Caught in between right and left...battered by both sides...Dean and DNC

I have watched this board and other so-called progressive forums the last while. I have been amazed at how well we can eat our own, chew them up, and spit them out.

Then I see the other side, like the blogs which are becoming daily more like the NDN/DLC...I see them eating up our Democrats from the right.

And then there is that governor from Wyoming who is so clueless he does not know Howard Dean does not believe in gun control, and he does not even know he is trying to give money and build state parties.

It is all so unbelievable.

Here is the attack from the left:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2005/09/dc_protest.html

"If Bush won't talk to Cindy Sheehan, other politicians will. In a speech to a gathering of progressives at the University of DC on Sunday, she excoriated DNC chair Howard Dean and New York Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, all of whom she met last with week, for refusing to call for a pullout. "If you want, we can walk slower so you can catch up with us," she joked, addressing Schumer in absentia.

In my nearly 10 years as a journalist, I've never asked anybody that cliché question: "How are you feeling?" But with Sheehan it seemed appropriate. "This weekend was huge—it was amazing," she said. "But our work's just starting."

For the first time, the antiwar movement has a face and a real strategy. Think of it as a pre-exit exit strategy. "We're forcing the Democrats to take a stand," Sheehan said. Given that a recent congressional hearing on withdrawal options failed to draw the leadership of either party, that may take some doing."

Is there anything wrong with this? No, not really. But I get lectured for being a one-issue person about women's rights....we have to stop doing this to each other and the party.

And from the right there is that governor who thinks the DNC is too liberal.
http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/articles/2005/09/25/news/news03.txt
"Freudenthal pushes Democrats to think independently

Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal pressed the state party to distance itself from national newsmakers at a meeting of Wyoming Democrats where he and a Democratic National Committee vice chairman painted contrasting views of the national organization.

Freudenthal told a group of about 75 state Democrats gathered at the Clarion Hotel on Saturday night to focus on local issues that relate to Wyoming residents and to ignore national questions about a party that frequently differs from the local level.

"This is a party that's not afraid of firearms," Freudenthal said. "It's a party where people are interested in whether the governor managed to shoot an antelope with one shot."

"I don't care about Howard Dean," he summed up.

DNC Vice Chairman Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., who came to Gillette for the meeting, acknowledged that the national organizations had slipped.

"We lost touch at the federal level," Honda said. "Our job is to correct this with you."END SNIP.

Good luck, Mike Honda, I don't think the governor hears you.

Caught in the middle of a squeeze play with many of our own bloggers turning right. Hang in there, Howard, keep building the party the best way you can. Some of us are with you. Not sure of the others.

to set a framework for intra-party negotiation ... if it doesn't happen, we'll remain divided and lose ... so far the slings and arrows are flying but not much productive discussion is happening ... Dean should push every elected Dem to start holding regular town meetings with their constituents ... if the inside won't let the outside in, the big tent is going get shredded into pieces ...

and this is not to say all of this is on Dean's shoulders ... we all have a role to play ... but Dean's the Chairman and he needs to lead ...

You can try, but they still think their way is the best.

We are going to self-destruct with the help of our own party.

On ANYTHING.

BTW, I agree with you.

can it be done? no idea ...

i think solving the "war" problem will help tremendously ... that issue probably divides Democrats more than any other ... if Democrats don't call for peace, and worse yet don't call for peace before many republicans do, we are NOT going to do well next year ...

there's an assumption being made that bush is so unbelievably screwed up that Democrats will do great next year ... i hope it's true; i worry it's not ...

if we are a party of "voting for it and voting against it" next year, we've got huge problems ... and don't expect the left, or me, to "just go along" anymore ... those hoping ABB will rise again have not been paying attention ...

Dean cannot force elected Dems to do anything ... but he can get in their faces to show them the risks we face ... and he can call for "infrastructure changes" ... we have to find a way to "dialog" between the grassroots and elected Democrats ... we cannot continue to have the Party's message eminate from the top down; we need two-way communication ... and we cannot continue to be a party that's driven by candidates, ad hoc positions on the issues and campaigns ...

the party needs to craft a central message that all Democrats help reinforce ... we need more "message discipline" ... we need to be 4 parts movement and one part campaign ... and we need to infuse the party with more democracy ... the party elite have stifled participation ...

we will never reach an absolute consensus but we have to try ... i supported Dean for Chair because i believed he was up to the task of making the necessary reforms ... no one said it would be easy ... maybe the task really is impossible; this does nothing to assuage my disappointment thus far ...

Anymore than the right does.

Then both will lose their agendas. I know what is going on from the left hand side and it ain't purty.

We will be left with no party, and then the DLC has won their quest for one party in tune with the GOP.

i consider myself far to the left ... and on the war, i will not settle for less than withdrawal ... a majority of Americans called for immediate withdrawal according to a recent NY Times/CBS poll ...

and the majority will have its way ... Iraq will be resolved before the election ...

but just because i want Dean to succeed and just because i see party unity as critical doesn't mean i'm willing to just go along with things i don't believe in without open discussion and negotiation ... if the Party wants to go on letting each elected Dem do whatever the hell they want to with impunity, we are truly screwed ... that's what has to change ... we need a more open process and then we need to negotiate common ground ... and we need processes and structures to facilitate a new openness ... and when all have been heard, then we call for unity and consensus from carefully crafted positions ... what we're doing now can only fail ...

He is standing up to elected Democrats. Remember the ones who voted for CAFTA? He is rallying with a NY candidate in spite of the Democrats who are supporting Bloomberg. Lots of things like that.

Doesn't matter.

It really does not matter. No one will ever satisfy anyone on the left, and the right is standing guard ready to grab back any power we thought we were getting.

why do you post about it? i wonder if you really believe it doesn't matter ...

anyway, i think it matters plenty ...

I would further qualify that and say not just business, but that part of corporate America that isn't content to have a say but want to actually own the government.

With the GOP imploding, the temptation will be great to welcome the fleeing corporate donors with open arms--and we'd get economically screwed with left wing cultural window dressing instead of right wing.

Howard doesn't spend a lot of time on the divisive issues, and when he was running for president, he said there were a couple of things that the vast majority of Americans want in common:

affordable, good education for their kids
access to affordable decent healthcare
a job you can make a decent living at
safety (from threats foreign & domestic)

Most Americans have a pretty good idea what it will take to do the first three, despite disinformation from corporate America, and if we had a press that did it's job we'd probably mostly agree on safety too.

Which of those things Freudenshade disagree with?

Trust me, I am not.

In a country where the last Democrat elected president (twice) was DLC, the last Dem (Gore) to win the popular vote was DLC, the last Dem nominee for president was DLC, the DNC chair is former DLC, and the leading contenders for '08 are DLC, why do you think that anyone in support of moderate Dems, current or former DLC members on a message board with "Democrat" in its name are "DLC PR people?"

Bloggers who are paid by campaigns or groups and don't disclose. It is starting now to be sort of obvious, and will get worse.

I am feeling very discouraged overall. Reading DU lately is like reading a GOP site as far as the attacks on our own go.

...are not even Democrats, they are either Greens or Libertarians who are most likely sick of the two-party system and wouldn't shed a tear if the Democratic Party collapsed before their eyes. Strengthening the Democratic Party would mean they would have to be flexible on some issues (God forbid)...and that's just not an option for some people. Also, it would mean finding solutions for our country's many problems in a productive realistic manner...and many people would just prefer to bitch instead.

It is becoming the proper place to tear down our party. For 3 days this place has been filled with "i'm done with the democrats unless they meet with cindy" threads.

Dean and the party leaders did meet with her. But they did not do enough.

All this my way or the highway crap is too much and wearing all of us out.

labor?
trade agreements?
predatory foreign policy(which got us into Iraq after all)?

When you say the Democratic Party will collapse, do you think that would be from the lack of corporate donors or what?

Corporate America is extremely well-represented by the GOP. what's wrong with having a party that represents the rest of us?


When you talk about ego, it sounds a little like the GOP assault on academia--it's an avenue they don't control so they want to wrest power away by demanding diversity, something they do not tolerate in domains they already control.

We are seeing the results right now of being too accomodating to the Chamber of Commerce wing of the party--our Democratic elected officials are largely ignoring the overwhelming opinion of those who voted for them on the war. That's not ego, that's holding them accountable and making them represent us.

We are sick to fucking death of a couple of business people and corrupt politicians making deals in the backroom that take money out of our pockets and kill our kids instead of giving them an education and a future.

If that gets any suits knickers in a knot, too fucking bad. Nobody is going expropriate their business or steal their nest egg, we just want our society to work for more of us.

Also, unless the DLC makes some side deal with Diebold, I don't see where they are going to get votes.

great post, yurbud !!

some posters seem to think everyone should just be quiet, sell out on the issues and just go along for the sake of party unity ... they don't understand that without representing mainstream Democrats on the issues, winning becomes an empty proposition ...

and, then, of course, comes the raging paranoia that "there are all these evil forces trying to destroy the Party" when the truth is that Party's shortcomings and arrogance are what is destroying the Party ...

there can be no unity without intra-party bridge-building and negotiation ... calling for unity without negotiation on the issues is absurd ...

corporate America. At the very least, their interests should be balanced with the rest of ours.

and it's all about power and ego.

We have been lucky in our area, more so than most. But that could be changing.