Thursday, May 11, 2006

The Emanuel/Dean Tent-stakes

The (liberal)Girl Next Door has a great post up about the right-left tension over the Democratic Party's tent-stakes.

Liberals haven’t moved, but the tent has and we’re tired of standing on the outside of the tent. And rather than join the Party in its current location, on the rocky slope to our right, we’re using our muscle to move the tent back to where it used to be, just a little to the left, in the nice green plain where we can put down roots and grow. It’s nicer over here, plus, it’s where most Americans are making their way.


I agree with the entire post. The "tent" could be pulled so far past the center and to the right that the party itself becomes no more meaningful than the Blue Team, and then we'd be like Republicans chanting my party right or wrong.

There is something I'm more afraid of than being pulled to the right, though, and that is being sucked up into corporatism. If there is anything that should be antithetical to everything the Democratic Party stands for, it is corporatism. By this, I mean fascism, but it isn't polite to use that word in a world where the GOP defines the language.

And by fascism, or corporatism, I mean the ism whereby the human being is expected to exist for the benefit of the corporate being, and the state's function is to police and enforce the terms and function of that relationship.

It is the corporatism that has crept into the warp and woof of the Democratic Party that scares me more than any rightward pull. Without the influence of corporatism, would the party have stood for -- no less championed -- the media consolidation made possible by the Communications Act signed by President Clinton? Walk away from corporatism, and Medicare for everyone becomes more possible to achieve. Turn from the corporations to the citizenry, and NAFTA, CAFTA, SHAFTA can be broken.

When we talk about right versus left, we slip onto the slope Karl Rove built.

The Democratic Party has a history of standing for the common, regular citizen, a tradition I once believed was inviolate. That's where I want my party tent pitched.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said. That is exactly what the present danger is, and you are right to point out that the left vs. right canard plays into the hands of the manipulators.

It also explains how Rove and Co. dupe people into voting against their own interests. The trick will be to expose lies for what they are. Maybe now Americans are traumatized enough to think for themselves. I sure hope so.