<It's interesting that whenever I try to nail down the philosophy of the Democratic Party, you have a tendency to drift back in time to the Roosevelt Era or earlier.

First, I was defining the term "Progressive", which you have attacked at least twice in two days as an invention designed to confuse people. It's no invention; it has history.

You will notice, following the link, that prominent Progressives of that era were either Republicans or Independents. (Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was busy re-segregating the Federal civil service.)

Second, the disasters we know as the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression are the bedrock upon which the current so-called "socialist" Democratic party message is based. So that's why I go there. The US faced a real, palpable danger of revolt in the face of these disasters. People forget what it was like between the World Wars. The objective of government action in what was considered private sector was meant to stave off civil unrest and civic disintegration. Progressive philosophy gave intellectual support to these actions.

The idea of putting government muscle into assisting the citizens who couldn't afford to hire private Pinkerton police forces to break strikes and heads, and putting people to work on government projects when the private sector was on its back, and providing for the very young and the very old in the face of utter destitution, instituted as part of the New Deal, is the basis of current Democratic policy, or what passes for Democratic policy anymore. I think the party has strayed considerably from where it says it is. But I don't think the Republicans are anywhere near the party of Lincoln and TR, the luminaries they claim whenever race or environment come up, either.

[two more historical quotes from the early '60s, during which the United States was involved in an entirely different struggle]

blather blather democrats are blind venal or stupid blather blather

But if you're going to argue, I'm going to set the parameters.

And who elected you the arbiter? The prosecutor sets the rules of evidence? I think not.

All ends. No means.

...as opposed to a conservative viewpoint: if you have all the means, who cares about the ends?

Do you think that, if private enterprise took care of people on its own out of enlightened self-interest there would even be a discussion?

I submit that if you laid out a list of specific programs and policies--means, not ends--from the Democratic Party, and a similar list from the Democratic Socialists of America, you would find an awful lot in common.

OK, go ahead. Lay it out. But do it all with original source quotes, not Drudge says that Rush says that Newsmax says that Ted Kennedy whispered it in his mistress's ear.

You made the accusation. It's not up to me to disprove it, because unlike non-citizens, I can still require my accuser to pony up the proof.

I'm so damn tired of the right-wing rant based in nostalgia rather than history. History is where this stuggle begins, and history is where you have to go to understand it. Understand child labor, understand exploitation of immigrants, understand strike-breaking and monopolies, understand unregulated private utilities, understand reckless endangerment of workers to improve the profit margin, and you will understand the subtext of the argument. Without a counterweight, business is just as grasping and tyrannical as government, and government is the only counterweight there is. It can all happen again. Some of it has already happened again.

I don't think any political party really speaks for the disenfranchised or for working people anymore, because money is what buys office. The Republicans are more honest about this than the Democrats. But I think (observe the verb: it indicates opinion) there are more people drawn to Democratic positions on economic issues because there are more Democrats -- not in the leadership, but more rank-and-file Democrats -- who focus on the workers and the invisible. President Bush's victory resulted from all those people staying home on Election Day.

A lot of people don't talk to their neighbors anymore, meaning that community politics have less impact on state and national politics, which means that the people are not really heard no matter which party controls the government, so people like you and me wind up having weird exchanges like this in the ether, but that's a different problem.

Something just occurred to me: you're fighting the 2004 campaign, aren't you? Huh... Thank you for the insight.

Regards--
Mary Anne