Can’t be Stokely Carmichael, SDS, Black Panthers or the Gray Panthers  - history, all of them.  Civil rights marchers – gone, everyone of them.  Card carrying communists? Nyet, not that I know of.   Campus protestors - not since Kent State.  Political protestors demonstrating in the streets of Chicago?  No, can’t be - they are all contained in “free speech zones” or cages now a days.  Anti war protestors burning flags and pelting the authorities with rocks?  No, wouldn’t be safe for their cute signs or the children they carry on their shoulders.   So if these aren’t the extremists scaring the Democrats, who is?


Well my best guess is that there aren’t any – any more!  Their radical base is mostly comprised of people left over from FDR and the 60s, 70s and 80s who are now moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas that are just plain tired of the political bull shit and corruption coming from both parties.  They are the people who volunteer and work for humanitarian and environmental causes in their communities, schools, and churches. They are the people who take their little kids to anti war protests.  They are the people who watch Lou Dobbs and belong to AARP.  They are the left over Perot voters.  (“Perot voters were the most anti-political and anti-elitist, anti-big government and big corporations, anti-free trade and anti-immigration. They were pro-military but anti-foreign entanglements. They were libertarian and secular, pro-gun and pro-choice. The Perot voters were younger, more blue collar and rural, and economically pressed and uneasy in the new economy. They were also angry with the political and economic elites that failed to represent them.")   They are the political and economic elites that got screwed over by the DLC and their decision to sell out to corporatism.

This then raises the next question.   Are the beltway Democrats so far away they can't see who we are? Or, do they have their hands over their eyes so they don’t have to see who we are?   I think the later because they, just like the Republicans, have become sellouts. Those that aren't sellouts are cowards. The reason Dems don't call for publicly funded elections (among other things) is because: 1.) They have become accustom to and like the corporate money and power their votes command and have no intention of giving it up. Or 2.) They are afraid of the Republican spin machine and being branded anti - everything. They would much rather retain office and keep their hand in the cookie jar, even if only half full, then to stick out their necks to do their jobs.  They subscribe to the theory that it is much better if we are the unemployed instead of them. 

With too few exceptions, the elected Democrats in DC have become a group of spineless, money grubbing political hacks that ignore and attack us, their voters and fund raisers, as extremists while kissing the rear ends of the 16 or so Republican light voters sitting on a couch in Kansas. They have no clue or don't care that the base/voters they brand as extremists are in reality a bunch of young/middle aged/old, white/black/hispanic, non-secular/secular, rural/urban, north/south, childless/youth rearing/educating, middle/working/professional class people who just want to be left alone to live their lives so they can leave their kids and grand kids better off then they are and retire before they die.   We are not extremists, and we are not the reason the Dems are losing.  We have not lost site of our Party's roots and core values, they have. We still believe in peace and the elimination of hunger - worldwide. We love America, mother, and apple pie more than the almighty dollar.  They don’t.   We still believe in the American dream.  Just look at the loss of jobs, health care, pensions and overall damage being done to the middle and working class in this country.  I don't hear either party talking or doing anything about it, do you?