Why Democrats Are At Least Half of the Problem

From CounterPunch:

There you have it. Liberal, "progressive" Democrats hate Ralph Nader as much as they hate George W. Bush. Perhaps, some therapy is in order, as hate is a self-destructive emotion if left unchecked. It also does not win elections. I'm not, however, surprised at this outpouring of Democratic venom, as liberals and so-called progressives prefer to blame the loss of elections on everybody and everything, except that is, on the lackluster, uninspiring, boring, bumbling, stumbling, and problematic campaigns of their own candidates. Democrats prefer to blame their presidential candidates' ineptitude on others, such as Ralph Nader and the people who voted for him and his platform. Liberal, "progressive", Democrats fail to place the responsibility for getting G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney elected where it belongs, that is, onto the people who actually voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at the polls. The elections of 2000 and 2004 were both the Democrats to lose. And, they lost them both. The reality of the Democratic Party's electoral losses are compounded by its inability to accept responsibility for them. Democrats prefer the blindness of hatred over the reality of their own failures. It was not Ralph Nader's fault that 62,040,606 people voted for Bush and Cheney in 2004. But, damn you Ralph, anyway!

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You know, being around all these art-liberals in the theater department here at LSU has almost made me forget about the INTENSE rounds of Nader bashing following the '00 and '04 Presidential elections coming from the much less politically and intellectually tolerant mainstream "liberals" of the Democratic Party. And it was intense. I was bashed personally, on more than one occasion, on the comment boards at Eschaton for simply saying that I supported Nader, and nothing more, which caused an evil dog pile of emotional and irrational attacks from the Party faithful. A few Nader supporters helped me out, but most of these feel-good "liberals" were completely unwilling to even admit that any of my arguments had any legitimacy at all, much less agree with me. I got the same shit from at least a couple of close friends. So much for debate as a vital part of democracy.

Whether one agrees that third parties or independent candidates are a reasonable place to send one's votes, I think it's safe to say that the Democrats in Washington have been wildly ineffectual for some twelve years. Liberals and progressives have essentially been sitting on the sidelines while cherished programs and civil liberties have been slowly chipped away at by the GOP majority. To the best of my knowledge, absolutely no progressive laws or programs have come out of Congress in over a decade. In short, the Democrats are dead in the water and have been for a long time. That, in and of itself, is what makes voting for Nader or the Greens, at the very least, a reasonable position.

But not to the moderate Stalinists of the do-nothing party. Indeed, this is the same kind of "politically correct" bullshit against which right-wingers have been railing for years. Apparently, it doesn't really matter what your ideology or philosophy is: what matters is whose side you're on. And if you're on the wrong side, you're a bad guy. And if you're liberal and on the wrong side, you're worse than Bush. Fucking zombies.

Well, I've learned my lesson. I'm not voting for a single Democrat if there is a better alternative until the donkey butts can show me that they're serious about doing the right thing. Because that's ultimately what it's all about. My vote is wasted on a candidate who is liberal in name only; indeed, it is not simply wasted, it's counterproductive--it helps to legitimize their faux liberal status. I won't have any part of it. And it is now completely clear that there's no use even discussing this with Democrats who disagree. Screw 'em. If they want to vote for war mongers like Hillary Clinton or John Kerry, that's their right, but, frankly, if that's what they're going to do, I don't see much of a difference between them and the Republicans.

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