The marginalization of "The Left" through the years. Not hearing us now at all.

[dreamnightwind]

150. There's some truth to that

but it's mostly about whether or not your yelling serves the interests of the people who own everything. If so, 50 fools with teabags hanging off of their hats is a grass-roots revolution to be reckoned with. If not, a million people in the D.C. streets simply get ignored.

The progressive caucus could use a little more backbone, so I'm not arguing against that. Their budget proposal is pretty good, unfortunately it won't be taken seriously by any of our Democratic leaders. I can see where this would be an opportunity for them to refuse to go along with any more centrist budget proposal, but them our Dems in leadership would just cut them out and fashion a bargain with the Republicans rather than incorporate the ideas of the progressive caucus. Why? Because they're on the phone, every day, dialing for dollars from the top corporations, and they have to be able to justify the campaign donations they are seeking.

One very interesting point in MF's OP was that the corporatists set up a fund of money that could be used to insulate the corporate Dems from popular backlash as they betrayed our interests. We need to do the same for the left. If our politicians could fearlessly support good policy without thinking about what they will tell corporations when they make the donor calls, it would be a game changer. We need a large, deeply funded progressive "bank" that our politicians can draw from for campaign money, and we need to make damn sure that money goes to progressives.