First, i want to thank Arianna for recognizing the passion of the Deaniacs and what they mean for the future of our democracy:
http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/021104.html
Now for the article that makes my blood boil and makes me vow to join the Green party or declare myself independent.
this TNR article (sorry for the subscription only) details how the purges are already beginning within the Democratic establishment (think unions, DLC, Brookings institution, all politicians who endorsed Dean) of anyone who supported Dean. it made me just fly into a rage. if they don't want me, my money, my time and dedication, they can go f#@$ themselves into irrelevance like the Democrats already have.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040223&s=foer022304
Officially, the Kerry campaign pledges to bring the party together and to move past such gloating. But some establishment Democrats, both inside and outside the Kerry campaign, still intend to punish the Dean heretics. And, while well-known politicians, such as Gore, Harkin, and Moseley Braun, may endure the most public abuse, the people who may ultimately suffer explicit retribution for their Dean-boosting are cogs in the Democratic machine--people like Daalder, who toil in think tanks or union leadership or groups like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). As one former high-ranking Clinton administration official puts it, "Will they work again in this town again? I hope not."
I think when Deaniacs talk about the DNC being against them, they essentially are talking about the "power elite" democratic party that hated Dean, and feared everything he stood for. and this article only confirms it. these bastards think the biggest heresy of Dean is how he was so strident about Iraq, about how he (gasp!) thinks we're no safer with Saddam gone (are those idiots blind to the suicide bombings and impending civil war???!!) and how he rejected "clintonian" mainstream politics. this is such bullshit. no wonder our party is lost in the electoral wilderness. Bush and the GOP has moved our discourse SO FAR to the right they're falling off a cliff. cutting taxes during wartime?? with extreme deficits? and this party can only think about going back to mushy Clintonian triangulation instead of a spirited defense of its greatest accomplishments?? They think Dean is a radical leftist??!!
my heart aches at all the people who will be "punished" for going out on a limb for Dean. i think i will start writing letters to martin o malley and others in the DLC who bucked their organization and supported Dean.
If anything, this article should show why this party is out of power, out of touch with the American people, and lacking in all vision and principles other than how to get re-elected. it's certainly not about uplifting the American people. For the way they have treated Dean, i am not contributing to the DNC or any other affiliated group. i will donate to individual candidates as i see fit. and i am determined though, to force the Dems to acknowledge the Dean phenomenom and what we brought to the party.
I have been telling all my Deaniac friends who see Kerry as some Bush-lite to not go Nader or third party, practically begging them not to. I can no longer in good conscience tell them that, because even i don't know if i can vote for kerry at this point if all i'm going to get is the same old decrepit party of corrupt nitwits who could care less about the "little people" that is their base. by nov. i may overcome this. but not at the moment.