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.

what is a 'low information voter'?

"Low Information Voter" appears to be another way of describing betrayal of trust.

As in, oh, look, we got away with lying to you! What a dumb bunch of hicks you are! It's your fault, for being a Low Information Voter*. That is, for being stupid enough to not know that obviously we're lying to you**! Like DUH!

Not all of us major in journalism or political science and then spend hours a day learning what everyone else in the world is doing. That is why trust is so important.

That is why it matters so much that the Democratic party betrayed that trust.

We live in a highly specialized society. Some of us don't spend time doing our own political homework for the same reason a lot of rich people don't learn how to fix their own cars - because there just aren't enough hours for all of us to learn everything that needs doing. We have to be able to trust each other if we want to live in an advanced society.

The difference between the upper and lower classes is not that the upper classes are productive, smart, and useful, while the lower classes are not – though clearly that is the narrative being built, and not coincidentally the guys who would build that narrative just happen to be those the rest of us call “elitist”.

There are stupid, unproductive and useless people both high and low. The real difference between the upper class vs. the lower class has to do, rather, with where our efforts are directed The responsibilities each of us is entrusted with. The upper classes are expected to manage large, long-term affairs, while the lower classes deal with smaller, domestic things, and keep things running. You could say the upper classes manage what the lower classes do.***

The problem here is that the lower classes aren't the problem. Upper class types don't want to see that, because they find it reassuring to believe that lower class types are always the problem. (It's always just so hard to find good help these days!)

Blaming has replaced ruling wisely and well and nowhere is that more a problem than throughout the middle to upper middle classes (starting with the schoolteachers, who cannot possibly be expected to teach kids like these, in circumstances like these, with resources like these, and parents/coworkers/administrators like these). From such schools are graduating people whose only core belief is that, whatever it is, it can't be done - and hence the power of "yes we can". It doesn't matter what "we can" do - we're just so damned happy to hear someone say "we can" do anything at all, we'll follow him right off a cliff (and we are).

Meanwhile those at the top are taking advantage of the weakness of the middle classes - they are busy gathering up resources, both preparing against and causing the collapse that is likely to come if we do not turn things around.

The lack of trust is all over the place, and nowhere more so than the guys leading the "Yes We Can!" chanting. It is only when there is no tomorrow that people become willing to throw tomorrow away.

The upper classes are failing because they have stopped listening to the lower classes, and have stopped responding. They aren't managing well. Maybe they're paralyzed by the schoolteachers who taught them that it's impossible to get anything done, with circumstances like these and resources like these and coworkers/administrators like these.

Too many of our "leaders" are behaving like the guys who brought us the subprime mortgage crisis – they're in it for their own short-term advantage, like Pelosi and Brazile. They aren't managing with an eye to the organization's long-term well-being, and they certainly aren't looking out for the membership.

This attitude has so far brought us Bush, the Iraq war, and our current economic troubles. It has also brought us schools and churches full of people who are supposed to be teaching and leading and helping, but who are instead earning money and/or popularity by just saying what their followers and their students want to hear.

The overall result is distrust and loss of respect. This is a feedback loop – and it's up to the upper classes to break it. Is America going to come back strong, or is it going to go down?

The power grid is running, and so are the taxis and the buses and your air conditioning unit. We're doing our job. When will our "betters" be proud to make that claim?
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* note how this supposes that lying is the normal state of affairs. But, of course, confront the ones who lie with this and they will assure you that it's a paranoid conspiracy theory to suggest that they would ever lie. Of course.

** "Hillary and Obama are virtually identical on issues".

*** The ideal and the dream of the upper class seems to be a world where wages are unnecessary. The human race would be replaced with robots, and owning capital would be the only measure of how much productivity a person contributes to society.