was that the Polis can be divided on social class lines. I don't think that works in today's political reality.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:48 AM
Response to Reply #16
18. believe what you will, then.
But class is today's political reality.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:22 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. perhaps, but I'm not the one who set it up originally.
The people in the party who actually *do things* aren't the ones who started this little issue with the wonk class.

Spare me the "workers of the world unite" rhetoric.

Why? Does labor bother you?
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:31 AM
Response to Reply #5
10. Labor Doesn't Bother Me at All
I grew up the son of a labor union member. The Labor Movement made America great.

My criticism is based on the question's insistence on choosing sides -- i.e., we have to get the working people of America together with the progressive capitalists. You may think that's a contradiiction in terms. I don't.

Shutting the Democratic Party off from progressive business interests is unrealistic. Adopting Marxist rhetoric is asking the Pub's to revive McCarthyism.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:37 AM
Response to Reply #10
12. 1. I haven't adopted Marxist rhetoric.
2. I don't care if it invites a new McCarthyism. We already have a new McCarthyism anyway.

3. I posited a binary choice because it's what we have before us. I said nothing about progressive capitalism, because I'm not anti-capitalist, particularly - I suspect your beliefs about the left are hindering your understanding.

At the same time, the right wing is forcing us into a position of choosing between capital and labor. Some in the Democratic Party have made their choice, and I know where my choice will be if it comes to it.
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:43 AM
Response to Reply #12
15. "The Right Is Forcing A Choice Upon Us"
You've identified where you and I disagree. We can't let the Right force us into choosing between classic Marxist class-conflict rhetoric and selling out to the Globalistas.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:46 AM
Response to Reply #15
17. please quote me accurately.
I wrote:

At the same time, the right wing is forcing us into a position of choosing between capital and labor.

Now, to what you wrote:

We can't let the Right force us into choosing between classic Marxist class-conflict rhetoric and selling out to the Globalistas.

We already have, and the party poobahs have already chosen the latter course. Better dead than red, I suppose.
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:49 AM
Response to Reply #17
19. You're Not Seriously Suggesting the Dem's Should Go "Red"?
How do you spell P-O-L-I-T-I-C-A-L-S-U-I-C-I-D-E?
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:51 AM
Response to Reply #19
20. do you equate any discussion of class with communism?
If so, then yes.
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:56 AM
Response to Reply #20
21. Interesting Topic, "Class"
And one generally considered political poison. I'm completely comfortable with a discussion of class. The Pub's have sold most of the working class of America on a fairy tale --- i.e., that someday they too can make enough money to benefit from Bush's tax cuts for the Big Rich.

I just think the Democrats have to see themselves as a mosaic -- i.e., some progressive capitalists, some wonks, some Big Labor guys, some Silicon Valley guys, feminist publishing yuppies from NYC, Hollywood lighting tech's, truck drivers, musicians, bartenders. Cutting ourselves off from any "class" is political suicide.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:59 AM
Response to Reply #21
22. now you're ok with discussing class?
Wasn't I practically the reincarnation of Lenin a bit ago for wanting to have that discussion?
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:02 AM
Response to Reply #21
23. OK with discussing "class," but not if
the major premise of the question is to put the "working class" on one side, and petty-bourgeois and progressive capitalists -- plus all the other members of the "mosaic" that I listed -- on the other side.

A working class guy who tends bar in Reno and a lighting tech from Hollywood and a programmer from Sunnyvalel and a trial lawyer in San Francisco can have similar interests. Why divide 'em?
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:04 AM
Response to Reply #23
24. try reading the original post again. n/t
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:06 AM
Response to Reply #24
25. Ad Hominem is the lowest form of debate. n/t
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:08 AM
Response to Reply #25
26. the creation of straw men is no better.
Again, I invite you to actually read the dichotomy presented in the original post.
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:10 AM
Response to Reply #26
27. Read It, Reacted to It. Stand by my comments.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:13 AM
Response to Reply #27
29. you be you.
I know it's uncomfortable to have to back off previous statements, but we're here for you when you're ready.
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rwenos Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:19 AM
Response to Reply #29
30. Don't Intend to Back Off
Why isn't it okay for us to disagree? What kind of ax are you grinding?
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:25 AM
Response to Reply #30
31. it's perfectly fine for us to disagree.
It's what we're doing now.
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American Tragedy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 01:12 AM
Response to Reply #2
28. Agreed.
I understand the original poster's point, but not all who work in partisan public policy are the parasites that they're made out to be. Hell, we need more of them, more good ones.
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messiah Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:19 AM
Response to Original message
3. Business men that are destroying this planet for profit
that's who represents the democratic party. The lower classes are all cannon fodder.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:28 AM
Response to Reply #3
8. heh!
Hey, messiah. :D
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jpgray Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:20 AM
Response to Original message
4. One doesn't get power without the support or apathy of two
I know a lot of twos, in fact, whose way of life is being actively destroyed by politicians in this country. They spend more time playing fantasy football than thinking about politics. Mechanisms exist for us to exert our will over those in power we don't like, but we aren't very effective at doing it. Mostly we wait for a person of privilege to decide to run and then we pray we agree with him or her.
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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 12:27 AM
Response to Reply #4
7. well put.
Sad, but well put.
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Sugarbleus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jan-13-05 02:32 AM
Response to Original message
32. Number 2, hands down!
WE DO. Politicians don't represent the common man, that's pretty clear now.

Okay, let's nominate someone from DU to run for office :7
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