Reply #6: A little history lesson, Mr Benchley

[Warpy]

You see, back before Nixon got in, the Democratic party was, well, democratic. They used community based campaign workers and they raised money the old fashioned way, by meeting people and listening to what they needed and responding to it.

Then the DLC came in and said, "Hey, we don't need all these little people, we can collect a lot more money from big donors and save money by closing all those community offices and laying off all those part time campaign workers." For over 30 years anyone who has gone to a campaign headquarters during election season to volunteer has been told "Drop off a nice check and don't let the door smack ya in the ass..." The party's been listening only to its well heeled donors for far too long, and calling itself "moderate" for doing so. The rest of us have been ignored, brushed off, forgotten.

You can see the result. We have too many spineless wimps in Congress who are terrified to stand up for anything or anyone. We have lost all 3 branches of government, and it will take decades to repair the damage. The working class base either votes for tax cuts or stays home. The Democrats have offered them nothing for a very long time.

I would suggest that instead of attacking people who are telling them what the problem is, they spend a little time trying to figure out how to overcome it. Kneejerk support for a bad status quo and the kind of personal attacks I've seen from them against Dean and anyone else who dares speak out simply won't suffice.

In any case, blaming people for being shut out of their own party for three decades through no fault of their own is insulting, short sighted and ignorant. The party as it stands today isn't worthy of support. When it shows some signs of cleaning house and returning itself to the people who built it, that will change. The only signs of life I've seen have been on the periphery, on boards like this, in the DFA movement, and in organizations like moveon.org outside the party power structure.