Sorry, anonymous.  Two morons don't make a right.

(With apologies for length and for any incoherence. Yes, I am very tired. Been a very long couple of weeks.)

My frustration arises from over 30 years (since the PATCO strike) of begging and pleading with my fellow Dems to get back to economic populism (Class War) as the fight to take to the Republicans. What we have gotten - and get to this day - is triangulation and bi-partisan schlock and DLC/Republican-light BS that leaves us rudderless in our choice of direction. Instead, we constantly tack to and fro in circles trying to maneuver ourselves just this side of the other guy so we can claim our base and capture the middle, wherever that "middle" might be at the time. The effect of this maneuvering has been a steady shift to the right in our politics in what has perhaps best been described as a "ratchet effect."

I absolutely railed against NAFTA, for example, citing it as an assault on labor standards and all other regulation (environmental; tax; corporate governance; etc.) that would result in the export of jobs offshore and the decreased wealth of the working class as we would suffer constant calls to be more "efficient" and more "competitive." Not for more benefit to the middle class, mind you. On the contrary, these calls would be made as demands of us in exchange for the honor of simply keeping a tenuous hold on a job or two.

The legacy of this thirty-plus year of Dem opportunistic "vote-procurement" in place of "leadership" is staggeringly painful to recount. But I include the following as a partial list of the "benefits" we have experienced as a result of this failure to actually oppose the Republicans to instead try to co-opt their issues:

** NAFTA, CAFTA, and now KORUS, with unemployment now at 10% with no decrease in sight. (Family-supporting jobs? Gotta be kidding. Gone the way of the Dodo bird.)

** Decimation of Unions representing workers in private industry.

** Massive shift in earnings and wealth upwards into the hands of the top tenth percentile, with a resounding decrease in same for the rest of us.

** Home foreclosures and loss of substantial middle-class wealth vested in home values that have collapsed dramatically. (Have you noticed? Good for you! It seems Wall Street thinks it's "fixed" now that THEY'VE been held harmless - by virtue of hundreds of billions in dollars in "transfer payments" of tax dollars and printed money - in the collapse of THEIR industry.)

** Rape of middle class by proliferation of poorly regulated and rapacious credit card and other easy credit schemes that offered the illusion of attained wealth to supplant any actual middle class participation in the growth of our economy.

The list goes on and on. (I'm trying to keep this response short. Honest! ;O)

In addition, this failure to actually stand in opposition to the Repub nightmare also gave us such things as two wars, one which is wholly illegal by any judicial or moral determination and the other which has long since lost any patina of legitimacy. And let's not forget our enablement of torture, "extraordinary rendition," predator drone strikes against civilian non-combatants in sovereign countries, and other war crimes that would be impossible to conceive being condoned - let alone committed! - by anything I was familiar with knowing as the United States of America.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that it is the same DLC-style go-along-to-get-along that gave us eight years of the Imperial Cheney/Bush Presidency, as well.

Think of where we were at as a country when we stood together on election eve in 2007. The house of cards had virtually collapsed around the Republicans. They were on the ropes. The country was awash in hope - despite our catastrophic pending collapse of the financial industry - assured that there was a new sheriff in town, and that at last we were going to strike out in some new directions. EVERYTHING about the Republicans and their trickle-down treatment for Wall Street banksters and global industrialists and the wealthy elite had been about as savagely discredited as it could be.

The Dems would be starting with a new page to work with, and even the Repubs couldn't stand in the way procedurally, and would be hard put to exert any kind of ideological argument against the need to chart a different course for the country.

And so what did we get?

More of the same old triangulation and bi-partisan "compromise" and other bs that enabled the Repubs to chart the disastrous course that led to the initial shipwreck.

A Keynesian response to the immediate crisis of this recession was appropriately pursued, for example, but this was quickly "compromised" and then jettisoned altogether in the spirit of the DLC milquetoasts. We've now moved from a discussion of "jobs" and "relief" to instead identify "deficit reduction" as our primary social need, which places the discussion right back into the wheelhouse of the Republicans to lead whilst we attempt to remediate and moderate.

We let the Repubs avoid being held accountable for so many other of their other failures (and, arguably, CRIMES!) by meekly expressing a desire to "play nice" and "look forward, not backward." In the process, we not only surrendered opportunity to assume the high ground, but we also inexcusably codified these criminal acts and abuses as official policy by simply installing them as unchallenged "past practice."

The Dems inexplicably let the GOP back up off the mat following their defeat without even beginning the ten count. And they have come roaring back.

Now, they've got US on the ropes, going for the knockout punch in this coordinated effort to destroy the public-employee unions in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, and throughout the country. They have declared all-out war, with intent of not only finishing off once-and-for-all the middle class but the Democratic Party itself.

It's an absolutely horrifying experience! But it's exhilarating, as well! After thirty-plus years of SCREAMING at my fellow Democrats that it's time to raise our banner with the working class in this class war that is being visited against us, there is now no other choice. THIS IS WAR, fer chrissakes, and it is a take-no-prisoners scorched-earth assault that requires a vigorous, substantial, and sustained response. And what I can tell you from here at Ground Zero, the workers - union and non-union alike! - understand this to be an existential battle and they have risen to the occasion.

And what do we get from our Dem leaders and the Dem loyalists here at dagblog and elsewhere? More of the same "incrementalist" nonsense and supposed reading of the tea leaves and all the other claptrap that will most assuredly allow us to triangulate our way out of this mess.

Well, don't look now, but that shit ain't really worked out too well these last thirty years for the ones who REALLY should matter as Democrats, namely the working stiffs and their families who look to the Dems as their political agents. And it DAMNED SURE ain't going to work now!

"Hey, Boehner! Hey, Walker! You need to balance your budgets? Well, then, get your orangish hand outta my left pocket and your ghoulish hand out of my right pocket for once and go grab a pile from the Koch Brothers and their buddies instead. They must have more than enough, after all, because I imagine we will still see them funding their war against the workers in Wisconsin and Ohio and nationwide. See you on the battlefield, and may the best man win!"

Now, THAT's a message that would require a near 180 degree turn away from the disastrous course steered by the Dems over these last thirty years, all the way from Reagan through the first two-plus years of Obama. But it's PRECISELY the message that needs to be delivered immediately, if not sooner. Nothing less will work. But judging from what the response of the awakened Labor Movement in Wisconsin has been these last 20 days in Wisconsin and now in Ohio and elsewhere, nothing more will be needed to at last knock these thieving, lying, blood-sucking, masters-of-disaster right on their asses where they belong!

The war is on! The alarm bell has sounded. The time for deliberation and strategizing and calculating and compromising is over. It's time for Obama and you and anyone else who ever proclaimed themselves to be a Democrat to get in the fight, or lose it for all time. Only one question remains to be answered, Democrats:

Which Side Are You On?

See you at the front! I'll be the one standing proudly midst the crowd, come what may, with faith in my Dem reinforcements to come if for no other reason than the consequences of their failure to effectively respond at this juncture in this Class War is simply too catastrophic to consider.