With all that has been going on recently with the Democratic Party I've become increasing frustrated that the party is no long standing for many of my core values. These are values that drew me to the party to begin with. I support women's reproductive rights and rights for medical decisions that affect her body. I support capitalism but with a regulated market. I am a capitalist. But I also feel that there needs to be protections because the market is not there to better the people, it is there to make money in any way that it is possible.
Lately I've seen the Democratic Party fall apart on many of these core issues. The two most recent have been a woman's rights over her own body and protections of consumers. In PA, the governor has asked that two pro-women's reproductive rights candidates drop out of a senate race in favor of a member who doesn't support a woman's right to choose while PA has a pro-choice republican senator in the Republican Party.
I've seen a significant number of members vote for a bankruptcy bill that in all honesty was meant to force middle and lower income people to maintain all their debts no matter what the circumstances and allow those with wealth to avoid paying their debts. This was a desperate attempt to squeeze as much money as possible from those who can't always afford the burdens that are placed upon them. I saw Democratic senators vote on anti-consumer legislation regarding class action lawsuits that are a last resort of the people to hold businesses accountable for their actions. Too many times recently some senators in the party have sided against the better interest of the American people.
This is something that I've been tossing around in my mind ever since last years November's election. I know some of you may think that I might be making knee-jerk reaction to recent events but as I listened to Katherine Lanpher this afternoon on the Al Franken show she explained that these recent events are why she doesn't like to affiliate herself with a specific party. It then reminded me why people like Michael Moore also don't affiliate themselves with the Democratic Party. The party isn't supporting as a whole what I feel are core values of progressives.
I'm not going to leave the cause of following progressive candidates. I still think there are a lot of great people in the Democratic Party. I think people like Ted Kennedy are reminders of those core values I talked about above. But it's hard to me to want to be a part of this party when even I'm not sure why they're an opposition party when they vote on the same issues as the party they are supposed to be opposing. Hate him or love him, everyone on both sides knows what George Bush stands for and what the Republican Party stands for. I know what the Democratic Party should stand for but I honestly don't know what their stance is.
As I said before, I am not giving up on progressives and liberals. I'll still vote and I will still support candidates that have these values and stand for the things that I do and I also realize that I won't see eye to eye on every issue with the party. I accept that reality but I feel that these issues I've talked about here are just too big to ignore and it seems this party doesn't represent me.