Oh joy, Joe McNamara is actually crazy enough to get into a pissing contest with Sam Bell of the Progressive Democrats! Shmoopkins*, put on an extra pot of coffee, this is going to be a long one! I mailed this into the Journal, mostly because I am beside myself with glee that Joe actually has gone this far. However, because Edward Achorn has an editorial policy that says something somewhere about something, I am not sure if he will actually run this.

I recently read of the Democratic Party’s ownership of grassroot gains and changes that our most famous Nietzsche scholar wishes to take away from the list of successful grassroots movement trophies in the name of a silly game he wants to play with Sam Bell (‘Real’ Democrats have reform record, 8/18/16). The reality is that Joe McNamara’s party platform, which emerged from a rigged convention that disenfranchised our elected delegates in the name of super-delegates like he, is a platform that John Chaffee would have felt comfortable on 40 years ago as Nixon’s Naval Secretary: pro-choice, anti-union, pro-business, pro-free trade, pro-war, and not vocally anti-black while still supporting racist policies like the militarization of urban police.

What McNamara brags about as “reforms” are instances when grassroots movements forced our ultra-conservative Soviet-style single-party state to finally adopt things they had refused to budge on for decades. Take for example marriage equality, that was a multi-decade fight wherein LGBTQQI people and their allies were called everything from ‘sinful’ to ‘disordered’ to ‘harmful to children’ by a Catholic clergy that the Democrats still allow to walk onto the floor of the General Assembly to genuinely influence policy with regards to drug decriminalization and abortion while ignoring them with regards to migration and war.

Frank Ferri is a good man and he served his constituency well but to call him the spearhead of that movement quite literally writes out of history thousands of people who Joe McNamara was ignoring for twenty years until it became politically safe for him to be nice to queer people in public, which ironically included in its ranks Julia Pell, daughter of Clayborne and Nuala. Whoops!

With legislative allies like this, who needs enemies?

A decade ago, populist entryists, the Progressives and Libertarians, both set out to change Congress and the two political parties beginning with the 2006 elections. After a decade, McNamara’s behavior at the convention and in the newspaper demonstrates that he is as open to progressives as a certain other Joseph was seven decades ago. Of course, McCarthy had the ultimate boogieman of ‘Communism’ to invoke as a specter haunting Western Europe and potentially America. Now Joe can only invoke the phantasms of an idealized Rhode Island history that pushes to the margins Democratic Party racism, sexism, homophobia, union busting, pension privatizing, and war mongering. Yet the reality is that the lack of reform in this state under hegemony of the Democrats demonstrates to every reader how farcical this entire exercise actually is.

I respect Sam Bell and his efforts but I also have lived in this People’s Republic of Providence Plantations long enough to know that change will only come with a vibrant third party creating outside pressures. The Republicans have adopted Libertarian elements to their program because of a third party creating such pressure, now Progressives can and should create that same pressure by supporting the Green Party and Dr. Jill Stein’s platform for genuine progress rather than the McNamara/Clinton Rockefeller Republican platform.

Anyways, Achorn replied and asked me to cut it down to 250 words, which is possible. Here is the revised version:

I read the effort our famous Nietzsche scholar to take away from the populist movement gains made in the Ocean State in the name of a silly game he wants to play with Sam Bell (‘Real’ Democrats have reform record, 8/18/16). Joe McNamara’s party platform, emerging from a rigged convention, is one John Chaffee would have felt comfortable on 40 years ago: pro-choice, anti-union, pro-business, pro-free trade, pro-war, and not vocally anti-black. McNamara brags about “reforms” that are instances when grassroots movements forced our single-party state to finally adopt populist policies. Take for example marriage equality, a multi-decade fight wherein LGBTQQI people were called everything from ‘sinful’ to ‘disordered’ to ‘harmful to children’ by a Catholic clergy that the Democrats still allow to influence policy regarding drug decriminalization and abortion while ignoring on migration and war. Frank Ferri is a good man but to call him the spearhead of that movement writes out of history people Joe McNamara was ignoring for twenty years until it became politically safe, which ironically included in its ranks Julia Pell, daughter of Clayborne and Nuala. A decade ago, the Progressives and Libertarians both set out to change Congress and the two political parties beginning with the 2006 elections. The Republicans have adopted Libertarian elements to their program because of a third party creating such pressure, now Progressives can and should create that same pressure by supporting the Green Party and Dr. Jill Stein’s platform for genuine progress rather than the McNamara/Clinton Rockefeller Republican platform.

* Shmoopkins is the pet name I have lovingly given the NSA handler that collects and does cursory analysis of all my metadata. I figure that, if s/he’s going to see me naked when I walk into my room from the shower where my desktop is located, we might as well have a little pillow talk going.