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It's hard not to get sucked into the swirling Weiner language. So I'll go with the flow.
Here's are the two primary definitions of FLACCID from dictionary.com :
1. soft and limp; not firm; flabby: flaccid biceps.
2.lacking force; weak: flaccid prose.
flickr image By MissLudmilla
I think that both definitions apply to the Democrats, particularly the leaders-- Obama, Pelosi, Reid... They are pathetically flaccid and fail to stand up for fellow democrats or for democratic principles. They are flaccid in the face of conservative criticism. But they do seem to stand up when corporations sing their siren call. Of course, the story of the sirens teaches us that captains who heed the voices of the sirens bring their passengers to bad endings.
Let's start with a few non-Weiner flaccidity cases.
Dick Durbin is suggesting that the congress should authorize the Libyan war. His weak, flaccid reasoning is that if the congress authorizes it, then congressional powers will be confirmed. This is weak, impaired convoluted reasoning. You don't vote to give permission to someone who did something without permission and then claim that you still have power of authorization.
A few years ago I was talking to John Conyers and it was caught on video . I got the clear impression that the reason he was not, as chair of the House Judiciary Committee, not going after Dubya for impeachment was because Nancy Pelosi and the other flaccid Democrats were afraid of what those nasty people at Fox News would say. Back then, the general consensus was that Pelosi was keeping impeachment off the table.
We've seen the Democrats cave and fall, operate in weak, FLACCID ways for years. Obama's chronic punt-on-the-first-down negotiation strategy is painfully flaccid, when he's not actively stabbing the constituents in the back with his deals with banksters, big pharma, hospitals and energy companies.
So now we are faced with a situation where the weak, flaccid Democrats who lead the Democratic party have all failed to stand up for a fellow Democrat. We have a situation where they actually went the other way, helping the right wing attack machine.
"Democrats have not only refused to hold Republicans accountable for the double standard, but they have joined with Republicans in piling on with the demands that Anthony Weiner had to resign even as David Vitter stays in the Senate," Maddow said.
Maddow finished her comments on Weiners resignation saying, "Congratulations, Democrats, in an era of unhinged, ideological, big money conservative media that is wholly and admittedly divorced from the precepts of journalism, in hounding Anthony Weiner into resigning ... you have just fed and unleashed this beast onto yourselves, probably for a generation."
More and more people are saying that there is little difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Oh, sure, there are some-- abortion, some social justice issues-- but the leaders of the Democratic party just helped the GOP drum out one of the strongest further left voices in congress. Alan Grayson is gone. Dennis Kucinich is being gerrymandered out of his Cleveland district.
We are seeing a purging of diversity, an elimination of strong, independent voices on both sides of the aisle, since the teagbaggers (yes I know what the word means. Yes it is intentional. Yes I hold teapartiers is contempt) are driving the moderates out of the Republican party.
Does that make Democratic leaders who drive out progressive voices the teabaggers of the Democratic party? After all, it's been the declared goal of the DLC-- the Democratic Leadership Council, which Bill Clinton helped bring to power, which Hillary Clinton was a leader of, which Obama sourced most of his appointees from-- to move the Democratic party further and further to the right.
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