Molly Ivins gets my vote again:
I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t even see straight….
Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.
Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to get the political system back from the moralists and corporatists – well, the answer might be contained in the question: we need to drive a wedge into the unholy alliance between the kleptocrats and the theocrats. All they really hav in common is a desire for power and influence.
If we could get the progressive, humane side of the political ledger to grow some balls, we might get somewhere. But I despair.
Its just too bad that 99.99% of the people calling themselves “Conservatives/Republicans” are anything but, otherwise we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. In fact, I don’t remember a time in my life when “Republican” didn’t really mean “interventionist” or “Big Brother” or “fascist” or, in the past six years, “radical”. I can understand the criticism of Democrats for being wishy washy, but on the other hand, maybe Democrats have hard a hard time indentifying exactly who it is that they oppose these days… the other side has gone beyond “moral majority” politcs, into the unchartered waters of a sleek, oppressive, Orwellian-nightmare type of government.
In fact, when I watch W and his honchos speak, I get the same eerie, sick feeling I did when I was kid and read this line from Animal Farm: “Four legs good, two legs BETTER”.