Frank, I agree those are the things liberals *should* stand for, but unfortunately, for the past 30 or so years, the Democratic party hasn't stood for those things. Rather, it has become more and more a corporate owned party. Under Clinton, the party was made over completely into a corporate owned party. The Clinton/Democratic Leadership Council/Dashcle and McAuliffe party leadership conspired and sold the Demcratic party to the highest corporate bidders.

Nowhere was that made more plain than in the political contributions received by John Kerry and John Edwards. Their biggest financial contributors were also the biggest financial contributors to the Bush/Cheney campaign.

We all knew this going into the 2004 campaign, but those of you who blindly chose to follow Kerry, blithely ignored those realities, the same way you blithely ignored the fact that Kerry pandered to middle class suburban voters, at the expense of the traditional base of working class, poor, African American, Latino, Asian American, Muslim, and progressive left constituencies. You also gave the finger to the anti-war movement. You cut the burgeoning progressive labor movement off at the knees by ignoring the Million Worker March, and failing to fight for the minimum wage referendums in Florida and Nevada.

The list of how you Kerry supporters sold out the Democratic party base, not to mention your traditional allies on the progressive left in this election is so long, and constitutes such a profound, deep betrayal of OUR values and everything we have stood and fought for our entire lives, you aren't just going to be able to meekly slither back towards the party base and the nonpartisan progressive left, claiming to extend the olive branch and calling for unity.

I'm not calling for paybacks. I'm not saying we don't keep moving ahead and moving in the right direction. I'm saying I wouldn't trust a Kerry Democrat to work with me at this point. When you violate the trust like the Anybody But Bush faction did this year, you don't just get it back automatically when the election is over and your side loses YET AGAIN because you betrayed the trust of your allies and sold out their values to the highest corporate bidders.