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When the August polls highlighted by the good Attaturk this morning signal your party is about to get drubbed only two years after getting a strong and unmistakable mandate to reverse the politics and policies of the Republican Party, it’s only fair to ask your party’s leaders whom you should hold accountable for squandering that mandate and doing so much to resurrect the Republican Party.
After all, Karl Rove and the war-loving neocons so incompetently mismanaged the Bush Administration that by the end of 2008 everyone except Fox News recognized these political geniuses had managed to destroy the Republican brand. Enabled by that failure, the crazies who have now captured the Party and intimidated its nominal leaders into incoherent babbling, religious intolerance, race baiting and nihilism have rejected Rove despite Fox News efforts at rehabilitation.
So someone in the Obama White House needs to drop the cowardly anonymity and take responsibility for a WH political strategy that is destroying the Congressional Democratic majorities and declaring "we give up!" only 18 months into Obama’s Presidency.
And give up they have. They’ve quit. They’re barely making even a token effort. They don’t seem willing to do anything more to help the economy and 15 million unemployed– and please, don’t try to tell us that puny business tax proposal would make a serious dent in unemployment.
Apparently no one in this White House ever heard of FDR. They never learned that a government committed to jobs can create real jobs, millions of them if it puts its best minds to it. And it’s not as though there aren’t thousands of public oriented jobs that need doing. Or hundreds of thousands of teachers, firemen, police and other dedicated public professionals that need to be rehired.
So we have to accept clowns like Simpson and listen to Geithner’s happy talk and read about how Bernanke, the man we warned them would do nothing to help unemployment when it mattered explain why the Fed would be happy to take action if things get really bad, while he and his out of touch MOTU ignore all the realities of how bad it is.
But unlike the case of Sarah Palin, who had the grace to leave when she quit, we’re still stuck with these quitters. Get off the mat, or get out of the ring.
78 Comments
The Big Fail
LOL, great title Scarecrow : )
But clearly, you did not get the memo… “It’s all the mean ol’ Republicans fault! We can’t do anything, because of them“!
Ok, lets go with that. If Dems are incapable of solving the country’s problems, why should we vote for them?
Exactly.
Scarecrow, no one will take responsibility. They keep saying that they won’t lose the House but they are whistling past the graveyard IMO. They are pathetic and have been from day one. Don’t understand it at all.
As I just wrote in another thread:
The failure of Obama and the Democrats after the disaster of Bush and the Republicans reflects the failure and criminalization of our elites. The billionaires and millionaires who run things may wear Armani but then Capone probably had a good tailor too. What we have to understand is that they are far more destructive and malicious than the guy who robs the 7-Eleven. Class warfare? Yes, and so far it has all been against us.
Hugh –
Capone indeed did have a superb tailor. And when Brian DePalma made The Untouchables they tracked down the guy, who was in his late 80′s at the time, and he supervised the creation of all of DeNiro’s wardrobe.
And your analogy/assessment, as usual, is right on the money.
The Dems problem is that they thought that campaign funds were the key to re-election when in fact it’s votes and voters that really count.
“We quit” was obviously the calculated policy position from the beginning.
Here is how the die was cast: Obama jumped into the presidential race knowing that 2008 was the first and only time in American history that a person other than a white man could become POTUS. (That’s how bad GWB was). Like I said during the primary, Hillary made Obama possible.
One or two terms, great social reformer or corporate lackey, Obama’s place in history is set and it has nothing to do with anything he does or doesn’t do while in office. He is the first black POTUS because he was the first elect able (and it took having one white parent for the establishment to accept him) black man willing to play ball in order to be the first. He gets to be historically significant forever and wealthy too. He doesn’t need Hall-of-Fame stats.
I don’t mean for this to sound like a racist screed because it is not meant that way. It is just that after 18 months of watching this, I have been unable to come up with any other explanation that makes sense. Celebrity is what he wanted. We will now go back to another 50 years of rich white guys.
The problem is campaigns cost shitloads of money. That’s why Obama and Rahm sold off the public option and Medicare drug price controls for a promised $150 million in pro-Democratic campaign ads from healthcare industry stakeholders. It was the only way they could see of stopping Harry and Louise: The Sequel.
If you want to end the corruption, take the money out of politics. Otherwise we end up with third parties supported by Republican money, parties that exist merely to ensure the progressive vote is split and watered down.
And Democrats are entitled to votes they never earned how? Oh, wait, they’re not? They actually have to follow through on the promises they make if they want to stay in office? Who’d have thought?
I don’t buy this B.S. about greens taking money from Republicans. The reason people are turning to third parties is that the two major ones are such a let-down and people are waking up to the fact that the only way we’re going to change things is by voting for someone who is not a corporate lackey. If you want your party to win, tell your leaders to start doing the jobs voters elected them to do. make a case instead of attacking others for exercising their constitutional right to run for public office. If you can’t make a legitimate case, then kindly go away and let adults who know what they’re doing take charge.
They aren’t quitting. They are actively working to get Republicans back in the majority in Congress so that they have a better chance at reelection in 2012. All strategy, no substance.
Okay then, a question for all of you who seem to agree with this concise and well-written piece: what exactly are WE supposed to do? I mean I really want to go into Google Reader and unsubscribe from Firedoglake, Daily Kos and anything else remotely connected with politics because I’m tired of the whole bring-down. I don’t because that feels too irresponsible but I’m at wit’s end on this.
On top of everything else I live in California with Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the dysfunction and get to live in San Francisco with an invisible mayor and a board of supervisors that does, well, I’m not sure what. No state budget, Robert Gibbs, Alan Freaking Simpson and a president who seems as disconnected as the last guy and I thought that was just not possible.
Anyone got an action plan for me?
Needless to say, it is not the Greens that are a problem for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is the problem.
Oh, Scarecrow, you’re obviously shrill and not very serious. Clearly a member of the professional left.
Also. Retarded.
Sadly, we just grit our teeth and hold on tight. Obama’s final (yes, I said final) two years are going to be…I don’t know, terrible seems too positive, too optimistic. Even if O were to fire Geithner, Simpson, Rahm and the rest and bring in people who knew what they were doing, it’s still too late. And even then, it might not work. Economy’s too far gone, housing market’s too far gone, Afghanistan’s too far gone….
I know, maybe bombing Iran will do the trick.
I do. Vote Green, or Progressive, or Socialist, or Working Families, or any other truly left-wing political party that might exist in your area. Join it and help build it up, if it isn’t built up already, into a force capable of taking on the establishment. We’ll never force the change this country so desperately needs if we give up on voting or if we continue to vote for corporate flunkies.
Having a message that resonates and internal strength sufficient enough to speak to the truth of your beliefs is more than enough to get elected. Come out swinging. Instead we have a president who decided that he likes the rope a dope only he forgets the part where you have to stop taking the punches and deliver a knock out.
Use the media instead of letting the media use you. There are some very simple PR basics that Obama and company have failed to use. Not to mention their complete withdrawal from the grass roots.
Amen. A vote for a D or an R is the same as slowly drinking yourself to death.
I agree with your read. I don’t think it’s racist
to point out the cultural ‘optics’ at work here.
Cenk is tearing it up with His Primetime Speech!
First, great article. I keep saying this administration has totally given up on jobs (or perhaps they think the small business bill will handle employing all the jobless).
Second, I nominate Rahm to take the fall.
Speak you mind and demonstrate it the only way the two parties will listen. The Tea Party is a Republican insurrection. The bloody crazies have taken over and as a consequence the party mainstays are just following the movement as it burns out or takes complete charge.
The Democrats should have had the insurrection but, it appears the party is incapable.
I have not decided which party I will vote for and as a rule I hate party voting but, i will not vote for a D or an R again. I can always write in a name.
I like the picture on the front page … but I like this one better. It seems pretty metaphoric on so many levels for the two admins in this century so far
edit: this one is pretty much on point too
That’s my plan – no votes for corporate flunkeys!
I vote for his total Banishment, loss of citizenship and deported from the country!
Not sure who will take him…Oh well he can languish in one of those detention centers for deportees…
That’s excellent! Thanks for that : )
Are you sure they are not trying to get the Republicans to take over congress so they can blame them for all the pro-corporate/pro-wealthy bills that they want to put through? The difference is so miniscule between the parties, does it really matter to either side which one is in power?
Afghanistan bomb attacks kill twenty-one US soldiers in 48 hours
Twenty-one American troops have been killed in Afghanistan since Friday in one of the bloodiest periods of the summer
all the Obamabots should retire
Vilsacashitte too
You ask the right question. No one seems to have a satisfactory answer to the leadership problem. But I’m persuaded that the WH has the party shackled trying to define the range of permissible debate and options so that there is no permitted space to the left, even though all of the sensible soutions are clearly on the left. The implication is that you have to defy the WH and let go.
I’ve seen many posts urging the Prez to do x y and z, and laying out the arguments, and he doesn’t do any of them, Then someone there disses some group of the liberal coalition and pretends it doesn’t matter. The economic writers are in despair. Even those who were prone to give the benefit of the doubt are throwing up their hands.
It’s time to let go. If asking, pleading, cajoling, even shaming as I do here don’t work, then we have to start with the admission that the man in the WH does not want to change, so they won’t. You have to function, plan, and organize as though the current WH is the main obstacle to progress, not because they are the same as or a crazy and nihilist as the Republicans have become, but because their framework and vision are inadequate to the task and part of the problem. If this President were a centrist Republican, we would treat him accordingly, and begin to organize to defeat him or pressure him to accept a borader vision of what should be done. I think that is where we are. If he changes and proves me wrong, fine, but don’t count on it. Let go and organize to replace them.
Israel,would love him,his dad was a terrorist in the 1940s
Watch as Kos gets HRed off his own website for saying, in essence, what Scarecrow’s saying.
Like the folks in this thread, I’m only half joking.
Thanks to Michael and Parachute! I’m a big believer in personal responsibility and despite the pain stay connected with what has been a very disappointing two years or so…
Its funny but the conversation about 1968 and Hubert Humphrey (was that here?) reminded me of going door to door for Eugene McCarthy and being asked many times what somebody my age knew about politics. I believed and probably still do in McCarthy and the pain around Robert Kennedy entering the race and stealing away our momentum was palpable. 2008 was a re-awakening of a lot of those feelings as is 2010 (in the negative) and as was the case then felt a need to engage the community.
Peace.
Thanks for the thread and the comments.
Yes. Start supporting 3rd party candidates and stop supporting these clowns. Pretty simple, really.
The elites understand the art of illusions! Very Well
The elites destroyed the old concept of political parties, you now have a Coke and Pepsi feel to DC. Republicans and Democrats both act like they are helping their base, when they really know they are working for their masters who run major corporations
When the american people start attacking the corporations, then you will get the change you want in DC.
For example, Target, Best Buy, showed us how easy it is to attack a company built on GREED.
Target, and Best Buy stock holders would be furious if their company got tied up into a political fight between the Left and Right! because at the end of day, both companies want to make money, and they can’t afford to discrimnate, because Wal-Mart would just love all the new business.
Progressives need to make the corporations fight each other, this will make their servants in DC, get involve, because no corporation likes the idea of losing 1 dollar, quarter, penny, due to politics, especially when their competitors reap the benefits.
I agree that nothing we have done has made a difference. Our efforts to work within the system hit a wall of lust for money on the WH side and the corresponding tsunami from the corporate interests.
It is infuriating to have the WH treat us as individuals with such disdain. The bigger problem is the policy vacuum in the Democratic Party. Our efforts to fill that vacuum are rejected out of hand, and the inane policies of the prior administration are dressed up in new language and adopted by the Administration with only the tiniest modifications.
For this mid-term, I think TarheelDem has the right idea:
Each of TarheelDem’s comments makes a lot of sense for electoral politics this year.
In the longer run, it is hard to see a core around which the left can gather. What is the God, Guns, and Gays of the Left? Maybe we need to think about that.
Wow, you just brought back some memories for me! The way you wrote that just brought back all the emotions of that time to me. I was a teen but was a big McCarthy supporter. I remember the pain and the sense of loss for the country (like, we almost had it and it was snatched away from us) after Robert Kennedy’s death so vividly. And you are correct – there are emotional similarities.
You made my point better than I did.
The right is, lately, trying to paint the Administration with the Incompetence brush, taking the widely-perceived greatest weakness of the Bush administration and bringing it forward. When the president fails to act in so many necessary areas, whether through paralysis-by-analysis or by trying to please his corporate bosses, he personally feeds into the perception that he is out of touch and politically tone-deaf, and thus, Incompetent.
Healthcare was an important undertaking – but the very first major foray during a Depression? And to do it by designing a plan which benefited Big Pharma and Big Healthcare first and foremost? And nowadays, well sure the deficit is a concern – but why is that your biggest worry, again, in a Depression? And how does attacking Social Security do anything to solve it? All that does is make your own party look heartless. Politically, these guys are clowns, and every Congressman trying to get re-elected is getting as much distance as they can between themselves and the White House. How many Dems have been seen with Obama at actual campaign events? Any? When’s the last time you saw a President so toxic? Oh, that’s right – it was 2008!!!
Obama really is doing his best to make the Incompetent label a permanent tattoo. He is hurting his own Party with just about every move he makes, lately.
Not to worry for Tiny Dancer. He has dual citizenship, U.S. and Israel, so he can go park his sorry ass there any time he wants. (I just wish he would.)
The first thing they did was to pass a stimulus bill. They thought it would lead to economic recovery this summer (2010), and that they could start on a big item on the President’s campaign promises, health care. Wrong. Wrong. Not stupid, just wrong. Worse, progressives, including FDL, said at the time that the stimulus was too small, and that the health care bill was a disaster waiting to happen. We were right on both counts, and innumerable others. They were wrong.
Naturally, they beat us up. Perhaps they’ll want to talk after their miserable policies lead to defeat in the mid-terms, but don’t count on it.
You don’t understand. Obama had a agenda to follow given him by his corporate bosses:
1. Get individual mandates for health insurance to save the insurance companies from pricing themselves out of business and thus threatening the banks who own the stock in those companies and/or loan them lots of money.
2. Insure that the Afghan war takes up the slack from the drawdown in Iaq to guarantee continued profits for the MIC.
3. Enact faux FinReg that protects the power and existence of the “too big to fail” banks and financial institutions, and insulate the Fed from real scrutiny.
4. Cram through the long lusted-for gutting of Social Security so that the rich don’t have to pay higher taxes to redeem all those otherwsie worthless T-Bond IOU’s in the Social Security “Trust Fund”.
Right now he’s three-for-four and looking to make it a grand slam in December with the Catfood Commission.
IMO, incompetent is not the best description. O is effective enough in accomplishing what he seeks to change. The problem is that O doesn’t seem to see that the problems in the economy, housing, foreign policy, etc., etc., etc. can’t be fixed by more of the same tweaked around the edges for beautification. O’s problem is is that he fiercely believes in the status quo.
It would help if the guys in the White House didn’t secretly (or maybe not-so-secretly) want to be Rs. Or if the guy at the top was more of a fighter and less of a compromiser and wanna-be-peacemaker, when the opposition party has no intention of doing either. (And why did it take him a year and a half to figure out that they aren’t going to help him do anything? Didn’t We Tell Them So last year?)
(I’m wondering if Mr O was the household peacemaker while he was growing up, or if he hid in his room during loud disagreements. Family arguments would explain a lot.)
The difference between Reagan Republicans and progressives is big-time money. I do not believe that we can effectively use the primary system to rebuild the party from within, because we simply do not have the financial wherewithal to do so.
We have targeted a handful of seats with mixed success at best. We simply do not have the financial resources to run as many successful progressive primary challenges as we would need to a reach a critical mass that will hold to the principles for which they were elected.
As it is the few successes we have had (I’m looking at you Donna Edwards) have not delivered on their promises. It is exceedingly difficult to turn down the cash in a system that floats on money, especially when your new colleagues can argue quite persuasively that it is the only way you will survive. And bit by bit, your principles fade until you are part of the problem.
If the Dems are to change and I’m not certain that they can, it will be out of a sincere desire to hold on to their seats. We already have lots of examples of people who would prefer to cash out for a lobbying position. However, for those who relish the power of a legislator I think the only effective tactic is to threaten their jobs en masse, whether by staying home, voting third party, or writing candidates in. It is not until they realize that they cannot win without us, that they will begin to represent our interests out of their own self-interested desire to stay in office.
I will not vote for a Republican. But I will not vote for a Democrat these days either. So the Dems can either earn my vote or not. The fact is, I don’t have to vote for, volunteer for, or donate to either party. I’m looking elsewhere. If and when the Dems are ready, they can come back to me. I’ll still be here, out in left field, looking for a brighter future : )
I’ve always been a big fan of Markos, and I 100% agree with what he’s saying which is essentially agreeing with “what Digby said” (and Scarecrow). However, my recollection of the healthcare bill fiasco was that when it came down to crunch time, Markos led the please clap louder brigade. Markos has never denied being anything but a Democratic party guy, so his support for the party at that critical time was kind of understandable, but his current lack of awareness of his role as a WH enabler for that horrible bill is a little disappointing.
The hell you say?
Now both you and Scarecrow appear to be on the same page wherein there’s a fundamental understanding that we have no allies in the executive, and scant few (if any, as I think Hugh rightfully surmises) in Congress. Further that the drive is either money or ideology, or both.
Can we revisit why we continually frame this conversation in the terms of, “stupid Democrats… they’re going to get a drubbing unless they flip” with the implied connotation that the Democrats fundamentally give a shit that they’re going to get a drubbing? They will have accomplished what they set out to accomplish, vast expansion of neoliberalism, and then they’ll temporarily hand over the reigns of government to a group that fundamentally looks out for the interests of the demographic that top-Democratic politicians belong to; the wealthy elite.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that we won’t have the necessary financial capability. The wealth-gap is moving in one direction, and it’s moving in one direction because the people on one side of it are always expanding the set of rules to make sure it stays that way.
We will have less and less, they will have more and more, and the cycle creates a reinforcing feedback loop. I know I’ve probably noted that reality a hundred times, but we can’t win anything playing within the confines of the establishment rules, because that makes the establishment the gatekeeper, and they are dead set on keeping us outside. If we could accomplish anything playing by their rules, they’d have already changed them to make sure we didn’t get anywhere. Considering we’re behind the power curve, it seems prudent to consider the rules are rigged to ensure that we fail.
“it’s only fair to ask your party’s leaders whom you should hold accountable for squandering that mandate and doing so much to resurrect the Republican Party”
I can’t understand why this would resurrect the Republican Party who are as a group simply fucking monsters. What it should do is make some third party candidates into real contenders. And I sure don’t mean the fucking monsters of the libertarian party.
Hiya Nathan : ) So what’s your plan? Stay home? Third party? Write-in? You must have some quixotic windmill tilters out your way to vote for, eh?
My apologies for my poor usage of tense. I agree completely. In fact, the future sense was what I was trying to convey (obviously ineptly).
So how do we change the rules? Statewide propositions to end first-passed-the-post? Vote-by-mail? What other rules are on your list?
How do we make rules changes binding measures (subject to judicial review for constitutionality — I’m still a bit skittish about propositions after Prop 8 in CA, but we have used them to great effect locally for updating town ordinances).
(By the way, your 46 and my 48 crossed en route, so feel free to ignore 48)
With only 62 days until the mid-terms it seems to me that the Dems have indeed decided that the “vote against the GOP” strategy is their winning ticket. They are also betting that characters like Angle will self-implode but I think that unwisely assumes the likely tea-partyish voter base cares.
Anyway, I doubt that even Actual Leadership could leverage those paltry 60+ days into an appropriately potent “vote FOR me!” cudgel.
So I’ll be voting for Harry, et al, even though I’d not hire them to mind my dog over the weekend. What a choice.
3rd parties are tantalizing to consider but I’m just too old to participate in the heavy lifting involved in what would most likely be a futile effort.
The aggravation I experience every day by just reading the news is becoming personally very un-healthy. I find myself being pissed off all the time. Tuning out (assuming I can) is where my heads at lately. One side of me says that’s a cop-out, the other side says I’m a sucker for ever giving a shit about politics/government.
Vote for a 3rd party candidate that most closely reflects your views. If there are none running than write in “Elizabeth Warren.” In the meantime tell every one you meet that nothing is going to change until corporate money is OUT of politics.
It’s going to be a long, tough slog but short of revolution, this is the only course I believe is open to us.
My plan politically is to subvert the politicians by going straight for initiatives. Giving legislative decision making authority to someone whose only qualification is knowing how to win a popularity contest is forever off my list of priorities. Got one drafted for Oregon, meeting with the ex-AG to talk about best practices for process, and seeking assistance from a couple of leading academics to sort out some of the details to make sure what’s being proposed will actually solves the problems it claims to address.
On that front, what I really need is some help scouring the archives of the news in Oregon from 1936. We attempted to do what I’m trying to revive once before, and it went down in flames. Having read the 1936 proposal I have some inclinations as to why, but I really would love to find editorials, etc. that detail what the public debate was like back then.
My plan for activism is to dispense with the following:
-Petitions to politicians. Unless they’re to get something on a ballot, they’re useless; ignored, derided, and scoffed at. Purely PR stunts for symbolic victory.
-Calls to politicians offices. TARP should have instructed every single American as to how unbelievably pointless this exercise is.
-Donating for traditional advertising. All it does is line the pockets of the very interests who work against us, enriching TV, radio, and print conglomerates doesn’t do anything to help my political prerogatives.
I don’t know about you, but I have limited time and resources, and I decided I needed to make sure they stopped getting squandered at a rigged table, despite the best intentions of the people who invited me to play.
Changing the voting laws state-by-state is certainly a good effort. At the moment the issue I’m working on is trying to get the State of Oregon some latitude in how it manages its finances, and how it can generate revenue. I suspect it will be a lot easier to pursue other issues when a serious dose of economic self-determination and empowerment is given to the people of this State.
The people of Oregon should be at least as favored by our banking system as the big banks and hedge funds are; in my opinion.
Was it Emma Goldman that said, “If voting changed anything it would be illegal.” Vote away folks for all the good it will do anymore.
Sounds like an excellent plan. Keep us posted on how it goes.
I think Jane’s efforts on Prop 19 are similar. Candidates are fickle. The only reason we court them is to implement the policy changes we seek. If we can do that without them, all the better.
My advice, FUCK ‘em. I have targeted 5-6 people that I want to lose in November and I am doing what I can to make it happen.
Blanch Lincoln, Fuck her,
Michelle Bachman, Fuck her,
Joe Wilson (YOU LIE), Fuck him,
Dan Webster (Alan Grayson’s opponent), Fuck him,
John Boehner, Fuck him.
Since I have more money than time, I contribute. I am also preparing to help out with phone banks.
I was very, very glad to see Jane shift focus from representative to direct politics with the campaign for Prop 19.
California’s system of getting multiple propositions directly to the voters hasn’t worked out well.
Ditto, except I live in thee Sacramento area; so I have the governator and the do nothing legislature and our would-be dictator mayor, whose ambitions have been thwarted.
I’d really like some answers.
As always I salute the faithfulness of those who have found, at least temporarily, a solution in writing their posts, reading and analyzying constantly and telling us over and over how insanely bad it is and will become.
Grace for me in the last week has been listening to Mortensen’s book, Three Cups of Tea and appreciating his extraordinary commitment and own style of insanity. I’m repulsed by the fact that Petraeus insists some, if not all his military command read the book to try to help them understand some principles.
But then comes the news of how many billions of US tax dollars were so stupidly wasted in Iraq, never mind the out and out corruption. Anything to make a buck in warfare. And I certainly don’t see the Dems doing any better.
I wonder sometimes how much more crap I can take. The alternative is to totally withdraw into a cave of intentional unawareness; might as well, I sure as hell don’t see anything I can do to stop the insanity, corruption, futility of everything I might ever care about.
so, Scarecrow and FDL, what do you have to say to folks like sayonarami and me?
Blessings,
There are 19 states that have initiative systems. 24 total that have either that or referendum processes. They’re not all bastions of spending/funding gridlock due to huge imbalances in minimum turn-out and super-majority rules.
Well, votring for the D’s is akin to goging on a bender, it will eventually catch up with you in DT’s and liver failure unless you can change the drink. Voting for R’s is more akin to shotting up speedballs (Herion/Cocaine) every few hours until you either OD or are totally burnt and develop a zombie like tolerance for it–until heart/resperatory failure occurs, that is.
Coming up in 8 weeks!
One, one-legged duck of a preznint!
Quote of the day, Dude. Oh, and bravo!
Money for elections. There are many issues.
Money, $5 to $10 from constituents per month.
Buy the fuckers. Consumer spending power is much, much greater than the “special interests”.
Or Left Wing assignation squads. Hookers of the Left Unite, and lie down and think of your country!
I think we’ve tried that already. The problem is that they don’t seem to stay bought.
You’ve got to keep buying them on a monthly basis.
One shot does not do it.
And institute pay-for-performance.
Two issues are of prime importance to me: Stopping the policy of perpetual war; and Putting some limits on the reach of Corporations such that someday living, breathing human beings are actually valued more than corporate persons.
I was hopeful in 2004, 2006, and 2008 that it might be the Democrats who could make those things happen.
But with the step-up of the Afghanistan war, and the Corporate giveaways on “health care/gotta buy private insurance, nyah” and nonsensical financial “regulation” (hey, how about “Glass-Steagal” is the law of the land again”) I am very tired of voting for “the lesser of two evils” (LOTE).
Hence, in the fall, I will not “Vote the LOTE”.
In all probability, I will vote for Green Party candidates, because of the two primary issues I mentioned above.
Why should I vote “for” or identify with Democratic candidates when pretty obviously that party would as soon purge itself of leftist/progressive participation?
We have the bodies to non-violently shut down Washington, D.C. until we get what we want. Imagine five million people sitting and lying down in the streets and blocking all of the entrances and exits to the houses of government.
What are they going to do? Arrest us?
Where are they going to put us?
What are they going to do when five million people have no ID and refuse to identify themselves, refuse to promise that they will show-up in court for any scheduled hearings if they are released, plead not guilty to all charges, and demand jury trials?
The system will collapse because it cannot possibly cope with that amount of non-violent civil disobedience.
That, my friends, is the soft underbelly of the beast that we must subdue and no other objective is more urgent and necessary to accomplish.
With 14 million people unemployed, it shouldn’t be too difficult to motivate 5 million to participate. Toss in another 5 million people to non-violently protest the way the government is mistreating the first 5 million non-violent protesters and the situation becomes very interesting with all sorts of possibilities.
You could probably get away with a whole lot fewer people by simply packing the halls and offices of the capitol building and human barricading K-Street.
You gotta pay for the unemployed to undertake this endeavor, of course.
(And Marchan @ 60)
You don’t have to do anything through a political party. There are plenty of nonpartisan groups to join
Issues, is the key for me
UC Berkeley prof George Lakoff talks about how there aren’t any actual strictly “right” or strictly “left” people. That most people are “biconceptual” in that, at certain times, they believe in “progressive” issues, and at other times they’re “conservative.” There are many issues that so-called conservatives and so-called progressives can unite, e.g. “Just Say Now” (most Libertarians would call themselves conservative right?)
The problem with most people who call themselves Democrats is that they think all Democratic politicians believe in the same things that they do — they don’t. Joe Lieberman is a case in point; DiFi is another; Ben Nelson; and … etc.
My thing is, getting involved with the local ACLU, primarily because I believe in the causes, and secondarily because of the nonpartisan nature of the org. And I think that gives us a tremendous power. We’re kind of like EF Hutton — when we say something, people listen, they sit up straighter and pay attention, especially if they disagree
They only thing I would suggest, is finding an issue you believe in and getting involved
(wish I had more time for this right now. maybe I’ll do a diary sometime)
The country is tanking. It has been since 1979. There is no safety net to catch the fall. It’s been inevitable. Both parties are to blame. It just happens more slowly under Democratic ‘leadership’. Wall Street is getting their way and the middle class is the sacrifice. Is it time to bring the guillotine back yet?
Is the strategy now to elect the GOP to make sure they get the entire blame. I’m not saying this is happening but one never knows. In the mean time the rest of us suffers or gets out of the country. Either way is suffering. Americans made our bed and now we are lying in it. We have only ourselves to blame.
“O’s problem is is that he fiercely believes in the status quo.”
A fair conclusion considering his actions but it reveals the change mantra of his campaign as a huge whopping lie.
When did we lose our mojo? I remember when the Left was feared and the government responded to that fear with force and then compromise. It was intoxicating to march with many others and see the fear in the eye of the beast.
We are no longer feared, that makes us powerless, and we don’t get no respect.
Thanks John,
I’ve never been a Party-woman, so I’m not hung up there, altho I’ve voted Dem all my voting life, because they came closer to my values and goals.
The one group that has impassioned me (is that a valid word?) is Partners in Health and particularly their work in Haiti. That’s where I’ve put my time and money this year and plan to continue there. I’d also like to support Central Asia Institute to support Mortensen’s multi-faceted work. I couldn’t cope with their functional realities, but I can respect their unbelievably passionate vision and in your fact committed actions. AT 70 and disabled and poor, I can’t join in such battles and wish to God I could still.
I find that there are few positive things I want to work on and for domestically. Not that there are few issues/goals that I wouldn’t like to support, but the vehicles for doing so are problematic for me for one reasons or another.
When I was at Habitat for Humanity so many years ago, Millard Fuller used to say that there was nothing wrong with tainted money, except there taint never enough. Mortensen quotes a similar saying by Mother Teresa, who explained that it is cleaned in God’s hands/mission, etc. I never respected Millard, but I do respect her.
What I find is that while there are are a few groups that I might otherwise want to identify with and support in whatever way I could out of my poverty, disability and immobility, their broad goals become dysfunctional in the actions and particulars – as in the HCR efforts by the local SacACT group in Sacto. They bought the establishment’s and PICO’s formulations and never asked questions; they just wanted something. I wanted some particulars, none of which were accessible.
I’m burnt out and dont’ want to be.
Scarecrow, the last thing you “said” at some point above, if I’m comprehending you right, was that the thing to do was to pursue strategies to dump the WH folks; but replace with them with whom?
Suppose one could, by a Mosaic outstretched hand, remove them all, what then? Who would come in and do what? Or is it enough for you at this point to simply “dump the dogs!” Is there a faith place in you that says that God will provide? Perhaps, but perhaps not? What then, blessed one?
Blessings to all,
Let go and organize to replace them.
Sorry, I remembered your statement wrong.
But, my question remains, replace them with whom? Is there a viable hero or non-hero on the horizon you can affirm? Or is it too early to even ask that, that you’re still settling in to the place of giving up and beginning to be resurrected to some new undefined missional vision.
Parts of me clings to the place at the end of one of the gospels when the risen Jesus sends word to the guys, I’ve gone on to Galilee (?), I’ll meet you there. He didn’t leave an agenda,, map or, etc. He just said, get up and come meet me. But they did get up and did get on with it, knowing that they would be led in the path in which they were to go.
I guess I’m in the place of trying to be quiet and uncomplaining (i.e. moving through all kinds of grieving periods) so that I can begin to discern where and how and when I am to go to whatever my Galilee is to be.
If your’s callins is not defined to organize to replace the WH gang, how are you going to do that beyond your “shaming game” that you are so adept in playing. How will you seek the replacements? What will you be looking for – values, agenda, institutional values/capacity, etc. etc. etc.
Blessings to all,
Sounds like we need an Eliot Ness on the job. I liked Eliot spitzer, but somehow he’s ending up with a tv gig instead of a White Knight in armour.
corporate money is in politics and is here to stay. Even if limited through legislation, men who have money will find a way to spread it around to where it benefits them. Look at W VA and Massey, their legislature doesn’t go to bethroom without permission from Massey. And of course, we now know the national reach of the Kochs: those nice guys who patronize the arts and dictate federal and state energy and trade policies. And of course, we can’t overlook republican FOX media;owned by the Aurstralian expatriate raised to honor the queen and his partner the spoiled Saudi prince. Neither man has the vaguest idea what it is to sustain a democracy, but they have the money and the media to buy clowns like Beckster, Limbot and O’Reilley. The money is there, always will be. The question is how to create our own offensive against such “enemies of the middle class”???