Democratic Disappointment

This is a repost from my facebook notes blog on July 3:

Sorry former fellow Democrats. I was one of you for 4 years, after enthusiastically renouncing my "no party" status to work on John Kerry's campaign for the presidency in 2004. I figured I could do more work from inside the party. Not so. My idealism caused me to focus on what I wanted to see--people on the ground, with real progressive values who care about where we are going and wanting to fix what's broken. What I wasn't paying attention to was the fact that the party, and the politicians in it are not the people on the ground with the ideals. They are, at least for the most part, people who once believed in the same things we on the ground do (and maybe somewhere they do still believe it), but sold their value systems to the all-powerful gotta-win goal. That, as Kevin Eirich has been telling me since day one of the first political science class I took with him, is what parties exist for: to win elections. My idealism again only allowed me to grasp a portion of the meaning of that.Parties exist to win elections. Not replace antiquated ideology with progressive ideology. Not to restore traditional ideology by ousting progressives. It's all about the win, and before there can be a win, there has to be a game and players. It's a very broken system, and it's finally sunk in that I will never fix it by being part of it. I love my country, I love the Constitution, and for all their flaws I love the Founders. But nowhere in the Constitution are parties mentioned at all--in fact Madison gave us a fair warning in Federalist 10, and seemed to somehow think that the system would compensate. I guess sometimes it does, but Madison, was also focused on differences in ideologies. What has happened is that the office has overshadowed the beliefs. The government has become the ruler of the people; where it was designed to be a government run by the people.Not a big secret that I am a pretty liberal person. Also not a big secret that my beliefs about the Constitution are pretty traditionally republican. Always trying to reconcile those 2 seemingly contradictory beliefs and wondering why they aren't compatible has driven me crazy. But I finally get it. They aren't contradictory at all. Taking care of each other and individual liberties are the foundation of the entire system. Equality and Liberty. All the political gaming makes us forget. Anyway, both parties are so skewed that regardless of what the platforms are, or the ideologies they tout, they exist to win and will ignore the paths to equality and/or liberty whenever and wherever it is advantageous to do so. Sometimes we call it compromise.Like when the Dems took back Congress 2 years ago and those of us who held a desire for change were elated because the Bush regime was finally going to be held in check and the administration was going to be held accountable for it's crimes. Crimes like committing torture and completely ignoring the Genva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. Like lying to the American people time after time, and lying to get us to support a war for resources that we marched into gladly. Like using depleted uranium--which the UN declared a Weapon of Mass Destruction back in 1991 and has been poisoning the entire country of Iraq and our service people there. The list goes on and on of the atrocities this administration has committed. It's not about parties and ideology, it's about power. There is no ideological reason for the Republicans in Congress to support Bush's agenda consistently--it's a power issue. And the Dems have been no better. Because when they regained the majority they ignored the opportunities they had to undo some of the damage. One of the very first things Nancy Pelosi said when Congress convened with her as the Speaker of the House was that impeachment was "off the table." They have been unwilling to stand firm on cutting spending to weapons research and other aggressive war expenses, which they could have nixed without cutting funding to troops. They have not restored our civil liberties, repealed the Military Commissions Act, restored Habeas Corpus, fought to close Guantanamo, end torture committed in our name (whether it be by U.S. military, CIA or most often, by hired third parties). They have not stopped the use of depleted uranium. They have not increased benefits for veterans, except in small token gestures and have ignored the alarming rates of PTSD and suicides among returning soldiers. They have voted to renew the bad legislation that they claimed (when they were the minority) was the doing of the Bush administration and the lap dog Republican Congress. So, what is the difference. Republican, Democrat. It's all the same really. I'm tired of watching this game and running myself ragged trying to fix things. I've been a hamster in her little wheel running and running and not getting anywhere except exhausted. I will continue to work to restore the Constitution and fix the broken system. I will work with Dems on the ground for sure, and I will lobby the ones in office to vote the way I think they should, but I can no longer be considered one of them, because that would make me as big a hypocrite as I accuse many of the high ranking politicans of being. People might say that you can't make the changes unless you win the office. I no longer think that's always true. Mostly, it's the people on the ground with the ideals that make the changes. We are supposed to be the government anyway, aren't we?

* 7/11/08 footnote: after Obama voted for the terrible FISA bill that damned the Constitution to hell and shot my hope for any real change in the foot, I have concluded that unless he chooses one of the real Constitutional advocates in the Democratic party (John Edwards, Russ Feingold or Chris Dodd) that I can't vote for him either.