A Democratic Party civil war?

I don't see a civil war anywhere in sight. The Democratic party hasn't helped the blue-collar worker in ages. In fact, the free trade agreements sponsored by the affluent Democrats have only hurt them. Most blue-collar workers recognize that the only thing worse than an affluent liberal in terms of setting policy that benefits the working man is a Republican. Blue-collar workers who get that stay with the Democrats, and others left the party years ago to join the GOP to fight against homosexuals and abortion.

What's going to help the lower middle class and working poor is that the trade policies that ship our job oversees is catching up to us, and we're going to be forced to change it to get our economy moving.

Franklin and DavidTC,

What you gentlemen are neglecting to note in your description of this "conversation" or "debate" within the Democratic Party is that one side in that "conversation" or "debate" regards the other as consisting of "bitter" and troglodytic "rednecks," "crackers," "rubes," "hicks," "hayseeds," and "white trash," -- all of them hellbent on "clinging" to "guns" and "religion," instead of embracing their "best interests" as defined for them by "progressive" "elites" with "advanced" degrees and the "enlightened" and "sophisticated" views that such degrees supply to those with the proper pedigree.

That those "enlightened" and "sophisticated" views are responsible for ruining the country's and the world's economy might also help account for the disinclination of many among the peasant caste -- and more and more of them everyday -- to be talked at in the way that their "betters" would prefer.

Hugh Henry, there you go again, claiming Democrats are just big-city eggheads who hate normal people. The results of Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Indiana, Ohio, and very nearly Montana would all like to speak with you.

The Republican Party is the party of regional bigotry. Acknowledge that and then you can start picking the motes out of Democrats' eyes.

Oh, and I think Joe Liebermann might have a slightly different take on the salon the left pretends it's conducting.

Hugh Henry,
I confess to being fascinated by your ability to take any topic of Rod's and turn it into a polemic against those - liberals, progressives, fair-minded people, various and sundry other bloggers - without the slightest effort or exertion of time and energy to actually read what Rod has posted, the links to which he has posted and the references contained therein.

Sometimes, it takes me several hours to work through everything - and then, at the end, I discover I agree with Rod.

Try actually reading what Rod is posting before you shoot from the hip. It helps.

Oh, and, as you can see - no, I shall not be told by you on what topics I may and may not write here. That is Rod's decision and solely Rod's decision. Not yours.

I should have added that I got the stats for Lieberman's voting record from here:

http://lieberdem.blogspot.com/2006/07/truth-about-liebermans-voting-record.html

TTT,

Actually, what I claimed was that *progressive* as opposed to *populist* Democrats are, as you put it, "big-city eggheads who hate normal people" -- though I would describe them not as "eggheads," which implies the possibility of hatching something useful, but rather as sh*te-heads, which implies having, well, sh*te for brains ... and no heart at all.

For evidence of the aforementioned sh*te I direct you to your local paper's front page, most any day.

And we're discussing the difference between two different kinds of Democrats, not the difference between Democrats and Republicans -- neither of which am I.

As for motes in eyes -- pharisee, heal thyself.

There's nothing more hypocritical than a hypocrite who accuses others of hypocrisy.

Franklin,

If memory serves, the "bitter" remarks to which I allude were uttered in the course of a Democratic party primary campaign, by a leading Democrat (Barack Obama) on behalf of one group of Democratic voters (in San Francisco) against another group of Democratic voters (in Pennsylvania).

In any even, is economic "growth" not a form of the "progress" that Democratic party elites are always going on (and on and on) about?

Are Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geitner, and the rest of the Obama "economic team" not capitalists?

Did not such predecessors of theirs such as Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, and Alan Greenspan have just a wee little bit to do with getting us where we are today?

Granted that Harvard Business School and the New York financial industry are, of course, hot-beds of Christianist theocracy, with most of their shots being called, from afar, by Southern Baptists in trailer parks, who are filled with "antipathy toward those who are not like them."

Hugh, living as I do in SE Pennsylvania, I find it difficult (no, not impossible) to accept that Obama was referring to registered Democrats in his remarks. I don't really want to debate that part with you, because we are not that far apart on the principles here. I would suggest, though, that in the "how we got here" roll call you not skip over the Republican administrations of the last 25 years. Greenspan was appointed by Reagan. That administrations from either side appointed such people to such posts does not change my criticism one whit.

I categorically reject the us-vs-them rhetoric; I personally see it as detrimental to our republic, period, no caveats or qualifiers. That there is Machiavellianism in the minds of most movers and shakers in our country is the point, as far as I'm concerned. I have not seen any difference across party lines in that regard since I first began following such things about 40 years ago. Obama is trying to establish a civil dialog, a change I hope you can join me in at least wishing for, even if we can't agree on who is initiating it. I'll just add that, in my experience, it won't be the first time such a dialog has taken place, though it may be the first time at the federal level discounting the declared wars we've had.

Dissent is a cornerstone of a democratic republic. I stand against anyone who would censor or suppress it, be he a Limbaugh or an Obama. The former sounds very much like he would do it. The jury is out on the latter.

Franklin,

Sorry, I should have stipulated that the "medicine" President "Unity" is selling at his Big-Tent Circus is *snake-oil.*

There's nothing more hypocritical than a hypocrite who accuses others of hypocrisy.

There is no cheaper or easier bigotry than anti-bigot bigotry, either.

TTT,

I'm not talking about "people who live in cities."

I'm talking about sh*te-headed "progressives" who live in *certain* cities -- especially New York City and Washington DC.

And who do indeed "hate normal people" (as you put it).

"City values" of the sort we are discussing here *can't be* "populist values" (again, as you put it), because most people -- most of the populace -- do not live in cities like the ones from which those "values" emanate.

In any case, you're the one who brought up cities and the composition of "progressives'" heads -- not me.

I thought we were discussing a distinction between different kinds of Democrats that your Dear Leader made all too clear in his remarks in San Francisco.

Daniel,

Do *you* realize that McCain won religiously-observant Roman Catholics nationwide by the same margin as Obama won the state of Pennsylvania?

If so, then, by your logic, I think it's only fair of me to note that if *I* must acknowledge that Pennsylvanians voted "in their own best interest" in voting for Obama, despite his "bitter" remarks, then *you* must also acknowledge that Roman Catholics voted "in their own best interest" in voting for McCain, despite your "antipathy" toward McCain -- someone "who is not like you."

And I likewise think it's only fair for me to also note that perhaps it would have been in *your* best interest, as a Roman Catholic, to have voted for McCain, as most of your coreligionists did -- at least those who ever go to Mass.

Let me say in closing that I have no dog in this particular fight, not being Roman Catholic or from Pennsylvania, and not having voted for Obama or for McCain.

My one dog in the fight here is the dog of "truth" -- though, admittedly, a thread on Democratic party politics may not the best place to walk *that* particular dog.

Another critical front, not well understood by the public, could develop on land use - with the adoption of policies that favor dense cities over suburbs and small towns. This trend can be observed most obviously in California, but also in states such as Oregon where suburban growth has long been frowned upon.

As a long term Oregonian, and one who has suffered endlessly from the meddling by the twits on the west side of the state who live to vicariously abuse all other forms of living, by regulating land use in mostly insane and absurd ways, the anger and division among Oregonians grows continually over this very matter. 80% of the land mass of the state is depopulated and empty. But the voters locked into the urban jungles of the two metro areas still believe that the empty land should be controlled according to their "anti development" fetish.

Three counties in oregon have less than 2000 people in them. Yet, the same anti-urban sprawl nonsense controls how they use their land and whether or not you can build a home, farm, or anything else. All it has done is make home ownership unaffordably expensive in Oregon, and has NEVER benefitted anyone or anything.