What is the role of liberals and progressives in the Democratic Party?

[democrank]

15. Democrats are in a new Don`t-Make-Waves era

where many freely trash unions, openly support torture and offer opinions like, "This is just how the Senate works."

Since I`m nearly 70 and have been a Democrat for decades, I can tell you that I hardly recognize the place. The fact that the party`s center post has been moved to the right and it`s now way "liberal" to be for things like unemployment benefits, affordable health care and civil liberties. This paves the way for Democratic progressives to be party outcasts. Just ask folks like Rahm Emanuel or Harold Ford or any number of "party spokespeople" on tv. They`ll excuse just about anything.

I`m from the Howard Dean wing of the Democratic party. I don`t make excuses for the corporate takeover of our leadership and I don`t make excuses for things like our pitiful oversight of poverty. My progressive/liberal values were formed during the Vietnam War and during the Civil Rights movement and I can`t imagine ever changing.

Like I used to say when I posted regularly on this board, you can`t look at a pile of dog crap and call it a strawberry sundae, so progressives and liberals should stay true to their guiding principles, whether "mainstream" Democrats want us to or not.