It's been only four days since I published a column on my website calling for Democrats to quit a party that is being led by calculating politicians who are willing to fund a war until the next election, and who are unwilling to impeach a criminal president, all in the interest of possibly winning the White House and a few more seats in Congress in 2008.
And already, over 158 longtime Democrats have responded by sending a note, announcing that they are leaving in disgust, to the special address I've set up: I_Quit_This_Party. That's not bad. If each of those who quit do as they're supposed to and convince several friends to quit, we could have several hundred Democratic defectors by next week, and from there it could snowball quickly and, as Arlo Guthrie once powerfully sang, "become a movement."
It is clear that no amount of street protesting alone is going to get the leadership of this corrupted party of Roosevelt to take a stand of principle.
I'm convinced that the only thing that will drag them kicking and screaming to a genuinely progressive stance on the two key issues facing this nation--ending the war now and defending the Constitution by impeaching the president--is showing them that we progressives can no longer be taken for granted
And the only way to show them that we won't be taken for granted is to quit the party.
It's time to quit the party.
To those who say that you don't want to be frozen out of the
primaries--local this spring and national next spring--I have to say
you won't be missing anything. We've seen too many times how these same
leaders will rig the system to make sure that the safe, approved DLC
candidate ends up winning. Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer, respective
campaign chairs for the Democratic House and Senate campaigns in 2006,
managed to undermine a whole slew of good progressive candidates in the
last congressional election by running their favored hacks against them
in the primaries. If they hadn't engaged in that effort at sabotage,
today's Congress would not be Democratic by a hair; it would be
overwhelmingly Democratic, and a hell of a lot more progressive.
If the Democratic leadership hadn't gone and arm-twisted state
legislators in the state senates of New Mexico and Washington state
last month, we'd already have two state legislatures passing
impeachment resolutions demanding that the House of Representatives
initiate impeachment hearings. Three really, because that same
unconscionable pressure from the leadership has slowed down a similar
effort to pass a bi-cameral resolution in the legislature of Vermont.
So join this new "I Quit!" movement. It's easy. Just send a message to
the above address, and send copies to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the
DNC and your local Congressional representatives. Let them all know
you're quitting until they initiate impeachment of President Bush and
vote to cut off funding for the war.
It is unacceptable for the Democrats to play for political advantage
with the blood of American troops and of innocent Iraqis. It is equally
unacceptable to allow Bush to finish out his term unimpeached, thus
effectively sanctioning his abuses of power, his violation of the laws
of the land, and his trashing of the Constitution for continuation by
whoever replaces him in 2009.
I like the point about being shut out of the primaries. Here in Iowa, in 1984, Howard Dean was going to win the Democratic caucus by a large margin. Then Ted Kennedy and John Kerry showed up in Des Moines, like two days before the caucus, and POOF!, like magic, Dean's numbers disappeared and Kerry won by a huge margin. I've always wondered who they talked to (that was never made clear in the press) and which strings they pulled to accomplish it. Regardless, it was clear at that point to any half-wit that democracy in Iowa is a myth.
Good job.
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April 13, 2007
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