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What's missing in Congress these days is real progressive leadership and real political courage. Over the past several decades, the Democratic Party has been entirely taken over by corporate shills and money-grubbing sleazes while those who might still have some vestigial remnant of a conscience or genuine concern for the plight of the common person have been co-opted or intimidated into silence or powerlessness. . . .
It is time for any real progressives in House or Senate to admit the truth--that they are boxed in and effectively neutered by the Party leadership--and that if they really want to be defenders of the public interest and the progressive cause, they must give up their sinecures, cut themselves loose from the shackles of the Democratic Party, and form a new and independent national progressive party. They have a model: Bernie Sanders, the independent self-described socialist senator from Vermont. Of course, even Sanders is boxed in, given that he is alone in the Senate as an independent progressive , so that if he wants a committee assignment he has to agree to vote with the Democrats on the key issues of party control. But that is because there is nobody standing with him in the Senate.
This could change if the progressive caucus members of both houses were to quit the sell-out Democrats and form the nucleus of a new party, instead of just a caucus within the sclerotic and rancidly corrupt Democratic Party.
Jan 23, 2010
A Call for a Progressive Declaration of Independence
At the Pacifica Free Press, David Lindorff calls on Congressional progressives to declare their independence from the Democratic Party:
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2 comments:
This sounds wonderful in theory. However, the fact of the matter is that the progressives would not be able to FUND this new party. Even were they to join an established party like the Greens, it would be a major conflict of interest to accept corporate donations (especially in the case of the GP USA, which doesn't allow corporate contributions). With the vast resources of the DNC at their disposal during campaign season, they're willing to sell themselves short.
On the other hand, if they all decided to AT ONCE simultaneously switch to (for example) the Green Party USA, this would probably attract so much attention from the press that the individual donations would come pouring in (AND if they could reach agreement with the Dems to not run anybody against them in major races, like Bernie Sanders has).
The idea is flotaing around in a couple different places the last few days, saw something similar at Op-Ed news. If a group of congressional progressives did that "at once" as Jason suggests, it would be the most attention progressives have gotten in quite some time.
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