From: Anthony J. Kennerson (Red Garter Club Enterprises Founder/Chief Blogger)
To: Tim Kaine, Chairman: Democratic Party National Commi8ttee;
The “Honorable” Nancy Pelosi: Minority Leader, House of Representatives (D, CA);
The “Honorable” Steve Israel, Chairman, Democratic Congressional Campaign                 Committee (D, IL)
Subject: My Immediate, Full, And Permanent Departure From The Democratic Party,
Effective Immediately, Due To Your Craven Leadership And Lack Of Progressive Values

Gentlemen and Madam:

This memo is to announce to the world and to you all that as of today (Friday, June 17, 2011), I will be permanently leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an Independent Leftist until I can find a more suitable national party that represents my Leftist political values and programs.

Actually, to be truthful, I have been registered as an Independent or a Green Party member since 1986, when I originally left the Democratic Party as a citizen of the state of Louisiana; but since then I have had urges to return to your party, especially due to the election of what I and so manjy progressive Americans thought to have been a decent man in Barack Obama as President of the United States.

After what has taken place these last two and one-half years, however, any thought of me returning as a Democrat has simply vanished in rage over the failure of your party to effectively defend the values, principles, and policies that you pretended to represent when the American people gave you an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency in 2008. And, your actions as the political minority in the House of Representatives and the reduced majority in the U. S. Senate since the 2010 midterm elections have simply intensified and justified my anger and concerns.

Even though I ultimately did not vote for Barack Obama for President in 2008 (my vote went to Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party that year, because they were closer to my core political beliefs at that time), I nevertheless cheered and even shed a couple of tears when he beat the Republican duo of  Arizona Senator John McCain and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to become the first POTUS of color. I, like so many other Americans, was under the impression that the then-new President, buttressed with overwhelming majorities of Democrats in both houses, would finally fulfill the task of addressing and rolling back the destructive, tired, and utterly failed polices enacted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, and the brutal reactionary policies of the Republican Party that has simply devastated the country through massive draining and looting of the fiscal infrastructure; the illegal enforcement of two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the massive theft of public assets to benefit the wealthiest minority at the expense of the majority of working people and economically non-privileged, and the enactment of socially reactionary mores of the Christian Right, White Nationalism, and authoritarianism overall. It was my deep impression that the promises that President Obama had made as a candidate to roll back these regressive policies would be enacted swiftly, and that we would be well on the road to fiscal sanity and recovery as well as well overdue reform.

Unfortunately, that didn’t quite turn out to be the case….in large part because the Republicans in the minority, buttressed by the usual heft and weight of the super wealthy and the usual right-wing superstructure and media, was able to obstruct and deny and defeat each and every progressive initiative put forth. But only in part….because one obvious reason was as much because your majority refused to lift a finger for genuine progressive reforms that would have not only strengthen the economy and brought equality and sustainable growth to this country, but also would have stabilized and made permanent your then already strong political position. Instead of using the broad scale and organic grass movement of new voters motivated by the genuine desire to effect positive change (emphasized by the immortal phrase of Obama’s campaign, “Yes, We Can!!” and the twin towers of “Hope” and “Change We Can Believe In”), your party simply took those votes and promptly exploited them in order to reinsert classical neoliberal policies of co-opting the Right and geneflucting to the power of the military/industrial complex to further their financial and social power at the expense of the people who put you into office.

The examples are too legion to count:

– from your abandonment of universal, affordable health care through the already proven single payer/national health care system in favor of a barely universal yet privatized “managed care” approach even requring people to purchase unaffordable and insufficient private health care plans with little or no subsidization of anyone except the pharmaceutical and insurance companies;

– to your support for open-ended bailouts of mega financial institutions such as Goldman, Sachs and J. P. Morgan, Stanley without any reciprocal means of serious reform of their dependency on junk financing or their price gouging of middle-class and/or working-class folk through high fees and usurous interest rates;

– to President Obama’s betrayal of his campaign promises by extending and even strengthening Bush-era programs of illegal surveillance of legal citizens as well as the interrment (even assassination) of actual citizens for “terrorist” crimes at will without any need of prior proof of actual guilt;

– to the refusal to go to the wall to defend and promote legislation that would improve the standing of unionized workers and those who wish to voluntarily form unions for the sake of protecting their jobs or improving their wages and benefits;

– to the inconsistent application of, if not total opposition, to progressive social initiatives such as ending the disasterous and counterproductive ban on openly gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered soldiers in our Armed Forces; protecting and extending reproductive rights for women, and defending and extending basic civil rights protections for people of color….all in the wake of the powerful offensive of the Religious Right to roll back basic human protections;

– to the continued funding of and even extension of, the deadliest and most counterproductive military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, even in the wake of legitimate successes such as the successful targeted assassination of al-Quaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has otherwise been nothing more than a drain on the US economy and human capital…not to mention the devastation and death and destruction imposed on Iraqi and Afghan citizens;

– to the extension of such arbitrary and illegal acts of war to places like Libya and Egypt and Pakistan, ostensively justified in the name of “humanitarianism” against  admitted tyrants such as Mummamar Gadaffi or repressive groups such as the Taliban; but in reality reduced to the same brutal acts of terror and death as the enemies they claim to oppose;

– to the continued bias in our economic policy towards protecting the still forever bloated military budget and the gross looting of our public fiscal foundations by multinational corporations and the super wealthy through tax subsidies and outright grants, all at the expense of our crumbling infrastructure and underfunded and debt-ridden education system; while keeping social spending for working class and poor families and individuals at a rate that is simply miserly, minimalist, and insufficient for a decent life.

And remember, all of this was accomplished even before the backlash of your failures enabled the Republicans, buttressed by the resurgence of the even more hardened Far Right movement known as the Tea Party and the showers of cash enabled by the U. S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision repealing restrictions on corporate and individual spending on political campaigns, to gain control of the House of Representatives and reduce the Democratic majority in the Senate.

One would think that one precursory look at the fundamental agenda of the “GOTP” would be enough to motivate your party to return to defending even putative liberal values that are directly under attack from the operatives of the New Reaganites. Just a look at what the GOTP has done in the state of Wisconsin, for example, on using their newly created majority to run roughshod over the basic human rights of workers, resend or repeal laws lasting over 40 years covering basic common sense regulation of corporate greed, enacting “reverse Robin Hood” fiscal policies taxing and soaking the poor and working class and transferring the wealth upwards to those wealthy who already have far too much, and using ulterior tactics and intimidation and voter suppression and other means of antidemocratic methods to retain their power against democratic accountability….that alone should be enough to remind Democrats of what is at stake. Thankfully, resistance to the Right initiatives is strong and building strength in Wisconsin and elsewhere…and you’d think that the National Democratic Party would be at the forefront of such popular and grassroots resistance to the threat of neo-Reaganism/Social Darwinism/Dominionism.

The problem is, unfortunately, that the attitude of the National Democratic Party towards the much needed resistance countermovement to the Right has been muted at best…and in some strategic areas, even openly hostile if not traitorous. From the President on down, it seems that the response to the Right’s offensive by you and your party leaders isn’t to support and help strengthen the mass resistance to it, but rather to either: (1) exploit it as a scare tactic to keep liberals and progressives chained to the neoliberal “centrist” Democrats for life, citing the dire threats of a TeaPublican victory snuffing out every progressive initiative and ushering in the New Reaction; and/or (2) pretend to negotiate with the Right under the misguided notioin of “bipartisanship” and “consensus” with the Republicans can achieve a “middle ground” that bridges the gap between the “extremes” of Left and Right.

In effect, your goal has been what it has always been since the Democratic Leadership Council successfully wrestled control of the financial and structural wings of the party from the older liberal faction in the wake of the Reagan landslide win of 1984: to wean the party away from the supposed “failures” of classical liberalism and nurture ties with “moderates” and “reasonable conservatives” (and especially their wealthy corporate enablers/financiers) in order to maintain the Neoliberal Corporate Center, while using the Fear of the Far Right to keep liberals in check and tethered to the “lesser evil” of enabling conservative Democrats to downgrade and defeat progressive/liberal initiatives.

This is the very reason why you establishment Democrats fear and loathe so much any legitimate and honest criticism from the Left, and immediately beat down with unrivaled intensity any progressive pol or intellectual who dares to warrant a critique of your corporate dependency. Such explains the false and completely contrived frustrations of President Obama and his aides towards whom he slanders as “the professional Left” and what other loyalist Democratic sympaticos smear as “the Left of the Left”, who insist on holding you accountable for your actions and promises rather than just accepting meekly the excuses you give for your failures and collusion with the Republicans.

Naturally, a ritual accompanying practice with all this is the ceremonial moral panic, whence anyone whom is the most effective in actually defending progressive values are essentially thrown under the bus and abandoned to the gnashing teeth of the GOTP, as an example of how never to mess with the ruling powers of the Democrats (or the implicit Center-Right Alliance that sustains the powers of both the Third Way/DLC  and GOTP wings of Big Capital.

Far too many good people — Joycelyn Elders, Brad Edelman, Lani Guenier, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Dawn Johnson,  and Cynthia McKinney, just to name a few — have been used as sacrifices to feed the appetites of the Far Right as well as to prove the Democrats’ “centrist” credentials and use liberals/progressives as stepping stones.

And that brings me to New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is only the latest example of Democratic betrayal, and the essential last straw that motivated me to issue this memo.

I do not live in Mr. Weiner’s district, so I don’t have the final say in passing final judgment on whether his recent admitted foibles involving sexual messaging women not his wife reaches the lever of removing him from his office. Although I do say that his actions, especially his initial attempt to cover up and lie about his private sexting by claiming that he was hacked into, or that this was part of a fiendish plot by right-wing operatives such as Andrew Breitbart to damage him for his aggressiveness in calling out TeaPublican fraud and conflicts of interest (particularly involving SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, himself standing accused of sexual aggressiveness involving unwanted advances towards women), certainly are troubling and do warrant real criticism and some degree of censure. Nevertheless, for you to simply accept without any means of discussion and debate the GOTP/right-wing media framing of his acts as the essence of criminal and simply drive him from his seat in Congress without even the opportunity to defend himself in an investigation or hearing, is simply shameful and disgusting.

It is especially so given the official position of then Speaker Pelosi that the matter of impeaching officials of the former Bush Administration for alleged war crimes, economic corruption, and other crimes worthy of impeachment and criminal investigation, should be “off the table” and not ever addressed, under the ruse of “moving forward”. Not to mention, the refusal of the Democrats to exploit the far, far, far worse sexual pecadellos (and actual criminal behavior) of Republicans like Louisiana Senator David Vitter, whom was proven and has admitted to have patronized prostitutes to fulfill his particular diaper fetish; or former Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who was caught and arrested for soliciting sex from a male undercover agent in a Minneapolis airport restroom; or even criminal charges at former Florida Congressman Mark Foley, whom was caught exploiting young congressional pages for sexual favors.  The total lack of aggressiveness in pursuing Vitter in comparison to the unified and explicit campaign to force Weiner out says all that needs to be said about the treatment of the Democratic Party towards its liberals…even when such liberals have been the most effective in defending them and rebuking and returning TeaPublican attacks. But then again, this is the same party that did next to nothing to support Alan Grayson, the Florida representative who was, until his defeat in 2010, one of the most effective rhetorical messengers in promoting Democratic values…and was also effectively blackballed by the establishment Dems in favor of less outspoken but more “centrist” candidates who lost.

If you think that I am simply a purist who wants io impose a narrow “litmus test” on candidates to meet my standards, well that’s your right to believe that. But, while a political party that allows diverse points of view and elicits healthy, reasonable debate amongst those points of view is certainly commendable, a party that allows for diametrically opposite points of view which cancel out each other with no discipline of shared vision or direction simply cannot ultimately stand. When Blue Dogs and Third Way Dems can freely cross the aisle and vote with Republicans to defeat liberal (if not Democratic) initiatives without penalty, yet liberals and progressives are forever intimidated and threatened with loss of position or funding for even expressing principled opposition to the party line, then that should be a red flag that says to progressives that they are being taken for granted, if not taken for a ride. All this is doing is ultimately alienating the people who put you in office, and ultimately, it will cost you votes and elections as the TeaPublicans out finance, out organize, and out work you….fairly and unfairly.

And yet, madam and gentlemen, you still don’t seem to get the point that people who have been betrayed and forgotten and abused won’t stand for a party that abuses them for long. Telling people that they must forever be reduced to eating dirt because the only alternative is to eat cow dung does not engender the best faith and loyalty; in fact, ultimately, they will get tired and either not eat at all or settle for cat dung.

Or….they can do as I have done for the past 30 years, and I now intend to intensify my efforts in doing: they can use their resources in building an alternative movement that will fight for their principles to the death, without apologies and without illusions.

Consider this a friendly warning, gentlemen and madame: You may have lost this Independent Leftist forever, but there are several more like me who still maintain a thin shred of loyalty to your party, who still have some hope against history that you will see your mistakes and revive yourselves as a true progressive movement before the bottom truly drops for you. Perhaps, my warning will motivate you to act while you still have the chance.

If not, then only God and the Goddess can help you when January 2013 arrives and you are left on the outside looking in as Michelle Bachmann  or Bill Perry takes the oath of office as the 45th President of the United States with the support of an all-Tea Party/Republican House and Senate….because not enough Democrats or independents or working folk were motivated to turn out while the other side did.

And this time, you won’t be able to blame Ralph Nader…it will be all your doing…or lack therof.

And in the meantime, people like me will be in front, leading the resistance and building a new and better alternative to reverse the damage done by both you and the TeaPublicans to our country.

It’s your choice, folks: lead, follow, or get out of our way.

Yours sincerely,
Anthony Kennerson

cc: The Democratic leadership in the US Senate and all 50 states
ajk