Where Have All the Progressives Gone?
Another one bites the dust. First Dennis Kucinich and now Howard Dean. Soon all that will be left is the guy mumbling to himself outside the 7-11.
As senior strategic advisor at McKenna Long & Aldridge, a heavyweight Washington lobbying firm, Dean played a prominent role representing the biotech industry during the healthcare bill debate, staking out a position on biopharmaceutical drugs that was decried by consumer groups.
[snip]
Dean is also currently one of the most prominent paid voices in a public-relations campaign on behalf of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an obscure and controversial Iranian militant group that is aggressively lobbying the Obama administration to remove it from the official list of terrorist organizations.
Tags: Howard Dean
Dean lost his progressive chops a while ago when he reversed himself on his call to kill the HCR bill. He has just been a husk of himself ever since. I always wondered who got to him. Maybe now we know.
Where are all the progressives? Up on the front line with arrows in their back.
Poetic and yet silly. If you look at the way people respond to issues based opinion polls, and compare that to what actually happens – there is a huge disconnect. I sometimes wonder why there isn’t a real labor/progressive uprising in this country and when I do I can’t stop myself from thinking that there is a lost generation of progressive leadership that has been kidnapped or something.
People want unemployment compensation and workers compensation and FMLA and Social Security and Medicare and jobs and tax increases on the rich – but they aren’t willing to call themselves “progressive.”
Republicans have achieved an victory of Orwellian language control.
I think it started with the assassinations of the Kennedy’s and King. That was the beginning of the lost generation.
I think it started with Reagan’s “There you go again.” I am serious.
Also it didn’t help that Ted Kennedy was off his game in 1979.
Progressives should have organized to “kill health care reform”?
John Conyers Loves Obamacare. Why Do Some of His Fellow Liberals Hate the President Who Made it Happen?
The suicidal tendencies of Naderites continue to astonish.
“And another one bites the dust….”
Two members in a corporate board room debate some matter. One wants to take a more draconian approach than the other. Given the heated nature of their debate, you might think that there was a fundamental ideological difference between them until you remember that both sit on the same board and both have the same goal (the profitability of the company). Their difference is not about ends but means. Their difference isn’t philosophical; it’s strategic. The typical Republican and Democrat in power are like these two corporate board members. They have fudamentally more in common than not. That’s why these kinds of stories are so common. That’s why we can barely recognize President Obama at times. We mistkenly think that the ends fundamentally differ between the Republicans and Democrats in power, but we are mistaking debates about the means as being indicative of their different ends. The mistake is ours.
The self-defeating tendencies of the Vichyites are worse. We will see whose tendencies were suicidal when we get to November 2012.
And by the way, Howard Dean is not a Naderite. He explains it better than I could.
Dean is right we were sold a bill of goods on Health care which helps the insurance Companies more than the common folk.80% of the polulation wanted a public option or universial health care and Obama did not step out front on the issue the same goes with going back to the Clinton Tax rates something is wrong when a so called leader refuses to support the people when they are backing him.
Dana: Very nicely said.
Howard Dean help sell the rotten health care bill. His brother Jim was a single payer supporter. Howard is not a true progressive, he is a liberal who will say what needs to be said for “the party”. Obama had all those doctors and nurses who came from all over the country for one month…arrested! Obama is a corporate, capitalist pig. Where’s the change? I guess we have to support him one more time to see if he will bring about the change or continue to support republican ideas. I am not impressed with him or his foreign policy. He promised no lobbyists in his cabinent…my goodness is there anyone in his cabinent not a lobbyist or a former lobbyist. If Obama doesnt change his direction quickly and come out swingin…look forward to another 8 years of George WAR bush only worse.
Dean knew how to organize, though. His fifty state strategy worked, but of course, Obama dismantled it and booted Dean.
The typical Republican and Democrat in power are like these two corporate board members. They have fudamentally more in common than not.
Agreed. Democrats have traveled far to get to this point of agreement with Republicans.
It’s a fact of life; as we lose brain cells, we become more conservative.
As Ferris Fain noted last week, the Naderites need to grow up. They besoil this place, preferring 45 million uninsured to the ACA.
“It’s a fact of life; as we lose brain cells, we become more conservative.”
True. Until we reach age 65, then we are all socialists.
“the Naderites need to grow up. They besoil this place, preferring 45 million uninsured to the ACA.”
The Vichyites have besoiled the Democratic party and will get their comeuppance in 2012 all on their own, without the involvement of Nader. When given a choice between a fake Republican and a real Republican, voters will choose the real Republican every time.
The Naderites supported and continue to support single payer. It was the corporate wing of the democratic party (including Obama) who chose to keep the for profits in the mix, stealing more of our health care dollars. Obama never supported single payer and he delivered just like a good corporate democrat he is. Refusing to even listen to the single payer supporters, the doctors and nurses, he had them arrested. How can we blame the repukes when so many of democrats are just as corporate and evil dooers as the repukes? We need to do this state by state. Tell me how many of you think Jack Markell would support a single payer system? Nuff said! Even those running for Insurance Commissioner claimed they supported single payer, of course with their hands behind their backs and their fingers crossed. Corporate Delaware with all those insurance companies incorporated here would bring every lobbyist they could find including that vile Chamber of Commerce to buy off any legislator who even thought about signing on. At one time we had 28 democrats in Delaware who supported single payer, yet not one bill has been brought out to see where we are today.