disturbing the comfortable

Many conservatives I’ve talked to accuse the Democrats as being, essentially, “Marxists.” You can hear this, too, on a lot of call-in radio and TV shows. Despite such zombie-ish places as North Korea or Cuba, there aren’t any Marxists governments anywhere. If people read history or politics they’d figure this out. But...they don’t, right.

Here’s a news story I came across on The Raw Story. It’s a German press agency report on the illness of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD). It refers to the Democrats as “centre-left” and the Republicans as “centre-right.” Not Marxists—nor, on the right, “Nazis” (hey, the Germans should know…).

We have one political party here in the States. It has two wings, one somewhat left and one somewhat right—but none of them question the essential order of things, political or economic or social. They both accept the status-quo of corporate capitalism… Social Democrats is basically what both parties are.

Democratic US senator takes ill, could change Congress control

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Democratic_US_senator_takes_ill_cou_12132006.html
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Wednesday December 13, 2006


Washington- A Democratic US senator took ill Wednesday
afternoon with a possible stroke, raising a chance that his seat
could become Republican in the event he cannot continue in office.
Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota, 59, was taken to George
Washington University Hospital "suffering from a possible stroke," a
statement from his office said.

The centre-left Democrats barely eked out a majority in the US
Senate in November elections, with 51 seats to 49 for the centre-
right Republicans.