Not much distance between Progressives and Liberals, then.

David Sirota’s latest essay neglects to mention that many Progressives also voted for a pro-war, pro-CAFTA, pro-NAFTA, pro-corporate campaign funding John Kerry in 2004. Progressives “are not fully comfortable with progressivism” and have fully behaved in such a way that it is clear they “are simply not comfortable taking a more confrontational posture towards large economic institutions” when many of these institutions fund Democratic Party campaigns.

I will continue to not take progressivism seriously so long as they buckle every 4 years for a series of candidates that collude with Republicans to keep competition out of their simultaneous press conferences masquerading as “debates”.

The Democrats in Congress right now can agree with the pro-war Republicans because it will cost them nothing. They know that they have no real challengers awaiting them either in the form of alternative candidates (who are easily dispatched because they’re either from a third party or are independent and can’t raise the funds to compete) or organized opposition to, as Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) put it, “a flexible timetable not a drop-dead date, not a deadline, not cut and run” in which the US can leisurely “finish the mission, achieve our goals and bring the troops home”. These are not the words or the sentiment which places tough demands on the pro-war Republicans like demanding to bring the troops home now. Yet these are the representatives that get votes in gerrymandered Democrat districts. Just look at the eminently disappointing junior senator from Illinois—Sen. Barack Obama.