Sirota: These are times that try progressives' souls

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http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/10/its_frustrating_to_be_a_progre.html

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Oh but it gets more obscene. This week, Costa Rica prepares for a national referendum on whether to ratify the lobbyist-written Central American Free Trade Agreement - an agreement whose language will, among other things, force that country to dismantle its universal health care program and raise prices for life-saving medicines. CAFTA, you may recall, is one of the Bush administration's extensions of NAFTA, and - as my syndicated column coming out on Friday will show - the White House is mounting a vicious and withering campaign of fear and intimidation to manipulate the Costa Rican election on behalf of all the corporate donors who wrote CAFTA in the first place.

And what has been the reaction of the progressive movement in Washington? Why, granting a platform to the very U.S. Senator who is leading the charge to extend NAFTA even further.

That's right, the New Democratic Network - trumped up in Matt Bai's silly book as a supposedly important piece of the progressive movement - hosted U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) for a speech on trade. True to form, Baucus in that speech pleased K Street by implicitly attacking rank-and-file congressional Democrats who were elected in 2006 on a promise to reform America's trade policy and who are trying to fulfill their campaign promises by stopping the new package of NAFTAs. Baucus is now leading the fight to give a NAFTA to Colombia - a country whose government actively colludes with paramilitary gangs to execute union organizers.

Some of my friends may be angry at me for writing all this - but it ain't personal, and more importantly if we progressives don't engage in some self-reflection when our side has so clearly driven into a ditch, then we won't become the movement we need to become to improve this country. I am a progressive before I am a partisan - and I reject Partisan War Syndrome that says we must all just applaud every single tactic and decision, no matter how unproductive to the cause.
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