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There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions. Mao Tse Tung
To reject compromises “on principle,” to reject the permissibility of compromises in general, no matter of what kind, is childishness. Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder
I separate the presidential elections from my own personal “druthers”. I would recommend to those who consider themselves “lefter than thou” that they read none other than Mao Tse Tung’s, “on contradiction“… (it’s about “priorities”).
Addressing this question, I begin with some simple facts.
1.) There is going to be an election
2.) The winner will either be a Republican or a Democrat
3.) The winner will get to choose the person or persons to occupy any new vacancies in the Supreme Court, which in its present form, with its ruling on the “humanity” of corporations, has effected a de facto coup d’etat. Unless this ruling is changed, democratic politics in America will be fatally and permanently corrupted. Democracy will have become a permanent contest among billionaires. At last count there were more ultra-conservative billionaires than progressive billionaires.
4.) One could make an endless list, but they all mostly look like number “3″.
123 Comments
I call it enabling. And the Communists, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, repeatedly demonstrated that they would compromise when they had to and not one minute beyond: an agreement meant only what was feasible at the moment. We did the same with how many native Americans? We agreed when we had to and to what was feasible at the time and broke those agreements as we could.
IMO, we’re in a period of transition and how that works out eventually depends on what we’re all willing to concede at each moment of choice. As Chalmers Johnson said, “You can have an empire abroad or a democracy at home, but you can’t have both.” The empire is antithetical to democracy, civil liberties, social, political, financial equity, basic decency. Empires are about subordination and extraction. By any means. You can’t haggle over the terms and there is no “reasonable” mid point compromise because every “mid point” is another move toward the empire’s end point. If there’s anything the Democrats’ childish submissiveness should have taught, it’s that.
I agree with Chalmers Johnson completely on this and almost everything he ever wrote.
Still, unless that Supreme Court ruling is reversed I don’t see the Empire disappearing, unless you envision the masses storming the Winter Palace. That isn’t going to happen anytime soon, is it?
Again I repeat: there is going to be an election and either a Democrat or a Republican is going to win it. I think the Democrats would want to change the Supreme Court ruling, because without superpacs they have a distinct demographic advantage that the Republicans don’t have.
Your facts aren’t really facts.
The truth of the matter is that the winner does not have to be a Republican or a Democrat. Over 40% of this country identifies as a Independant. It is well within the realm of reason that a third party could win. All it requires is enough people to be sick and tired of the game playing BOTH parties engage in. As a matter of fact, I posit that it is likely that we will see a tipping point sometime within the next decade or two and at least one, if not two, of these parties will go the way of the dodo if they do not adapt to their electorates demands.
The masses never stormed the Winter Palace. In fact, it wasn’t even stormed at all. Kerensky’s provisional government resigned when the Russian Navy, in the form of the cruiser Aurora, trained its guns on it.
At least get your facts straight when you post this self-serving corporatist drivel. Really, man, why do you care which fascist swine wins in November? How is that going to affect your comfortable corporate existence in Spain? Unless things have changed since you posted this,
http://www.seatonsnet.com/
oh, professional corporate propagandist. In closing I will indulge in the spirit of the post.
Good day to you, you running dog lackey of the imperialist regime.
You too, if you are another third party fantasist, are what you project onto Seaton.
Seaton is correct, both in his historical rendering and his ideological basis.
A vote from the left for a no-hope-of-victory middle class reformist candidate is no different than a vote for a Republican as a practical matter, just as a vote from the right for a no-hope-of-victory Libertarian candidate is no different than a vote for a Democrat as a practical matter.
You see in France, where they have two rounds of elections, the communist Melenchon is urging his 11% supporters to vote for Hollande, who is in fact analogous to the Democrats in the French system (albeit farther left of the scale of course, BUT the French RANK AND FILE is also farther left of the US RANK AND FILE…).
SOme of this is the difference in political systems, true.
But that is reality.
Third party presidential voters are living a fantasy. An escapist fantasy.
Agreed. And those 40% independents are not going to vote for someone they do not know. They will vote for either Romney or Obama. Simply because they are independents does not imply they are astute.
The Electoral College isn’t set up for a three or more way split in which no candidate gets to the magic number of electors. That college elects the President and that President is going to be a Democrat or a Republican. Period. You can elect independents for local offices where the EC isn’t involved and by all means vote third party if you can’t bring yourself to vote for the two big ones, (I’m voting Green or writing a name in), but don’t harbor any illusions. Until the system is changed, that’s the way it’s going to be. Unfortunately it’s going to probably take a pretty major upheaval to change that. Your theory would hold water if the President was elected by popular vote but that isn’t the case.
Speaking of the Great Helmsman, his favorite dish was apparently extremely fatty pork with a small strip of lean meat running through it. This inspired the bluegrass band Uncle Earl to do a Mandarin-language version of the old Southern mountain tune “Streak o’ Lean, Streak o’ Fat”. Here it is. :-)
“Independent” and “undecided” voters are largely euphemisms for the people who may go and vote or may stay home. Some “independents” always vote Republican, (when they vote), and some Democratic but a very small number of them will vote either, or. That’s why Emanuel’s strategy of conceding races or running a blue dog over a liberal was such a failure.
It’s nice to know that the Whigs are still around and today’s Democratic Party looks just like yesterdays……oh wait.
In order to get change you need a catalyst simply voting the same way over and over will net you the same results. So you change the dynamic, that’s what those that suggest a third party are suggesting happen. Become a catalyst and change the dynamic.
Oh and I’m okay with being termed a dreamer, it’s the dreamers that historically have insisted we can do better. If it were left to the pragmatists we’d all be hunkered around the fire living in caves.
I agree. We’re transition and eventually what we call the major parties will be irrelevant. Nobody to pay any attention to them–and that’s when you’ll know they’re dead.
Thank you oh Phoenix Woman, this video is as weird as they come, you have made my day.
The Whigs are still around: http://www.modernwhig.org/ I read the program and couldn’t support a Whig candidate. Too much defense.
Until the Supreme Court ruling is changed, nothing is going to change for the better. It can’t be overstated, that was the whole ballgame.
” If it were left to the pragmatists we’d all be hunkered around the fire living in caves.”
Oh, so very true! And yet these same pragmatists sure love sitting around and reaping the rewards that others have sown…..
Good diary Seaton, although I and others have argued along these same lines for several elections in a row to no avail, while the “would be leftists” who I less charitably term “fake leftists,” practice the definition of insanity over and over again.
Expecting a different result.
And yes, these are the same who decry the big money in politics, rail against Citizens United and never once admit that had Gore (a Democrat) won in 2000 there would have been a different decision in Citzens United, not to mention no Bush Tax Cuts and no Shock and Awe.
Are the Democrats leftist? No. Are they the same as the GOP, post 2010.
Not even close. Arguably, the only difference between the US economy today and Europe-in-double-dip-recession-impending-fascist-hegemony land, has been Obama refusing to kow-tow to the GOP/Tory/Merkel austerity program, which has waged full frontal assault from the GOP House of Reps since January 2011.
The reactionism of the fake left is as stupid as it is self-defeating.
I would take the quadrenniel 3rd party escapism of the fake left more seriously if there was a concerted, organised effort to build a national (or even statewide) 3rd party from the ground up (IE, running full slates in local elections) during the other three years, instead of their wasting precious time blogging the same BS over and over (projection alert) and expecting a different result,every cycle since 2000..
A voice of sanity. This is what I wrote awhile back on my “plan” to reform the US political system:
http://my.firedoglake.com/seaton/2012/04/17/is-progressive-change-in-america-possible-a-practical-plan-of-action/
Well, the issue isn’t the parties, per se, it is what is standing behind the parties. In fact, the GOP is much closer to extinction than the Democrats, so even here, strategically, you are promoting failure.
We already have seen Occupy, a rather limited attempt at non-partisan leftist street protest, in effect move Obama out of his doomed compromising with killers clinch and finally begin to stand up to the GOP House leadership against extremist austerity measures.
And he has succeeded, for the most part. Check the US economy and then check the UK, where the Tories have been able to roll out GOP-style social cuts far more effectively than than have been introduced in the US.
Maybe a more realistic dream would be to build more protest action to pressure the Dems in a more populist, leftist, working class based direction to counter the obvious tea party inspired rightward tilt with the GOP policy making apparatus, which is so biased towards the rich you have to be complicit to ignore it.
The practice of politics isn’t conducive to dreamers. Never has been and never will be.
I will no longer reward the Democratic Party for taking a big flaming crap over the constituencies that have loyally supported it.
We’re on an express bus to dystopia. The only question to be resolved in November is who gets to drive it: a crazy guy who aims it over the cliff or an incompetent who drifts to the right until it falls over the cliff.
This fallback on romanticised cliches is a poor mask for a rather threadbare line of argumentation.
Besides that, its a non-sequitor.
Unless you can show where third party electoral politics have ever advanced living conditions, anywhere.
Obama is at least as bad as Romney will be, if not worse. Due to partisan loyalty, Obama can — and will — do more damage to Progressivism and Progressive causes than Romney could ever dream. The Grand Bargain to slash the American social safety net is the perfect example. Obama is as Conservative as Romney is and Obama’s Supreme Court justices are corporatists just like Romney’s will be.
Bottom line: supporting Democrats no matter how bad they are, no matter how Conservative they’ve become, simply does not work. We are not going forward under Obama: we are going backward. And when one considers the incredible opportunity to further Progressive policies that has been squandered under Obama, no sensible Progressive could still support Obama. It makes me laugh to hear self-proclaimed Progressives criticize Progressives who reject the Democratic Party as “unrealistic” when Obama has been the worst thing that has happened to the U.S. Left in a very long time, maybe forever.
The way to influence mainstream politics from the grassroots has been developed, no need to reinvent the wheel. The Civil Rights movement changed America radically: nobody who didn’t know America before it came along could ever know how much it changed America. That is the model, study it and like the fella said, “Go ye and do likewise”.
In the short term I think a unified Left with a solid spokesperson can make a true impact on the 2012 election cycle. If the Left can coalesce around Jill Stein and the Greens, for instance, I think it is possible that her candidacy could take off. Why? Because the American People already overwhelmingly agree with the Progressive policies espoused by Stein and the Greens. Neither of the corporatist duopoly parties do and are, therefore, out of step with the American People. (IMO, this is precisely why Obama has been such a failure on the political level: he simply refuses to adopt Progressive policies the American People want.)
All we on the Progressive Left need is to get onto the field and we can build support in leaps and bounds. We can force Obama and Romney and the political duopoly to move Left in the near term and we can simultaneously forge a powerful foundation for the future. But in order to accomplish this, we must have a focal point for the 2012 election and no one has shown that there is a better alternative than Stein and the Greens. Coalesce around Stein for the 2012 election. Help propel her — and us — into the national discussion. Our upside is limitless.
And I don’t see the downside to doing so or attempting to do so.
That was 50 years ago. Things change.
Bottom line: supporting Democrats no matter how bad they are, no matter how Conservative they’ve become, simply does not work.
It’s like “jam tomorrow” in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. The Democratic Party mandarins tell progressives to put as sock in it because this election is too important. Then, after the election, they smack their supporters in the face and, when they protest, tell them to put a sock in it because the next election is too important.
And here’s the kicker:
The piano player? None other than John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin bass infamy.
You have a valid point that Obama was designed to harmlessly drain off the progressive energy that Bush created. But… Anybody that really believe he would be anything different was naive. I took tremendous shit for pointing this out in 2008.
Having said that, you only have to read Drudgereport to see that “harmless” as Obama is, he has the “conservatives” frothing at the mouth. This is going to be the dirtiest campaign in history… Obama must be doing something right.
Dear God!
This is no accident. The corporatists love our political duopoly because there are only two teams to buy. The GOP, of course, has been wholly-owned by Big Business forever. The Democrats have become increasingly corporatist and have hit bottom, IMO, under Obama. At least Clinton had public opinion on his side when he acted the corporatist but that was 20 years ago and the American People have changes. Obama’s fealty to the plutocracy is so absolute that he has routinely defied the American People on issue after issue. If Democratic partisans don’t say enough is enough by now they probably never will.
Absurd. The GOP wants its guys in just like the Democrats want their guys in. It’s the same pie just a matter of who is chowing down at the moment. As for the “dirty” campaign, I guarantee you that Obama will be just as dirty as Romney, if not worse. Why? Because Obama cannot run on his record? Why not? Because Obama has repeatedly defied the American People by refusing to adopt the Progressive policies we want. Why else? Because Obama and Romney have the same corporatist views and will desperately seek some brand differentiation for their fundamentally identical candidacies.
Actually, my comment was made to cwaltz since I was mentally envisioning folks hunkering in caves and cooking over fires. I can easily imagine the human species going the way of early extinction if there had been only one personality type back then.
What the hell were YOU going on about?
Typical D-Team, or R-Team for that matter, cheerleader drivel. You didn’t study history, did you? Probably not pragmatic enough for your career.
First, a vote for a third party candidate is simply that, a vote FOR a third party candidate, nothing more and nothing less. How can you say that my probable vote for Stewart Alexander, a Socialist, is a vote for Romney when I would never vote for Obama anyway? The same argument applies to a Libertarian voting Libertarian. Your logic is flawed.
Second, a third party vote is a peaceful way of expressing discontent with the current system. I have no illusions that a third party candidate is actually going to WIN, but that does not matter. Or would you rather have the solution that Mao and Lenin provided? For that is the only other option for those of us who are being screwed by people like you.
– enjoy donkeytale but recall he, and you, are not disputing my assertion that Obama losing might be better for the progressive cause than Obama winning as Obama with “grand bargain” where none is needed will be able to get said “Grand bargain” supported by Democrats and passed as they roll over for a Democratic President -
and in contrast, when MITT proposes a “Grand bargain” – even if much worse of a bargain, and even if much better of a bargain – the Democrats will find a spine to oppose a GOP president and stop it in the Senate – and if that is not the Congressional Democrats response, the game is such that there is no win in the game for me.
I will not vote for being screwed at 75% of the pace that the other fellow will screw me.
Indeed the Congressional Democrats finding a sine to oppose corporate demands – if there is a GOP president – is more likely than Obama ever being true to his 2008 promises about his progressive views and protection of Medicare and Social Security. Indeed Obama stands for never letting the Clinton Tax rates return and little else. I do not see the judges Obama would appoint being more liberal that those Mitt would appoint.
Indeed the election has become one where I do not care who wins because Obama has given me no reason to support him other than the other guy is worse – and as I see little difference between the two – I don’t care who wins. I will not be conned by wedge issues – until Obama is for the 99% – the Clinton Tax rates returning and rejection of Simpson’s tear down of Medicare/Social Security – he is against the 99%. Once he is for the 99% the wedge issue discussion can begin – but not before.
Seems a third party vote makes more sense.
Crap. How would corporatist Supreme Court appointees by Obama be any different than corporatist Supreme Court appointees by Romney? Sonia Sotamayor and especially Elena Kagan are not exactly shining lights of liberalism. I see no Earl Warren or Louis Brandeis in sight.
I have no insight as to what imaginary Gore would have done. But at least we finally elected a Democratic President who would send an experienced litigator to fight Citizens United, sit back and let the Bush Tax Cuts expire, and withdraw our troops from unnecessary wars. Or not.
We shouldn’t elect Republicans because they do terrible things, but if we elect Democrats we shouldn’t expect them to do good things because, as David Seaton says, they are not The One, but if we had elected a Democrat in 2000 he would have refrained from doing terrible things even though he wasn’t The One, and if we cast a third party vote to just say no, we are the fake left?
I agree if you’re saying just casting a protest vote alone won’t change anything. But if you’re saying that the quoted paragraph represents a reason for voting or not voting for one evil over the other, I’m not getting it.
Damn Ohio Barbarian, you unmasked this duplicitous mercenary for the bankster-gangsters just yesterday and he’s back already?
What’s it gonna take, a wooden stake?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/matt-stoller-obama-as-neoliberal-ideologue.html
Stoller makes his point persuasively, and everything we’ve seen from Obama confirms. Forget parties, size up the temperaments and histories.
That was bullshit then, and remains bullshit today.
Are you proud of your ignorance? You certainly wave it about if as if you were.
How did third party politics ever advance living conditions, you ask? Well, a third party called the Republican Party ran on a platform to at least contain, if not immediately abolish, slavery in the 1850′s. By 1865 slavery was in fact abolished.
In 1912, a third party, the Progressive Party, garnered more electoral college votes than the Republican Party and the winning Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, actually implemented some of their policies. Wilson had another fire under his ass because millions of people voted for the Socialist Party candidate, Eugene Debs, the same year.
In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was told that it would be easy to tell whether or not he had succeeded, for if he did someone else would eventually become President, and if he did not, he would be the last American President. The third party threat at that time was the Communist Party, which was winning lots of local elections in Oklahoma, north Texas, and other places crushed by the Great Depression. Are you really saying that the WPA, the CCC, etc did nothing to change anyone’s standard of living?
Yes, you probably are. But escapists living in fantasy lands often ignore historical truths that don’t fit their narrow world views. You may now resume your cheerleading, Obamabot.
Anybody that thinks you can reform the US system from the top down, without several billion dollars to spend is (fill in adjective of choice). The only way it can be done is like MLK did it back then. Thousands upon thousands of totally committed people demonstrating, sitting in, writing talking, going to jail, getting their heads busted… That’s how it’s done. Go study.
He’s in Spain. I’ll leave that up to his Spanish neighbors. They have a long history of coming up with ingenious devices to get rid of people they find undesirable.
Yes, Obama is indeed an ideologue. He is a neoliberal, aka a corporatist or a Conservative. How do we know Obama is an ideologue” Because he adopts corporatist policies that defy the wishes of the American People. On issue after issue, Obama choose the Conservative path even though that path is overwhelmingly opposed by the American People. IOW: Obama would rather lose than be Progressive. That is the definition of an ideologue. And that fact that this Conservative ideologue is a black Democratic president adds an element of perversity that is difficult to grasp.
Wrong again. You forget why Southern governors accepted the Civil Rights Acts. It had nothing to do with MLK or the civil rights protesters. It had everything to do with LBJ’s known willingness to send in the tanks if they didn’t.
“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
–see picture above
I already addressed that. Passive resistance and civil disobedience worked for black civil rights in 60s. That tactic probably still has a place that will, hopefully, be filled by OWS and like groups. But there is no reason to believe that is the only way to accomplish change. Furthermore, this is a different time with fundamentally different issues so the solutions, when they come, will necessarily be different. It is foolish to reject attempts at effectuating political change at the national level, especially now when the internet makes mass communication so cheap and easy.
I will not support either wing of the uniparty. No Repubs, no Dems, no exceptions.
Obama, with the Democratic Party enabling him, has institutionalized and expanded the heinous policies of Bush-Cheney and pushed the country rightward at a faster pace then any president ever. Obama is the more effective evil. Pure and simple.
The argument that imagines Obama will make better SCOTUS choices is a fantasy based on wishful thinking that assumes the worst of Romney and the best of Obama.
I believe that that if re-elected, Obama will go further to the right. I also believe that Romney will move to the center. My take is based on the actions of both men after they gained positions of political power. Election year rhetoric means absolutely nothing, as Obama has so audaciously proven.
I will support third party in all races. The Democratic party is simply not salvageable, as far as I am concerned.
If Romney wins the election, so be it. The Democratic Party can go back to moaning about right wing policy like it did in the Bush years. They did tend to slow Bush down at times, although when push came to shove he always got enough Dem support to do the horrible things he did.
But, at the very least, as the opposition party, the Dems kept a somewhat more liberal narrative alive in the MSM and national discourse. That, by itself, would be improvement over the current situation.
Today’s dem voters are simply pathetic defeated chumps, period. Yeah, I said it. Dem pols shit on their constituents up until election time. When the elections come, be afraid, be very afraid. By the way suckers, send us your money and do the ground work. Don’t show up where we pols and our donors are though. You’ll be arrested.
Is this what you are endorsing David. I hope they are at least giving you money or something, otherwise dem pols are useless. Just the fact that all they offer up at every turn is fear of the repubs speaks volumes.
I don’t give a rat’s ass which one of these 2 wall street parties get in. To be quite honest, my personal fortunes tend to be better with repubs so that deosn’t scare me one bit. At least the repubs are more honest in the fact they are a money party.
The dems need to be crushed entirely. They offer absolutely nothing but lies and fears to their constituents. What the fuck have they accomplished with their power over the last several years…shit!
Fuck ‘em, and I’m not worried about the supreme court either.
Well said, especially the part about Bush always getting enough Democratic support to push through the horrible things he did. About the only significant thing the Democrats actually prevented under Bush was the privatization of Social Security.
The only people really affected by which corporatist wins the White House are the M$M and the politicians themselves. And none of them will see their standards of living harmed. Meanwhile, none of the rest of us will see our standards of living improve.
Things will get worse.
Well said, especially the part about Bush always getting enough Democratic support to push through the horrible things he did. About the only significant thing the Democrats actually prevented under Bush was the privatization of Social Security.
The only people really affected by which corporatist wins the White House are the M$M and the politicians themselves. And none of them will see their standards of living harmed. Meanwhile, none of the rest of us will see our standards of living improve.
Things will get worse.
Damn. How did that happen? I did not intend to multi-post this, and it was a reply to AlternateID.
I also note that the Civil Rights movement, the women’s rights movement, and the gay rights movement–all of which I am enthusiastically for–did not make the elites of America poorer one iota.
Once they’re money is on the line, the dynamics change.
-stewartm
That’s another good point. Pushing a Third Party Progressive candidacy will, if it becomes viable, cause one of two effects on the current Democratic Party: either the Democratic Party will move Left or it will collapse and be replaced by a real Progressive Party that actually represents the American People. Either result is fine with me.
Precisely so. We have moved from an Equal Protection paradigm into a Due Process model. For the first time in our history, the American economic pie is getting smaller and the plutocrats are coming after everyone, not just disadvantaged minorities.
*Bingo*.
That, and the fact that the Federal guv’mint was in competition with a nominally communist regime, in the Third World telling these that we and not the Soviets were their true friends. And we were getting responses like:
“How come then we can’t have this very conversation at a lunch counter in Alabama”?
-stewartm
I don’t see much hope who wins.
If Obama wins, then he’ll move to the right, or at best renege on any promises made to the left or his base (or magically he and the Dems will manage to fumble away any golden opportunities–maybe in another bout of “bipartisanship”??)
If Romney wins, things will get worse. And the Dems will conclude they lost because they weren’t right wing enough.
That is the dynamic that has been ongoing the past several years. And I am at a loss of how to stop it.
-stewartm
They were too afraid of the optics to go that far back then.
We won’t be so lucky when Obama jumps back on his crusade to “strengthen” Social Security.
Yeah, he’ll strengthen Social Security much the same way he’s improving jobs with the JOBS act!
No, my logic isn’t flawed at all, or if it is you haven’t exposed those flaws. Nor is my understanding of US electoral history flawed. I stated quite clearly, my argument against third party protest voting is based on the practical results. If you have historical documentation that points to the practical effectiveness of third party protest voting, please produce it. I can be persuaded if you have a persuasive argument. But first you have to offer one.
It appears however, from your comment that you believe Presidential elections are not necessarily practical matters. So, in fact, both of us can have logical arguments here simply because we are advancing different arguments.
I would concede more validity to yours if indeed there was evidence of a strong progressive third party-building effort in progress at the grass roots level. Even if there was, its potential numbers remains so small as to force at some point a practical consideration of coalition with ideological opponents in order to gain enough numbers to become meaningful.
If you are just expressing disappointment with Obama within a zero sum electoral process that leads to Romney’s election, with nothing else to show for it, well, that’s just epic foolishness IMHO from a practical standpoint. I would argue, like Seaton does, that there are still practical advantages to Obama’s re-election that outweigh the disappointment with his failure to advance “progressive policies”, which is more truthiness than truth, anyway.
Obama never had 60 progressive votes in the Senate. Never. Anyone who truly understands history knows this is a fact. Now, I would prefer Obama had pushed progressive policies anyway but he has defeated the farthest right policies being intensely promoted by the 2011-12 GOP House, easily the most conservative since the 1920s. The Senate is, has been and will be for the nexrt cycle at least a center-right institution. Either Blue Dogs or GOP in enough seats to keep progressive from 60 votes. You would be delusional to see any other possibility in the short term.
Far better, IMHO, to tend to building a progressive third party movement at the grass roots level, either within or outside the Democratic Party.
And FYI, your personal insults are neither very interesting nor effective. They simply indicate that you are frustrated by an ability to advance your argument.
As for your question, would I rather have a communist revolution in the manner of Lenin and Mao, I could just as easily turn the tables, maybe more easily given the events in Europe, and ask you:
would you rather have the solution that Hitler provided? Read the history and see center-leftist complicity in his ascendancy, which was in fact achieved legally within the democratic system.
I’d suggest we are much closer to a rightwing, fascist coup in the US (and certainly in Europe) than we are to a communist revolution. And I don’t see how allowing a fanatisised fascist-leaning GOP to add the POTUS to their already control of the ultraconservative House and the radicalised SCOTUS will help advance progressive causes.
Vote your conscience.
You can’t stop what is happening by yourself. But you can add your voice to others who refuse to support either evil presented by the uniparty.
Even within the confines of our electoral system, if enough people join together, a third party effort can rise to challenge the kabuki theater uniparty.
Personally, I don’t think things will get any worse under Romney. They may get a little better as the Dems scramble to be the “opposition” party again.
But it doesn’t matter to me because I refuse to support either.
Yes, there is going to be an election, either a Republican or a Democrat is going to win it, and to vote for either of the nominees is an act of moral suicide.
If you have followed some of my posts, I have not bought into the “vote Democratic as the ‘lesser evil’ argument”. I myself voted for Clinton in ’92, but voted Nader in ’96. I have been scathingly critical of Obama since the extensions of the tax cuts at the end of 2010, which was a test case for me–like how hard was doing NOTHING which was all that was necessary and which would have gone a long way to squelching nonsense about cutting entitlements and deficit hysterics. Instead, Obama sought his ‘grand bargain’ in 2011.
However, I do think it is incumbent on those who are advocating letting the Dems go the way of the Whigs and voting Third Party to admit that yes, things may get worse. You may think that Romney will simply be Obama’s 2nd term, maybe a little worse in some ways, a bit better in others (and I’ve heard all the arguments) and you might be right, but I remind you that few thought that George W. Bush’s presidency would be as right-wing as it turned out to be. I thought he’d follow in the footsteps of his patrician, more traditional Republican dad’s footsteps instead.
And risking the invocation of Godwin’s Law, as Phoenix woman has reminded us (correctly) that there was thinking on the Communist left that allowing the right-wingers (including Hitler) into to power was preferable to voting for the SPD. That bit didn’t turn out well either.
It’s not that I necessarily disagree with you, or your strategy. But simple honesty includes laying out what the scenarios might be. And the truth is, none of them look very encouraging. This ship seems bound to hit the iceberg no matter what, the people who know how to stop it aren’t allowed anywhere close to the wheel or engine compartment.
-stewartm
What the hell is this? You asked a question, I answered it. Nothing in your reply refutes, or even addresses, the examples I cited.
Then you claim that Leftists in Germany helped Hitler’s democratic rise to power. WTF? Do you know ANYTHING about the Weimar Republic?
No matter. Your reply is a classic illustration of the principle: If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. Or simply move the goalposts. Again, typical D-Team cheerleading misrepresentations. It may work at places like Daily Kos and Democratic Underground; it will not work here.
At least you live up to your screen name. You tell tall tales for the benefit of the Democratic donkey. Hee-haw.
You have your opinion as to the outcome of the imaginary sweepstakes concerning “who wil be worse”, I have mine. Sure, things might get worse. But they might also get better. So what? It’s all supposition, yours, or mine.
Why do you focus on that when it has nothing to do with my “strategy”, or how I will vote, or why I will vote that way.
I made it plain what I was going to do and why.
Your turn.
I don’t know about you, but GWB pretty much did what I expected him to do. And although I knew Obama wasn’t who he presented himself to be, I never thought he would turn out to be more right-wing than GWB.
Permit me to take one of your statements, update it, and toss it back at you: “I remind you that few thought that Barack Obamaa’s presidency would be as right-wing as it turned out to be.”
But there have been times in US history a major party imploded. The Federalists were one such case, and the Whigs another. The Whigs were never going to be the party that stopped the expansion of slavery (too many slaveowners amongst them). So a new party was needed that was accomplished with that in mind.
So what is so wrong-headed about people saying that the 21st century Dems are akin to the 19th century Whigs? What you’re seeing here are similar rumblings of discontent.
-stewartm
Well, OK. I agree with that point. WELL ORGANISED third parties and protest movements can have an impact on mainstream politics, I think I already stated as much in this thread. I meant in that comment to say that technological progress accounts for quality of life improvements, which have been more or less ongoing since the Renaissance, regardless of the political system in place. But I didn’t state clearly so my bad. Score a three pointer for you.
We aren’t necessarily disagreeing here altogether. As I already stated, Occupy has had a [somewhat limited] impact on moving Obama away from his ridiculous attempts at compromising with fascists and believe it: a broader, sustained protest movement in growing numbers is something that I support and in fact what I advocate. I believe the movement needs to be more forceful, more confrontational, especially with regard to the MIC and the amounts of money spent needlessly on wars and in curtailing our civil rights. And I blame Obama for following that line of politics when he could have been more progressive. He hedged to protect his re-election chances, no doubt.
By all means, build a third party on progressive ideals but build it to last, with a firm foundation, is all I’m saying. What happened to the Progressive Party after 1912? The impact of the Left on FDR is undeniable. I agree that far more pressure should be placed on Obama by the left, just as more pressure has been placed on Romney from the right.
The failure is as much of the Left not pressuring Obama as it is Obama.
Where we disagree is the belief that a few hundred thousand or even a few million disgruntled but disorganised voters simply voting against Obama is intelligent under the current circumstances, where we live in an era much more dominated by conservatives controlling a major party that is off the rails in terms of its relationship to anyone but the wealthiest.
Given the state of the union today, it seems counter-productive to say the least.
There is no valid comparison. The GOP is a Right Wing Conservative party and, as such,
adheres to both its philosophical and voter bases. The Democratic Party, in contrast, vilifies its voter base and has contempt for its philosophical base to the extent that the Democratic Party has adopted Conservatism (in the guise of Neoliberalism) as its guiding framework. Obama is that way.
The only way for the Left to “pressure” Obama is to withhold support in the form of the most precious electoral currency — votes. Yet you disdain that course as counterproductive. Perhaps you didn’t notice that the Obama Administration has held the Left in contempt since Day One. Obama doesn’t give a rat’s behind what some Professional Leftist thinks, says or does. All Obama cares about is that Professional Leftist’s vote. That is the ONLY form of pressure available.
As of right now, Obama’s lost me as a voter. He lost me at the end of 2010, when he didn’t end the Bush tax cuts. He didn’t even secure in exchange a permanent abolition of the debt ceiling or anything like a permanent extension of unemployment benefits. The “grand bargain” of 2011 does not help.
That being said, I don’t know which Third Party candidate I’ll support (Socialist Party USA?). Also, I live in a very red state so I must admit that my vote doesn’t count in terms of the general election. So I have a bit of personal leeway that others in this thread don’t have.
For me, him being a Bush, what he did came more of a surprise. I was expecting an extension of Poppa Bush–who raised taxes, after all.
This is the dynamic I see which has gone on the past 30 years:
a) Carter wasn’t a liberal at all, but by contrast to today most of us would happily embrace his policies. He faced a revolt on his left which he squelched but which may have hurt him.
b) Reagan came, then Bush I, and things got worse. A lot worse in many ways, but luckily the Repugs never held all the power of government, which limited their ability to do damage.
c) Clinton comes in an restores some fiscal sanity, but at the cost of NAFTA and TANF and the “modernization” of banking. He would have privatized SS before Bush, but that backroom deal was torpedo’ed by Monica Lewinsky. Still, most Americans remember the Clinton years with some fondness to what has followed.
d) Bush comes in, with all the power that Reagan could only dream of, and the result is catastrophe for the country.
e) Obama comes in and despite a few tweaks here and there, makes Bush II the new “normal” plus adds some abuses all his own.
My opinion? It’s not that a continued Obama presidency will be good. Everything you say may happen I worry will happen too.
But a Romney presidency? Yeah, if Romney himself were in charge, maybe not much different than Obama. But Romney can’t even take on friggin’ Rush Limbaugh.
And lookie at what they’re doing in Michigan. Will we all be under “emergency managers” by the end of two terms of Romney?? Will irksome votes in Congress simply be ignored? If the Dems still hold enough Senate seats to filibuster, will the Republicans bother to count them and just say the legislation passed anyway? Will citizen petitions be rejected because of font size?
Sure all the things above are wildly unpopular. Sure, they might raise a backlash. But what is occurring in the states under Republican governance proves the Repugs *don’t give a flying fsck about ‘voter opinon’”. Their solution to voters not liking it is just to outlaw voting.
The point is, that each period of Democratic governance represented a plateau of sorts in the decline of the US. Not any reversal, for sure, but at least a period where the decline was stopped or at least slowed from the previous Republican administration. Each successive Republican administration, with the possible exception of Bush I, was worse than its predecessor in accelerating the decline. It’s the difference between someone futilely and half-heartedly manning the pumps on the Titanic versus someone who sets off explosives in her hold and hastens the sinking.
And that is to me the moral quandary. Do you vote Democratic, not because the Dems are some wonderful cure but in the hopes to buying just a little more time in hopes of—what exactly?? Or do you vote Third Party in the hopes that by America will get a wake-up call of sorts and will mobilize like she’s never mobilize before to fight the PTB? What if there ARE no more elections or you are prohibited by some specious tortured reasoning from any ballots??
Both sides seem to be engaged in a kind of wishful thinking to me. The Dems by their history have shown that they will not fix the country’s problems. But the next period of Republican governance might effectively abolish democracy itself in all but name. The betting odds for the success of either strategy seem long shots. That’s why I am not harsh with either side on this.
-stewartm
I don’t think you are following the sequence of responses very well.
You’re mismatching responses. But, whatever. See you in the concentration camp!
We’re in a pickle, no question about it.
Occupy pressured Obama from the left. More accurately, it opened a popular dialogue around the nation about growing income inequality and financial distress of the working class that provided the platform for Obama to take a firmer stand against the GOP House.
Well said.
Fair enough, I respect your take.
We seem to disagree is the outcome of the “who will be worse” sweepstakes. I look at what has happened the last three years and don’t see anything that makes me think that Romney would be any worse, assuming the Dems go back to their role as the opposition and a token effort to resist him.
As to things you brought up, like Romney and Limbaugh, the guy is trying to get elected, he’ll say anything, just like Obama will. Why you would use that as a predictor of how he will govern puzzles me, especially after the example set by Obama.
I look at what Romney did when he held elected office and actually see a guy less treacherous than what Obama has proven to be.
But like I said, other than as a conversational point, the “who would be worse” debate means nothing to me.
I’ve got to live with myself, and that means supporting neither.
I appreciate your response. The thing is, though I’m made a personal choice, I can see both sides of this issue. And truly, I don’t know which one is ‘smarter’ or better or more moral or if any of them stand a snowball’s chance in hell of working.
The system seems doomed. The retirement of all the space shuttles recently was a recent sad testament to the country’s decline, a decline not inevitable by any means but a decline created by the fact that we spend way too much on handouts to the war industry and the medical-industrial complex and tax rich people too little.
As I told a friend today, I blame JFK/LBJ for starting this–they broke the first rule of SimCity, and cut taxes on rich people. Never, ever, EVER, cut taxes for rich people, because it’s nearly impossible to raise them back up.
We went from being a country where the nominal top rate was 90 % and the effective rate 70 % +, to a country where the top rate was 70 % and, because of loophole after loophole after loophole being created–much of it by lobbying by the rich with their non-taxed loot–the effective top rate was a little over *half* that by 1980. Then of course we cut it to 50 %, then 28 %, then back up to 39.6%, but now (because most rich people get the bulk of their income via capital gains) down to 15 %. With each cut in the top rate came also the protest “oh, but we’re also closing loopholes and deductions so they’ll actually pay MORE” but after a few years all those loopholes are right back, so a cut stays a cut.
As Ian Welsh has written, both in terms of good economics and for good governance you need to keep your rich poor. The time we started doing the opposite the US started to decline.
-stewartm
It was simply an illustration of how Democrats and Republicans are different, not much, but the small differences can and do prove crucial at times.
The argument that there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats is ludicrous, certainly since 2001 and horrifically so since 2011 House majority.
Here is another one for you to consider. Do you Gore have promoted the Bush Tax Cuts and would a Dem president not vetoed them in light that the GOP Senate passed them using a bare majority (through reconciliation) when they couldn’t muster 60 votes to end the filibuster?
Do you honestly believe that one of the two major parties is near implosion at this time?
And if one is, I would argue that it is the GOP, and its implosion will result in an even farther right, radical/racist party coming to the fore….oh wait, thats already happend, hasn’t it?
And they already control the House and the Supreme Court, with the Senate and the White House well within reach
[:o)
Look at history, and how suddenly the Whigs and Federalists collapsed. It only took a couple of election cycles for both.
The Republicans serve their purpose quite well. It’s the Dems who do not. If people stopped voting Whig in favor of a party that actually WOULD oppose slavery, why not couldn’t they stop voting Dem for a party that actually WOULD vote for progressive things?
-stewartm
Because the American People strongly favor the Progressive approach to most major policy issues I believe a focused unified Progressive Third Party can accomplish a great deal in the 2012 election cycle. It is a matter of executing a plan to assure visibility. That is why I harp on the fact that the Left must unify behind a candidate. We need a spokesperson. The mere presence of the Progressive viewpoint will change the national narrative and break the stranglehold that Conservatism now has. And, if we can get out of the starting blocks we might even get Jill Stein into the presidential debates. Then, I think, the potential upside is great. It seems the best of our limited political options, in any case.
I think you are mistaken. As Stewart says, the GOP performs its political mission; it is the Democratic Party that does not. So the Democratic Party is far more likely to collapse. As for the Right Wing extremism of the GOP, most of that is attributable to the Democratic Party’s decades-long co-option of Conservatism. As the Democrats move Right, the GOP moves further Right. The “racist” stuff is incidental to the Big Money people who run the GOP; they just use tricks like that to get the rubes to vote against their economic interests. Money is all the GOP has ever been about. Now the Democrats are the same.
Me too. Obama was always mainstream DLC. Period. I took a whole lot of abuse for having the temerity to point that out. I think the people who are most furious with Obama now are those who were initially the most fooled by him.
Scalia met no opposition from the committee. The full Senate debated Scalia’s nomination only briefly, and he was confirmed 98–0 on September 17, 1986. This vote followed Rehnquist’s confirmation as Chief Justice by a vote of 65–33 on the same day. One committee member, Democratic Delaware Senator (and future Vice President) Joe Biden, later stated that he regretted not having opposed Scalia “because he was so effective”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia
…..so much for democrats making a difference regarding the Supreme Court.
Ha ha ha ha ha……voting. You got to be kidding me. You still believe that you have a voice? WTF. OPEN YOUR EYES BITCHEZ…democracy is a big fucking sham.
I don’t know what Gore would have done. Probably there are Bush actions which he wouldn’t have taken, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have taken other actions as bad or worse – ask me if I ever thought Dick Durbin would vote against drug re-importation or sign on to every deficit commission/gang du jour.
I’ve voted lesser of 2 evils my whole life and understand the rationale. But now we seem to be at a point where the argument sounds like vote for any amount of evil as long as a (real or potential) greater evil exists.
We all know the things the Administration has done or left undone that didn’t require Congress at all, things a Democratic Congress could have done with 50 votes and didn’t, and the devastation that has resulted. I can respect that different people will draw the line in different places beyond which they won’t go in voting for evil. But there has to be a line.
Casting a protest vote in and of itself won’t bring about change. Casting it as part of third-party movement building, or helping to change the conversation in the debates, or along with other organizing or protesting can possibly open a path to change.
You can keep repeating that until the cows come home. It doesn’t mean I’ll believe it.
I have 3 words for the Democratic Party…….Adapt or Die. I am no longer going to gnash my teeth and vote for an ineffective party. And there are more like me every single day.
Consider this logic:
1.) There is going to be an election.
2.) The winner will either be a Republican or a Democrat.
3.) Each road leads to the same destination.
4.) Therefore, a different path is required to effect change.
Count on that.
Oh, and I forgot to offer a hearty Sunday “Fuck You” to anyone directing the phrase “would-be leftist” to me.
Here are three things Al Gore would not have done.
1) pushed through the disastrous cuts now referred to as the Bush tax cuts;
2) launched a catastrophic war with Iraq; and,
3) tipped the Supreme Court hard-right by to nominating two radically conservative Justices – Roberts and Alito.
Despite this, the “not a dime’s worth of difference” crowd, just 12 years later, is back at it. Sigh.
Despite their utter historical failure, the “our evil is lesser than their evil” crowd is back at it again. Sigh.
I don’t know what Gore would have done and neither does anyone else. We do know what Obama has done. I said something about this already @35 but regarding the issues you raise Obama
1) Failed to sit and do nothing which is all that was required for the Bush tax cuts to expire
2) Tried to extend Bush’s SOFA for Iraq, extended wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, went to war in Libya
As far as the Supreme Court, I expect that Obama will appoint people who will uphold every aspect of the unitary executive, war, and repression regime he’s built, and who will protect the 1% at the expense of everyone else as he has.
I disagree. Every single positive piece of legislation was the result of a dream that someone once had to make our country better be it through child labor laws or Medicare, public education or WIC. Politics is the perfect place for dreamers as long as those dreamers also are patient, willing to put their voice out there and willing to put in the labor to bring those dreams to fruition.
I’m not the least bit concerned about doubters or people calling me names. I’m not the least bit concerned with those telling me change can’t or won’t happen. I’m just going to keep plugging day by day and operating on the premise that my voice can make a difference and that things can change. Believing otherwise is actually counter to what history teaches. Change is one of the few things that is inevitable(although not always in a positive way.)
> Until the Supreme Court ruling is changed, nothing
> is going to change for the better.
Goddam, I’m going to start referring to you as the 100% Cocksure Never Once Wrong Oracle of the 21st Century, by Your leave, Your Majesty.
> I’m not the least bit concerned about doubters or
> people calling me names.
Then you won’t mind me calling you a True Believer.
In principal the idea of a third party is valid… I think many people would like to vote for it, if it existed. But the way America is set up means that you would need millions upon millions of dollars to start one up. With the Supreme Court decision in place, the only ones who could create a third party with any chance of displacing the Democrats or the Republicans would be one or more billionaires of the superpac variety or any large corporation…
That is the hinge that swings everything: getting corporate money out of politics.
And until that happens (somehow, magically) just do nothing. No thanks.
This would not have happened if Gore had been president instead of Bush… The Democrats are not at all favored by the superpac phenomenon and their appointees would never have voted that way. This has been an ultra-conservative coup d’etat. If a Democratic president fills future vacancies be sure they will change that… understand that the Democratic power base includes the unions and they are much weakened by this ruling.
I’ve been called way worse. ;)
In 2008 alone I was bitter, uneducated, racist and a whole host of other things when I was telling people that “transformational” wasn’t enough. I was hoping I was wrong then.
The choice is not between Romney and Obama. Honestly, the choice is between Bush and Obama. Basically, we are choosing between Bush and Bush light. (admitting that there are many bush league items that Obama has not be “lite” about).
Romney the man, is irrelevant. Just as Bush junior was irrelevant and likely an impaired president. Whoever gets elected will be dominated by corporations. We are a fascist nation. There is no quick panacea. The literal structure of our nation is set up for fascism to reign.
Romney will look exactly like Bush only the push will continue to the right with women losing more rights, with gays folks losing more rights, with even more war, with insurance companies even stronger…with no health car tid bits for us little people.
I would vote Obama just to get pre existing condition sanctions out of health care. That one issue could do it for me. Yah, I wanted universal health care, the public option. But right now…I am currently un insured with a pre existing condition of an infected mrsa mesh. My life, and the lives of many others depends on this provision of health care being allowed to remain. It will not happen under Romney. Whether Romney invented Romney care or not. He will not act out of his own beliefs, or bent. He will be expected to follow the republican line, the corporate line. He will have to act swiftly to protect big insurance companies. Make no doubt he will.
I don’t like Obama…I think about moving out of this country but anyone who thinks that Romney will be anything but a full time corporate hack is not recognizing the fact that our presidents are the ones making the decisions anymore.
Our presidents are NOT the ones making the decisions…typo last line.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda…..and if wishes were horses then beggars could ride.
You can’t go back and undo the past, the best you can do is figure out how to move forward.
It appears that you’ve made your choice in how you wish to go forward. I disagree with it but respectfully understand that it is your right to choose to side with a party that has pretty much turned its back on its electorate and made lesser evilism into an art form. You should likewise understand and respect that there are many from the left who have chosen differently. They aren’t “would be leftists”, they are leftists. They have every right to feel betrayed by the Democratic Party in its current form and they have every right to give a voice to that betrayal at the ballot box. If that means the Democrats lose so be it. However, place the blame where it belongs on the party that gave us a Heritage Health Care Plan and took any form of plan its base wanted off the table, continued to do everything in its power to help destroy civil liberties, and officially is on the record as being on board with cutting the social safety nets. There has to be a line somewhere. The Democrats may not have reached that line for you. In my case they crossed it long ago.
Those with the money and power to buy elections and politicians were already doing quite well before Citizens United. They’ll manage just fine if C.U. is reversed.
I agree that’s the bottom line for this discussion – there has to be a line. Thank you for your summary of the issue.
Do you realize that Joe Lieberman was Al Gore’s running mate? Do you know that Nader begged Gore not to run as a corporatist hack but Gore did it anyway because that’s what the Democrats had become? The Democratic Party made its choices. Barack Obama made his choices. Now the American People make theirs. You can pretend all you like that there are huge differences between the Republicans and the Democrats but there aren’t: both are corporatist entities doing the bidding of concentrated wealth. The rest is noise.
Those, like you, who still support Obama should ask yourselves this question: what, exactly, would a Democratic President have to do before you would stop supporting him or her?
No one is saying dreamers aren’t necessary. Of course they are. Thats a strawman argument.
But, getting the dream passed both houses, the President’s desk and [possible] court challenges up through SCOTUS, requires something different than a dreamer. It requires pragmatism.
LBJ passed legislation by twisting arms, making threats, calling in favours, etc. He passed Medicare and Civil Rights, both, landmark progressive legislation. MLK and the freedom riders had the dream, yes, and it was indispensable, courageous, bold and unprecedented. But it was mostly LBJ who turned the dream into a bill and got it passed.
LBJ the Senate Majority Leader and POTUS wasn’t a dreamer in those roles.
“Let’s start with some advice Mitt Romney gave to college students during an appearance last week. After denouncing President Obama’s “divisiveness,” the candidate told his audience, “Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.”
The first thing you notice here is, of course, the Romney touch — the distinctive lack of empathy for those who weren’t born into affluent families, who can’t rely on the Bank of Mom and Dad to finance their ambitions. But the rest of the remark is just as bad in its own way.
I mean, “get the education”? And pay for it how? Tuition at public colleges and universities has soared, in part thanks to sharp reductions in state aid. Mr. Romney isn’t proposing anything that would fix that; he is, however, a strong supporter of the Ryan budget plan, which would drastically cut federal student aid, causing roughly a million students to lose their Pell grants.
So how, exactly, are young people from cash-strapped families supposed to “get the education”? Back in March Mr. Romney had the answer: Find the college “that has a little lower price where you can get a good education.” Good luck with that. But I guess it’s divisive to point out that Mr. Romney’s prescriptions are useless for Americans who weren’t born with his advantages.”
Here, BTW, is Paul Krugman discussing the “college dream” today and how Mitt Romney and the GOP react to that dream when it involves the dreams of the not-wealthy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/opinion/krugman-wasting-our-minds.html?hp
The comparison with Obama does not help your case.
Obama is no LBJ, that’s for sure.
But, that’s also beside the point. I’m not making any case as much as you are dancing away from reality. The “case” is undeniable, self-evident and stands on its own, whether I make it, whether Seaton makes it or whether Paul Krugman makes it:
If Obama is not re-elected in 2012, Mitt Romney will be your next President.
And you are wholly delusional, not merely an innocent dreamer as you might wish to fancy yourself, if you believe there is zero difference between the federal govt with Mitt Romney at the head of an ultra-conservative house majority and a trending ultra-conservative (and activist!) SCOTUS.
Look around. France, for instance. Even with a revivified French far left polling 11%, which I support wholeheartedly, red meat communist rhetoric and public demonstration of same, more of the French working class is trending far right (20%).
Interestingly, the National Front (far right) is not switching to Sarkozy, while the Front Gauche (far left) IS voting Socialist in order to defeat Sarkozy, which is the French equivalent of the exact opposite of what anti-Obamabots are suggesting….The FG is holding its nose and voting for the establishment center-left, while the far right is hewing to its principles.
Which is a long way of saying that the FG is following leftist traditional pragmatism wrt electoral politics, as Seaton illustrates, while you are more in line with the fascist FN in hewing to an idealist line.
Imagine that.
Yes, I’m a fascist because I reject Obama’s fascist policies. Got it.
And your analysis of France is wrong. The NF rejects the Euro. The NF strongly favors the social welfare state. We’ll see how the final voting goes. The European Left is rising but is hamstrung by its fealty to the Euro (which is simply the European version of Obama’ neoliberalism). If the European Left cannot pivot away quickly enough from the banksters then the Right will probably ascend on the basis of nationalism and populism.
BTW: If Obama were anywhere near the Socialist Hollande we wouldn’t be having this conversation and Obama would not be hemorrhaging support from Progressives. Obama is far closer to Sarkozy, Merkel and Cameron than he is to the European Left.
Imagine that.
If Obama were anywhere near the Socialist Hollande is, he wouldn’t be POTUS in the first place, unless the US were anywhere near the country France is (IE much larger organised contingent farther left than exists in the US).
I don’t know what your ideology is. I diodn’t say you are fascist, just delusional. I do agree with Seaton that the third party escapism of 2012 is not concurrent with leftist principles,just as it wasn’t in 2000, 2004 or 2008.
Organisation being the key word. (there, I gave you yet another easy swing at some sarcastic mimicry.
America is much further Left than you — and Obama — would have it. On issue after issue the American People overwhelmingly want Progressive solutions. But Obama refuses to enact them because he is a Conservative ideologue. That is why Obama’s presidency is the miserable failure it is. Vote for him again if you like but expecting others to follow you over the cliff is foolish.
If Obama had governed as an economic populist, if Obama even had a touch of Progressivism about him, he would be 20 points ahead of Romney, Ted Kennedy’s seat would be Democratic, and Nancy Pelosi would be Speaker. Unfortunately for the country (and the world), Obama is a neoliberal ideologue. But don’t take my word for it:
Matt Stoller: Obama as Neoliberal Ideologue
wbgonne–
I must say, I appreciate your fierce and tenacious defense of liberalism. If there were more people like you, the Democratic Party would never have succeeded in decimating liberalism as an ideology.
Thanks.
Blue
Uhhh, can you point out the specific hard evidence on “issue after issue the American people overwhelmingly want progressive solutions.”
I’m not doubting you, but I hear this over and over again and it appears to be based on people’s circular reinforcement more than actual fact. Until you show the source for this comment.
While it is possibly true that the “American people overwhelmingly want progressive solutions” that again is not the same as saying that the “American people overwhelmingly back Progressive candidacies.”
But lets deal with the topic on your terms first> Show me the basis for your assertion.
I’m also not stating that Obama is anything other than a centrist, “neoliberal”, ie pro-business, pro-capitalist President. That doesnt mean he equals Romney or the that the DLC = the Tea Party. Those are facile, truthiness generalities that ignore the facts.
In fact, I’ve acknowledged as much since 2005, that Obama is a centrist. So, liek Margaret, I voted for him with eyes open in 2008 and intend to do the same again in 2012. I wasn’t an Obamabot then and I’m not now.
Thanks. I’m just highlighting reality but reality is so obscured in America today that it seems revolutionary. And maybe it is. In any case, the first step is to break the stranglehold of the corporatists over the political duopoly and that means rejecting Obama and the Democrats in 2012. After the election we’ll see where things go.
Public opinion polling. On the public option, taxing the RIch,, Green energy, ending the wars, curtailing the war on drugs, protecting the social safety net. Etc etc etc.
Are you speaking for Margaret?
Whatever. Either you intend to validate Obama and his policies with your vote or you don’t. The rest is noise.
Care to point to a few of those polls, specifically?
With polls the devil is always in the details, how the questions were asked, when they were asked, etc.
And then, we will have to decide what constitutes “overwhelming” wrt poll numbers.
It appears to me in general, that the American electorate is largely split down the middle on most issues. The only poll I see that seems “overwhelming” as I would define it, is Americans’ disapproval of Congress.
This is a very productive discussion and I am glad to have started it and want to thank all the participants.
Why the misdirection on Margaret? you know full well I dont “speak” for Margaret or anyone else. You may think I speak for Obama or the DLC, but there is just as much evidence that you are a stealth Romney campaigner.
None on either side.
I merely agreed with Margaret that the over the top anti-Obama feelings among third party escapists seem to come from those who believed Obama was some progressive superhero who would transcend normal DC partisanship, rather than the centrist he campaigned as in 2008 who promised to compromise (a centrist trait) and who now feel “jilted” because they believed he was something he is not.
As for polls, what do you think accounts for the disconnect between your statement that Americans overwhelmingly support progressive issues and this relatively long-term trend:
“Political ideology in the U.S. held steady in 2011, with 40% of Americans continuing to describe their views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This marks the third straight year that conservatives have outnumbered moderates, after more than a decade in which moderates mainly tied or outnumbered conservatives.”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/152021/conservatives-remain-largest-ideological-group.aspx
Is there a disconnect at work here also?
There is a disconnect between the labels (conservative, liberal) and the substance of the policies. Terms like liberal and progressive, anything to do with “social” or “common” have both been vilified by the media and discredited by Democratic failures. That’s my opinion, I’m not a social scientist or statistician.
As far as polling on actual policies I looked at a number of standard polls (mainstream media and polling organizations) about a year ago. This wasn’t a scientific analysis of the polls, but I did look at a fair number around social safety net programs, taxing and spending priorities, regulation and did find a lot of support for progressive policies. Here are some links – again these are just a couple of samples from an informal survey, so FWIW. You can research further I’m sure.
Spending and safety net
http://people-press.org/2011/07/07/public-wants-changes-in-entitlements-not-change-in-benefits/
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/FoxNewsPoll.pdf
See questions 14-15 on spending and safety net
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/01/25/rel2d.pdf
See question 16
Priorities
Note combined jobs and economy is 53% compared to all the other stuff hyped in the media
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/06/30/business/20110630poll-full-results.html?ref=business
Financial regulation
http://www.responsiblelending.org/media-center/press-releases/archives/New-Poll-Demonstrates-Broad-Support-for-Financial-Reform.html
http://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-lending/policy-legislation/regulators/memo-WallStreetReform-f-071811-_1_.pdf
63% want more government oversight of financial companies
74% want a single agency for consumer financial protection
66% want Wall Street held accountable
Only 23% say financial reform is a job killer and will hurt the economy
As Mary points out, self-labeling polls are useless. “Liberal” today is like “Conservative” was in 1970: nobody wants to be called that. Look at the issue polling. 60% or better support for Progressive policies, across the board and throughout Obama’s 3 years. It doesn’t get much more clear cut than that. That is “overwhelming.” And when one considers that we have a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate — not to mention a full Democratic Congress for 2 years — 60% should be plenty to enact the Progressive policies the American People want. Why hasn’t Obama done so? Because Obama is a neoliberal ideologue from the University of Chicago who does not believe in solutions that are not market-based. Obama is, in fact, a Conservative. Which is why I have no intention of voting for him.
You’re the one who brought up Margaret, not me.
And I am done with you.
I agree there are disconnects. Still, many maybe most voters are voting their delusions not their true self-interests all the time. According to this data, if it is correct, the problem is more widespread than even I thought.
We see this effect all the time. Blue Collar whites voting for a GOP bent on subjugating the blue collar populace and destroying unions, pretty much a fact of life pretty much since Reagan.
Now we see, liberals comforting yourselves that the majority of Americans hold progressive positions but not addressing the fact that the majority overwhelming consider themselves moderate or conservative and tend to vote that way more than they vote based on their issues preferences.
Progressives in Congress are far from holding enough votes to pass legislation without coalitions of either moderate or conservative or both supporting the legislation in both the House or Senate.
I would argue that this reality, not Obama alone, is the real reason for the moderate-conservative trend in government legislation.
The argument that the Dems had 60 votes against the filibuster in 2009-2010 of course also completely discounts that those 60 votes included many “moderate-conservative” Blue Dogs who seldom if ever championed any progressive legislation and at least one (all that was needed in the face of solid GOP voting blocs) would always vote to filibuster progressive bills, such as the public option. Lieberman, et al.
So in fact, the three branches of the federal government more closely resemble the self-identification of the people (moderate-conservative majorities) much more than resemble the progressive stances favoured in polls on singular issues, whether rightly or wrongly. I’m not saying ideally that is how it should be, its is what it is (prima facie).
Thus, blaming the political realities (the reality of the self-labelling delusion, if you want to call it that) on Obama and then deciding to cast a third party protest vote against him, is escapism, or scapegoating because the central problem for progressives in our corrupt republican form of majority rule, is the reality that 76% self-labelled moderate-conservative versus the 21% self-labelled liberal is reflected in our elected representation enough to skew the government to the right.
I won’t even get started on the way the two Senators for every state regardless of population further skews the govt. to the right, since liberals control fewer, bigger states while moderates-conservatives control more smaller states.
Well then, if the choice is merely between two conservatives… I certainly would prefer the elegant, cool, wisecracking, jive-assed, spade conservative to a phoney, tight-assed, white-bread, Mormon conservative.
Purely a matter of taste, mind you: to each his own.
Right, people self-identify to a label so the pols have to act according to the stereotype of that label rather than address the issues as the people want them addressed. Poor helpless pols.
If we’re down to the 60 vote filibuster whine, Pretending Recociliation Doesn’t Exist, not to mention executive orders, and David once again undermines any credibility by reminding us that this is all a big joke to him, I guess I’m done too.
Is that humor? If so, stick to your day job.
It is a big joke… but if the Supreme Court isn’t changed, the joke is on you.