DO THEY REALLY NEED A PARABLE...:

A Party With No Punch: Three parables for progressives and the Grand Old (Democratic) Party. (David Sirota, 10/26/09, In These Times)

During the early attacks on Jones, Obama officials remained largely silent, refusing to publicly defend him. When Glenn Beck and others amped up their assault by citing Jones’ signature on a 2002 petition questioning the government’s behavior before 9/11 as proof that he was a national security threat, White House officials went completely silent, even as Jones himself disavowed the petition. After a week of undefended attacks on Jones as a “9/11 truth” conspiracist, the administration showed him the door.

This is, of course, the same administration that aggressively defended Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner after revelations that he had not paid his taxes. It is also the same administration that put Wall Street-linked conservatives in major policy positions, and largely shut movement progressives out of those roles.

In the context of this reality, the Jones firing becomes a parable telling progressives that the Democratic Party that stands by corporate-connected insiders will quickly abandon movement-connected activists the moment their background becomes public or is made controversial by the right. As the Wall Street Journal aptly noted in its editorial about the Jones firing, the right “counts for more at this White House” than the left, and Democrats “will happily employ movement progressives, but only so long as their real views and motivations aren’t widely known.”

...to tell them that the progressive movement is unacceptable to the American electorate? You'd think sixty years of election results would do the trick.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 26, 2009 6:42 AM