Monday, January 18, 2010

A progressive's plight...?

... or just a statist unwilling to confront reality?

So, just what was that we were hearing about the Republican Party forcing out the moderates and radicalizing the Party?

It is very important that progressives help defeat Coakley. Please read my explanation. The more power the folks in the Democratic Corporate Suck Up wing of the party gain, the more we will have to fight to make the party move to the left. I do not think that many progressive Democrats understand that putting such people as Coakley into power is worse than having a Republican in the seat. Just being in the Democratic Party does not and will not ensure a progressive agenda. Do you not see that? So, if you get her into the seat, what makes you think she will be any better than Lincoln, or Nelson, or Lieberman! It will, in fact, ensure that there will be NO progressive agenda. It was not the Republicans who failed us of late. It was the Democrats. We will never succeed as long as the Dems can talk liberal and vote corporate.

That from the liberal blog, FireDogLake.

Far be it from us to pile on our political opposites for attempting to fashion their party into something more to their ideological liking – that’s a struggle currently ongoing within the Republican Party with no small amount or degree of crocodile tears from the punditry and hand-wringing from the country clubbers decrying the negative effects of these "purgings".

However, color us confused with this particular progressive’s plight: Perhaps we’re oversimplifying the matter but one would think that a massive spending bill in porkulus, the “rescuing” of the auto industry and the proposed take-over of the healthcare and energy sectors would represent the very epitome of a progressive/statist agenda.

If the blogger from FDL is concerned with the cozying up the administration has appeared to have done with Big Finance and Wall St. as a practice in corporatism, then we are still perplexed because the realization of a progressive agenda most certainly depends on a large degree of this corporatism (or, if you prefer, "crony capitalism" or "economic fascism") where the “equality of results” so cherished by progressives is achieved by this public/private co-mingling where any unfairness or social injustice can be eliminated by fiat.

Help explain to us where we may have missed the boat on this one.

2 comments:

B-Daddy said...

FDL is a true believer. Nothing short of single payer for health care, the full nationalization of all banks and the the forced sale of the auto industry to the unions will really make him happy. There is a name for that point of view, it is called socialism.

There is also a time and a place for that kind of thinking; the time is never; I will let you figure out the place.

Dean said...

This is why I'm really beginning to believe that progressiveism/liberalism is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

What is what you describe above anything but the "corporatism" that they decry?

To achieve those ends requires a hand-in-glove public/private partnership as a means.

And since its doubtful private enterprise is going away anytime soon, this picking of winners and losers in the "crony capitalism" and "economic fascism" that we see evolving before our very eyes looks to be the end state they desire whether they can bring themselves to admit it or not.