Is this what the Democratic Party Stands for?
By Scott Kirwin
Dean's World
As some of you may know, I'm a 9-11 Republican - meaning that prior to that infamous day I was a Democrat. I was a pretty "blue" guy: I protested against Reagan a couple of times during the '80s. I voted for Mondale, Dukakis and Clinton twice. I even voted for Gore in 2000 and cursed the "selection" of Bush by SCOTUS as much as Alec Baldwin, Barbera Streisand and Michael Moore.
Then 9-11 happened and within weeks I saw the party I called home roll onto its back. Instead of embracing the liberalism of FDR, Kennedy and Johnson it became entranced with something else, something more sinister. I can only describe it as an elitism that is in turns anti-Semitic and anti-American, having its roots in the neo-fascism of the Isolationist movement in the 1930s that FDR opposed instead of the New Deal that saved my family from starvation during the Depression.
And so I formally left the Democratic Party and joined the Republican. As best as I can tell mine is the first generation of my family to do so since we arrived on these shores after the First Potato Famine in 1848 and prior to that, a Lithuanian anti-Jewish pogrom in the 1820s.
The change hasn't been easy. I still have more in common with Dick Gephardt than Dick Cheney, and feel more at home surrounded by gays and union members than the Religious Right and CEOs.
But then my party affiliation deepens when I read articles such as these in which Leading Democrats such as John Kerry and Max Baucus profess their support of offshoring and Globalization.
itpaa.org
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Kerry's support/opposition to offshoring to India earned him an ITPAA Weasel Award in 2004, and our organization took a lot of heat from Democratic activists for granting this award - as well as our refusal to publicly support his candidacy in the Autumn of that year. Now it appears that the Party has given up all pretensions of Fair Trade advocacy, joining the pro-globalization ranks of the Republicans.
So I'm left to wonder: In 2006, what differentiates the Democratic Party from the Republican? Only one issue: The Global War on Terrorism.
Democrats who have consistently supported fighting Osama Bin Laden and others have been sidelined in the party. Sen. Lieberman - supporter of offshoring I might mention - has consistently supported the fight against terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas. Even Sen. Hillary Clinton - who has tried to triangulate between the pro-activist site of the War and the appeasement side of the party - seems out of step with the likes of Kerry, Dean, Boxer and the others who call the Appeasement Wing of the party their home.
By my reckoning, the Democratic Party now stands for the following:
1. Offshoring and Globalization (as shown by Baucus's and Kerry's comments)
2. Labor Dumping (unrestricted immigration - legal and illegal) to drive down salaries.
3. Killing innocents through supporting abortion on demand.
4. Protecting the guilty by opposing capital punishment.
5. Protecting terrorists by hamstringing the military.
6. Protecting terrorists by undermining Israel.
7. Protecting terrorists by opposing domestic surveillance.
Is this what the Democratic Party stands for? Is this really what the remaining Democrats in the party want the party to stand for?
deanesmay.com
itpaa.org
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