Democrats Face 200 million Republican War Chest Without the Strong Allies They Should Have

I hope the Ds collapse sooner rather than later. At least then we won’t hear “They’ve got no place else to go” anymore.

I mean, how does anyone unsell themselves out?

I’m sure that “progressive” D enables are busy concocting a new Liberal Totem figure (Grayson, now that Kucinich used himself up by prancing about the House floor whipping for HCR) but sensible people will pay no attention to this.

ACORN is gone? That’s news to me. Last time I checked it had just changed its name.

Also, last time I checked Wall Street have given much more money to Democrats that Republicans. Why? Heck if I know.

Democrats have always made a play for corporate money. That is nothing new. Elections are won with money (unless you are in North Carolina Democratic Primary). “Grassroots” efforts are not free.

The political cycle in this country is similar to the business cycle. For close to a decade the Democrats were incompetent buffoons. They were masters of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. After Bill Clinton left office there was quite a gap in political talent. Gore and Kerry were so stiff you had to place a mirror under their noses to make sure they were still alive.

The problem now is that with the election of Obama they became too complacent. It had been so long since they were in the White House that they got cocky. They reminded me of the bully who beat up the physically and mentally disabled kid. Oh well, I guess we will have the Republicans back in office soon enough. All I want is some fiscal conservatism.

Joe Manatee

Of course, Obama is still the only electoral wagon going. Anyone got another candidate or party ready? No? I see some people are going to turn their noses up at any “Liberal Totem”, because Favreau *sob*, that’s what…

…and in the meantime the result of disenchantment with the Democrats is at best case fewer Democrats, which means more Republicans. Because you’ve got no other place to go, do you now.

It’s not too much of a stretch into the domain of sarcastic hyperbole to say that the only thing anyone needs to know about American partisan politics is that both Republican and Democratic strategists are equally committed to the common goal of electing as many Republicans as possible.

There aren’t that many other explanations for why the only play on the Democratic book is to unload both barrels into their own feet at every opportunity.

That is why the US is a Republic and not a Democracy. That is why initially only white male property owners could vote. That is why we have the electoral college system, which actually was not even tied to votes in the state, it was completely up to the discretion of the elector.

Except, if your priority is representing the interests of ordinary citizens, that is even more susceptible to corruption. In fact, it may be corrupt by definition.

Mandos, what do you mean nowhere “else” to go? Is that a joke?

Nope, you can either choose not to vote and live with Republican inevitability, [Kodos and Kang]waste your vote[/Kodos and Kang] and vote for a third party, or vote for a Democrat. That’s because the Republicans really are worse. Certainly, if you disapprove of Citizens United, you also necessarily believe that Republicans are worse.

The problem is that there is a large portion of the population that is willing to vote for the worst Republicans. That is a dead weight on the political spectrum and probably outweighs any other Overton Window effect.

Mandos,

You know that the point of that Simpsons sketch with Kane and Kodos was the guy threatening to vote for a third party, right?

It’s high time that people start throwing away their vote, since that’s what the legacy parties do with them as soon as they’re counted anyway.

Poor mandos. As usual, the opportunity cost of engagement is simply too high.

Six years is a blink of an eye. It’s three elections at most—against processes that are 40 years old. This is all about impatience, then? Like “NOW NOW NOW”? And for that, we are to throw up our hands, let the worst case scenarios happen (and we are definitely not yet at the worst case), and “release energy from our hands”.

That’s not just asinine, that’s repugnant.

If “The People” had their act together, Roberts and Alito would have very little opportunity to exploit gaping holes for their own overreaching purposes.

Bingo. There is no Constitutional obstacle to electing a legislature, and heck, an executive that will do all the things that need to be done. If The People wanted to do so, they could fill the legislature with an army of Ralph Nader clones. The Senate would take six years, but the House only one election.

Sorry for the double post, but Mandos, I think you’re making a mistake thinking the problem is regular people in places like Texas. What do you have against them anyway, you don’t even know them? Meanwhile, you’re missing the obvious, Rahm today telling Wall Street they should support Democrats based on their actions, not their words. There’s your problem, not in the South where some schmucks are voting “against their class interests” (aka, just like all of us who voted for Obama).

white southerners will never vote Democratic/black again in anyone’s lifetime. the Republican/White vote will stay that way. to think otherwise is naivete, and why we have BP running the Government’s oil policy.
there is no difference in D and R in the Congress. so blabber all you want. i hope the D’s lose big time this election. get the collapse over with, no more playing lipservice to fantasies about the “common/little folks.’

the southern white has always hated Government since the Civil War. being from the South, i know.
what amazes me is how southern whites always and i mean ALWAYS vote against their own self interest, they are so easily led.

the con job on America is so complete. it is so sad and predictable, though. the only good will come the fall is complete.
voting Democratic will only delay the inevitable. to think otherwise is a “faith Based reality,” like the Republicans.

i hope the Democrats who think there is a difference will wise up, but i won’t hold my breath.

stupid is as stupid does. and god how i hate that line, but for the white Southerner it is so so VERY TRUE!!!

Er, I grow squash, too, besides tomatoes. You know why? Because I want to guarantee I’ll be able to eat in the winter. And I should have a couple of months canned, in case GS manipulates the fuel prices again. Some people call that a “hobby.” Then again, they would.

Blizzard writes:

If you’re talking about core Republican voters, those were nearly extinct, remember, before Obama and the Democrats resurrected them with their general awfulness.

Actually, it wasn’t just the Ds awfulness that rebuilt the R brand — it was a deliberate policy. There’s no other way, operationally, to interpret The Big O’s* constant calls for bipartisanship than that the Rs were worth listening to, had some good ideas, yadda yadda yadda.

So today’s “progressive” yammering about “Look! Over there! Sarah Palin!” leaves me a bit cold, since they were the ones who did so much to help Obama resurrect the R brand in the first place.

NOTE Canadians, note Montreal reference.

Kang and Kodos are only “right” because most people don’t want to “throw away” their vote.

I know a lot of very conservative people, and for every GOP, right or wrong type there is at least one other who’s conservative but just plain pissed that the GOP really isn’t…that it doesn’t represent them. Basically all the same things that progs/libs/Dems complain about.

Everybody’s working under the “well this is slightly better than that” voting procedure.

It would only take one cycle to really shake things up, and all it would take is for everyone who’s pissed off (from both sides of the proverbial aisle) to “throw away their vote”. Returns would prove that if lots of people throw away their vote then the individual votes aren’t thrown away. And it is the only thing capable of putting the fear of god into the current political set.

lambert,

For sure. I consider voting to be a responsibility. (And i’m pretty well convinced that if everyone eligible voted in every election we’d have far fewer problems with our politicians.)

I wish that there was always a NOTA option, but i’m good with voting third party or writing in a candidate. I prefer to vote that way and generally do so. The difference for me now is that i’m done with voting against the GOP. (which ends up being a vote for the Dems)

Voting the Democrats out will have consequences for Democrats. The only question is whether those consequences are severe enough to persuade the leaders of the Democratic Party to change.

If the past 30 years history is any guide, then I doubt it. It took three presidential election losses by three candidates that I think we can safely say were more liberal/progressive than Obama (namely, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis) to bring about the emergence of the DLC and Clinton, with their move to the “third way” (republican-lite). If Clinton had lost in ’92, the democrats might still be putting up liberal/progressive candidates as their standard bearer. Clinton won twice and Obama lied his way to a win with a pretty substantial majority. The Democrats look at that record and reasonably ask liberals/progressives, “What have you got?”

Moral: Defeats don’t change parties’ directions (even three in a row). Wins do.

It will take a primary challenge and a win against a sitting president (remember, President Johnson dropped out) to convince the democrats that the country’s population wants them to enact liberal/progressive solutions. There are lots of poll results that say the population wants this, but elections will need to be won.

Are there any liberal/progressive governors out there that anyone wants to put forward to challenge Obama? (The country has shown that it prefers to elect governors to the presidency over any other office holder. Obama is the first senator since Kennedy, and his opponent was also a senator, so the country didn’t have a choice but to elect a senator.)

It really is amazing how few Americans actually support either party –

Sixty-four percent of all Americans say they like the idea of a third party that would run against the Democrats and Republicans. But only 38 percent would support a third party if its presence on the ballot would mean that the winning candidate is one that disagrees with them on most major issues. According to the poll, Tea Party activists feel the same way: Only 4 in 10 favor a third party that would result in the election of candidates they don’t like.

So, basically, a majority of Americans aren’t all that happy with either party and almost 40% would welcome a third party even if it meant the winning candidate disagrees with them. That sounds like a pretty decent segment of the population is pissed at both the GOP and Dems to me.

I think this also undermines Mandos’ point that abandoning Democrats means the Rs will always win because of a core group of voters will always support them. There seem to be an awful lot of Americans willing to abandon BOTH parties. The problem is that ballot access, media, money, etc., makes that hard to do effectively. But hard is not the same thing as impossible.

I would also note the significant social change has almost never come about simply by voting and it’s that model that’s failing us. Politicians do what the public wants when they’re scared of the public. Part of that is voting (and volunteering and donating), but a lot of that is other kinds of civil disobedience. Large protests may be a thing of the past in this country, thanks to a lot of reasons, including the increasing personal risks, but there are still ways large groups of people can inflict pain if they choose to (like organized moves of money, etc.). The issue is how to organize such movements. That requires, IMO, to a large degree removing the issue of D v. R to get around tribal loyalties and focus on the real issues.

This, btw, is why “right-wing” activists are so much more effective at pressuring Rs than left-wing activists are pressuring Ds. The Chamber of Commerce and NRA are happy to have Rs who don’t agree with them lose. They couldn’t care less. They care only about their issues. You’d never have the NRA do what abortion rights group did and go along with a healthcare plan because it’s generally “good” even though it screws them on their one issue. Which is why Congress is scared shitless of the NRA and couldn’t care less about NARAL.

Bernard:

Do feel free to propagate “The Big O” — I’m envisaging a parody of the Obama campaign’s now-shopworn branding. Possibly the business end of an oil pipe with crude bubbling out of it. Airbrushed, and with Gotham type, of course.

NOTE Canadians will recognize the reference to Montreal’s Olympic stadium, which, for those of us in The Great Republic To The South, was a boondoggle of the first order, fabulously expensive (“The Big Owe”) and — bonus points! — ended up carpeted with famously bad AstroTurf (hat tip, David Axelrod).

I’m not sure where the uniquely engineered retractable roof fits into the metaphor; that’s the roof that, during high winds, led to rain delays in a covered stadium. Maybe that’s the “hope and change” part?

anon2525 writes:

Moral: Defeats don’t change parties’ directions (even three in a row). Wins do.

Nonsense. Failure brings change. Wins confirm that things are going well. The Democrats kept the White House, so they tell themselves, by being like the DLC. When they were out of power, they let Howard Dean fix things, then tossed him out. Repeated or prolonged failure will eventually make them change their minds, but it could take a while.

The one sure thing is that keeping these Democrats in power will only continue the present course. Until they are out of power, there’s no chance of change, because that power allows them to keep it from happening.

Good luck with that primary thing. The only thing standing between you and the successful completion of this plan is finding someone courageous, savvy, charismatic, and yet progressive enough to take on the head of his party, and $100 million or so to get him started.

Even with the help of unions, Bill Halter couldn’t win against Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas. That link should demonstrate just how arrogant and out of touch his opponents were, and he had as much financing as he could use. He still lost.

Good luck with that primary thing. The only thing standing between you and the successful completion of this plan is finding someone courageous, savvy, charismatic, and yet progressive enough to take on the head of his party, and $100 million or so to get him started.

I’m skeptical that there is such a person in the entire country, whether she or he is a current officeholder or not, because if that person existed we ought to have heard from him by now. He or she should be out making public statements criticizing Obama&company now, not waiting until the primary period. If such a person emerges only near primary season, I’ll doubt that she or he is genuine because someone who is genuinely progressive should be speaking out now against all that is going on.

To give one example, Obama should have responded to the recent court ruling that Ian Welsh wrote about concerning the illegality of working with organizations that have been designated as terrorist groups by the state dept. He should have come out and proposed a change in the law, but he did not. Where is the politician in this country who did come out and propose that the law be changed?

Defeats didn’t change the New Deal democrats.

Strawman argument. I’m talking about organizations, not people. The thought that also applies to individuals is that they will only change when things are bad for them. Politicians with power are harder to fight than politicians who don’t have power. The fact that Rumsfeld is still an asshole doesn’t change any of that.

From anon2525:

Moral: Defeats don’t change parties’ directions (even three in a row). Wins do.

Yes! Give the anonymous entity a prize! Almost no one sitting in office is there because he/she/it has to be there. Even without the Retroactive Implicit Bribe that is so prevalent these days, there’s still a lot more lucrative things most of them could have been doing. All this talk of defeats, extracting prices, political withdrawal etc. from the Dimestore Marxists and destructive political nihilists leads away from what actually motivates politicians: how to make it feasible to stay in their positions and/or advance.

Now just after the very first election, the political constituency most in need of a strateg(er)y to sustain political careers is evidently about to jump ship (we’ll see soon enough how much of it is empty blather), being unable to hold it together even for a full presidential term. NOW NOW NOW? And people expect…what…to rise from the ashes? Other than tomatoes and squash… I mean, we still care about things other than tomatoes and squash, I’m assuming.

It will take a primary challenge and a win against a sitting president (remember, President Johnson dropped out) to convince the democrats that the country’s population wants them to enact liberal/progressive solutions. There are lots of poll results that say the population wants this, but elections will need to be won.

Let me tell you this: what people say on policy polls really doesn’t translate to behaviour at the voting booth in any direct way. I knew out-and-out leftists (by stated views) that voted Tory in Canada out of habit, back in the Mulroney days. It’s not that different in the USA. It’s a marketing thing. It will take some attempt to understand the wishy-washy sorts of “values” and indecisions and private fears and loyalties that people hold.

Whoever manages to do that will be the most likely progressive candidate to be elected to office.

What does this have to do with anything?

You brought it up.

There were definitely people lefter than many of the candidates at all levels for several primary and general elections. Guess what: they didn’t get elected

Of those, how many did the D party establishment support? How many did the D party establishment actively oppose?

Of those, how many did the establishment media openly mock? Ignore?
How many did the savvy leftish bloggers denigrate? You can’t vote for him, he doesn’t stand a chance! It’s a wasted vote. Etc.

Mandos – just for grins, is there _anything_ the Ds could do that would cause you to stop voting and advocating for them?

It certainly isn’t targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens, false imprisonment and maltreatment and/or torture, cutting social security, medicare, unemployment benefits, education and much more, funneling vast amounts of public money to various big businesses, punishing whistleblowers, telling big lies, doing the opposite of what’s promised, (at least) soft censorship, etc. and so forth.

Anything?

Ian – it certainly comes across that way. Maybe he’ll tell us.

Of course, for any level of bad, there’s always worse, so this is very easy to game.

I wonder if Mandos is representative of the comfortable “creative class” voters who like to pretend they care about others but in fact are just trying to preserve their piece of the pie.

What I find particularly galling is that the Ds are implementing the Rs agenda in a way and to an extent the Rs couldn’t. So, in fact, they aren’t even different, in substance at least, though they do add an extra thick layer of deception.

I realize it’s probably futile, but I’m trying to get my head around how a non-troll could knowingly support that which they vehemently insist they oppose, simply by whipping out the well-worn boogeyman device. It does not compute, so to speak.

As for the famous tomatoes and squash that Mandos hates so much: Not only are they good to eat, not only does eating real vegetables help recapture the sense of taste and weaken the corporate food chain, and not only is growing one’s own food a very reasonable skill to learn these days, but the gift relationships they enable have made my local network much more solid. Of course, I could have used the money to buy an Obama commemorative plate. I guess I must not understand politics.

* * *

I don’t know who Mandos is. But I know what Mandos is.

Mandos is the kind of person who, when a blogger who depends on contributions for readers holds a fundraiser to pay his bills and his property taxes, advises others not to donate, because he disagrees with that blogger’s views.

Mandos couldn’t remain silent, in live and let live fashion. Oh no. If others had followed Mandos’s advice — as I think it’s becoming obvious that they should never, ever do — that blogger would have lost their house. Mandos’s good deed for the day!

And that’s what Mandos’s “progressivism” — and the D party’s generally — comes down to: Vicious hypocrisy kicking downward.

That’s a good parable for why the legacy parties should be destroyed. Mandos manifests precisely the set of attitudes that culminates in the Cat Food Commission, permanently higher unemployment, and all of that.

Vicious hypocrisy kicking downward.

Morally and intellectually bankrupt Ds:

[AXELROD:] “[T]here is some argument for additional spending in the short-run to continue to generate economic activity.”

With unemployment at 10%, according to the faked official figures, as far as the eye can see. Look! Over there! Sarah Palin!

Why do anything for the Ds when they don’t do anything for you? Or when what they do actually hurts you? (See under, “Cat Food Commission).

I highly appreciate the “legacy party” moniker, in fact. It’s like a kind of written and signed cheque. It now needs to be cashed but I’ve not seen evidence that there’s enough to cover it in the bank account. Wonder what the returned cheque processing fee is like.

Precisely WHAT Legacy is being spoken of? The legacy does no longer exist, the land has been raped, the seas poisoned and raped as well – fish-stocks only 20% (or less) intact, only monopolists controlling all economic markets and Social Security held bonds remain. The monopolists will collapse with their markets, their great accumulated wealth not worth more than the paper it is printed on. The tidal wave form their collapse will carry what remains before it away. There is no legacy boys, it got spent on lead soldiers and drums and beer-soaked celebrations; we the legators being of “sound” minds have chosen the comforts of illusion, the eases of delusion, the companies of belief eschewing the hardships of understanding, of fact, of history, of science, of intellect. The legacy that is expected does not exist.

It really matters not whether ones choices lead, power and those who exercise power are corrupted, the edifices from which power was projected are corrupted to their foundations, unsound and unable to weather the slightest storm. Seek shelter there if you will, their illusion of shelter will be as protective as being in the elements with none, none shall profit by staying and many will be caught in their collapse, there are no insurances issued for what the future holds. The survivors will be those who can bend with the winds of adversity, can adopt, can learn, can extend their horizons and can remember their humanity. For those who cannot adopt or are as mighty oaks will be swept away, the quick remains soon to envy the dead.

As far as checks being cashed, I’d say the Ds wrote a big fat check to the voters in 2008, and it bounced right over the moon (see the above two quotes on unemployment).

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that people are thinking twice about taking the D check again. So let’s extend the check riff as a rich metaphor:

When you’ve done work for somebody or performed a service for them, and they’ve bounced a check on you, you’ve got at least two options: (a) cash it again and hope it clears, or (b) write the check off, and assume it will never be honored. In case (a), the check writer made a mistake, has RL issues, charity should be extended, and so on. In case (b), you’re dealing with a deadbeat. In case (a), the good outcome is that the check will ultimately cover the needs for which you had dedicated it (food, shelter, fuel, and so forth) — with some friction as you can’t buy enough food, or you don’t have hot water for a few days, and so forth. In case (b), there is no good outcome. The needs the check was to meet must be postponed or abandoned, and one doesn’t do business with the deadbeat again. One also raises the alarm about the deadbeat, so they don’t prey on others.

So, what about the recommendation that I invest time, energy, or money with the D[eadbeat]s in 2010, and assume that they’ll honor their check this time? I guess that depends on how I assess the risk, right? Think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

If I’ve got food and shelter covered, and I’m into self-actualization, at the top of the pyramid, and if I invest with the Ds, and they bounce their check again, all I’ve lost is a little ego.

But if I don’t have food and shelter covered, and I invest with the Ds, and they bounce their check again, then the opportunity cost is whatever I could do that would have guaranteed food and shelter.

That’s very risky, at least for some. To me, it makes more sense to invest in learning survival skills, like growing my own food. Certainly that was useful to many in Great Depression I, as well as during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

* * *

The “lesser evil” argument assumes the Ds and the Rs are two entities, between whom we choose. In fact, they are a single entity, and so there is no “lesser evil” at all. There are issues of timing, personnel, and policy detail — not to mention tribal markers — but the nature and scope of the evil is the same no matter what the supposed choice may be. (I mean, whoever thought that a D would normalize torture? Would normalize the assassination of US citizens? Would set up the Cat Food Commission? Would normalize 10% unemployment? And on and on and on.)

I freely grant that I don’t know what a post-D/R system would look like. Then again, I don’t imagine that anybody knew what a post-Whig system would look like, either.

Uhm…Democrats bounced a check in 2000 when they did not go to the mat for Gore…Democrats bounced a check in the spool-up to the Iraq Invasion…Democrats bounced a check in 2006 [list is too long to be specific]…Democrats bounced a check in 2008 [list is too long to be specific].

Democrats bouncing checks is a definable pattern since 1995.

The best alternative I see is to put the party on the street en mass until they go back to FDR, LBJ, IKE, JFK policies.

I tossed IKE in there, because he successfully governed as a FDR Democrat

Mandos eloquently evinces learned helplessness:

sure there’s a point at which I’d advocate not voting for the Democrats. That’s when another party exists that has a chance of winning the balance of power in Congress.

If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.

In other words, by continuing to recommend one legacy party as an option, he reinforces the legacy party system that prevents new alternatives from developing.

The first step is to walk away. Other steps must follow, but that’s the first one.

anon2525,

This is wrong:

“I’m skeptical that there is such a person in the entire country, whether she or he is a current officeholder or not, because if that person existed we ought to have heard from him by now. He or she should be out making public statements criticizing Obama& company now, not waiting until the primary period. If such a person emerges only near primary season, I’ll doubt that she or he is genuine because someone who is genuinely progressive should be speaking out now against all that is going on.”

Because it looks at what people say, NOT what they do.

Obama claims to have spoken out against the Iraq Invasion 2002 and yet nobody heard “the speech” until he recorded “the speech” in a studio 5 years later using an “audience soundtrack” for the 2008 election.

Whether “the speech”Obama “gave” was fraud, farce or fact matters not, because Obama supported every war funding vote as a Senator, his 4 escalations of the AF-Pak to impose the Karsi government should come as no surprise, because words are just that…words.

Democrats are Republicans who candy coat the corporate poison, before shoving it down our throats, while Republicans just shove it down our throat. This is the “better than” Mandos talks about, Dems are gentle murders, Republicans are not.

That is why Mandos advice is drivel, it’s far easier to stop the obvious murderer than the devious murderer.

Democrats are the devious murderer of the USA as we once knew it. People who support Democrats at this point are complicit, whether they do it out of a sense of whoredom, or venality matters little, whether commit the murder with panache, or vulgarity matters little. Mandos whole argument comes down to: “Democrats are far more stylish murders”.

Yeah, great argument, now lets talk about how many angel can dance on a pin’s head.

Mandos – your answer was, in effect, no. I’m not shocked, or surprised. You speak of not having alternatives, but you come across as satisfied with the Ds – as if they protect your interests with more of a cultural affinity than the Rs (their policies are substantively the same.)

You say you have nothing against gardening and yet you mocked it earlier in this thread, along with trotting out the Marxist bugaboo. You _are_ a slippery character. Just like the Ds you shill for/are part of. What a surprise. (BTW, can you confirm lambert strether’s allegation that you tried to discourage others from contributing to him?)

Ian, you say the “lesser evil” has to be dealt with. That was true a few years ago. Today it seems that, if anything, the Ds may be worse because when they are in power there is no opposition to R policies. I’m not saying that things in the country couldn’t be worse. In fact, they could be, and in the current trajectory probably will be, _much_ worse. It’s just that Rs in power with Ds in (putative) opposition may be that “lesser evil” (which I don’t support either). There remain cultural and institutional impediments to depraved politicians acting with complete abandon (though they are slowly being removed.)

The risk of letting the Ds go and creating a fertile ground for a replacement is minimal, while the upside is huge (including peaceful change). On the other hand, continuing the current two party two-step has huge risk with minimal upside.

While I was always disgusted at the DINO’s, I too thought they were/are the lesser of two evils. However, this “I’ll show them” type attitude is only as good for as long as you’re in the voting booth. And a GOP take-over of the House and/or Senate, and/or a Romney-Barbour victory in 2012 scares the crap out of me. It’s like choosing between dirt and poison.

But I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In order to change Washington, you need to change minds. And after what the Republican mantra of “less government”, “lower taxes” and “deregulation” (which Dems went along with) did to the country (see Wall St., see health care, see coal mines, see the Gulf of Mexico), you’d think the Democrats would finally – finally! – scream from the rooftops, telling the country just how how wrong the right had been. And capitalize from it.

But Obama and the Dems didn’t do that. Quite the contrary, in fact. While the GOP went further right, Obama and the Dems tagged along. Opportunity lost.

Democrats aren’t going to change unless, and until, they begin to stand up for themselves, realize their in a street fight with a nasty, nasty conservative movement and begin to prove them wrong. But good luck with that when the Dems pass a health care bill that’s “market-based,” and gives more power and throws more money at private industry.

The right has done an excellent job at propagandizing their incessant fear of liberals when there is no liberal movement in the country. It would be like Rush Limbaugh conning someone in Miami to fear snow. We’ve moved so far right — and keep moving right despite the “Democrats” winning in 2006 and 2008 — that there is no left anymore. Whatever left there is, even Democrats like Obama and Rahn Emmanual roll their eyes at it. There’s your problem right there.

In order to get anywhere, we have to re-build the left, stop the insane sprint to the right, turn around and head left. But good luck trying to convince Obama and the DINO’s that. And, again, THAT’S the problem.

In order to get anywhere, we have to re-build the left, stop the insane sprint to the right, turn around and head left. But good luck trying to convince Obama and the DINO’s that.

This is (one of?) the debate(s), above. It is my contention that Obama&DINOs cannot be convinced that they are wrong by defeating democrats (leaving republicans in their place). In order to have change, they and any office holder can only be replaced with someone who thinks differently (yes, there are exceptions). Only winning seats changes minds because it exchanges people for people who think differently. People, by and large, do not change. Don’t base any political strategy on changing their minds. (Are you prepared to change your mind and join the Young (or Old) republicans?)

From recent political history:
– Democrats lose executive branch in Virginia and New Jersey (Nov. 2009)
– Democrats lose Kennedy’s former seat in the senate (Jan. 2010)

Did losing those offices make the democrats think “Hmm…we lost to right-wing politicians…maybe the population wants us to move toward left/liberal/progessive solutions and policies?” The (very) day that the democrats lost Kennedy’s former seat, Obama announces that he’s establishing a commission to “study” the federal deficit. In the weeks following, he changes nothing in his legislation to protect the medical services industry. In the months following, he and his minions (lackeys?) prevent any legislation from reforming the “financial services industry.”

The most optimistic result I am able to come up with for 2010, given the restrictions of the two-party system, ballot restrictions, and so on, is that all republican incumbents up for election are defeated and an identical number of democrats are defeated. This would bring in new democrats and new republicans. Only new people are potentially going to change the direction that the gov’t. is going. The current office holders have shown that they cannot and will not change it.

Cujo writes:

You’re afraid of the Republicans for what they might do? I’m afraid of Democrats for what they have done, and what they’ve said they’ll do. And frankly, the two sound remarkably the same to me.

Ding!

Frankly, I don’t see why I should let Lambert move the goalposts: “Supreme Court” is a complete answer given the American political system.

But we’ll let him get away with it for the sake of argument:

1. That the Ds and the Rs are two entities, and not one; and

I mean, this is just silliness. They run candidates against one another. You even have a say in which candidates they run against one another. Isn’t that the point?

Of course, it could be some enormous coordinated conspiracy in which everything is consciously rigged from top to bottom. That 50% of all candidates are throwing the election to the other candidate. The political nihilist/crypto-PUMA component of the American left as represented by Lambert practically depends on this being the case, as it’s really the only way you could seriously call them one entity.

But if you believe that, we are simply in different factual universes.

2. How, exactly, one of the two entities is, in fact, less evil than the other.

How many examples do you want? My own favorite is the very fact that there was a health care bill; but obviously I don’t expect this to fly with this crowd, having argued it before. What about the deepwater drilling moratorium that a judge just blocked? With Jindal firmly against such things, do you think that a Republican administration would even have tried?

Let’s see where the goalposts are now.

You say you have nothing against gardening and yet you mocked it earlier in this thread, along with trotting out the Marxist bugaboo. You _are_ a slippery character. Just like the Ds you shill for/are part of. What a surprise. (BTW, can you confirm lambert strether’s allegation that you tried to discourage others from contributing to him?)

There’s a long history to all of these references that may give you that impression.

The “Marxist bugaboo” wasn’t about Marxism as such, it was about what Sir Charles calls “Dimestore Marxism”: http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2009/12/more-vitriol-toward-my-fellow-lefties.html

The mockery of gardening is a reference not to gardening as such, but Lambert’s alleged “quietist and localist” ideological alternative he uses as an alibi to spit on the rest of the liberal blogosphere as Traitors To The People, because he has no constructive alternative.

I was wracking my brain to figure out what Lambert was referring to (I mean, he’s one to talk about “vicious hypocrisy,” does he really want to go there?), but I think he’s talking about this, which I dug out after some searching. Ian promoted one of Lambert’s blegs, and I suggested that the money be spent better elsewhere, as did Carolyn Kay, a former Corrente regular who got purged from the site (full disclosure, as did I, here).

Lambert, you must remember, constructed his current “brand” by whining piteously about the awful treatment he got from the dKos troikas—and in the service of his brand—essentially did the same thing in one way or another to some of Corrente’s Senior Fellows. There’s lots of people with mortgages and some of us don’t even have the privilege of a mortgage…and better things for people to do with their money than to support Lambert’s “brand”.

It’s hard to tell if Mandos is ignorant, or a liar take:

“The American left was strongest in recent times at the end of the Clinton era.”

As I recall, the Democrats won back congress in 2006, not because of any positive actions on their part, but because they promised to end the war…which they made no attempt to do once they were seated. The American left was completely muzzled in 2000 while the media’s “left” columnists tore Gore a new A-hole. In 2003 “the new left”…say….Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, Matt Y, Ezra K etc… made very sophisticated arguments for invading Iraq and supporting Bush’s foreign policies. Being idiotically mainstream worked out well for them personally, but wreaked havoc and got over million people killed.

I’m afraid not Mandos, whether you’re a liar, or a useful idiot “The American left was weakest…at the end of the Clinton era.” as “left” bloggers supporting war crimes will attest.

I’m going to have to separate the Mandos hurlage into two steaming piles. In the first pile, I’ll deal with his analysis, such as it is. In the second, I’ll deal with the personalia. That the first pile is so pitifully small, and the second so ever-growing, is an interesting data point, eh?

* * *

Analysis

First, on whether there’s any significant difference between the two parties, I said “show me” on policy, and listed 12 substantive areas where the Ds, er, might as well be the Bush adminstration, except without the competence. (And I don’t know what other outcome anybody expected, given that bipartisanship has been one of Obama’s few explicitly stated goals from the very beginning of his resistable rise).

Hilariously, Mandos starts out by asking “How many examples do you want?” to which the obvious rejoinder would be “More than one!” since 1 (count ’em, one) is all he could come up with! Unable to defend his “very own favorite,” HCR — for Mandos, apparently, it’s enough that there be a program, not that it actually help anyone, typical “progressive” — Mandos falls back on a rhetorical question: What about the deepwater drilling moratorium that a judge just blocked? Well, what about it? This is the big example that’s supposed to show how different the Ds are from the Rs? I’d rest my case, except it’s so much fun watching a D apologist try to defend itself.

So much for policy. Now we turn to the systems. With irony that sits in the stomach like lead, Mandos writes: “I mean, this is just silliness. They run candidates against one another. You even have a say in which candidates they run against one another.” What a blow was there given! (At this point, allow me to recommend that analysts read this relatively optimistic view of the legacy party system from SMBIV: The ratchet effect.) First, one word: “kabuki.” Second, we’re talking a system here. That the two parties give every evidence of hating each other (except when they’re giving each other reacharounds on K Street) is no evidence at all that they don’t function as a single entity. A dysfunctional family that fights all the time is still a single entity, for example. Finally, as to charge of “conspiracy theory,” who said actors in a system had to consciously communicate in order for systemic effects to be created? Well, mandos seems to think that, but that’s only because he’s setting up a CT straw man. (See, for example, the notion of emergent conspiracy.)

Next, the Supreme Court, which Mandos regards as “a complete answer given the American political system.” Really? If that’s true, than Mandos believes it always makes sense to vote for any D, because at some point in the future the Ds might nominate better judges — for some unexplained definition of “better.” Of course, both Roberts and Alito were confirmed with D votes, and above all with no filibusters, so if the Court is the “complete answer,” it apparently became so only recently. More importantly, the Court is only “the complete answer” when the rule of law functions, which at the national level it simply does not (see examples in list above).

Finally, Mandos seems to have some sort of problem with “localist quietism” — as opposed to being a trans-national troll, I suppose. You can read the post he’s reacting to here. Mandos — and I know this will surprise you — has distorted the post in his quotation. I wrote “This post may strike some [and seems to have struck Mandos] as quietist, pessimistic, or even defeatist,” and you, readers, may judge that for yourselves. From 30,000 feet: The starting point is a post by Ian that points to the dominance of the rentiers and rent-seeking behavior. (Mandos’s “very own favorite,” HCR, is a fine example of this dominance, since the Ds ended up reinforcing the centrality of the health insurance companies, which are nothing but rent-seekers.) What kind of outcomes can we expect from such a system? Ian posits three: Revolution, reform, and collapse (a la Jared Diamond). If Mandos thinks that revolution is in the cards, I invite him to make the case; what seems clear to me is that reform isn’t in the cards either. (If it were, surely Mandos, as Lion Of The Ds, would be able to come up with a better best example of D goodness than a drilling moratorium that got struck down in court?!) That leaves collapse. (And those of us on the economic margins are probably more sensitive to that possibility than those who are not.)

Well, if collapse is the likely outcome, then it makes absolutely no sense to invest anything with the (unreformable) Ds. The only thing that does make sense is to plan for your and your neighbors’s survival — even an environment of permanently higher unemployment is going to be rough, and things could get rougher than that. That, to me, means growing your own food, establishing a strong local network (“when the trucks stop”), doing as much as possible to reduce one’s carbon footprint, and in general taking actions that come under the heading of sustainability and resilience. It also means denying the rentiers, our parasites, the rents they bleed from us. The opportunity cost of investing time and/or money with the Ds could be some part of what it takes to survive. Is the cost worth it? Perhaps to some. Not to me.

And let’s suppose that I’m too pessimistic. Let’s suppose that enough us walking away inflicts enough pain on the Ds — as Atrios has said, that’s the only thing that politicians understand, besides money — so that Mandos and his buddies manage to reform their party. (A jobs guarantee would be a good start, but it’s unlikely. See the iron law of institutions.) All the steps I’m advocating seem like a pretty good life, to me. Better food, tighter neighborhoods, less oil, less corporate crapola in general. Very far from being an “alibi,” as Mandos would have it.

Finally, we do indeed need to listen for the emergence of a third pole in American politics. That’s another of the many reasons why it’s important to walk away from the Ds, lest the yammering of Mandos and all the other D apologists says drown out what we need to listen for.

Personalia

Given the time Mandos allocates to smear artistry, that’s what really floats his little boat. Perhaps he should set up his own hate site! Kidding!

First, I’ll try to address the issues that pertain to my small role in the primary wars of 2008, to make sure the record is straight; then, I’ll address the issue of moderation policy at Corrente; and finally, I’ll address Mandos’s vicious hypocrisy.

Primary wars

…by whining piteously about the awful treatment he got from the dKos troikas …. I think that anybody who was down in the trenches of The Obama 527 Known As Daily Kos during the 2008 primaries knows what the truth is here. Suffice to say that I wasn’t the only one.

… crypto-PUMA component of the American left as represented by Lambert… Ah yes, the PUMA hate. I must be the only PUMA in the world to have been moderated at the Confluence! (Two years later, I think Violet has the best summing up of the PUMA phenomenon.)

… branding… I don’t know what Mandos is on about here. I suppose that an online persona could be considered a brand, with a broad definition. If so, anybody with an online persona has one, including Mandos. And so what? Apparently, I only got around to creating my brand in 2008. If so, I was remarkably slow about it, since I’ve been blogging, pretty much 24/7, since 2003. Ah yes, 2003. When we actually thought Bush was the enemy. Happy, innocent days.

Moderation policies

Corrente’s moderation policies are here. In part, they evolved exactly because of the diffculties of moderating during the primaries.

1. Mandos was banned from Corrente for being a troll. This should surprise nobody who’s reading this thread, nor should it have surprised Mandos, since he’s been banned elsewhere.

2. Kay was banned from Corrente because she persisted in dumping the same aggregation that she dumped elsewhere, without regard for whether the aggregate was appropriate for Corrente or not (for example, whether it had already been covered or not. During the primaries, there were also some anti-Obama talking points that I didn’t want used, since they came from the Rs, and that was a feature of PUMA discourse that concerned me. Naive though that was! See the link to Violet above for the history.) After repeated requests, nothing changed. If somebody wants me to edit their work, they can write me a check.

Vicious hypocrisy

As for what Mandos helpfully calls blegging, let me spell it out:

1. I held a fundraiser to pay my bills and property taxes. (That Mandos thinks a mortgage was involved shows — and I know this will surprise you — he hasn’t done his reading.) Corrente is, amazingly enough, one of my main sources of income, and it comes from reader contributions solely. (That’s why it’s especially nice that I don’t depend on the access bloggers for hits!)

2. If the fundraiser had failed, it would have been very hard for me to pay my property taxes. My personal economy is quite marginal. “Hand to mouth” describes my situation well. (Of course, I know that others have worse situations, but this one is the one I have to deal with.)

3. If I had not been able to pay my property taxes, I would have lost the house (one of those basic, Maslow’s hierarchy-of-needs things that the Ds suck so badly at delivering).

4. Ian Welsh helped me with a link. At that point, Mandos could simply have remained silent. Nobody asked him personally to help, and I didn’t expect it. What amazed me then — not now, of course — was that he’d actually recommend that nobody else help.

5. The fundraiser was successful — people, or at least enough people, know better than to listen to Mandos — and on the very last day before I needed to give the town the check, I did so. If I’d come up a few hundred dollars short, or miscalculated between the bills and the taxes, I might well have lost the house.

6. The bottom line is that self-styled leftist Mandos — though doubtless supporting help on housing for poor people in the abstract — is perfectly capable of taking positive action to cause an actual poor person to lose their house, and all (I’m guessing) because he suffered ego damage from being banned.

It’s one thing not to rescue a drowning person. It’s quite another to try to shove them under the water, which is what Mandos did. I call that vicious hypocrisy, and it’s a problem that the D brand has, besides Mandos personally. One of those “as above, so below” things. I’d have let it go, except that Mandos has, with this little episode, encapsulated to beautifully what the Ds have become.

* * *

I apologize for the length, but the steaming piles were so large! No doubt there are more by now. The advantage a troll has is that they can just keep flinging…

As for politics, I said a very long time ago, and in the comments to this blog, and repeatedly enough that Lambert well knows it: that when there is no plan for a replacement—certainly none that Lambert is willing to give us—marginal differences matter. As Big Noam said in 2004:

The urgency is for popular progressive groups to grow and become strong enough so that centres of power can’t ignore them. Forces for change that have come up from the grass roots and shaken the society to its core include the labour movement, the civil rights movement, the peace movement, the women’s movement and others, cultivated by steady, dedicated work at all levels, every day, not just once every four years.

But you can’t ignore the elections. You should recognise that one of the two groups now contending for power happens to be extremist and dangerous, and has already caused plenty of trouble and could cause plenty more.

As for myself, I’ve taken the same position as in 2000. If you are in a swing state, you should vote to keep the worst guys out. If it’s another state, do what you feel is best. There are many considerations. Bush and his administration are publicly committed to dismantling and destroying whatever progressive legislation and social welfare has been won by popular struggles over the past century.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20041029.htm

He remains correct now as then.

Like any troll, when mandos has no response, he simply drops the arguments he makes, and starts a new thread. “Any stick to beat a dog.”

Remember how this thread started? With a whole bunch of hoopla about how different the Ds were from the Rs?

Well, I asked mandos for examples.

And his best one? In fact, his only one?

An offshore drilling moratorium that a judge overturned. That’s it, readers. That’s it.

Weak, and vicious. Typical D apologist.

Or, letting him move the goalposts further, the Lily Ledbetter Act. I mean, he has the audacity to accuse me of everything for which he is himself guilty; but that’s OK, I know his position is held by a majority of readers here.

For everyone else, by the way, for a reasonable discussion of the pros and cons of HCR—and why it’s a difference with the Republicans in the Democratic party’s favour and yet another answer to Lambert’s question—there’s this and both pages of its comments, but of course it’s a bill that a Republican would have passed in the federal Congress with no differences whatsoever nope…

The “other innocent oil companies”??? Are you kidding me?

In case anyone was wondering, I’m not even a member of the Democratic party nor have I ever received any money from any political source, nor have I any professional connection to politics or lobbying or economics. “Whoredom”/”venality” my foot. You want to back up that kind of claim, S Brennan?

Against my better judgement: But I have to hand it to Lambert for his pirouetting skills, and for successfully making a political disagreement into a personal one and detracting from the argument. His original bleg (one in a series) was mostly a PBS-like “support our site” ad. For this I am now Daddy Warbucks ready to repo his house and kick him out on the street. But the people who take him seriously are the people who usually do so, so we’re all OK.

I’m not surprised about your opinion re HCR. We extensively litigated the issue here with myself being very nearly the lone voice in favour of passing it. Suffice it to say that I don’t agree with PHNPs take on it or the politics of it. Discussed extensively on previous threads since Ian covered it very thorougly. I incorrectly linked my last link to Cogitamus. Sorry for the digression into past flamewars with Lambert and that you got more than you bargained for.

I’ve never claimed that Obama is a spectacular improvement. It merely needs to be the case that he’s any improvement, even a rhetorical one.

Mandos – so even a rhetorical “improvement” will suffice. It sounds like you’re now endorsing deception outright (unless you are prepared to argue that the rhetoric was sincere and the opposite action unintentional.)

Ian – setting aside my own possible contribution to the flames (if you consider it that) and FWIW, I have found the personal aspects of this exchange quite different from the run of the mill flame wars in that there was much supporting argumentation rather than empty name calling and vitriol. It came across to me as more of heated exchange and I found it instructive. YMMV, obviously.

On the issue of the 2% less evil Ds, Mandos now has 2 (two) examples how the Ds are, in some essential way, different from the Rs (that is, two entities, rather than one). The first, and presumably best, example was a drilling moratorium that a court struck down. Alrighty then. Now he’s come up with the Lily Ledbetter act. Sure, that’s a good small thing. Relative to the mountain of Bush-like policies that the Ds have implemented, it’s trivial.

Please, can we just let the D party fail as an institution NOW, as it has in fact?

* * *

“He has the audacity to accuse me…” Oh, the humanity!

Actually, no. I built a case, not an accusation, with evidence, reasoning, and links. Not at the same as tu quoque at all, eh?

Actually, no. I built a case, not an accusation, with evidence, reasoning, and links. Not at the same as tu quoque at all, eh?

No, you’re right, it was not a tu quoque. It was a complex morass of other fallacies such as poisoning the well, burden of proof. composition, and so on and so forth. Basically, it’s standard Lambert S.O.P.: take a personal animosity, construct a political theory to justify it, slap a cutesy label, and generalize it to some larger disliked group. “Access blogger”, for example.

That said I know from experience that I’m writing to a crowd that is pretty much wall-to-wall against Obama’s HCR, which is why I was reluctant to use it as an answer to Lambert’s burden-of-proof, goalpost-moving questions even though I think it too, like “Supreme Court” was a complete answer. I know this, because I tilted at that windmill for months.

Please, can we just let the D party fail as an institution NOW, as it has in fact?

And we’re back at square one here. Exactly how not voting for the (D) party will cause it “fail” rather than simply wander further to the right in search of votes leaving not even a vacuum in its wake has never been explained so far. Because talking about this is “strategery”.

The Democrats weren’t able to pass HCR reform before this steaming pile of shit because the Democratic Party just plain sucks. Thirty years of unanswered propaganda from the right, and nary a Dem voice that will A. rally the party and B. tell it like it is.

That’s the crux of the biscuit with the Dems. They don’t have answers; they don’t have spines; and they certainly won’t go to the mat for “ordinary folks”. I’ve said before that i see no reason to vote for candidates who won’t do a thing for me* (or will be adversarial once elected). Extrapolate that to the collective and you’ve got the fundamental Dem problem.

“We’re slightly better than the other party” is no way to inspire confidence or action, especially in a situation where the Dems haven’t lifted a finger for the majority of Americans who haven’t seen an actual raise in three decades…who have serious fears. Maybe nobody in the DNC has enough education to realize that people in bleak situations like that tend to turn to people/systems that offer simple answers. (Fascists, totalitarians and Tea Parties) Or maybe the people in the DNC don’t find that possible outcome all that distasteful.

*I don’t want a pony or the perfect candidate with perfect policy that i’m always in complete agreement with. It means only that the elected official has priorities other than A. personal power B. corporate toadying and C. actual courage to do what’s right rather than what’s politically expedient.

Honesty, deception – move right along, nothing to see here. It fits. No wonder the Ds and their apologists are having some trouble selling ever more of their crap. Probably not _enough_ trouble, yet, but we’ll see how it goes.

I find it revealing that you (Mandos) don’t even deny tacitly _endorsing_ deception (“an improvement”). I recall a recent on the record interview that Rahmabama gave Politico in which he explicitly told the money bags to ignore what the Big O says (“atmospherics”, IIRC) and to focus on all he does for them. Peas in a pod.

You even continue trying to defend the indefensible (though, in fairness, it seems to me that your defense grows ever weaker.) It would be concern-trolling on my part to suggest that you should learn when to quit. I think you do provide an excellent illustration of how low the Ds have sunk, or perhaps how much more transparent they have become.

BTW, if the Big O’s (I tried the zero digit, but in this font it looks more like a lower case O) HCR fiasco turns out to change the terms of the discussion, it will likely be to accelerate the spread of already widespread disenchantment with the current, decrepit system. It’s so bad, that I think the stuff will hit the fan long before a distinctly possible (likely?) Big Finance induced economic collapse. Somehow, I doubt the Ds will benefit from their “contribution.”

No, I don’t relish, even in the least, all of the suffering that apparently will have to take place before improvement becomes possible, but the last thing I would want to do is prolong and deepen the suffering by providing any support for the Ds, all of the boogeymen (and women – let’s give Palin her due!) of the world notwithstanding.

I don’t think the Democratic party will ever “get it.” Because if they get trounced in November, they’ll make up all sorts of excuses and none of them will be the right one — that they’ve gotten too conservative and need to get back to their liberal roots.

In 2000, they took Gore’s loss as a reason to not only abandon gun control, but take the NRA’s side. In 2004 the Democrats used Kerry’s loss by moving to the right (using Bush’s incompetence and conservative Democratic candidates to regain control of Congress).

When the health care bill passed, the media didn’t highlight the portion who was against it because “it didn’t go far enough.” It’s assumed that everyone who opposed it did so because it was “government going too far.”

So the left and “liberalism” is treated as if it doesn’t even exist.

So you can withhold your vote for the “democrats” but whatever hit they take in November, will be taken as an excuse to move further right.

The other problem, besides the Democratic Party, is an electorate that has bought into this “liberalism is evil” rhetoric. Hey, if you hear “liberalism is bad” over and over again for the thirty years spewing from the right’s powerful propaganda machine, it will resonate. And it has. The words “liberal” and “government” have turned into dirty words that Democrats avoid, DESPITE what conservatism and “less government” has done.

So yes, the liberal movement — check that, I mean a liberal movement – has to be built. Now, who does it and how, I have no idea.

Mandos,

You’ve outdone yourself in “the soft prejudice of lowered expectations” department with this one.

“It merely needs to be the case that he’s any improvement, even a rhetorical one.” – Mandos

Translation, it takes the worlds most precise measuring devices to discern a difference between Bush the 2nd [considered by many to be the worst president ever] and Obama. According to Mandos the differences between Obama are infinitely small and of a superficial nature, but the dogma of “the lessor of two evils” dictates voting in strong support of Obama even if the difference is a speech pattern. Great advice.

Honestly Mandos, I didn’t think any president could outdo Bush [the 2nd’s] invasion of Iraq [I really didn’t], but Obama’s personal intervention in circumventing a court order that prevented high risk oil drilling in the Gulf that allowed Saladbar to grant a permit to BP for “a drilling for disaster”, is a bold and brilliant stroke in wrestling the title of “worlds worst president ever” title from Bush [the 2nd].

(I should say that back then, still living in Canada, I took the position that the (D) party should be tossed over the side because how could they possibly be worse…)

If you want to claim a rhetorical difference between Ds & Rs, wouldn’t Obama’s rhetoric first have to be coherent? Who the hell even listens to him anymore? He’ll say anything to appease some group or other, even if he believes the opposite, never plans to act on it, and said something that contradicted it 5 minutes ago.

You can’t fool all the people all the time … it’s cliche, but our elites see that they’re 1000 times richer than the average American, and conclude they’re 1000 times smarter. They’re not. Unfortunately, while the elites are putting up these empty suit candidates as their front men thinking they’re fooling the electorate, the voters are foolishly trying to read the mind of 100 million people and the future to make impossible judgements about “electability”. Thus empty suit front man #2, cynically offered by the Republicrat party, is cynically elected by the voters.

When there is ample evidence, it isn’t necessary to speculate about intention.

It’s impossible to assess in advance how politicians will likely conduct themselves in office without considering their past conduct and what it says about their character. It’s safe to say that voting for dishonest politicians and their enablers has its perils, to put it exceedingly mildly.

Notwithstanding Straussian nonsense, I can’t imagine a realistic scenario in which deceptive rhetoric used to gain power would be an improvement over anything. Once again, you’re trying to defend the indefensible.

BTW, you gotta love the “policy results of the political process” frame, as if they just happen. No, they were planned and carefully implemented by people who deceived their way into office so that they can do just that. Sure, honest people can do their best and end up with something different from what they preferred as a result of a political process. If you want to try to make the case that the latter is what we have, let’s see you. I argue that deception and honesty are almost certain to produce very different results. If you care to counter, let’s see you do that too.

Ya know, if the true [cough] strategerists on this thread would stop yammering “Where’s your p-l-a-a-a-a-n?”, and devote their great minds to creating a plan — I mean, that’s why they’re strategerists, right? Because they have special insights that allow them to plan? — this thread would be a lot shorter.

Apparently I’m a “reprehensible” person because I’m gardening and sharing stuff with my neighbors and recommending that others do likewise. What I ought to be doing is buying another Obama commemorative plate so that this time around, the Ds can afford to use lube. Oh, OK. Then again, if things get an order of magnitude worse than they are now — say, in a double dip depression — then I’m going to be eating this winter, at least, and I’ll be more likely to share shelter with others because gardening is relationship building. That’s a heck of a lot less risky than depending on the Ds for anything, given that they haven’t done squat on housing, and have produced an economy with 10% nominal unemployment as far as the eye can see. (Look! Over there! Elena Kagan!)

Apparently I’m a “reprehensible” person because I’m gardening and sharing stuff with my neighbors and recommending that others do likewise. What I ought to be doing is buying another Obama commemorative plate so that this time around, the Ds can afford to use lube. Oh, OK. Then again, if things get an order of magnitude worse than they are now — say, in a double dip depression — then I’m going to be eating this winter, at least, and I’ll be more likely to share shelter with others because gardening is relationship building. That’s a heck of a lot less risky than depending on the Ds for anything, given that they haven’t done squat on housing, and have produced an economy with 10% nominal unemployment as far as the eye can see. (Look! Over there! Elena Kagan!)

No, lambert: the internet is full of survivalist blogs. I have no objection to people getting their own house in order if they believe collapse is coming (and they may be right). If you were just abandoning status quo politics to become yet another lower-cost Matt Savinar, there’d be nothing to argue about except the timing of collapse.

It’s the sneering that’s reprehensible, the daily destructive political nihilism aimed at pretty much anyone who’s decided that, despite everything, electoral politics is still worth a shot. No one is demanding that you do so: we could all “live and let live”, and take Michael Albert’s 2004 advice I quoted above.

But that’s the point, right: the internet is full of survivalist blogs. Where would the Corrente brand be—such as it is—if it were not for the electoral sneering, for the cutesy name-calling? Sneering is fine if you’ve got something better up your sleeve. But I’m afraid to say that survivalism as political praxis doesn’t qualify as anything other than a weak, transparent alibi.

This is a second test:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Realist, to me, this is the problem in a nutshell, and it returns to the discussion at the beginning of this thread: there is no constitutional or technical obstacle for the citizenry to vote in a truly left-liberal government, or anything better than what we have today. They have even had the opportunity to do so on multiple occasions. And some voters are very happy to vote for candidates who support policies that have been proven very publicly and obviously to be the worst available ideas, and do so enthusiastically and with full knowledge. The problem then must lie at least in part with the way people think of political ideas, with public political culture—in a place that is prior to actual policy itself.

It’s a pattern that while public protest can sometimes constrain Republican governments, the field of what is politically conceivable to the electorate—and therefore the candidates they elect—constricts considerably faster under Republican administrations then Democratic ones.

Under Bush, a discussion of HCR wasn’t even conceivable. Now at least having passed an HCR bill, the discussion is conceivable. If you consider that improvement to be “deception and dishonesty”, then we’ll have to agree to disagree. But if you’ve been told that there was a route through the status quo systems of American government directly from really no HCR legislative discussion to a single payer system without any period of kowtowing to odious lobbies, someone is possibly being dishonest with you.

Another table test

cell1, row 1
cell2, row 1

cell1, row 2
cell2, row 2

Oh, and as for Elena Kagan, who cited the pro-torture, anti-international law, head of the Israeli Supreme Court as her judicial hero, libby liberal at corrente points us to this:

“President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan for Justice of the United States Supreme Court on the basis of an academic publication record, which might give her a fighting chance for tenure at a first rate correspondence law school in the Texas Panhandle…”

and

“Kagan’s nomination to the US Supreme Court is not exceptional if we consider many of Bush and now Obama’s choices of advisers and officials in top policymaking posts. Many of these officials combined their diplomas from Ivy League universities with their absolutely disastrous performances in public office, which no amount of mass media puff pieces could obscure. These Ivy League mediocrities include the foreign policy advocates for the destructive and unending wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan and the leading economic advisers and officials responsible for the current financial debacles….

“The public utterances and political writings of innumerable Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, Yale, John Hopkins professors, whether it be on the speculative economy, Israel’s Middle East wars, preventative detention, broad presidential powers and constitutional freedoms are marked by a singular mediocrity, mendacity and an excess of hot air reeking of the barnyard.”

Read the whole thing, ’tis a treat: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25438.htm

Heh.

Mandos seems to think, or at least believe, that being banned at Open Left for pointing out how they imposed a news blackout on single payer — like the rest of the access blogs — is anything other than a badge of honor. “Progressives,” they just suck, don’t they?

From Wednesday, December 09, 2009 12:48 PM

Mandos Says: – “I think the problem lies with the fact that The Left has to
reconcile two types of constituencies whose perceived interests are at
odds.”

I don’t agree with this statement, since:

1] It is a well established fact that well provided workers tend toward
liberal practices, which was the basis/result for/of the FDR coalition.

2] I was in fact the elitist Democrats working in concert with conservatives
that de-industrialized the US. This happened not just through liberalized
trade regimes, but through pollution laws that were written not to solve the
problem, but to transfer it somewhere else. The concept that manual labor
is “unskilled” once the exclusive domain of extremist right wing think
tanks, is now one of the “progressive” (blog-sphere) main talking points.
It is BTW, wholly untrue, but since “progressive” (blog-sphere) have no
contact with manufacturing they are not even in a position to make a
statement one way or the other on the subject. My disbelief at those who
are wholly ignorant on the subject and yet expound profusely on a subject to
which they have no training is unbridled. It disgust me in it’s profound
and unsupported elitism and I am sure it would do the same to any working
man who came across the “progressive” (blog-sphere) scribbling.

3] The acceptance Friedman/Reaganism Doctrine, which screws the bottom four
quintiles in favor of the privileged few

Mandos Says: – “A lot of the working class are cultural conservatives (do
any doubt that?).”

Yes this is a complete fabrication, on two levels:

1] It does not account for the role of women in working class families who
are largely left/liberal out of necessity. Their lives hang by the
remaining liberal policies left over from the FDR era. The attempt by the
Obama campaign which included the majority of the “left” (blog-sphere) tried
to turn these working class woman into sexist caricatures because their
concerns were not going to be address by this administration.

Unlike you Mandos, I have a very recent example. The exclusion of lower
income women’s reproductive medical needs by the Obama administration which
includes the majority of the “left” (blog-sphere). Here is a direct, recent
example that it is the upper class, that are both philosophically and in
practice the cultural conservatives. And let us remember…Obama is
nothing, if not upper class. His book was a clever set of omissions and
half truths, but he is from an extremely wealthy class, the most expensive
high school in Hawaii…Harvard on a whim

2] Working class males have been economically marginalized by co-operation
of both Democratic and Republican Party elites. As a result of their
collusion, corporate media sources have able to successfully show example of
Democratic betrayal of FDR principles, while Democratic party policy is to
remain silent on working class issues lest they be labeled “populous” by the
Republican dominated media. Simply put, with a couple of notable
exceptions, when the Democrats have always chosen not to risk THEIR JOBS,
over labor issues and the good of the country.

In spite of this, when poling is done without cues, working-class people are
surprisingly liberal in their policy choices. I say surprisingly, because
this has become a widely disseminated right wing talking point…which you
Mandos, whatever your source, have repeated faithfully. Examples of this
are in job creation, technology development, minimum wage health insurance,
drug enforcement, labor rules. No, the reason a certain segment of the
population remains stuck in time is because their inflation adjusted wages
are late fifties and their job security is late thirties, while their worker
rights are pre-1932. So…you would expect a voting block to take a hike
after all that…in fact, isn’t that what we’ve been talking about for the
last three of Ian’s posts?

Mandos Says: – “While The Left in the USA has spent a few decades
reconciling with black civil rights, feminism, and so on.”

Mandos Says: – “[R]econciling with…feminism”

Really? I did not think this last campaign which featured Obama supporters,
repeatededly yelling “bitch” and “[deleted]ing c-word” the height of
feminism, in fact while I am not noted for feminist thought, I had to
re-examine what I thought was a settled issue and I find it is the elites in
the Democratic party, who are the most openly misogynistic I have seen since
the ’70’s. Oh news for the left, Sarah isn’t running for President, she is
just a huckster out to make a few bucks, calling her a c-word [or
equivalent], makes Dems look like “cultural conservatives”…which many of
them are.

Mandos Says: – “[R]econciling with…black civil rights”

Really? Hmmm…I must have missed it, since when have Democrats addressed
the disparity in medical care which starts pre-natal and extends to a black
woman/man’s last days. Oh that’s right, medical care is not a civil right
under the CURRENT Democratically ruled United States. If not now…WHEN?

Really? Hmmm…I must have missed it, since when have Democrats addressed
the disparity incarceration rates and drug prosecutions?

Mandos Says: – “[R]econciling with…anybody’s civil rights”

Quoting Ian two days ago: “Obama’s openly-gay head of the federal Office of
Personnel Management, John Berry, said this weekend that he cannot follow a
court order directing him to provide health benefits to the lesbian wife of
a federal employee. Why? Because he says that he doesn’t have the legal
authority to do so.”

The answer is not blow’n in the wind Mandos, the answer my friend…is
blow’n it in the late 1970-80’s onward.

Mandos Says: – “One of the successes of US conservatism is that to
reconcile with one requires throwing the other under the bus.”

A half truth here. After the Democratic party threw wholesale working class
people under the bus, it became easy for US conservatives to pick off enough
votes to accomplish their goals.

Mandos Says: – “The teabagger-mockery was conceived in this context. As the
“mainstream” American Left is committed to sexual liberty/liberation, and
many of its core constituencies are highly motivated by this (even if, as we
see, actual practical politics aren’t doing much-not surprising, anyway), an
alliance with people perceived as uncomfortable with this is not possible.”

This I believe is a correct observation with the proviso that “mainstream”
be substituted with “elites & wannabee elite”. I agree that a significant
number of today’s “progressives” [particularly the most media savvy] is not
motivated by some vague concept of social justice, but rather by a desire to
have their personal freedoms increased. It this in fact, which explains the
duplicity above, “progressive” ideas remain firmly rooted within the scope
of their personal space or enjoyment. Which goes back to my original point,
the problem is the leadership of the Democratic party.

Mandos Says: – “Insofar as much of the working class values its cultural
interest over its class interest, how can you expect the response from the
mainstream progressive movement to be anything else but defensive derision?”

I think my response above explains the motivation for the “progressive
movement to be anything else but defensive derision” as does your preceding
sentence.

BTW, Do a spellcheck on Mandos…does Mangos come up?

The Rich Conservatives sold the American Dream to the White Americans who felt sold out when the Blacks got their Civil Rights from Congress. When Blacks got the right to vote and “take a piece of the American Dream, Southern White were afraid of Black blowback. the Democratic party then became the “minority” party.

the way the Conservatives used St. Ronald Reagan to sell the “Southern Strategy” via the Government is the Problem that Whites still believe today. which accounts for the “outrage at Governmental incompetency.” The GOP got what it had long worked decades for.

the Government was now completely at the control of the Party in power. the plan of making Government not working by refusing to be “Proactive.” The GOP was proactive in stripping away of authority in Government policies it didn’t like while planting “Moles” who could actively went about disabling Government from acting at all.

Now we have rules that aren’t enforced and with the ongoing “Hands OFF Government” policies the GOP now enforced.

really smart coup d’etat of the overthrowing and limiting the Authority and Power of Government from within.
like a time bomb corrosively destroying erasing structures and laws that the GOP felt stopped Business from “doing Business.”

like a computer virus that works to infect the computer from the minute the virus is downloaded in the system
everything would self destruct and that was the entire plan. to deconstruct the functioning of Government so the “Government is the Problem” mantra would be the operating system.

the Democrats have become the “unindicted co conspirators” to the unraveling of the laws which once protected Americans who weren’t RICH. Now the Democrats stand hand in hand waiting to please the Mighty Banksters, who rule America now.

i know i expected the Democrats to do something other than help the Republicans cede complete control to the Banksters/Elite Villagers. After many years of watching the Democrats snidely feign “Innocence and “a Touch of the Vapors” behavior when they took “control.” lol The Democrats are part and parcel of the Villagers, until and unless they do something for the “little people”. and they have had the last few years to prove themselves.

the collapse will come sooner than later due to the ease at which the Democrats abet the Republicans in robbing America blind. though, i think any help is beyond the reality today. i think we have crossed the Rubicon.

the Depression is going to get worse. for that i thank Obama,for destroying the Democratic party as we know it.
we need a party of the non rich, for the non rich and all that jazz.

Realist: I said repeatedly that I don’t agree with the terms of your question and why I don’t; and if you consider that to be sidestepping the issue, then consider the issue sidestepped.

No, I don’t believe that it is useful to play the intent game, for a lot of reasons. I was never a particularly enthusiastic fan of the “Bush is a fratboy” school of analysis and I’m not a fan of the “Is Obama a progressive at heart” debate.

I’m glad that Mandos agrees with me that there is no essential difference between the Ds and the Rs, as shown in terms of policy outcomes by the list I supply. That’s not how the thread started out, but I’m glad that — after Herculean labors in the Augean stables — that’s how it ended.

One difference between us is that Mandos thinks you should invest your time in parties that have already failed in a visibly collapsing system, and I think that the opportunity cost is too great, and that it makes more sense to invest in efforts that will help you and your neighbors survive (“take the first step”). By all means, board the FAILboat with Mandos, if you agree with him. Heck, board the FAILboat again, and again, and again, if you want. Knock yourself out!

As far as “communing with parsnips, ” Mandos knows, of course, that this is not what I advocate; see, again, here. He says such things because, under it all, he’s just a D apologist, and they’ll say anything (“any stick to beat a dog”).

I’m glad that Mandos agrees with me that there is no essential difference between the Ds and the Rs, as shown in terms of policy outcomes by the list I supply. That’s not how the thread started out, but I’m glad that — after Herculean labors in the Augean stables — that’s how it ended.

This is putting words in my mouth and once again begging the question as above. Anyway, your conclusion was shared long before this even started by most of this blog’s regular commentariat, we both know, and anyone can declare (a rather Pyrrhic) premature victory by declaring it so.

I couldn’t even tell that you had a bigger point about “access bloggers” beyond the usual personal insults you level regularly at the people you consider perfidious for doing something other than growing squash and holding canning parties—so I wasn’t going to dignify it with a response as I mistakenly did when you dredged up your little fundraising grudge as a distractor. But fine, you will dance the victory dance over any thing I choose not to answer, so:

No, it’s really not a badge of honour to make an ass of yourself at OpenLeft; it makes you at least as much the troll you consider me to be. Many people know what you think, know where to find you, and only humour you so far—but like I said this is true for many people so it doesn’t mean much.

HCR differentiates the (D)s from the (R)s because the (D)s actually passed an HCR bill and the (R)s did not, and as I said, that has inherent value and suffices as a complete answer as do any other individual details. Simply having done so raises the baseline for the next time this discussion happens—and it will in the next 10-15 years, which is not long compared to the decades it has taken even to discuss universality in the American political context. I had never heard the phrase “single payer” even spoken or written more than once a year in mainstream American media. But it came from the lips of right-wing pundits as a boogeyman on more than one occasion; and that is progress.

I’ve covered this all in one way or another before, but Lambert wants to go over it again, so doggedly, I will here.

Most of the American left has known far longer than apparently Lambert has been paying attention that available electoral choices are poor and all very right-wing in terms of policy outcomes historically. The “no difference in policy outcome” train left the station a long time ago, long before we even heard of Obama. Bill Clinton promoted NAFTA and indiscriminately liberalized trade which in large part has left the world in its present financial doldrums. Carter had Zbiggy, ’nuff said. And so on, and so forth.

But despite a variety of different attitudes towards voting, rarely has the American left promoted the kind of political nihilism that Lambert promotes daily with his usual often-seductive wit and verve. And it is seductive, but it bears hidden costs. Even when a defensible alternative came into being, it had serious costs. I never berated people for voting for Nader in 2000, but it’s clear that even with the extremely right-wing orientation of the Democratic party even back then (ie not long ago) that arguments that Gore and Bush were substantially the same—very popular on the left—were catastrophically wrong. But I still don’t yell at Nader voters as some people do.

It remains so. It can also potentially still be defensible to abandon the (D) party. Lambert’s justifications, however, are not among those defenses.

Mandos will always judge the Democrats as 2% less evil than the Republicans, if for no other reason than their campaign literature claims that they are to the left of the GOP.

No matter how what the Democrats do (war, assassination, torture, detention without due process, repealing the New Deal and Great Society) Mandos will insist that we continue to vote for them.

While he freely admits the Democrats suck I have yet to see him offer any suggestions on how to form a new party or reform the old one in less than 4-5 decades.

“Keep voting for the 2% less evil Democrats” isn’t a plan or a strategy, it’s an act of surrender.

My theory is that if the Republicans are only marginally worse than the Democrats then allowing the GOP to temporarily regain power in order to remove the corrupt incumbents in the Democratic party is simply a “one step backward now, two steps forward later” strategy.

Others may not agree but I consider it preferable to permanently supporting a party that doesn’t represent my interests. No pain, no gain.

BTW – this is similar to the strategy practiced by the Christian fundamentalists and the other far-right elements of the GOP. They will sit out elections rather than support moderate Republicans. Many of them didn’t vote in 2008 because they considered McCain too liberal.

While I don’t agree with their ideology the conservatives certainly have the courage of their convictions. If Mandos went over to the right blogosphere and tried selling the idea that they should vote for Republicans who aren’t quite as bad as the Democrats he would not be taken seriously. They wouldn’t bother engaging him in a discussion, they would either laugh at him or ignore him.

Of course most people don’t take him seriously over here either.

Yes, the burden of proof is on Mandos, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to show that (a) the Ds are significantly different from the Rs, based on policy outcomes, and (b) that it’s worth the opportunity cost of investing time or energy with them.

I’m very glad we’ve reached this point. “Destructive nihilism,” apparently, was never an issue…

NOTE I leave to the reader the determination of whether the “ass” on OpenLeft was the site owner, who consistently imposed a front-pager news blackout on single payer advocacy and news, or the commenter who called bullshit on it.

Of course, I suppose one could argue the censoring content is a sign of “progressive” good faith, and evidence for pursuing solutions within the D party is, like, totally worth it…

Yes, the burden of proof is on Mandos, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to show that (a) the Ds are significantly different from the Rs, based on policy outcomes, and (b) that it’s worth the opportunity cost of investing time or energy with them.

But I never said anything about policy outcomes until you brought it up. That’s why it’s so baffling. The whole discussion is taken despite policy outcomes. That’s where your fallacy lies.

Nader 2000 was only possible at the end of the Clinton presidency, and that is not an accident.

Unfortunately we don’t have a Clinton presidency right now. We could have had one, and the primary voters wanted one, but the Democratic leadership selected a DINO conservative instead.

That was not an accident.

“Baffling.” Oh, OK. I guess that’s a step forward from “destructive nihilism.” Hey, piss away your time on a party that never delivers. Knock yourself out!

Myiq2xu was right.

Not new, but I guess it would be surprising for someone whose political horizon begins in 2004; of course gardening is political. As I said, if you think you’re protecting yourself from true—and very glibly mentioned—collapse by gardening as your sole political instrument, ho boy. That is a case in point. It’s not the gardening that’s the problem, it’s the advice. If you had something else up your sleeve other than hurling spitballs at OpenLeft for not being what you demand it be, well, that would be another story.

That, Realist, is the precisely the circumstance in which you say “If you had something else up your sleeve…” If Lambert had a better idea, I wouldn’t say it. That’s why the burden of proof is on him. I don’t have to tell him how the Democrats might satisfy some particular cherry-picked list of desiderata, because I never made any such claim. He has to tell all the rest of us how it is better to stop staving off Republicans, because he really did make that claim.

Kodos and Kang were right. “We are merely exchanging long protein chains. If you can think of a simpler way, I’d like to hear it!”