Tag Archives: Keystone XL pipeline
Liz's new gig: Being the only real Democrat in the room
Reuters photo
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts listens to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada as he announces the Democratic Senate leadership lineup for the two-year congressional session that begins in January.
We may never know exactly how or why it came to be that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has been given a Democratic Senate leadership position created just for her. ABC News has described the position as "liaison to liberal groups to ensure they have a voice in leadership meetings and discussions, according to a source familiar with the role."
The Huffington Post reported this reaction to the news:
"A liaison to liberals? I've never heard of such a thing," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), throwing his hands in the air. "I asked her about it and she said she was some kind of adviser. I don't know what it is. I don't know what that all means."
I'll help Tommy Boy out:
With "Democrats" like, say, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who apparently believes that the predictably environmentally disastrous and good-only-for-the-plutocrats Keystone XL oil pipeline should be shoved down our throats in order to help her win re-election that she very apparently cannot win anyway, um, yeah, it's time for the Democratic Party to finally fucking return to its progressive roots, from which it strayed no later than during Bill Clinton's presidency, in which he repeatedly sold out the American people for his own political convenience ("welfare reform," NAFTA, DOMA, etc.).
Undoubtedly, a President Billary would sell us out just as her hubby did, and we'll see how much the Clintonian Barack Obama will sell us out during his remaining two years in office.
It is long past time for what remains of the Democratic Party to come together and proclaim:
If you are a politician in a backasswards (redundant) red state (such as Landrieu is), then become a Repugnican already. Just do it. Don't fucking call yourself a "Democrat." Because if you are espousing right-wing causes (such as the construction of an oil pipeline that is only meant to make a few filthy rich people even richer, the environment be damned), then you are a treasonous wingnut, and your place is within the Repugnican Tea Party. Stop further tarnishing the Democratic Party brand name with your right-wing bullshit and join the enemy already.
I only hope that Elizabeth Warren, despite her assertion that "Nobody's clipping my wings," didn't strike a deal with the devil – namely, such as with the Billary Clinton camp (perhaps even with The Horned One Herself); and specifically, a deal to not run against Billary in 2016 in exchange for the newly created Senate leadership position.
In any event, Warren apparently rejects her job description as a liaison to the liberals. Huff Po again:
"[Soon-to-be Democratic Senate Minority Leader] Harry [Reid] asked me to be a strategic policy adviser, because that's what I talk about, I talk about policy — college affordability and minimum wage and Social Security," [Warren] said. "And that's what I'm supposed to do and that's what I will do. That's my portfolio."
You say potato, I say potato.
The gargantuan problem of income inequality mostly has been ignored by the Democratic Party during Obama's tenure (as it was during Bill Clinton's), and while I think of the striving toward socioeconomic equality and socioeconomic justice as progressivism rather than as "liberalism" (really, "liberals" – DINOs – like the Clintons have given the word "liberal" a bad name), yes, indeed, the Democratic Party has come off the rails to the extent that it sorely needs to be put back on track.
So while I personally eschew the word "liberal" because many if not most of those who call themselves "liberal" aren't at all progressive (they want to be selfish, evil assholes, but they also don't want the stigma of calling themselves Republicans, since Republicans are so widely reviled, so they call themselves "liberals"), Warren's new job description – in her own words – does indeed sound like she'll be a liaison to progressives (at least in part).
Every Democrat in D.C. should be a liaison to progressives, but, I suppose, it's better to have one than none.
(Well, we have some progressives in D.C., such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, but, interestingly, Wikipedia's entry on the Congressional Progressive Caucus states that while 68 House members are part of the caucus, the entry lists only Sanders as the sole U.S. senator on the caucus. That's way beyond fucked up. [Sanders, recall, calls himself a democratic socialist – and he's the only such one in the U.S. Senate. He caucuses with the Democrats but does not call himself one, although he has considered running for the 2016 presidency on the Democratic Party ticket.])
We Americans still sorely need a new New Deal, which Obama at least quasi-promised but never delivered.
And without real Democrats/progressives like Elizabeth Warren – and Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (whose "Inequality for All" you should watch if you haven't already) – pushing for a new New Deal, with our help, it won't materialize, because the establishmentarian "Democrats" are too fat, lazy and comfortable feeding from the corporate trough to lift a fucking finger for the American people (except, perhaps, to extend their middle fingers to the American people) – which is why, I believe, they lose elections.
Maybe, just maybe, the elevation of Elizabeth Warren to a leadership post is at least the dim recognition of the Democratic Party hacks that without the party's base on board, the party is weaker and is going to continue to flounder, at least in midterm elections.
What we progressives cannot allow Warren's promotion to be is a substitute for the actual progressivism that the Democratic Party abandoned some time ago.
We allow DINO Billary Clinton into the White House at our own peril.
Tagged as "Inquality for All", 2016 presidential election, 2016 presidential race, Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, Billary Clinton, Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democratic Party, Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, Democrats, DINO, DINOs, DOMA, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, income inequality, Keystone Pipeline, Keystone XL oil pipeline, Keystone XL pipeline, liberal, liberalism, liberals, Mary Landrieu, NAFTA, New Deal, new New Deal, news, Politics, progressive, progressives, progressivism, Republican Party, Republicans, Robert Reich, socioeconomic equality, socioeconomic justice, Tom Harkin, welfare "reform", wingnuts