Reply #40: The problem that many of us "bashers" have is "moderate dems" vs. "moderate Repubs"... [View All]

Some will say that each party has those that tend to side with the other party on some issues, and therefore each are representing the "middle" in states where there aren't extremes that are powerful on either side. There may be some truth to that, but there's an important distinction I think that needs to be made of what I see to be true about "moderate" Democrats vs. "moderate" Republicans. Mind you, this isn't necessarily ALL of these that would be "moderate", but many that have coopted the label of "moderate".

"Moderate" Republicans are those Republicans that vote on some votes the "liberal" side. The key question is on what side do they vote on the IMPORTANT votes to what core Republicans want. Or put in another way, if we equivalence Republicans goals as being the same as corporate America's, they would appear to be allowed to deviate on votes that don't matter to corporate America, and therefore the Republican Party, but on key votes to maintain corporate dogma, they fall into line with the other Republicans and vote party line.

In the case of "moderate" Democrats, these Democrats also vote on some votes the "conservative" side. But in the case of Democrats, are they voting for votes that aren't as important to the core constituency of the Democratic Party, if you consider the core constituency of the party to be that which is NON-corporate in nature? HELL NO! They vote with the Republicans on these KEY votes and therefore that's why we get NOTHING done for the really important issues for Democrats. In the case of these "moderates", they only vote WITH the Democrats on those more "meaningless" issues but that raise their "liberal" overall voting ratings, like abortion, gay marriage, etc. They champion themselves as protector of these rights in their selections for the supreme court, etc. too. So on some of these issues they are an improvement on the Republicans, but they really are NO different than the "moderate" Republicans on those issues as they relate to corporate power in America. And THAT is the rub! By allowing these so-called "moderate" Democrats to control key votes in our party, we take AWAY those key votes from taking down corporate power in America, which is what the core constituency of the Dems want, and is so *key* to fixing other issues such as the Iraq War, outsourcing, global warming, etc. when these so-called "moderates" work against us on these very important issues.

In short, the moderates on both sides work equally hard to promote the concerns of the corporate lobbyists that pay them, which is why many of us "bash" them so much. We see through this pile of illusions that they throw up to try and protect what is in effect "one party rule".

Now if you get some TRUE middle of the road folks that might have some conservative viewpoints on some things like gun ownership, etc. like Paul Hackett that still don't want to have corporate rule, THEM's the moderates I WANT in our party to attract the larger electorate and the independents into our mix. But those kind of candidates won't work against us when the chips are down to fix the really important issues that Corporate America stands in our way on. And people like Hackett were those that the DLC types try and keep out because they know that folks like him expose that they aren't moderates and won't cowtow to their notion of "moderation" that is really corporatism being disguised as being "moderate".

I think even many of those in the religious right are starting to see where their party works against them at times. Even though these potentially rational people are only a small part of this segment, these are the kinds that are NOT appealed to by our current so-called "moderates", as they don't address their middle of the road concerns, and still promote corporate concerns. They either still vote for hard-lined social conservatives or stay out.

Many of us may be called "bashers". But many of us are just passionate Democrats and we see a real cancer that is screwing up our party and feel the need to speak STRONGLY against it being infected even more. Call it bashing if you like, but I'd call it being strong willed in the face of those trying to corrupt the power of the people's will versus corporate will.