Make that Change

The political center of America has been moving decidedly to the right for decades.

Actual liberals have been all-but banished from the Democratic Party.

Ask yourself, do we have any heroes in America like Marek Edelman, who left us this past October? Uncompromising and fierce, even in the face of death, even in the face of the scorn of his countrymen and allies?

The Democrats will not get their shit together on issues like marriage equality or reproductive rights and they have caved on every economic issue there is.

The Clinton 90's heralded an era of Democratic Reaganomics.

The Democrats are now on the wrong side on the death penalty, the war on crime, the war on drugs, and more or less every other aspect of both our foreign and domestic policy.

Gains are small and usually immediately taken away. Resistance is met with either scorn, or muscle.

We, the left, caught a great deal of grief from the Democratic Party when we dared to refuse to support Gore and Lieberman who might as well be Republicans.

I’m sorry, but you can’t move that far to the right and then complain that the left has abandoned you.

And anyone who has spoken out in the last eight years, from Ward Churchill to Bill Maher to the Dixie Chicks can tell you what it’s like be responded to with simple, brutal, unmoving force.

And now, we are at a crossroads. Did we really mean what we said when we voted for change, or are we just jerking off?

Are we pissed off enough about this recession to demand that the people we just put into office reverse the past 28 years of systematic deregulation that led to this whole mess?
The hubris of the last eight years, the prioritizing of power over party, and party over country has imploded the Republican Party and we have been given a magnificent opportunity. It would be a crime to waste it. But the Democrats have indeed wasted the opportunity.

They could not get meaningful health care for all Americans even with a Super-majority in both houses. You know why? Because they didn't fucking try!

They talked of bi-partisanship as if it were the primary virtue for any politician. As if making friends with the enemy were more important than principle.

They've put Blackwater into Pakistan for Christ's sake!

No more. I've come to a crucial decision. When you choose between the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil.

Go ahead and tell me I'm throwing my vote away.

But from now on, every vote will go to a Socialist, Green or Independent candidate.

I used to think the Democrats' problem was weakness. Now I see that it's a lack of conviction.

And for the record, to you, the Democratic Party, you left us. Adieu.