[WS:] It definitely was not the intention of my posting and I apologize if it created that impression.
The target of my criticism was left wing populism which will go to great length to put the blame on external forces instead of acknowledging the obvious - that the problem is with the majority of the American voters rather than supposed treachery of the Democratic party.
The US political system is far from being a level playing field, to be sure, but at the end of day the political parties must be responsive to popular sentiments if they want to stay in business i.e. electing candidates to public offices. And the undeniable fact is that decidedly pro-labor, left wing candidate such as Eugene Debs consistently got less than 5 % of the popular vote even in the time when labor organizing effort was strong and there were many organizers knocking on people's doors.
This is the fundamental reason why Democratic party does not embrace an overtly pro-labor agenda - it is a sure way of losing elections. It is a conservative country - brainwashed with religion, self-made ideology, and pro-business propaganda to be sure - but that cannot be changed by a presidential decree or even campaigners knocking on people's doors. It never worked that way in this country, and there is no reason to believe that it will. We may debate about social-systemic causes of this situation, but this the subject of another conversation.
However, blaming Democrats seems to me like an easy way out by blaming someone else instead of acknowledging the undeniable fact that pro-labor or even Euro-style social democratic policies are DOA in the US, period. Maybe if the US breaks up as a single entity (as the USSR did) there is a chance for it in some areas, but I do not think that it is a likely scenario either.
In my humble opinion, the left needs to reinvent itself to play any political role in the US instead of keeping to play the old populist-labor card that failed so many times in the past and then complain that is the Democrats' fault. It needs to come up with something that has a chance of attracting wide voter support, as the old rhetoric simply does not do it.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."