It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 
Mother Davis pinches her nose shut as she watches what's going on in South Dakota, and comments,

Free To Be You and Me famously sang, "Some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do without." This line stays in my head the more I read about Stephanie Herseth.

Herseth is a Democrat running in South Dakota to occupy the seat formerly held by Rep. Janklow, a Republican who couldn't keep his car on the road and was disgraced at a criminal trial related to the death of someone who had the audacity to get in the way of his bumper. Herseth's opponent is Republican Larry Dietrich, a nasty man who seems quite willing to take whatever positions his corporate funders ask for.

So you'd think that we'd be writing an endorsement of Herseth's run in the special Congressional election. We're not.

As important as it is for the Democrats to regain control of the United States Congress, it is also essential that the Democrats retain control of the Democratic Party. Candidates like Stephanie Herseth threaten the Democratic agenda by dilluting the Democratic identity.

Stephanie Herseth was for the Iraq war. She supports the Patriot Act. She wants to make Bush's special tax favors for the rich permanent.

Does Herseth sound like a Democrat to you? It seems that Herseth's association with the Democratic Party is one motivated by opportunism, not idealism.

If South Dakotans elect Stephanie Herseth to Congress, the clear fact is that she will vote with the Republicans more often than she will vote with the Democrats. She'll be a Democrat in name only.

Of course, with the special election date almost here, it's too late for South Dakotans to make sure that they have a real choice. The sham candidacy of Stephanie Herseth shows just how important it is that progressive Democrats stop holding the process of party politics at arms length, as if by getting involved they make themselves dirty.

The truth is that the process only gets more dirty the more progressives refuse to bother with it. Next time around, South Dakota (and the rest of America) needs progressives to get off their pedastals of principle and start attending Democratic Party meetings, get on their state Democratic Committees, support truly Democratic candidates to challenge the Republicans in donkeys' clothing, and actually vote in the primaries that ultimately select who will stand in the name of the Democrats.

Complaining over coffee about how the Democrats have sold out doesn't change anything. Getting involved and voting against the sellout is the only way to prevent creeps like Herseth from ripping off the good progressive work of generations of dedicated Democrats.

Getting ready to put on her own Donkey suit and investigate the progressive Democratic caucus in her own state,
Mother Davis

Posted by Katherine Davis at 6:15 AM. # (permalink)  




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