Nathan Newman wrote:
>Some of us remember Jackson in the Rainbow Coalition and still recognize
>that Democratic leadership folks like David Bonior and John Conyers can go
>head-to-head with Nader on progressive credentials.
>
>Jackson, Bonior and Conyers all received their votes from that base.
-Exactly. When push comes to shove, these people will all campaign for -the party. They're the mechanisms by which the base is bound to that -corrupt structure.
Now you are getting logically circular. You argue that the base cannot elect progressive leadership. Then when I point out that they have elected progressive leadership, the fact that those progressive leaders are part of the party is used to prove the illegitimacy of the party.
By your definition, there are no progressives in the Democratic Party leadership because anyone in the Democratic Party leadership is not really progressive by definition because they are in the party.
It's a tautological argument that avoids dealing with the reality of mass numbers of progressive rank-and-file and leadership folks voting for such leaders and that those leaders do progressive things.
You don't like the compromises they make, but then every third party from the Greens to the remaining Communists in Europe makes compromises in coalition politics. There is no purity in political leadership which is why I take the class composition more seriously than the purity of rhetoric of the leadership.
-- Nathan Newman