You might have noticed the orange animated ad in the left-hand column — “honor Kos for speaking truth to power.” This Thursday night Markos Moulitsas (along with Wynton Marsalis and Anna Burger) is being honored by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in New York City. Read more from Jane Hamsher, here.
I realize there’s some ambivalence about Kos among leftie bloggers. See, for example, Nick Bourbaki’s posts at Wampum, here and here. And yesterday I ran across some snarking at Kos in a comment thread at Unclaimed Territory discussing Ned Lamont’s challenge of Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat. This guy, for example,
I hope that your laudible support for electoral challenges to centrist/conservative Democrats extends also to *third-party* challenges of centrist/conservative Democrats. At the moment, progressive third-party voices are being generally shut out of most of the so-called “progressive netroots”… most egregiously at the site of your friend and colleague, Markos.
Unless there’s a D after the name of the candidate in question, Markos would greatly contest what you yourself have just written above: that few things are more constructive than a democratic election where pro-war views get openly debated and then resolved by voters.
The writer goes on to say that he’d been banned from posting at Daily Kos merely for advocating third-party candidates. Maybe, but I know from my own experiences that people who claim they were banned from a site for expressing perfectly reasonable and temperate opinions are usually, um, not telling the whole story. As a blogger who makes robust use of twit filters herself, I support any blogger’s decision to ban anyone from his or her site for whatever reason. And, yes, this includes rightie bloggers who ban lefties. A blog is the blogger’s creation, not a public utility, and bloggers have a right to exercise editorial discretion whether I like it or not.
IMO the commenter quoted above exemplifies the “let’s-keep-shooting-ourselves-in-the-foot” faction of progressivism. Consider: We are up against a big, well-funded, and well-organized extremist right-wing faction that has taken over the White House and Congress and is well on the way toward taking over the judiciary. This faction spouts rhetoric about “freedom” and “democracy” but in fact supports radical theories about the Constitution that have put this nation on the road to totalitarianism. The regime in power has gotten us into one pointless and ruinous war and appears to be preparing to get us into another one. They are threatening the health of the planet by ignoring global warming, and the point at which it will be too late to act is fast approaching. They have strengthened their grip on power by corrupting elections and appropriating news media so that citizens can’t learn the truth. They are strangling our economy with profligate spending combined with irresponsible tax cuts, and every second that passes we are deeper and deeper in debt to other nations, like China.
The house is on fire, in other words. Some of us think our first priority is to put the fire out any way we can. We can argue about what wallpaper pattern would look best in the master bedroom some other time.
If the Democrats can win back a majority in the House this November — or, even better, the entire Congress — the Dems will have some power with which to fight the Right. That doesn’t mean they will, of course; I expect we will need to apply pressure on a future Dem majority to be sure they use their subpoena power (which they don’t have as a minority) and conduct meaningful investigations to expose the Bushies and the extremist Right for the danger to America that they are. But a Democratic majority in even one house will curtail much of the Bush regime’s ability to steamroll over American rights and values any time it pleases.
I want to be clear that I support Democratic candidates in the November elections (most of ’em, anyway) not because I believe they are always right or because I think a Democratic majority in the House will fix all our political problems. I admit that many Dems running for election in November are less progressive than I wish they were. And even If we succeed in taking at least part of Congress away from the Republicans there will still be a long, hard fight ahead to restore America to anything approximating political health.
But a Dem majority would give us a better position from which to fight and a lot more ammunition to fight with. If we don’t take back part of Congress in November, it means two more years of having no power in Washington at all.
The Bushies can do a lot of damage in two years, folks.
Looking beyond the midterm elections — if we succeed, our next goal as netroots activists should be to increase our influence among the Dems. We must deliver the message to the Democratic Party establishment that it’s time to stop dancing the Clinton triangulation two-step. We must sell progressive policies to the public and pressure Dems in Washington to enact those policies. If we can topple Joe Lieberman, the most egregious of the DINO Bush bootlickers, this would send a clear signal to the Dems that they must reckon with us, and that they can’t take our loyalty for granted. This is essentially the argument made by Kos and Jerome Armstrong in Crashing the Gate.
There’s a lot more to be done to make America safe for progressivism again, such as reform media so that our messages reach the public without being twisted by the rightie noise machine. Election reform, real campaign reform — all vital goals, and none will be easy to achieve.
But if the Dems don’t succeed in the 2006 midterms, prepare to kiss it all off. That’s reality. And another reality is that until we change the way we conduct elections — allow instant runoff elections, for example — third party candidates will not only lose, they will split the progressive vote and hand elections to Republicans. This has been happening in America since the first political parties emerged, which was while the ink was still drying on the Constitution. I do believe a pattern has been established.
Where does Kos fit into this? IMO Kos is more of an organizer than a blogger, but that’s OK. The netroots are a cornucopia of great bloggers, but great organizers are harder to come by. I don’t always agree with Kos, but I admire his ability to get in the faces of politicians and media and demand attention. The YearlyKos convention — which was fabulous, IMO, and if they have another one next year I’m already there — was a major step toward giving netroots progressivism real power in the flesh. I couldn’t have done it. I suspect most of us couldn’t have done it. But Kos did it, and he deserves the credit. So, I congratulate Kos for being honored by the Drum Major Institute. I wish him continued success, and I hope more bloggers step out from behind their monitors and follow his lead.
And if we keep fighting, the day will come when progressive goals will be achievable. Goals like providing health care for all Americans and a genuine commitment to reducing global warming will no longer be kept dangling out of our reach by the power of the Right.
Last January I caught some flames with this post, in which I said that too much of the Left was “stuck in a 1970s time warp of identity politics and street theater projects and handing out fliers for the next cause du jour rally.” But for at least forty years — since I was old enough to pay attention to politics — I’ve watched earnest and dedicated liberals stand outside the gates of power and hand out essentially the same fliers for the same causes, year after year, decade after decade. And in most cases we’re no closer to achieving real change than we were forty years ago. On many issues we’ve lost ground. Yet too many lefties (like the commenter above) care more about ideological purity than about accomplishment.
If in-fighting over ideological purity is getting in the way of having the power to enact progressive policies, then the hell with ideological purity. Speaking truth to power is grand, but let’s not forget the ultimate goal is to be power. I believe one of the reasons we have been rendered into a minority is that too many lefties act and think like a minority; we’re perpetually out of power because that’s how we envision ourselves. So even though an overwhelming majority of the American public now agrees with us on Iraq, for example, somehow we’re the extremists, and the hawks — who dominate government and media — paint themselves as mainstream. Righties, on the other hand, maintain total faith that the majority of Americans are with them, even if poll after poll says otherwise. And that faith has empowered them.
We are the mainstream. We are the majority. But to take our rightful place in American politics and government we must start thinking like a majority and acting like a majority. It’s way past time to stop standing outside the gates of power handing out fliers. It’s time to crash the gate.
I agree with you generally on this point, but in some cases I think that some have to be purged first because they would be cloaked in a Democratic form, but working at cross purposes. The easiest name is nojoementum. Let him and others be forced to face a real Democrat in a primary, then if these win, let it be.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a real third party; after all, there is no Constitutional mandate for a two-party system, but it would probably evolve back to two dominant parties as one of the three weakened.
…I’ve always felt that one of the reasons that the Republicans came to power the way they did was because they understood that winning was more important than always being on the idealogically ‘correct’ side of the line. As a result, they were able to craft a majority comprised of people who share certain values, don’t see eye to eye on others, but chose not to beat each other’s chops over the points of disagreement. Democrats would rather rip each other up over which flavor of ideology is correct and declare as apostates those who don’t tie themselves to the “correct” viewpoint. Witness the conflagration that ensued when (and I hope I’m recalling correctly) Kos said he was tired of a woman’s right to choose being a drop-dead issue for Democrats. Or, at a fundamental level, observe the mutual loathing and vilification shared by the DLC types and Democratic progressives.
To reiterate your point (and one I’ve made numerous times), you gotta crawl before you can walk. You gotta win before you can lead. What worries me is that it seems that there are cracks already visible in this exciting new foundation we’re trying to build and the resulting internal fights over ideology will lead us to another two years – or more – of Republican majorities. I hope I’m wrong, but I’ve always found pessimism to be a handy tool…
I’m reminded of founding fathers efforts to ratify the Constitution when the issue of slavery weighed so heavily against ratification. Many of the founders understood the cancerous nature of the issue, but also realized that if dealt with then and there, the process of securing our nation never would have come to pass. They stepped over the issue to fight that battle another day and focused a greater issue. Given our current political situation today…I think the primary issue should be to stop the bleeding of democracy.. Rather than look to the symptoms of our problems we need to deal with the cause, and that cause appears to be the unchecked political power now at the seat of government. I would vote for Satan if it helped bring an end to the trampling of our liberties that is going on today..and then deal with Satan later.
As an registered Independent, come election time I’m going to be only interested in looking for the D next to the candidates name, and any who are running as repugs, no matter how decent or honorable with be judged guilty by association.
I completely agree with your post. I was a Green up through 2000, and I gave significant amounts of cash to Nader that year. As such I’ve been in many arguments with the third party malcontents who occasionally post at DKos.
I remember going to Nader “super rallies” and seeing young Republicans standing outside the doors, on top of cement flower boxes, mad with delirium, shouting and encouraging us all to vote for Nader. I also remember this extreme right wing co-worker surreptitiously passing out Nader buttons at work. While we despised these people, we foolishly played into their tactics. It should’ve been a wake-up call.
I’ll always remember being shouted at derisively on election night 2000, presumably by Democrats, upon seeing all the pro-Nader signs I had on my car at that time.
After 2000, I quickly woke up to the fact that like it or not, we live in a two party system, regardless of the plethora of “choices” on our ballots, which are worse than meaningless, because of the way our system works. Third parties are spoilers and are used like footballs by the two major parties. Thank God I lived in California where voting for Nader didn’t matter (Gore easily won the state), I’m not sure how I could’ve lived with myself had I been in swing state where it did.
It’s almost at the point where I really should save these remarks into a file, and just paste them in, whenever a third party advocate speaks up, I’ve said the same thing so many times.
Excellent post. I’m ambivalent about Kos, but I respect his organizing ability…and I don’t respect calls for moral purity in a situation where, as you say, the house is on fire. Voting for a third party (at the national level) means supporting the Republicans–it’s that simple.
Amen. To repeat myself from a post on a different thread, there is a difference between political idealism and political fantasy, and we can’t afford to continue to indulge the latter.
I’m reading a book about Victoria Woodhull, who ran for president in 1872 not because she thought she had a chance in hell of winning, but because a woman running for president in a country where most women still couldn’t vote meant to get people talking about women’s suffrage (plus a lot of other issues). She got a lot of press coverage, but otherwise utterly failed. Most of the issues her campaign was designed to bring attention to did not get any legislative attention until the next century. She was kind of a scandal magnet, also, so the press spent more time calling her a whore than actually discussing the issues. You put a third party candidate, especially a radical one, up against a member of the Republican political propaganda machine now, and there’s no hope. There’d be no public discourse, just puppet theater.
Incidentally, I caught a late night TV interview with Tim Russert (…I know) who said that he got the impression that Karl Rove viewed this year’s elections as vital because he feared that losing a majority in Congress would mean investigations would start. That seems… unlikely, given the wishy-washy Democratic leadership, but it’d be interesting if that were true (and it’s weird coming from Tim Russert, no?).
Great post!!! The comments to this post here and at UT have been great too…..My favorite came from a comment at UT where he expanded on your “house is on fire” analogy by saying dems in power=water in their hose….SO true….and something to consider.
I’m all for Dem’s actually winning in ’06, I’m also for holding those Dems’ feet to the fire about promoting progressive actions.
The two goals are not mutually exclusive.
If I am cooking a pot of soup and find that there’s been too much salt added, then. short of throwing it all out, the only way I can remedy that is to add in more of the other ingredients, to balance the result.
That’s sort of the analogy I think of when some Democratic party leaders ‘taste wrong’ and threaten to overwhelm the whole with triangulation or wimpy-ness or ‘repug’ful aligning with GOP positions. Time to add some more ingredients into the pot, time to support Lamont, time to rally around those who inspire and reflect progressive ideas. But, this is not about throwing the Democratic party out the door; it’s about getting the healthiest party cooking for America’s future.
It’s one thing to turn away volunteers when you’re fighting a fire and don’t have enough professionals. But it’s not wrong to turn away arsonists, or even to stop well-intentioned people from using gasoline rather than water.
The problem we’ve got right now isn’t just the fact of Democrats being in the minority. It’s also the fact of Democrats not using the authority they have, to build a consistent practice of refusing to cooperate with evil measures, of presenting an alternative vision and proposals to the public and press, and so on. We’ve got collaborators, and I’m not very interested in making them the majority until they show a bit of willingness to do anything of opposing the president.
Nor am I (I hope) just standing and sneering. I have a practical concern. They have no practice in cooperating to get anything done – the leadership has none of the self-confidence of the ’90s Republicans, and the rank and file no expectation that refusing to cooperate will cost them anything. Opposition could have been their time to practice. As it is, if they do get a majority in one house…what reason is there to expect them to do anything useful with it? In practical terms with reference to votes and actions of recent years, what grounds is there for expecting a firm response to the Bush administration?
This doesn’t mean I’ve dropped out of campaigning. But I am being very selective about who gets my money, time, and effort.
All the more reason to vote for D candidates who really will go in there and do something useful with it. That’s what People Power is all about.
As it is, if they do get a majority in one house…what reason is there to expect them to do anything useful with it?
Please read what I wrote again, and more carefully. I said that I expect we grassroots and netroots activists will have to apply pressure to that majority to get them to do anything useful; we can’t just sit back and expect them to run with the ball. But without that majority they will be unable to do anything useful, pressure or no pressure.
The point (and why do I have to keep re-explaining what I already wrote?) is that winning elections is not enough. Even winning a majority in Congress is not enough, but it would be a useful, possibly necessary, step toward making further progress. We have to NOT ONLY win elections; we ALSO have to reform the Dems and persuade them they can’t afford to ignore us any more. I think we’ve made a start with that, but only a start. And we also have to work to reform media and election campaigning and the whole bleeping political culture. All of that has to be done before we can make any progress toward enacting real progressive policies, which is the ultimate goal. WITHOUT those steps, there’s no hope at all.
I think you are not only right, but outline the path we must take very well.
After all, that Ralph Nader thing didn’t work out so well…
Being somewhat left of center my entire adult life, I’ve always been a third-party voter, and have a track record of voting for losers, which has convinced me that my vote has never been counted. This last primary season however, I switched registration to the Republican party so that I could vote for a friend running for the Ca. Assembly. He lost, but I experianced
an epiphany when I realized that I could avoid voting for any partisan incumbent, or anyone running unopposed. It’s obvious to me that Republican ballots get preferencial treatment in rigged elections, so I felt like an activist sabetour when I cast my vote
against the ‘powers that be’ toward a republican railroad switchman wanting to be governor. He lost too, but it was a thrill
to know that my one little vote must surely be counted as not thrown away to the lesser of evils. Maybe if more Republicans started voting their conscience from the “inside”, we would have
more consciencious representation, not these corporate sycophants pretending to be Americans.
Maha,
Nice post as usual, you bring up many very good points. One being your apparent distain for “ideological purity”. Why the hell should progressives (I don’t like that word, I prefer liberal, it’s not a bad word) want ideological purity? The word purity itself is counter to progressive isn’t it? Haven’t the righties achieved “ideological purity” for the most part? They all vote with the K-street money machine, or the repressive religious right which ever comes first. Liberals have always been a fractured and inconsistent crowd, that’s what makes them attractive to free thinkers. Achieving “ideological purity” would be the end of the Democratic Party it couldn’t survive. The problem with democrats having many different voices is they get beat up in today’s vile mainstream media environment for not having a message. But I guarantee if they had an “ideologically pure†message they would get beat up for pandering to the left. That’s where blogs like yours will hopefully clear things up a bit, hence the rest of your post. By the way I saw you on C-span2 (rerun) this morning, excellent question although I’m not sure they (Kos panel) answered it very well.
Very well put….good point.
Quite by accident, due to a bout of insomnia I saw you on C-SPAN very early today (at YK) and thought I would drop in and see what you had to say. Much to my pleasure you have posted exactly what I think.
For the first time in my long life I am actually afraid for my country. I think it is imperative that we get more balance in congress ASAP. AND somehow or other we have to give the dems some backbone. I’ve been astounded at the chickenshits we have elected and I am praying that Lamont beats Leiberman so we can point to that race and say “see? that’s what we do to DINO’s”
Solid post….
That said I could care less about the circular firing squaders. I was at YearlyKos and no matter who was speaking from the podium and throughout the public spaces, including the legendary Stratosphere pary, folks were doing one thing. Talkin’ politics. From campaign mangers, there were more than a few, to fellow boggers to organisers everybody was trying to move the progressive movement embodied by OrangeLand forward.
We can all contribute on whatever level we choose. That’s the beauty of the Blogosphere.
I’ve go Kos’s back simply because he made it fucking happen. The rest of yer whiners go do something as significant and I’ll get yours too.
Kewalo — I was a rerun? Wow.
Maha: I’m pointing out that there are important things a minority party can do to show its plans and determination. It can build effective party discipline. It can unveil policies that it would implement if given the chance. It can enchange in gestures that it knows will be defeated, in search of media opportunities to make the majority party look bad, like proposing popular but unacceptable legislation. It can keep bringing up proposals for popular investigations and let the majority party squelch them, and play this for public-relations advantage. It can encourage states to do things the federal government won’t, like set strong standards for honest elections.
Or boiling it down…
1. First, do no harm. Commit to being an opposition party, that will not assist the administration’s evil plans one little bit. Individual Democrats who collaborate should face party discipline.
2. Where it’s not possible to command useful and good action, speak up about it. Do this in a disciplined fashion, too.
There are individual Democrats who are doing great at this. They are noteworthy for being so thoroughly unlike the major players and groups in the party, who seem not just uninterested in being an effective opposition but actively hostile to the idea. And I’m very reluctant to reward them for that.
I’m going to anyway, because they’re still an improvement over Bush. But Dear God this is a pathetic choice, in most cases.
I’m sorry but I don’t see the metaphor the way you do.
(Maha wrote:) IMO the commenter quoted above exemplifies the “let’s-keep-shooting-ourselves-in-the-foot†faction of progressivism. … This faction spouts rhetoric about “freedom†and “democracy†but in fact supports radical theories about the Constitution that have put this nation on the road to totalitarianism. The regime in power has gotten us into one pointless and ruinous war and appears to be preparing to get us into another one. They are threatening the health of the planet by ignoring global warming, and the point at which it will be too late to act is fast approaching. They have strengthened their grip on power by corrupting elections and appropriating news media so that citizens can’t learn the truth. They are strangling our economy with profligate spending combined with irresponsible tax cuts, and every second that passes we are deeper and deeper in debt to other nations, like China. … The house is on fire, in other words. Some of us think our first priority is to put the fire out any way we can. We can argue about what wallpaper pattern would look best in the master bedroom some other time.
Yes, the house is on fire, Maha, but this is a much, much different argument than “what wallpaper pattern would look best”. A significant number of DEMCORATS “support radical theories about the Constitution” by looking the other way when Bush arrogates these powers unto himself. ONE DEMCORAT supported Russ Feingold’s motion to censure, not convict or anything like that but simply censure, Bush’s actions. Clinton and Gore did next to nothing about Global Warming over eight years, and the Dems in Congress voted overwhelmingly against the one minor action Gore took by penning his name on a piece of paper in Japan. Al Gore apparently agreed, at that time, with the Dems’ rejection of the treaty he signed ( scroll near the bottom of article ). When did the big media consolidations take place, which “appropriat[ed] news media so that citizens can’t learn the truth”? Why, after Clinton and Gore and every single Congressman except Bob Dole proudly signed the 1996 Telecomm act.
But most importantly, it wasn’t just Republicans who have “gotten us into one pointless and ruinous war and appears to be preparing to get us into another one”. Have you read any of Hillary Clinton’s statements on Iran?
And as far as the previous pointless and ruinous war, I seem to remember 42% of the Democratic congressmen at the time voting for the war as well (29 Dem Senators, 81 Dem Representatives, out of 256 total Dem Congressmen — a 59% majority of Dem Senators!)
42% ! ! ! MAHA, THAT’S ALMOST HALF THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS ! ! !
Maybe half can stay, but half the Demscurrently in office have as much blood on their hands as the Republicans do. THEY NEED TO BE TOSSED OUT or we will never make any progress, because as politicians they will ALWAYS lie, re-interpret history, and then vote again in a manner so as to cover their @$$es and justify their previous votes. They are already tainted, and the taint is not going to go away just because we vote more of their friends into Congress. THEY BELIEVE IN THESE POLICIES THAT THEY VOTE FOR.
“Holding their feet to the fire” means nothing whatsoever. The only thing politicians understand is: (a) campaign contributions, of which the Forces of Evil can far outmatch us any day of the week; and (b) VOTING or NOT VOTING for the candidate. We can beam telepathic waves at Hillary all we like for the next three years, but she is NOT going to wake up on January 21, 2009 and say to herself, “Boy, I just barely won that election, therefore I better change my policies about Iran.” She is going to wake up and say “The voters elected ME, therefore they LIKE my policy towards Iran.”
To use your analogy, the house is on fire, but we are NOT arguing about the wallpaper. We are arguing about whether to hire as firefighters, a block of applicants, half of whom sit there and stare at the burning building saying “Oooooohhhhhh, fire is pretty.” And that’s the most charitable interpretation I can give of the situation!
To use your analogy, the house is on fire, but we are NOT arguing about the wallpaper. We are arguing about whether to hire as firefighters, a block of applicants, half of whom sit there and stare at the burning building saying “Oooooohhhhhh, fire is pretty.â€
Kevin, son, first, the Dems are the only fire department we’ve got and the only one we’re going to get in the foreseeable future. The fanciful notion that somehow between now and November we’re going to reverse a 180-year-old trend in American history and successfully elect third-party politicians to Congress is, well, delusional. I like to live in the real world.
Second, if you’d read what I wrote more carefully before going off on a rant, you’d see that I acknowledge a large chunk of the Dems are fairly worthless, which means that we also have to “crash the gates” of the Democratic Party and straighten them out. See, that’s what the “crashing the gate” thing refers to.
I take it you are a not a regular here, or you’d know that I frequently snark at Hillary and others of the clueless wonders among the Washington Dems. But the fact remains that electing a Dem majority in the House or Senate, even if some of those Dems are potted plants, would give committee charimanships, subpoena power, ability to convene investigations and set agendas, etc. back to Dems. And even if many of them wouldn’t use it these tools, many others would.
Electing a bunch of Democratic potted plants to the House gives Rep. John Conyers more power. Electing a bunch of Democratic potted plants to the Senate gives Senator Russ Feingold more power. Get it?
As for the rest of your post — if you ever think up something I don’t already know, do drop by. My entire point is that we have a whole lot of work to do, and a whole lot of reform to achieve, to make America safe for liberalism again. This is the ultimate goal. I’m explaining a realistic way it could be done, with a whole lot of work, following a whole lot of steps. The alternative is to give up and abandon America to the fascists.
Can you explain to me what is the point of a blanket-slate recommendation, when nearly half the party members will likely be working against our goals? At what point can we give up on the party? When 60% of its members are counterproductive? 70%? 75%?
Oh, yeah, as you say, the point is committe chairmanships. To give committee chairmanships to people like Diane Feinstein and Joe Lieberman, who have the seniority. Hey, how’s that Enron investigation coming, Joe?
(Maha wrote) “Electing a bunch of Democratic potted plants to the Senate gives Senator Russ Feingold more power. Get it?”
Ummmm, no, I don’t get it, not when the party leadership quashes and sits on Feingold at every turn. They’re not “potted plants,” they have a very long and demonstrable track record of opposing our causes. Just like they sat on Wellstone for years and never gave him their support, never gave him the mike, never risked letting any of his ideas change the inertia of the party. (Yes, Conyers has marginally more power, but niether of these people really steer the party.)
Feingold and Wellstone (and also, Conyers and Waxman) serve the same function for the Democratic Party as the supermodels who are used to advertise a lemon car. You don’t get to take the supermodels home (unless you’re lucky enough to live in one of those four jurisdictions), but you’re stuck making payments on the lemon car long after it has fallen apart.
I posited a scenario about Hillary Clinton, Iran, and January 21. Can you answer that point at all?
Yes, first we vote for Congress before we vote for Hillary, but half these congressmen are just as obsessed with “looking tough on defense” as Hillary is. The same logic applies. How do we change their positions if we don’t put up at least a credible threat to withhold our votes?
Going by your strategy, it seems as if we can’t get them [the “bad half” of the Democratic Party] to change their positions until well after 2008, by which time we will likely be hip-deep in Iran, given the Dems’ current stance in that respect. Surely that would destroy the country [the U.S., I am referring to here, to say nothing of Iran]. So if the country is doomed anyway, I would rather have the comfort of actually fighting for the right position, than strategizing about sneaking up on the right position, later, tactically, in a future election.
Let me hasten to add, though, while not exactly a “regular”, I do read your blog consistently (starting several months ago, so not a longtime regular either). I have a great respect for all the work and research you do on this blog.
Before the argument gets any more heated, let me back off and say thank you very much for your effort and time.
In part I am motivated to write by the pain of past wounds, when I supported Nader in 2000 for principled reasons, and nearly all the Dems I knew engaged in what I felt were unprincipled, undemocratic attacks upon him, his candidacy, and even his positions — some Dems took “devil’s advocate” stances against liberal positions which in the past they supported, simply because these positions weren’t coming from “their” man! (Incidentally, I voted Kerry in 2004, in the Swing State of New Mexico no less, because I decided Kerry satisfied my minimum requirements for a supportable candidate. Al Gore is a different man in 2006 than he was in 2000, but in 2000 he did not satisfy my requirements.)
But ultimately, I hope, I am making these arguments not out of pride in my position, but because I want to hear what you have to say.
We have agreed in the past on the corrupting power of the Washington process.
I am simply very tired of this meme that “we need to elect Democrats and then hold their feet to the fire”. I have a suspicion that when many people say that, it is merely an empty shell, a cover of non-thought, to hide the fact that they have nothing new but the same failed strategy to offer.
If anyone in the entire blogosphere has new (or even effective) ideas how to make this meme actually work, it would be you, Maha. I mean that as a sincere compliment. So do you have anything more specific to offer than “let’s just vote (D) and hope we can make it work this time”?
So do you have anything more specific to offer than “let’s just vote (D) and hope we can make it work this timeâ€?
I already outlined a more specific plan, but since you refuse to read what I wrote, I do not feel inclined to waste my time explaining it again.
Maha,
I am a democrat, with a small ‘d’. I registered that way decades back because I know I am not a Republican, but I frequently shake my head at the ‘progressive’ policies that other democrats espouse. Which encapsulates the problem; we are a party without an identity other than knowing that we are not them.
If the Republicans would kindly form a third party and fracture their base, we would stand a better chance in elections, but for us to keeep forming splinter movements.. well.. do the math.. it can only add up to more Republican domination.
However, I do advocate a radically different approach to yours, Maha, which would level the playing field in elections. I favor a Constitutional Amendment which would ban money from all but 2 sources; individual Americans & PACs which are supported soleley by individual Americans. Eliminate ALL Special Interests (yes, even Greenpeace). Also, set the individual cap low enough to keep the elite 10% from overwhelming the 90% who work for a living.
When you stop laughing, there is a way to get such a radical idea passed (yes I know it takes 2/3 of the House and Senate, plus a majority of states). If a MINORITY of Democrats AND Republican voters were to band together and vote anti-incumbent EVERYONE an entire slate of incumbents (Democrats & Republicans) could be dumped like tea in the Boston harbor. (The math on this might surprise you; a bipartisan minority can sink a lot of political ships.) The members of this revolution would let Congress know exactly WHAT we demand (not request) in order to return to our normal chaotic partisan voting habits. As long as we held our ground over the next 2 years, there would be a constitutionl amendment passed before the next election.
I have been voting for decades and almost nothing constructive (I almost said progressive) has been done by by either party. To name 2 issues; Social Security & Health Care will require contributions from the corporate sector which might cut into corporate profits. So we will always be one vote shy of reform, even if we held the White House, Senate and House of Rep. Democrats are as addicted to corporate contributions as Republicans are. Want reform? Fix the election system to free our officials of influence.
You said we are mainstream. I agree. How about a bipartisan voter revolution to level the electoral playing field, and see what happens when Congress has to satisfy to voter first and Special Interests have to try to sell their ideas to Congress on their merits alone.
I have written a draft of the Constitutional Amendment; and addressed a lot of the questions you may have; it’s on a blog I started (bloggging I know nothing about). But I am writing your blog, which is, I agree, your property. If you are willing to start a discussion, without endorsing the idea, just agree to talk about it, I will put up the URL and defend/explain my ideas..
I favor a Constitutional Amendment which would ban money from all but 2 sources; individual Americans & PACs which are supported soleley by individual Americans. Eliminate ALL Special Interests (yes, even Greenpeace). Also, set the individual cap low enough to keep the elite 10% from overwhelming the 90% who work for a living.
Well, that’s interesting. I’m in favor of publicly funded elections, an idea has some movement behind it. But I’m willing to consider options. Feel free to post your URL in the comments and I’ll take a look at it.
I read your post, carefully and several times, before writing my comments. I thought I raised specific objections, and it is very disenheartening to hear you tell me that I did not do something which I, in fact, did. If you are still interested in discussing this, I am trying to say that your “specific plan” does not cut it with me. Do you want a list? I wrote you a list.
You mention you make “robust” use of “twit filters”, so rest assured, even if you ban me, I will continue to read your blog — but you will simply contribute significantly to my despair about the Democrats.
(Maha): “I expect we will need to apply pressure on a future Dem majority to be sure they use their subpoena power (which they don’t have as a minority) and conduct meaningful investigations…”
My earlier example with Hillary explains why I think the phrase “we will need to apply pressure” is a copout. 42% of Democrats voted for the war despite WORLD RECORD-BREAKING demonstrations against it, tens of millions of people. Don’t you dare tell me that these Dems didn’t _know_ their constituents opposed the war. What other pressure do you suggest we bring to bear, given that you insist we vote for them?
My example with Joe Lieberman and the Enron investigation shows why I doubt we will see a lot of progress in this manner in our lifetimes. Yes, yes, you advocate overthrowing Joe, but because your plan relies on a Democratic majority, you want us to elect a bunch of other candidates who follow Joe’s example.
(Maha): “Looking beyond the midterm elections — if we succeed, our next goal as netroots activists should be to increase our influence among the Dems. We must deliver the message to the Democratic Party establishment that it’s time to stop dancing the Clinton triangulation two-step. We must sell progressive policies to the public and pressure Dems in Washington to enact those policies. If we can topple Joe Lieberman, the most egregious of the DINO Bush bootlickers, this would send a clear signal to the Dems that they must reckon with us, and that they can’t take our loyalty for granted. This is essentially the argument made by Kos and Jerome Armstrong in Crashing the Gate.”
I am not convinced. As so many polls show, the majority of Americans agree with progressive positions (if the @!$% polls are phrased correctly, see next point), and large majorities among the Democratic voter base, so it is no longer appropriate to wonder how we should “increase our influence among the Dems”. We need to deliever the message to the POLITICIANS who do not represent us, not the masses. How exactly do we do that while still voting for them? I think, even if we get rid of Joe Lieberman, if we just vote for the Dems en masse, other DLC Dems are just going to say “Whew! Thank God the voters still like _me_. I must be a ‘moderate’.”
(Maha): “There’s a lot more to be done to make America safe for progressivism again, such as reform media so that our messages reach the public without being twisted by the rightie noise machine. Election reform, real campaign reform — all vital goals, and none will be easy to achieve.”
Al Gore, years after helping initiate the media mergers, has now come out very strongly in favor of media reform. Bravo. But, officially at least, Al Gore is not running for any office, and has no plans to. Name me another Democratic candidate who is concerned about media reform.
Election reform? The only Dem politicians who endorse election reform are a couple of Wellstones and Kuciniches, as mentioned above, who the other Dems have not and will not support. Why should incumbent DLC Dem politicians support instant runoff elections when the basic purpose of instant runoff elections is to throw out nonprogressive Dems? Wellstone and Kucinich do (/did) so out of principle, but then in this post you are advising us to abandon “ideological purity”.
(Maha): “I want to be clear that I support Democratic candidates in the November elections (most of ‘em, anyway) not because I believe they are always right or because I think a Democratic majority in the House will fix all our political problems. I admit that many Dems running for election in November are less progressive than I wish they were. And even If we succeed in taking at least part of Congress away from the Republicans there will still be a long, hard fight ahead to restore America to anything approximating political health.”
The phrase “there will be a long hard fight” is maddeningly vague and seems to imply that we haven’t bothered to engage in this fight in the past. This is not true. Progressives have fought long and hard on these issues for decades, including during the Clinton years, and two of those years he had a Dem bicameral Congress. You say “it’s time to stop dancing the Clinton triangulation two-step”, but if you are advocating a block-slate election of Democrats, many of them follow the DLC’s strategy and goals, even if they are not explicitly DLC members.
So I am asking, how exactly do we give these DLC-type Democrats the message that we don’t like their goals? By contributing money to them and voting for them?
If collectively we cannot answer that question, then nothing will change, because even a 40% Republican minority in the Congress will be able to find 11% corrupt Democrats (different Dems on different issues, of course) and pass all these horrible things, and the country will continue on its present course.
Finally, by writing a long paragraph about “We are up against a big, well-funded, and well-organized extremist right-wing faction”, but cleanly ignoring Democratic complicity in all these things, it seems to me that you are not seeing the problem clearly, and therefore, your solutions are unlikely to succeed. (As mentioned before, saying “many Dems running for election in November are less progressive than I wish they were” does not come close to describing the situation, IMO. That statement does not imply Dems bear any responsibility nor need to change, therefore your strategies seem unlikely to induce change in the Dems.)
Does _that_ explain why I am dissatisfied with your specific plan?
Kevin — what you are saying isn’t all that different from what I’m saying. You’re just using more capital letters and exclamation points and being snarkier about it.
Of course Dems are complicit in the mess that’s in Washington. I didn’t state it specifically because I figured anyone with half a brain already knows this.
And why are they complicit? They’re complicit because they’re bought and paid for by special interests, they’re complicit because they’re still going by the DLC playbook and are out of touch with what anyone outside the beltway thinks, they’re complicit because a lot of them are just too far right, period. And a lot of other reasons.
And why is this true? It’s true because of the corruption of the election process, especially because of the amount of money needed to run. It’s true because grassroots liberals and progressives for years have been cut out of public discourse. It’s true because a lot of these clowns were first elected at a time that the word “liberal” was a synonym with “communist demon” and the political pendulum was about as far right as it has ever been. And a lot of other reasons.
And what can we do about it? It’s going to be very hard, but we need massive reforms in campaign funding (I prefer total public funding), and MEDIA REFORM is needed big time. Both of those topics would require book-length treatments to explain in full, but I believe I mentioned them. And a lot of other things have to be done as well.
What is the ultimate goal? The ultimate goal is to change the political culture of the nation and pull all of America back from the brink of the extreme Right. Getting a Dem majority in Congress this year is just a teeny weeny sliver of the plan to do this. It’s barely a baby step, but I think it’s an essential step. It’s no guarantee of anything, but it opens up possibilities that something might be accomplished that couldn’t be accomplished otherwise.
It’s going to take a long time — as in years — and a ton of hard work to accomplish these things. But I don’t see any other way to make democracy in America work again.
By pulling along on several fronts simultaneously, I think it is possible that eventually we’ll get more honest and liberal Dems elected and even that the Republicans will clean their own house and moderate themselves as well.
What I wrote in the post was not a “specific plan” but just an argument that electing a Dem majority this fall is an important part of the specific plan, which I only hinted at, because it would require several days — maybe weeks — and between 50,000 to 75,000 words to explain even the basics of the specific plan.
Now, my impression is that you’re throwing a hissy fit because there isn’t a magic bullet that will fix everything that’s gone wrong in America in the past 40 or so years RIGHT NOW. And because everything is so awful now, no matter what we do it’s going to stay awful throughout space and time and cannot possibly change, even though (you notice if you live long enough) the fact is that stuff always changes.
Well, don’t snark at me about that. Reality is what it is.
The phrase “there will be a long hard fight†is maddeningly vague and seems to imply that we haven’t bothered to engage in this fight in the past. This is not true.
It is true. Oh, some have been fighting, but they’ve been fighting the wrong way and have been utterly ineffectual about it. The Left has screwed itself over for years because it has been putting its efforts into single-issue activism instead of building coalitions, for example. And it has failed to attack the core reasons why our political culture was getting screwed, and because the Left stood by helplessly while the Right built its mighty media-political infrastructure going back lo these many years. This is something else that would take huge effort to explain if you don’t already know what I’m talking about.
Warning: Any more snarking will get you banned. I’m sorry you don’t get it, but you don’t get it. This is your problem, not mine.
Addendum: Also, you keep saying “Name me another Democrat who is concerned about election reform or media reform or yada yada yada.” Buddy, you’ve got one thick skull. Pay close attention:
THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE GOING TO DO. IT’S ABOUT WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO.
Stop thinking in terms of politicians swooping out of the sky to save your ass. We’re going to swoop out of the sky to save politics.
I like to see if I can put things in neutral terms, so as to separate analysis from criticism. This is an attempt at that.
From here it looks to me like there’s a basic split between those who see the problem as fundamentally partisan (the Republican Party must go, and while the Democratic Party has its share of flaws, it is sufficiently worthwhile to get the Party in power while working on the flaws) and those who see the problem as fundamentally cultural (the Republican Party is completely ruined and must go, but the Democratic Party is thoroughly blighted, and should be supported only in ways that don’t reward the blighters). Some of this is a disagreement about the facts of specific cases, but mostly it’s a disagreement about assessments: where is too far, and what does this kind of support mean when given to that candidate?
But the really crucial split, from where I sit, is on how we answer this question: What most effectively motivates people to change when they’ve been (from your point of view) foolish and/or wicked? And what leverage do you have when they’re between you and people who are even worse?
At the heart of Kos’ approach is the view that the Democratic Party is desirable enough even in its broken condition to be worth supporting in the hopes that we can fix the breaks later. At the heart of what you’re hearing from folks like Kevin and me is that the Democratic Party is enough a part of the War Party that we see no relief in backing it without making those fixes at the same time, or first. For us, given the behavior of so many Democrats, and the utter failure of effective party discipline, rewarding Democrats as such isn’t far removed from rewarding liberal Republicans (and the rare honorable non-warmongers like Ron Paul) without paying attention to the party overall.
Or, more tidily, we believe that the Democratic Party could be the answer to the War Party and its constitutional crisis, and we’d like it to be, but we believe that right now it isn’t. It’s the problem in less extreme form, more prone to following than leading, but not an answer.
I don’t know about Kevin, but for me the above is a really substantial change in my assessment from a few years ago.
In 2002, I was disappointed but not hugely surprised by the Democrats’ succumbing to the stampede for war. I was sympathetic to the pressures on them and appreciated the handful who stood up for facts, honor, and morality without really expecting more to. In 2004, I was surprised by the weakness of the Democratic campaign, and hoped that they’d learn from that experience and the subsequent tide in public opinion that a strong answer is better than mealy-mouthed following along. In the years since then, I’ve been genuinely shocked and sometimes horrified by the Democrats, active refusal to stake out any ground far removed from the War Party.
There are no viable third-party alternatives right now, and I don’t expect any in time for 2008. But right now, the Democratic Party as such is not an actual alternative either. I will be focusing on those individuals and groups within it who do seem to me part of a potentially viable response, but (as far as I can help it) not rewarding the individuals and groups who’ve done so much to capitulate merely in the hopes that they might do better if given more power. Political history does not provide many examples of wimps and followers become wise and brave when they come out on top.
Side note to Kevin: Like a whole lot of people opposed to Bush, I owe you and other Nader voters an apology. I harshed a lot on you folks back in 2000 and a few years thereafter. But now it’s clear that Republican efforts at election theft mattered a lot more…and I could have seen a lot more of that at the time than I did. Same is true for the rest of us. I apologize, and hope I’ve learned my lesson: start with the genuine villains, and then see if I feel like any blame is left over.
From here it looks to me like there’s a basic split between those who see the problem as fundamentally partisan (the Republican Party must go, and while the Democratic Party has its share of flaws, it is sufficiently worthwhile to get the Party in power while working on the flaws) and those who see the problem as fundamentally cultural (the Republican Party is completely ruined and must go, but the Democratic Party is thoroughly blighted, and should be supported only in ways that don’t reward the blighters).
No, no, no. Neither one. I’m saying that the problems with both parties are merely symptoms of a much bigger problem. The bigger problems is systemic and cultural and has been growing for some time. That problem is that the political culture of the United States is so sick and poisoned that we can no longer have public discussions of issues or even get straight information out of news media. And the voting public has been so focus-grouped and market-niched, and has been so saturated with false memes and mythos, that voters are either tuning out of politics or getting sucked into the sick political culture and can’t see what’s going on..
What most effectively motivates people to change when they’ve been (from your point of view) foolish and/or wicked? And what leverage do you have when they’re between you and people who are even worse?
You’re still thinking too small, as if all I’m proposing is reforming the Democrats. But that’s just a band-aid.
We have a tool now that we’ve never had before, and that’s the web, and we are finding new ways to organize and apply pressure and smack heads in Washington. We’re still figuring out how to do this, but it shows great promise. I think in the next few years we might see the eclipse of mass media election campaigns, and the possibilities that will open up are wondrous and mind-boggling and revoutionary. But we need to lay a groundwork now for what can happen in the future.
In the short term, it’s absolutely insane to NOT want to take any power we can from Republicans any way we can, and the only tool at our disposal is the Dems. It is beyond belief that otherwise intelligent people can’t see how critical it is that we accomplish this in November, and all the whining that the Dems are bad, too, wah, wah, wah, just makes me want to puke. I’m sorry, but grow up. People are flawed. Politicians are stupid and corrupt. Deal with it.
But as I said, this is just a band aid. It’s not the cure. It will help make the cure possible, however,
Political history does not provide many examples of wimps and followers become wise and brave when they come out on top.
You are still thinking short-term. Too small, too limited. You aren’t seeing the big picture. In as much as the crew we have now will mostly be the crew we have next year, no, there won’t be much of a change. Nobody expects there to be much of a change that quickly. That is not the point. This is just one little nudge of a hundred thousand other nudges that have to be nudged before the political culture is sufficiently changed so that we can elect people we have more confidence in. As long as the political culture remains poisoned, we just have to work with what we have.
But we have to work on both ends at the same time. Without working through the Dems, and through elections, we can’t get to a place where we can effect real change in the Dems and in elections. But once we can effect change in elections and the political culture, reforming the Dems will be much easier, because we’ll be retiring the old crew and getting a better crew.
So, the November elections are critical to any FUTURE success we might have, even though the November elections by themseves won’t do squat.
Can’t you see that? Am I crazy? I feel as if I’m just repeating the same things over and over again and nobody is getting it, because you’re thinking too small.
I have read the later posts on this topic…….
RE: the complaint that Dems are not sufficiently speaking out as a minority party….and the statement that 42% of Dems voted for the war [I assume the commenter is referring to the 2002 vote about Iraq] need to be seen within a time-frame context [which is, thank God, beginning to change]: we really did go through a sort of national hysteria over 9/11/01 AND the Rove-driven media machine did play politics with that national shock and made sure to quickly and ruthlessly attack anyone not in lockstep with Bush’s ‘leadership’ decisions. Hey, that particular time frame of Dems not speaking out and/or voting with Bush should not be held over all Dems heads today. Some problems cure themselves.
The points made about 1] the need to change the funding of elections and 2]reform of the media are right on. Both are so critical to the long range goal of re-instituting real democracy. By now, these two problems are systematically entrenched in our collective reality, and much else that we lament flows from these two.
I suggest we grass-rooters pick one of the two and put all our efforts into it, for however many years it might take. I’d start with election funding. When so much has gone awry, we must make a singular resolve to change the system at one critical point. We could ask that candidates pledge themselves on our one issue……then we could follow through and hold them to their pledges.
I often think in analogies. The analogy I am thinking of here is the one about parents failing to discipline their kids until the kids no longer even listen. The very best cure for that problem is for the parents to take only one issue and lay down the law, so to speak, and never fail to follow through on that one issue. The kids will fight that one rule like crazy, because they’re so used to getting away with things. The one change [at a time] saves the parents from going crazy, because the parents really need to discipline themselves in order to begin to change ‘who’s boss’ in the household.
Aren’t we citizens supposed to be the ultimate authority in a democracy?
There are no viable third-party alternatives right now, and I don’t expect any in time for 2008.
Third parties will never be viable in America until we institute instand runoff elections and do away with the electoral college. 180 years of history have proved this.
Maha, I do see your point (and Kos’, and the rest). What I’m not seeing is a reassuring answer to the question, “What do we do when they take our support and keep conducting business as usual?” From where I sit, that looks like the most plausible outcome, that if the Democrats take one or both houses of Congress they remain spinless collaborators in the War Party, doing precisely nothing effective to restore constitutional government or fundamental human rights. I want reasons to believe this won’t happen, but right now I don’t see any, either in the behavior of those in positions of influence or the leverage of those outside.
Now if things change between now and elections, I’ll gladly, gratefully acknowledge it. But for the moment I’m stuck: the Democratic Party has opportunities it’s not taking, and I don’t see that giving them any more support will motivate them to change.
As for thinking too small…it’s possible I am. The truth is that my best rational apppraisal is that it’s too late to resort civil government through civil means in the US. I don’t believe that the Bush/Cheney administration will allow a meaningful challenge to its power to emerge. I think it quite possible that a crisis will be exploited or manufactured to justify suspending elections, and that if elections do happen, they’ll be stolen from here to hell and gone. I don’t think the Democrats have any chance at all of shifting things within the system, because the system is in the hands of people prepared to do what it takes to keep themselves and their allies in power. We haven’t had a valid election on the national level since 2000 and we won’t be getting one now, or in 2006.
Now, I could be wrong. I’d like to be, frankly. I’m involved in political outreach and campaigning in the hopes that I am, so that if there’s room for real democracy left in the US, its opportunity won’t be wasted because I failed to do my part. But I feel like Orwell in his assessment of the prospects for liberal order in the face of totalitarianism – this is about remaining true to my sense of what civil human beings ought to do rather than hoping for it to mean anything.
It is, in any event, in this context that I approach the Democratic Party. When I say “collaborate” in referring to Democratic leadership and most of the elected rank and file, I mean it with the full weight that I’d use in speaking of collaborators with the Nazis or Communists. I put the Bush/Cheney administration on that moral level. I don’t see how someone looking at their record can do otherwise – the differences between America now and the depths of the Great Leap Forward or dekulakization are differences only of length of time in power.
And given that, being only a little toadying just isn’t good enough. Being willing to say “this is simply wrong, and we’re not going along with it, and even though we’re in the minority, we will never help it get worse and will speak the truth about everything they lie about”, that would be good enough.
Maha –
I wrote earlier (comment 26), and I will try not to repeat what I said other than to provide continuity.
This is the shortest article I have managed to date on my idea to for a Constitutional Amendment to reform funding elections:
http://nextamericanrevolution.org/2006/06/18/bringing-democracy-to-north-america-2.aspx
The idea of election reform as extreme as I advocate will draw fire from Big Business, The Republican Party, The Democratic Party, the NRA, Greeenpeace, Trial Lawyers, etc, etc, Maybe the Girl Scouts won’t be pissed off.
For continuity, I favor a Constitutional Amendment (CA) which would make individual Americans (and PACS supported solely by individual Americans) the only source of campaign funds. The CA would require supporting legislation with penalties for infractions.
You mentioned in your reply that you like the idea of publicly funded elections. It’s an idea with considerable merit. It’s also as exciting as a kiss from your aunt.Significant reform will require a grassroots movement capable of tipping elections; it has to energize voters in both parties. If the support for the idea is there I would include it as a legal 3rd source of funding in the CA.
First, I will argue the case for a CA because it’s obvious to me: No ‘real’ legislation advocating campaign contribution limits will endure without a CA protecting that legislation. After an Amendment is passed, any new legislation which modifies what’s allowed is DOA if it’s in violation of the Constitution. It’s worthless to back Congress into a corner and pass public funding for elections if after that, year by year, little by little, they allow special interests back in the game. And Congress would.
A Constitutional Amendment could be forced by a bipartisan coalition of voters. Hopefully no one will be shocked, but I have Republicans in my family; and some of my best friends are Republicans. They are not all evil people and levity aside, many are as just as frustrated as most Democrats. It’s sinking in that the failures of a Republican government to address their needs isn’t the Democrats fault. It’s sinking in that the 2-party system has been used to divide and conquer, with big business paying off whoever is in power & cashing in. It’s sinking if for Democrats that a lot of their folks are not behaving as they should and if you just look to see who has dropped 100K in the re-election piggy bank you see why.
A bipartisan MINORTITY of voters could turn the whole thing around; we just have to agree to quit being played as suckers fighting each other over hot-button issues like flag-burning and abortion, and gun control and school prayer and gay marriage. I feel strongly about all those issues, but arguments on these topics are like debating the color scheme of the smokestacks of the Titanic – after she struck the berg.
Meanwhile we are getting screwed by low wages, high gas prices, the pharmaceutical industry, insurance, special tax exemptions for the rich, no health care for the poor, global warming protected by government, social security going broke, education going to the dogs. These are driving a stake thru the heart of this country.
My opinion: if we fail to address these issues soon, we will cease to exist as a nation – in my lifetime. We will not address these issues as long as special interests control government.
It’s not a Democratic Issue or a Republican Issue; it’s an American Issue; the existence of our country is at stake.
What I’m not seeing is a reassuring answer to the question, “What do we do when they take our support and keep conducting business as usual?â€
You’re still thinking short term. You’ve got to think past the next election. Our IMMEDIATE CRISIS is the Bush administration, and we must take power away from them [big red flashing letters]NOW NOW NOW[/big red flashing letters] any way we can, with whatever tools we have, however flawed they are.
Although we’re making an exception, an example, if you will, of Joe Lieberman. And if we succeed in dumping him, then we’ll look at the rest of the Senate, and say, “next?”
As we netroots activists get stronger and more experienced at working together, we’ll be in a better position to challenge and pick off those Dems that really piss us off. Diane Feinstein and Joe Biden are on a lot of hit lists right now, for example.
I just came back from a progressive gathering in New York City, and we spent more time talking about what’s wrong with Democrats than about George W. Bush, believe it or not. I’m really not naive or stupid. I see the problems you do, and possible some more.
But it’s beyond shortsighted to whine about how we have to let Bush steamroll over the nation because the Dems aren’t as good as we wish they were.
BTW, Kevin Wohlmut is banned from commenting on this blog further.
Maha, I don’t think you’re stupid or naive. I think we’re drawing different meanings from the same set of facts – I am sure that we agree on what’s going on, because I routinely point friends to your round-up of reporting on various issues, and I wouldn’t do that if I disagreed.
I will concede a personal element in my thinking right now. My father’s about to die from brain cancer – yesterday he lost the ability to swallow, and since he and Mom are both strongly opposed to heroic life support measures in terminal cases, and hav etheir living wills and powers of attorney in order, it’s just a matter of time now. Hours? Days? As long as his body’s reserves and his heart hold out, I guess.
Anyway, Dad flew a P-38 in World War II, and I’ve been going through his photos and memorabilia, scanning interesting items to put online. Looking at the official training material and reflecting on our conversations over the years about what his wartime experience meant to him, how he sees patriotism, and so on keeps making my personal grief and my despair and rage at current politics mingle together. I so much wish that he were leaving this world at a time when his beloved country (and mine; I haven’t given up my form of patriotism) were less of a waking nightmare.
This certainly is an emotional in additional to an analytical response. I appreciate the demands of strategy. It’s just that in addition to all the stuff I’ve written before, I wish that Dad and the others of his generation could see hope rather than trategy as they leave us. I would like their last experience of America to have been a better one.
And with that, I’m written out. Off to do what I can to support Mom.
Bruce, so sorry to hear about your Dad.
In my belief system, [which you are free to disagree with] your Dad being at death’s door and passing over is, yes, a grievous matter, but it also means that his inner consciousness is expanding in a way that showers the world he’s leaving with the love and truth he’s held in his heart.
My saying is, “Death breaks our hearts open”.
God Bless you, your Mom and your Dad and the rest of your family.
sadly, the argument that people banned from DK somehow aren’t fessing up their real sins is fairly transparent. i’ve been reading the site for 3 years and i’ve seen markos troll-police shut down any manner of reasoned thinking for the most spurious bizarre logic. armando’s circular posts being prime example. and this is the guy kos lets run roughshod over the site.
far too many smart passionate and civil diarists have been banned by the most infantile minds on the net.if you think markos is going to pull in democrats as he insults women, progressives, and dead contractors all with the most smug self-satisfied grin while condemning the greens for taking repub funds as armando shills for wal-mart, well, you’re wrong. check out markos glib reply to jules siegel. like a gnat hitting a brick DK is driving people away except for the converted. and their 20 votes don’t mean jack.
Pingback: cement steps