I listened to speakers at the PDA conference this weekend--- in fact I am listening now to their speakers on health care as I write this blog posting, and one thing that I notice is that PDA actually believes moral arguments will sway members of the United States House and Senate.
I find it very interesting that the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) have finally taken up the call for "Health care, Not Warfare." These "Johnny come latelies" to the call for "Health care, Not Warfare" are most welcome to this struggle; however, not a mention was made about the death and destruction resulting from the Israeli carnage of the Palestinian people in Gaza... where are the "morals" of the members of PDA in refusing to acknowledge the billions of dollars this murder and mayhem carried out by the Israelis with our tax-dollars?
Apparently the PDA call for "Health care, Not Warfare" does not extend to the Israeli pogroms carried out against the Palestinian people.
Apparently in the moral struggle for "Health care, Not warfare" of PDA, the moral issue does not extend to objecting to billions of our tax-dollars being spent killing the Palestinian people. Why? Because these "progressive Democrats" understand that they wouldn't get the time of day from members of the House and Senate who voted for the barbaric resolutions in support of the Israeli carnage of the Palestinian people.
Apparently theProgressive Democrats of America joins with that other moral outpost of the Democratic Party the Campaign for America's Future and "isn't doing the Middle East" as if not saying anything is moral... but, then again, Barack Obama was silent, too. I don't find anything moral about PDA not pointing out how much the American people paid for this most recent Israeli slaughter in Gaza.
What I also find very interesting is that those people who told me that in my taking a stand to support a ceasefire in Gaza I was not supporting a "revolutionary enough position" and the call for a ceasefire "was not anti-imperialist."
Well, some of these same people were participants of the PDA conference this weekend and they clapped for throwing shoes at George Bush on his way out of the White House; but, for some reason they didn't raise the issue of the Israeli carnage in Gaza.
It is always nice to be getting advice on what I should be saying from a bunch of hypocrites who don't dare raise their own voices in a way they tell others they should do. I think the fact that the PDA met without raising any questions or opposition to this Israeli carnage in Gaza... in fact, I wonder how it is these hypocrites who are so super-revolutionary and anti-imperialist would not have pushed for a discussion on the role and responsibility of progressive to move outside of, and beyond the Democratic Party already.
I am not going to be shy about speaking out on the issue of the need to move outside of the Democratic Party towards forming working class political independence when these people don't even have the moral or political courage to raise their voices to condemn the Israeli pogrom against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The American working class has not gotten one single universal reform for over seventy years in the government of this country. Anyone who thinks that working people will get HR 676 or will get anything in the way of reforms creating better and higher living standards for working people from a Congress who has no shame supporting this slaughter of the Palestinian people is living in la la land. Members of the U.S. House and Senate cannot be appealed to based on any kind of moral arguments... the only thing the United States Congress and Barack Obama is going to listen to is when the working class in united and militantly moving forward in unity demanding real change.