two out of what used to be four?

Like many other people, I have gone slightly nutty trying to sift through the available (inadequate) information in trying to make sense of just what is happening to the Democratic party.

This is not a discussion that was done democratically. People have voted to change the party - not only its rules but its ideology, its goals, its direction, and its membership. But those who are privileged to vote have not been sharing with us what they have decided. Instead, they mockingly call us "low information" voters.

The Democratic party thinks it does not need us anymore, and that is why it has treated us so shabbily. They wouldn't mind if we voted the way they want us to, of course - but they're not going to offer anything.

They are going to redraw the party. They are going to pull in Republicans and make the Democratic party into...well, something "new".

Officials from both campaigns confidently predict that they will steal states that have been in the other party's column in recent elections, and an early analysis suggests there will be new battlegrounds added to the map this year

So don't expect a lot of meeting our needs. There are rich people to court - people who trashed the Republican party, and so would like ours. Thanks to the fact that Democrats are letting the party go cheap, those of us who are - you know, real Democrats - will be out of a party.

And just in time for Labor Day - isn't that fitting, for the death of the party that stood (until now) for worker's rights?

You know who'll stand for worker's rights now? That's right - nobody.

This from the party that once gave us FDR's "Four Freedoms".

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

The new Obama Party does not uphold this vision. In fact, it rejects this vision.

If you look at Obama's reason for, say, universal health care that isn't universal, you see that his economic reasoning is premised on an essentially Libertarian view of freedom - a view that explicitly rejects freedoms such as freedom from want or freedom from fear.

These are not Libertarian values, because those freedoms for me might entail a reduction in freedom for them - namely, the freedom to use the power of men over women, the power of rich over poor, the power of the strong to exploit the weak. FDR's values are not Obama's values. But they are Democratic values.

I don't know what Obama is "for" (nobody really does) but I do think it's reasonably certain that at least part of why he has come is to fulfill the Republican mission of dismantling the last of the New Deal.

a "victory" for Obama

None of you, none of you is invisible to me. You never have been.
- Hillary Clinton

Obama hung out his Mission Accomplished sign. Again.

Meanwhile, Hillary is just amazing. She's really incredible. She knows she represents people - real people, people who love her. She knows that it is bad - for the party and for the nation - that the DNC was willing to stoop so low as to steal votes in Michigan in order to give Obama his "win". And she knows the reason people adore her is that she is willing to hear us and fight for us.

Go ahead - pretend this makes Obama a "winner".

He does not seem to realize or care that by being so eager to grab, he comes across as grasping.

There is no reason to not be gracious if you can afford to be. That he is so eager - desperately eager - to claim his Mission Accomplished emphasizes that he can't afford to be gracious. The whiny, petulant snob has gone from being the post-racial candidate to being the Affirmative Action candidate* - yet his speech tonight highlighted how he just doesn't get that you can't win a race too close to call by shoving your opponent off the stage and grabbing the gold.

It isn't just that Obama has to win. He has to do it with legitimacy. Hillary understands that in a way that Obama just doesn't seem to care about**.

I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible.
- Hillary Clinton

Clintons have been good for this nation. I am no longer sure I can say the same for the Democratic Party - at least not in my lifetime. At least not at the national level.

Public service is about helping people solve their problems and live their own dreams. This nation has given me every opportunity, and that's what I want for every single American.
- Hillary Clinton

(BTW wasn't Obama supposed to be some sort of miraculously inspirational speaker or something? What ever happened to that?)
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* fuelled by stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Don't even think that will go away.

It has only just begun.

It will get worse. Much worse.

Stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Get used to hearing it. The Democratic party had the moral high ground and threw it away.

** any claims the Democratic party might have had on anyone to do what is "best for the party" were made ridiculous by the in-your-face nature of Obama & his enablers doing the gimme-grab.