Money Party Dems: Oh No You Don't!

If this is what the Democratic takeover of Congress is going to mean, the battle for the heart and soul of the Party has just begun. We'd better put the pressure on ASAP to confront any and all Dems who dare to talk like Rep. Rangel on middle class issues and more. Check out what David Sirota is reporting on the Money Party leanings of our new Chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee:

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) represents one of the poorest congressional districts in New York City. He also chairs the House Ways and Means Committee - the panel that oversees taxes and entitlements. This combination would lead the casual observer to think that Rangel, trying to represent his district, would be aggressively using his chairmanship to redirect President Bush’s tax cuts to lower-income people, strengthen and even expand Social Security and renegotiate trade deals to protect American jobs. But, no. That’s not what appears to be happening. In the weeks after the congressional election, Rangel has expressed interest in doing the exact opposite: preserving President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy; considering Social Security benefit cuts and retirement age hikes; and supporting lobbyist-written trade pacts that have no wage, environmental or human rights protections in them. He has, in other words, moved to side firmly with the Money Party against the People Party.

I have to agree with Sirota's earlier take on a definition of the sides that really are in play in Washington. Not conservative vs. liberal, not Democratic Party vs. Republican Party, not left vs. right, not centrist vs. extremist, but Money Party vs. People Party:

Anyone who spends 5 minutes around the halls of power in the nation’s capital knows that Washington is dominated by one party: The Money Party, and that the People Party is far outnumbered - even after this election. Look no further than votes on the bankruptcy bill, the energy bill, the class action bill, China PNTR and NAFTA to figure out which politicans who call themselves Republicans and Democrats actually belong to the Money Party and which politicians actually belong to the People Party. The Establishment pretends this paradigm doesn’t exist - they need the drama of Democrats vs. Republicans to sell newspapers, and more importantly, hiding the existence of the real power equation is in the interest of all the major for-profit corporations that own the media.

Thankfully, some of the Dem fresh faces in Congress, like Senators-Elect John Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA), and new House members Sherrod Brown and Heath Shuler, ran on strongly populist economic platforms. It's the old hands -- like Charlie Rangel, our own Jeff Bingaman, Steny Hoyer and others -- we'll have to watch closely.

Big corporate campaign donors always seek to put the kabosh on anything that benefits ordinary people or creates a level playing field, and the longer politicos luxuriate in the lobbyist-run bubble of DC, the more they seem to forget the people and their issues. Money talks. Hence we have the mainstream media -- and many Dem analysts -- emphasizing the need to focus on "bipartisanship." What they want is a bipartisan effort by Money Party members on both sides to kill the populist impulse that was expressed so clearly by voters in the midterm elections.

Yes, we now have Dem majorities in both Houses of Congress, but People Party stalwarts are still in very short supply. The real battle will be between the corporatists and those who are truly dedicated to representing the needs of ordinary people. Are you ready? Something tells me we've only begun to fight.