I picked this up from CD at Corrente and the teaser was just so good I had to go look at the full piece. I recommend it to you, too. Hecate compares her first protest, saving the nation from Nixon, to last night, saving the nation from Nixon II.

I've been -- on my own, with friends, with my brilliant Son and heroic D-i-L -- to lots of demonstratios since the ones that I went to with my dad. I've never been to a demonstration where we talked back like this. And, in the end, I thnk it was a good thing. MoveOn and VoteVets won't like it. The establishement Dems will be far less willing to show up for them since they can no longer deliver nice, supportive crowds. But I think that the Dems need to understand, as Carl Levin acknowledged, that the people are way out ahead of Congress and that Congress needs to hustle to keep up. We want an end to the Dems acting undisciplined. Don't tell me that you need nine Republicans when you can't get Liberman and Mary Landrieu and other Democrats to vote as they should. We want an end to this illegal, immoral war. If these Dems can't do it, the netroots can fund and elect, as Atrios says, more and better Dems. [emph added]

Read the whole thing. I’m going to bookmark the essay and read it once a week when BDS and DLC/Dem fatigue set in. Today’s Democratic Party is unlikely to save our nation. They are too close to the fire to smell the smoke and see the flames. They have been too corrupted by the incessant money chase to get funding for the next election.

We really are going to have to get better Dems.

And, in a sense, that is the right answer. It was not Adams’ Sons of Liberty that beat the British. The incendiary handbills of Thomas Paine and Sam Adams didn’t lose to the British again and again, with very few won battles before the end at Yorktown. All of this was done by individuals banding together to defeat the British, enduring years of privation and heartbreak because they wanted to be free of a cruel and corrupt king.

Note to Senator Reid: It would be a really, really good idea to do this twice a week. You will draw the audiences, although I’m sure you want to talk to them, rather than having to listen to them. I think you’ll find, however, that the audiences will get larger, and you’ll end up getting fired up yourself. Let’s face it: we both know that the Senate is too clubby; you Dems think it’s a nice genteel men’s club, and the Republicans understand that they get to club you like baby seals.

If you don’t have the testes for infighting, cooperate with ActBlue to find a young fighter to take your place, and then go off to retire with your millions of dollars.