The Bulldozer and the Big Tent
I proposed to write this book in the spring of 2004, when I called it Liberal Resurrection. (By the time I went to work in earnest, in the spring of 2005, that title seemed premature at the least, and probably foolish. Later I dumped the religious imagery altogether; and not a moment too soon.)
Partly to get my mind around the Bush emergency and partly to shore up my morale, I felt the need for a comprehensible history—not a detailed chronology but a conceptual one. Part of what was driving me was the need to get Bush right—not just to slime him, but to figure out how he did it. With that, also, came the question: How did we get rolled for so long? Some dumb mistakes, or was it in our political nature to lose? And then too: Were there limits? Several Swift Boats later, I felt even more strongly the need to see Bush’s bulldozer in its setting: the stunning career of the recent conservative movement, its advantages, its conception of leadership, all against a background of liberal failings.
At the same time I wanted, and want, to urge liberals beyond unproductive snarling, either about the irresistibility of the Bush bulldozer, the Democrats’ fecklessness, or Bill Clinton’s sins and errors. I saw MoveOn, the Dean campaign and the emerging netroots, blogosphere, whatever, as the rumblings of a new and indispensable force, carrying the movement spirit (younger, activist, energetic, amateur) into the Democratic Party (older, compromising, staid, professional). For all their respective limits, could it be that at long last liberals and Democrats would accomplish the movement-party synthesis that the Republican-conservatives had accomplished over the course of decades? For only if the two are in synch—the party harnessing the movement’s energy toward practical ends, the movement bringing the party to life—only then does big political change take place, one way or the other.
Even after the debacle of 2004, it felt imperative to think as if liberals could dig themselves out of our various traps, even if I can’t say I was sure that Bush’s Republicans, the party of the anti-Sixties, would crash and burn. The fragmented activists on the left side were coming to realize that if they did not hang together they would assuredly hang separately. The immense relief of the 2006 election vindicated my sense that the Bush crowd, in their manic overreach, had painted themselves into a corner, a Confederate one, and that (despite the pressing of panic buttons and the past and future efforts of Osama bin Laden) Karl Rove might be proved exactly wrong—Bush might turn out to be not William McKinley but Herbert Hoover.
Eventually, after much tearing of residual hair and gnashing of teeth, I went with the more obscure but (I hope) more evocative title, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent, meaning to suggest that American politics has shaken down into a confrontation between two very different kinds of phenomena. In the course of decades, the Republicans built a self-accelerating machine for the conquest and use of power. Liberals, in all their multiplicity, cornered their respective margins. But of course liberals have a different task than conservatives, who are composed, basically, of two big blocs and two only: the Christian Right and the business-firsters. Liberals need the big tent, and (however uneasily) have mainly come to understand that. As I’ve been arguing since the dawn of TPMcafe, there simply aren’t enough of us in the country to constitute, all by ourselves, a governing party. (Chapter 12 makes an extended and statistic-strewn argument to this effect.)
But despite all the groaning about botched framing, sloppy messaging, and our collective lack of ideas, I think that, for liberals, the right principles and the right narrative (and the right debates about them) have been coming into focus. The Bulldozer and the Big Tent is, as best I can judge, a landscape book more than a thesis book. Or rather, inside the landscape are a whole bunch of theses—on what animates Bush, on what animated Bill Clinton, on the nature of the Republican noise machine, on specifications for party leaders, and so on. I freely confess that it doesn’t add up to what Hollywood calls “high-concept,” meaning susceptible to summary on a bumper sticker. The book is neither triumphalist nor desperate. It’s my attempt to answer the questions, Where are we? How did we get here? How do we get out of here, and stay out?
Part I, “Emergency,” starts with the story of the Republican-conservative bulldozer, which (not to squeeze the breath out of the image) has taken the country over a cliff. I see them (they’ve often seen themselves, in fact) as the Party of the Anti-Sixties. Also as the Party of Unreason, but unreason with a method. The Right are all of a piece. Their way of life—authoritarian, faith-flooded—is their “management style,” which is, in turn, their policies. My sense of Bush and his crowd is that they have been given too much credit for having reasons (for example, for the Iraq expedition). They did it because that is who they are—they are a will machine that does things like that.
Part II, “Wilderness,” elaborates on the movement-party argument I suggest above, looking at what liberals and the post-Sixties left were doing, and failing to do, while the Right was getting its bulldozer together. I aim not to dispense curses at benighted factions of Democrats but to stare fixedly at what happened.
Part III, “Emergence,” is what it sounds like. I look at how contentious energies of blogs, and the fund-raising prowess of online networks like MoveOn, have helped bind liberal activists into a indispensable bloc within the Democratic Party. I write about values and narratives, about the limits of “framing,” about the dynamics of swing areas where I worked in ’04 (Scranton, PA) and ’06 (Columbia County, NY). Now, all the serious candidates have to make pilgrimages to the annual YearlyKos conventions, and Sunday morning talk shows feel they have to feature the leading bloggers at least once in a while.
But bloggers still number only a minority of Democratic voters. To win, the Democrats have to pitch a bigger tent. There will continue to be, if we’re lucky, tussles—even soul strife—within the big tent. There has been ever since 1948, when the Democratic Party basically split in three. (The calamitous split of 1968 was an extension of the earlier breakdown.) The battle is called democracy. The Democrats have no choice but to remain a big-tent party. The Republicans made the mistake of turning themselves into a bulldozer party, but they couldn’t bulldoze reality fast enough to keep from falling into a ditch. Now, if we don’t blow it, there’s a new center of gravity coming into American politics—not a flabby center of splitting differences, not a blah-blah of bipartisanship, but a new story and replenished values.
My sense of the content of a new liberal center is that the principles begin here:
• Universal provision of the fundamental requisites of a decent life, starting with universal health care, rock-bottom income supports, and more equality.
• Public incentives for the development of sound alternatives to fossil-fuel energy.
• The restoration of government encouragement to unions.
• Smart counterterrorism, which entails providing security without swelling abuses of executive power.
• The right to abortion and contraception. The democratic social-market contract is neither a suicide pact, a penury pact, nor an invasion of bedrooms.
As for foreign policy, I see no merit to liberal evasion of foreign-policy quandaries. On certain foreign-policy principles liberals need to be crystal-clear:
• A rapid and orderly phase-out from Iraq is the quid pro quo for improving America's ability to diminish jihadi potential. And crucially, given the damage that a benighted war has done to Iraq, we are obliged to make decent provision for Iraqis who will be further jeopardized as we leave.
• America should move heaven and earth to bring Israelis and Palestinians into negotiations that achieve peace and security for two states.
• Humanitarian intervention ought to be multinational, regional where possible, proportionate to the danger, self-limiting, and rare.
• America ought to promote democracy and freedom in other countries with an eye to helping, not endangering, human-rights activists.
• Finally, both for its own sake and to help the cause of nonproliferation, we ought to help restrain the possession of, and the threat to use, nuclear weapons.
The Bush catastrophe will not be easily mopped up. But we’ve started awakening from the nightmare.
The only thing that I see that you left out is that there needs to be a provision for free or cheap education, job training and job re-training.
The economic future will be based on a well-educated work force as the basic resource. Private enterprise organizations succeed when they reduce a production task to routine and then make it more efficient. Efficiency, however, merely means creating the output at the least cost of input. It works largely by eliminating flexibility and innovation, which means it is by its very nature not very flexible. (American auto industry, anyone?) That efficiency focus also requires looking at what was done in the past and trying to do it better.
Educating the workforce is an unnecessary expense to be dispensed with by truly efficient organizations. They - of necessity - train members of the workforce in routine repetition and constrain their flexibility. The rise in the use of H1B visas shows that America has outsourced the education of new employees to other countries, because the companies don't want to pay for it either by educating their own workers or by paying taxes for government to do that.
Government needs to provide the educational flexibility for the economy while also helping families raise children. [Along with health care and income safety net.]
September 3, 2007 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gitlin's proposals are pitched narrowly to the white liberal guys who dominate political blogging.
And he's not very aggressive about those.
What about correcting the tremendous income disparities between the super-rich and the rest of us?
What about penalizing the takeovers that line the pockets of Wall Street and corporate hierarchies while eliminating jobs for the rest of us?
What about taxing the crap out of the golden parachutes for failed CEOs?
What about articulating strategies for addressing inner-city poverty?
What about reviving the Civil Rights section of the Justice Department?
What about developing a bully pulpit to combat the relentless stereotyping of African-Americans in the media?
When is something going to be done about sexual violence?
What about immigration policy?
What about language teaching to the children of immigrants?
What about articulating a more muscular ethic of multi-culturalism to combat the assimilationism of the right?
What about gay rights?
If Gitlin is going to advocate a "big tent," he needs to do two things. On the one hand, he needs to articulate a political ethic that incorporates all the groups in the tent. On the other hand, he needs to develop policy prescriptions that address the real needs of the groups in the tent.
Gitlin does neither.
September 3, 2007 8:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
You left out a return to the rule of law - at home and abroad. Repeal of FISA. Repeal of the Patriot Act.
You also left out explicit rejection of the neocon preventive war doctrine which is in conflict with international law and "just war" doctrine.
As to reality, the Democrat representing me in the Senate votes to fund the war, votes for FISA and will not even go on the record for universal health care, the "big tent" DLC wants "incremental" change on health care - not universal care.
Big tent? I figure I got pushed outside and I'm looking for a little tent to keep away the cold winds and rain. It's cold out here!
September 3, 2007 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Economics Teacher: Bueller? . . . Bueller? . . . Bueller?
September 3, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
It does seem that "big tent" really means "any people with concerns more progressive than Joe Lieberman must be shoved to the wall and told to shut up".
sPh
September 3, 2007 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think they drove stakes into us when they pitched the tent.
September 3, 2007 9:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gitlin's post perfectly illustrates what's wrong with the Dems.
His so-called "principles" include a laundry list of 10 items such as: smart counterterrorism; nonproliferation; being firm with Palestinians and Israelis; keeping human interventions rare; etc.
These are NOT principles! These are talking points for Sunday morning shows.
Like it or not, but Buckley/Reagan/Norquist/Gingrich
advanced a set of principles.
Is Gitlin's "credo" just a laundry list of 10 items including such remarkably inspirational stuff as the need for "smart counterrorism."
You can laugh all you want, but in one single facetious remark, "I want to reduce government to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it," Norquist stated a powerful principle that guides Republican leaders on a daily basis.
Compare that with Gitlin's laundry list: all over the place, with not the slightest ideological coherence whatsoever.
In fact, half of it could have been penned by Bush Sr himself!
If the Dems think they are so smart (and they surely do) how come they keep losing the intellectual battle?
Gitlin's post is intellectual mush.
But if you want to mobilize people, you need to inspire them with a vision. Where is the vision?
The irony is that someone like Gitlin long ago gave up the vision in order to win elections.
But he forgot that to lose the vision is the surest to lose elections.
September 3, 2007 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are a lot of things that need to be done by a "big tent" Democratic Party run government. Unfortunately, as we keep adding them to the list of primary goals, we dilute the importance of all of them. We will not win elections by having a 50 point plan for the country - a 5 point plan might do it, but a 50 point plan never will.
Then, there is the problem that always faces us - when you have a big tent party not all of those under the tent support all of the goals of all of the others under that tent. The more goals you add to the list the more likely you will cause others to abandon the big tent and look for a pup tent (Bluebell?)
Compromise remains the key to winning elections and governing. My hope is that whenever the Democratic Party finally regains control of the government, I will agree with much more than half of what they do. I have no hope at all of agreeing with all of it.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 3, 2007 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is frankly bizarre. Gitlin simply ignores the most important element in the Democratic equation: the emerging majority in many states and eventually the country of persons who are "not white." We're entering a different world, one that doesn't privilege liberal white guys and Gitlin has simply missed it.
By the way, the moral force of the '60s movements Gitlin and the Right also despise was the Black freedom struggle. They never got that it was this impulse, to which they were peripheral, that created the cultural context for all else.
Can It Happen Here?
September 3, 2007 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good and reasonable lists everybody, but they won't get our feet in the doors of government. What we need are some good myths, good enough to get us in political offices so we can expedite the items on the lists.
Republicans have been operating in mythdom for quite a while now. They churn them out with abandon. Myths are great because they're catchy, they require little or no thought to 'get', they are neither true nor false so they can't be refuted, and they answer all sorts of dislikes and likes without really imparting any valid information, let alone knowledge.
Why do Americans turn immediately to the Republicans when danger from a foreign source looms? Who knows? Other than now long-standing, floating myths that Republicans are 'better' at war, there is no reason.
I've convinced myself that the Democratic party needs, above all, a think tank devoted to nothing but inventing myths to out-myth Replican myths.
September 3, 2007 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue, but moderation in principle is always a vice." Tom Paine
September 3, 2007 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
My reaction was pretty much the same as noblesseoblige's.
Liberals would be much better served by rediscovering their first principles than making up wish lists of things they want a government on their watch make other people do. They should then welcome challenges in order to hone those ideals and their arguments -- think of it as resistance training.
September 3, 2007 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
You can laugh all you want, but in one single facetious remark, "I want to reduce government to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it," Norquist stated a powerful principle that guides Republican leaders on a daily basis.
Maybe our statement of principle could be "I want to drag Grover Norquist into the bathroom and drown him."
Seriously, I agree about the unattractive laundry list character of Gitlin's ten points, and would like something more visionary. I think most of the social and political aims that appeal to me boil down to something like the following:
"I want to build a world in all human being are not just born equal, but die equal, and live equally full and rewarding lives in the brief space between."
September 3, 2007 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Universal provision of the fundamental requisites of a decent life, starting with universal health care, rock-bottom income supports, and more equality.
Isn't that what this is all about:
"Universal provision of the fundamental requisites of a decent life, starting with universal health care, rock-bottom income supports, and more equality. "
Re: Norquist stated a powerful principle that guides Republican leaders on a daily basis.
Huh? We've gotten anything but "small governmment" from George Bush and his henchmen. Sure, they pay lip service to Norquist's ideals, but they sure don't play by those rules. After all, what's the fun of being a dictator over a small, limited government, and how could they ever hand out multi-billion dollar plums to their sycophants if they hacked the government down to size?
Re: the emerging majority in many states and eventually the country of persons who are "not white."
"Not white" takes in a lot of territory, and moreover what's really emerging is a very mixed race population with "pure" racial groups declining (including "pure" white people). And whites and non-whites have the same interests when it comes to things like healthcare, the economy, a sound foreign policy etc. The very last thing progressives should do is play into the Right's hands by balkanizing the electorate and putting the evil old race card back in play.
Re: the moral force of the '60s movements Gitlin and the Right also despise was the Black freedom struggle.
I see no evidence that Todd Gitlin despises the Civil Rights movement-- which did not descend from on high in the 60s either, but has a long and honorable history dating back to the days of Frederick Douglas and Sojourner Truth.
September 3, 2007 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
1) Build
Democrats also believe that society (and thus government) has a key role in building the future, from building actual infrastructure to restraining destructive behavior to making decades-long investments. To be a full-throated Democrat, you have to be comfortable with a certain base level of societal engineering. Since LBJ, we have not been able to achieve consensus on what build means for national security. Even so, when we all examine our laundry lists of priorities, this is where the bulk of tax dollars go: infrastructure and society-building projects. Republicans believe that centralized plans always get it wrong and that individuals and businesses ought only to be bound by property rights.
2) Fair
We hold fairness as a central political goal - that all people should have a fair shot at a good and dignified life, no matter where they live, what they drive or what language their parents speak, and that people need help and supports to accomplish this. We never exactly agree on how much help is right, or who gets what when, but we all agree that society (and thus government) should help people. This is a little controversial even among people who believe in it, but it rarely amounts to nearly as much money as 1). Republicans by contrast basically believe that this help is inducement to laziness and that people ought to help themselves.
3) Think
At least since the 60s, if not well before, Democrats have been the party of thinking. We seek to understand reality so that we can build fair plans that work and can be improved upon. We (and especially the intellectuals dominating the blogosphere) run the risk of getting happily wrapped up in the complexities and being unable to articulate simple points. By contrast, Republicans believe in bending reality to their will to achieve moral certainty.
Over the last 30 years Republicans have consistently flipped our principles on their head to define us negatively:
Build turns us into the socialist authoritarians who want to sacrifice people's lives to government decision-mking, fair turn us into the enablers of the lazy and parasitic in society, and think shows us as spineless pussies who prefer to noodle over things than take strong stands.
They will always use these arguments against us, but only they gain force when we can't define ourselves. So intellectual or not, Gitlin's book and the drive to come to agreement on collaboration of movement and party and on the best articulation of principles is something we need to keep working on.
September 3, 2007 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
What about adding the issue of challenging the sway that the military-industrial complex holds over us? I think that's important.Tom
September 3, 2007 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
What makes you think non-white folks are jumping all over themselves to vote for Democrats or progressives at all? If it turned out that way it'd be a big plus, but that's hardly a lock. Until the Republicans hung themselves with their own immigration rope, they were doing quite well thank you with Hispanics and making inroads among younger African-American voters.
As for the "Black freedom struggle", yes, that was a dominant issue in the 1960's - 40 years ago. Perhaps we can adapt to the intervening history and allow that other factors are important in shaping present political perspectives?
September 3, 2007 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
You made me think of all the comments on this thread: The War for Field Organizing. What you feel is is needed, I think that requires top-down discipline. The "netroots" is basically very much about being against that. One of the things I foresee is them repeating the mistakes of making the Democratic party a motley crew of a 1,000 special interest groups.
BTW, I have myself have always been an independent type and abhor joining things from political parties to girl scouts, hate working with large groups, especially ones with an ideology. I just see a big flaw in thinking you can win elections in a two-party non-parliamentary system in an age of instant communication without top-down message. The netroots "bottom up" thing to me is the equivalent of conservatives who think we can get by in this global day and age with a small weak Federal government and wildly varying laws in each of the states.
September 3, 2007 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. Interestingly, people like Kos, who know politics, do often try to enforce top-down message on their "troops" in sometimes nefarious and sometimes not so nefarious ways, often to outraged cries from a lot of those troops.
September 3, 2007 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
The top-down discipline might be a might easier if those of us on the bottom shared core values with those at the top.
September 3, 2007 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Much as he might think so, Kos does not represent the traditional liberal/left. He represents a few thousand bloggers. There are far more people like me, stodgy old 50ish folks who plan to vote left for the next 30 years.
September 3, 2007 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
The key dynamic has been the realignment of partisan politics, and the key background has been exhaustion and erosion of the frame for American economic success.
For the first time in history, the partisan divide corresponds with an ideological divide. Every Democrat is to the left of every Republican.
And, the center of the Republican Party is much farther to the right of center than the Democrats are to the left. Except that there is no center -- everyone, who is paying attention, has chosen sides, so saying that the Democrats are closer to the center is just another way of saying that the Democrats, through no real fault of their own, have become the presumptive majority Party. Power is about to be thrust on the Democrats
And, it will be power in a major way. Republicans have not just run into a partisan ditch; Republicans have run the country into an economic and Constitutional ditch. Chuck Schumer is spending part of his Labor Day weekend, wondering if the Democrats can win a Senate seat in Idaho.
The Democratic Party, which is about to assume a majority, is more radically different from its predecessor than most acknowledge. For two generations, since 1968, the New Deal coalition has been eroding, and the moderate/conservative wing of the Democratic Party consisted of that eroding base, which, for ideological reasons, no longer really wanted to identify with a liberal Party. Triangulation was the order of the day, the way to gain power, while standing on eroding sand -- the way of the DLC and Bill Clinton, quite frankly.
The Democratic Party is being transformed by the sudden rebuilding of its moderate wing (it doesn't really have a "conservative" wing anymore). The new moderates are militant moderates, and triangulation is dead.
The liberal activists that form the Democratic Party's other, older, long-out-of-power mode, want "a movement" -- they want passion. And, what they have, instead, is the militant moderate. The militant moderate is not going to protest in the streets -- the militant moderate sees that as impotent and embarassing political theatre.
More is needed that a laundry list political agenda of presumed consensus items. The liberal wing, long out of power, has such dusty lists, and is long used to couching such proposals in the language of compromise or, worse, the language of New Deal nostalgia.
The militant moderates, recently arrived in the Democratic Party, don't have any lists. The militant moderates are Democrats, because Republicans are stupid and repulsive failures.
And, out there in the world, things are getting desperate. The post-WWII world of building up the middle-class suburbs on good jobs, good schools, good roads and cheap gas is gone with the wind. The idealistic Cold War patient crusade against Communism is history, and right-wing nutjobs fronting corporate greed have hijacked the military for imperialist folly.
The Republican Party, and the powers that it represents, are ready to yield power and responsibility, temporarily, while the shit hits the fan. The Republican campaign for 2008 will be all about preserving the ability to frustrate all reform, and paralyze Democratic efforts to cope with coming crisis.
The aftermath of Iraq, of 8 years of deficits and low investment, of delay on global warming, of skyrocketing health care costs, will be very discouraging. And, most of it will come in 2009 and 2010 and 2011. The more of the bill that comes due on a Democratic watch, the better for the plutocrats of the Republican Party; and the more impotent and paralyzed the Democratic Party remains before the tidal wave of consequences for previous Republican mis-rule, the better still.
The Democrats don't need a "movement". The Democrats need the ability to govern effectively. And, the Democrats need to understand how desperate are the stakes.
Democrats need to understand that Republicans are the enemy. The Democratic Big Tent mentality is their greatest weakness, when it leads them to fail to call the Republicans out, to apply the proper labels.
Republicans do not want what Democrats want. Republicans do not want the good of the American People, do not want the good of the United States. They are corrupt and untrustworthy liars, fools and traitors, whose only objects are obstruction and destruction.
If the Republicans are kept from power, if they are frustrated in their program to destroy the U.S.A., the Republican Party will be transformed in response, and may, once again, make itself fit to govern. Democrats must do what they can to hasten that day of transformation, so that American politics and the American Constitution are safe from the possibility of an authoritarian overthrow.
In the meantime, the Democrats must focus on transforming themselves into a majority Party capable of governing, even in the face of desperate Republican resistance and obstruction.
America must invest in an economic future. The best lesson of the Clinton years was that investing would pay off in economic vitality that could reach the whole People. To do that, Rich People will have to pay taxes, and lots of them. (Note to Chuck Schumer: get used to it.)
Health care will have to be reformed, transformatively.
American imperialism must end.
And, most importantly, the Democrats need to restore American competence. No more Iraqs. No more Katrinas.
September 3, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
how about "...full and rewarding lives in peace with themselves and their neighbors..."
September 3, 2007 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the smaller the list of "things we believe in" and the more general those things are, the better the chance that people will sign on to the list. So, with that in mind, here is my attempt:
1. All people are entitled to adequate healthy food, clean water, shelter, education, basic health care, and a means to earn an honorable living.
2. We believe in shared responsibility for the all of the above.
3. We believes that war is never the best solution to any problem, but peace almost always is.
4. We do not believe in attempting to determine the government for any other country, but will establish friendly relationships with all countries.
5. We believe that international crises, such as global warming, require international cooperation in finding and implementing international solutions.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 3, 2007 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting. Todd presents a set of reasonably well-thought out ideas, and gets jumped on because he doesn't offer satisfactory sound bites for 15 second campaign commercials.
Norquist's quip was the direct result of a lot of thought and writing, much of it centered on the emotional idiocy of Ayn Rand. She established a school, you know, and built the political consequences for half a century.
The key to conservatism is really something Bill Buckley said. He is the one who stated "I just wanted to stand athwart the flow of history and yell 'Stop!' " (rough quote.)
Hasn't worked, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from wanting that, and a lot of politicians from promising it.
Liberals have a very different job. The future is heading our way, and anything we do today to get ready for it is based on linear guesses about the outcomes of an unpredictable workings of systems so massive that they are incomprehensible. The analysis involved in planning for such a future will not be done based on campaign sound bites as the Republicans are proving.
The Republicans offer 'leadership' that provides sandboxes and shovels for digging head-sized holes to hide your head it as they yell "Stop!" at the approaching bulldozers of history.
We have to offer maps to the bulldozer paths and escape routes to avoid being smashed into the useless sandboxes. We have to help individuals avoid the siren calls of false leaders while giving them the tools necessary to succeed and overcome the on-rushing tide of history. Sound bites just won't cut it.
But once the understanding of the on-coming future begins to find some level of consensus, then and only then will sound bites be effectively developed to win elections.
September 3, 2007 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
This may be a case of
By principles and ideals I meant like how fairness unpins ones economic ideals; honesty, electoral reform, etc. Also, how cooperation in obtaining basic needs can enhance liberty and material progress more than dog-eat-dog competion but at what point does that cooperation begin to stifle more than it nurtures. I was thinking of discussions similar to those at Cato Unbound where Libertarians and guests discuss their own ideological differences and other ideas.
Whether top-down or bottom-up, messages need to be clear, not garbled. Hashing them out and understanding what they represent is the best way to assure a clear signal.
BTW, your post offers to excellent topics for discussion: 1) would we be better served by proportional representation in a parliamentary system; and, 2) what is the actual role of states in an increasingly centralized national political system.
September 3, 2007 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the abortion issue, be careful what you wish for. If you mean that the Dems should stand up for some abortion rights then you're on what would seem to be firm—but possibly shakey—ground. If you mean the feminist position of aboriton on demand then things start getting dicey. Here's a link to several poll results on the issue: http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
The top poll, admittedly looks pretty good. It says that 63% of Americans agree with Roe v Wade. But if you keep reading you'll find that this result is actually deceptive and that the overall attitude of Americans is significantly more stringent than would at first appear.
The second group of ABC News/Washington Post polls shows that, as of July 27, 2007, 26% of Americans approve of abortion on demand. Not only was this result on the high side but even the most favorable results indicate that an overwhelming majority want abortion with some kind of restriction or a complete ban.
Worse are the NYT/CBS news polls and Gallup polls. The NYT/ CBS polls show that a majority either want abortion stopped or to increase present restrictions—a combined 54% in the latest. According to the latest Gallup a combined 73% think abortion should only be legal some of the time or not at all.
What these and other polls show is that even among abortion rights supporters there exists a significant chunk who have real misgivings about the procedure.
In short, it's an extremely delicate isse and, even if we take the "popular" position of supporting Roe v Wade we still stand a large chance of alienating potential supporters.
Careful.
September 3, 2007 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a Catholic, I fully understand the other side on the abortion issue and most of those who are pro-life as a matter of principle are pro-life no matter how it polls.
One could only wish that our party supported reproductive rights as a matter of principle regardless of how it polls!
September 3, 2007 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish the Republican Party was limited to the "Christian Right and the business-firsters". If it was it woiuld be smooth sailing for Democrats. The Republican Party also has a lock on Foreign Policy Reactionaries, and that is not a small group.
This unfortunate reality undercuts one of Todd's best lines:
"My sense of Bush and his crowd is that they have been given too much credit for having reasons (for example, for the Iraq expedition). They did it because that is who they are—they are a will machine that does things like that"
Well, yes, maybe. But isn't it also the sort of thing that Foreign Policy Reactionaries do? You know, over-react in foreign policy?
I do not think Giuliani's success thus far can be explained any other way.
Christian Right + Business Firsters + Foreign Policy Reactionaries = Potent Combination.
Democrats can beat them, but not by being watered-down Foreign Policy Reactionaries ourselves (sorry, Hillary). We need to instead offer a more hopeful, less fear-based foreign policy alternative.
In the special case of foreign policy, we will not win by fudging our differences, and I think fudging differences is generally good politics. We have to instead make a full-force attack that Republican policies are gut reactions that MAKE US LESS SAFE. The central message is IN A DANGEROUS WORLD OUR LEADERS HAVE TO BE CAREFUL AND CALCULATING, NO MORE HOTHEADS!!!
This can strip off some foreign policy reactionaries who know on some level that their gut has not served them well over the last few years. They may not themselves be clear-headed, but they can be convinced their leaders should be.
September 3, 2007 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sarkozy, the right-wing guy now president, had an electoral platform based on a 10-point program.
The socialist Royal had a 100-point program.
We know who won.
September 3, 2007 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a hard argument to enter, and the very reasonable attempts in the comments to substitute a one or two or three liner for policy priorities only shows how hard it is to do so. They tend to come off as too close to a civics class and too detached from real lives. When it comes down to it, success often has involved picking out priorities, backed by (a) maybe a good but very short slogan and (b) the fact that most priorities say something about what you broadly want to do to even casual observers.
Take FDR. New Deal, nothing to fear, etc. Mostly, you get to the business of putting people to work. Take Bush. We had compassionate conservative, but mostly to assure people while you get to something people can relate to, like "education president." Then you have "lower taxes" and terrorism, which are more like Gitlin's list.
I'd be happy to combine the simple sloganeering of Obama (hope) and Edwards (tow Americas) with a few priorities that grab people where they thing their future is: out of Iraq, health care, safety without torture or tyrannical seizure of power. In fact, that's what Obama and Edwards basically are trying. Even Kucinich basically is about policies, such as Iraq and trade, which people tend to feel strongly as defining. (Red Staters wish to have immigration on the list, with several items for it, is a mistake I think. Let the GOP divide the country badly over that one.)
Clinton was in the news for four broad points, not unlike the comments here. They were fine, but they ended up making her sound actually that much more packaged. We'll see her health-care idea next, which by being next is at least a statement of priorities, I guess. But everyone, I understand the issue, and I appreciate the efforts to face it!
Oh, and fill me in on 1948. That's a weakness in my history.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 3, 2007 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Recall that those words were spoken by Ben Stein, well-known wealthy Wingnut.
September 3, 2007 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with all Todd's suggestions but I'd add one more.
Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler has been waging a somewhat lonely war against media types that attack Democrats in ways they usually use to attack criminals, but all too often walking right past a Republican scandal to write and comment admiringly of Republicans. Somerby uses names, dates and quotes to show how much of it started with the Gore/Bush race and has been continuing ever since. Happily, Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com has joined the fight.
A recent example is Gloria Borger, who writes glowingly of Karl Rove and who can't comment on Senator Larry Craign without bringing up Bill CLinton. Its interesting that Borger finds Rove admirable, but then again, I could too if I ignored 80% of what Rove stands for and what he's done to win elections. David Broder is another one who readily attacks Democrats for real and imaginary trangressions while all too often ignoring Republican chicanerery
Why is the "conventional wisdom" so often
a pejorative view of the Democrats? Whether its the media gang, Matthews, Russert, etc. that lives and plays with Jack Welch in their mega mansions on Nantucket or the White House press corps, all too ready to bust out laughing at whatever lame attempt at humor Toney Snow or his precedessors throw out. Every time I watch one of these things, at the end I think to myself, "And a good time was had by all."
I say to Todd, if you want a chance to put your suggestions into play then you had better join Bob Somerby and start attacking those supposedly objective journalists who are quick to gang up on Democrats, who are only too happy to repeat that Gore said he invented the internet, who can't join in a panel discussion about a Republican scandal without bringing up Democrats, thereby ameliorating the Republican sin, who feel, as Margaret Carlson told Imus, (paraphrase) 'we see attacking Gore as sport and we know Bush is guilty of more grievous sins but that's just Bush being Bush.'
Name names, dates and use quotes whenever one of these "journalists" dissembles, exaggerates or shows a misplaced admiration for some political figure. Take them to task for this crap, make them stand up and take notice.
Todd, today's "journalists" are the Democrats worst enemy and if you don't take them on your suggestions will simply be ridiculed by this gang.
September 3, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do Americans turn immediately to the Republicans when danger from a foreign source looms? Who knows?
Since WWII, researchers have been studying the psychology of conservatism. In 2003, four of them published a paper that identified two core features that are present in conservatives: (1) resistance to change and (2) tolerance for inequality. Terror management is a common psychological factor that may or may not be present in all conservatives, but...
The researchers looked at Presidential elections from 1788 to 1992 and had historians rate those years according to the possible threats against social stability.
Democrats need to layoff on any type of terror language, including global wars on terror, etc. It doesn't help us and it gives credence to them.
The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire. Anon
September 3, 2007 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Universal provision of the fundamental requisites of a decent life, starting with universal health care, rock-bottom income supports, and more equality.
The rest is commentary, as they say.
This is much more important than all the others and must be the basis for the party as we move forward. The two biggest issues afer we take the presidency in 2008 and expand our majorities in the House and Senate will be universal health care and immigration reform (which fits into this, if you ask me).
If we can get these right, we'll be a majority for the next 20 years.
September 3, 2007 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
An insightful book I read thirty years offers an additional perspective on the rise of the extreme right and decline of the left.
"An Incomplete Guide to the Future", by a Stanford professor, Willis Harmon, said when people and societies undergo great stress, they are drawn to groups that offer the psychological comfort of clear, black and white answers, which appear more certain in an uncertain and scary world.
Movements that offer clear, even rigid, moral rules like the Christian Right gain supporters. Groups that see the world in more nuance and shades of gray, like moderates and liberals, lose supporters. We also saw this after World War I in impoverished parts of Europe with the political rise of right wing extremists like the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy.
That's why people appear to vote irrationally for the Republican Extreme Right when the Right's economic policies hurt these same voters. And that's why the Republicans keep trying to terrify voters, because that pulls voters to the safety of the Right's more rigid world view.
People vote emotionally, not analytically. So they will chose the candidate who best fits their emotional needs, not their intellectual policy list. The Democratic campaigns of Gore and Kerry failed partly because they offered a collection of policies, not a coherent emotional message.
September 3, 2007 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: The Republican Party also has a lock on Foreign Policy Reactionaries,
I would suggest that "foreign policy radicals" is a better description. "Reactionary" implies someone who wants to turn back the clock, but the sort of foreign policy the Neocons advocate was never the practice of the US, where either isolationism and internationalism (both in several different strains) were the rule. Indeed, the Bush administration is not conservative or even reactionary in any of major policies. It is not seeking to halt history (as William Buckley once defined conservatism) nor to turn the clock back. We should start calling today's GOP "radical" precisely to deny them the comfort zone of the conservative label.
September 3, 2007 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah but was that all simply about simplicity and punch of message or was some of it about not wanting a bloated government that micro-manages? Just akin', truly, because I haven't studied the results, nor the promises.
September 3, 2007 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I was riffing off a part of your post, I realize that I was not addressing your whole direction. Apologies if it takes things too off-track.
Still, I think there is some there there as I think that the net is not going to offer the chance to "hash things out" and come up with a message agreeable to a majority. It looks so far as it is going to work against that. Much of what I see is people shopping for their own little ideologically-friendly group, and digging their feet in about that, circling the wagons, shutting their ears to disagreement (or chasing it away) and thinking they can affect something with the power of their own little group. What they can affect is politicians pandering in small doses, like we have now with lobbyists.
September 3, 2007 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
But... Joe Lieberman isn't even in the Democratic party anymore.
September 3, 2007 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Democrats need to layoff on any type of terror language..." For more reasons than one. It plays directly into Bin Laden types' power building - the power of numbers. After revenge, terrorist leaders must rely on reaction and renown to carry out their missions - if you can call them missions. Without substantive reaction and world-wide renown to draw followers into their ranks, terrorists remain at the status of isolated gangs creating little more than temporary havoc.
September 3, 2007 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you know how right you really are?
Summer 2004 in a discussion thread on RedState.org* I asked if the Bush Administration should be considered more radical than conservative given the nature of their policies. I was banned.
*I used a different pseudonym there.
September 3, 2007 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The democratic one-liner needs to be "You are your government."
Everything else flows from that - activism, fairness, cooperation and compromise, safety nets, the deprecation of corporations and big money, etc.
September 3, 2007 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I'll be blunt. This is my biggest disappointment with TPM Cafe. When they wheel in the "thinkers" like Gitlin or the happily-defunct AA crew, we are invariably treated to a bowl of intellectual oatmeal.
(I'll explain why later.)
I am not saying we need Sandel or the ghost of Rawls to preside over the proceedings, but could we have once in a while a discussion about first principles from the main posters that rises above grade school platitudes?
Over at American Prospect, Tomasky has, on occasion, valiantly tried to ask the big questions: who are we as progressives and what do we stand for? But he's been a lone voice in the dark.
This is not the pursuit of intellectualism for its own sake. It's the simple observation that, if you want to motivate people to work their asses off in pursuit of a goal, you have to give them something more inspiring than "smart counterrorism," and "reliable fuel supply."
I think the Dems need to go back to the root of their creed, which is the belief that, whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, pale or dark, male or female, gay or straight, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Wiccan, we are all in it together. And that to be a true patriot is not the desire for a "Strong America" but, for example, being heart-broken that our brothers and sisters in New Orleans are aching.
This is ideological stuff. Right-wingers would never call New Orleans residents our "brothers" and "sisters." Republicans believe that people in New Orleans should help themselves. (Unless they're hedge fund managers.)
We find it difficult to be proud to be American when we know that 47 million of us have no health insurance and poverty has been rising. Right-wingers have no problem with that. It means our definition of patriotism is different.
They get off knowing we have a new aircraft carrier; we get off knowing 47 million of compatriots are now insured.
But before we get to the specifics (health care and all), let's talk about WHY we want health care for everyone and poverty relief and so on.
It's NOT because we are better people. Republicans can be fine, decent human beings.
It's because we look at society differently.
And that's the point we need to examine before we can move further.
We believe the common good ought to be the highest priority of government. Not an afterthought (a la tides raising all boats).
And we believe good government is possible.
These are the questions I'd like to see debated here. But they won't be. They won't be because Republicans have won the intellectual debate.
Think about it. Liberals don't even dare call themselves liberal! (Imagine a day when conservatives don't dare call themselves conservative.) Bush has no qualms using half a trillion dollars of our tax money to throw down the Iraqi toilet (to the applause of Hillary and Gitlin), but imagine a liberal proposing half a trillion dollar reconstruction program for New Orleans.
What kind of patriots are we anyway, when we react to the destruction of one of the crown jewels of urban America with a giant shrug?
If something like that happened to Paris, the French would raise a trillion dollars worth of taxes to save the city. Because they care about their capital city. But we don't give a damn about our own cities and we dare call ourselves patriotic! Interesting, isn't it?
Government is viewed, even by Democrats, as the necessary pill one has to ingest, not as the noble vehicle that it can be for implementing our views on social justice and the pursuit of the common good.
So, in fact, I'd argue that our disagreements are very profound; and they ought to be debated and not swept under the rug.
But the power-starved Dems (they call themselves centrist even though they're way to the right) won't discuss it, and so they'll tell us in long, learned ways, how they really really care about the glory of motherhood and apple pie and little kittens more than the other side does.
I think we need to recapture the pride of our beliefs. And then the courage of our convictions.
But the likes of Gitlin are done with beliefs. Tactics is what it's all about from now on.
They've truly surrendered.
September 3, 2007 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Outstanding!
September 3, 2007 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hoppy's getting very close, a very nice list I could go along with on any day. I would add additional stress in # 1, that we're talking about all people in the world.
My formulation gets it even a bit smaller and I hope, more focused. None of what I say is intended to deny the positive goals Hoppy stated so nicely, and that everyone else has talking about too.
1. We must end American imperialism in foreign policy and foreign trade policy.
2. In order to do that, we will have to re-build American democracy at the local, state, and federal levels, restoring the Constitution, the rule of law, and the ideals of fairness and justice that Americans have preached but seldom practiced.
All the other specifics that people do want and need will have to be hashed out in the big tent, according to the degree of political power we are able to exercise along the way.
I hope that Todd G.'s new devotion to the big tent will mean that he will stop using selective history to denigrate and insult those of who have not always chosen to work within the Democratic Party.
I'm glad to work with Democrats, we need them to get to a majority. Unfortunately, in order to get rid of the current undistinguished crop of AIPAC-loving incumbents who are apparently immovable in their support for Likudist imperialism, and for so-called free trade (which destroys the blue-collar voting population which used to support Democrats) -- I'm giving a big shout out to my so-called representatives here, Sen. Wyden and Congressman Blumenauer -- we may also need at times to act outside of the top-down structures of the current Democratic party.
September 3, 2007 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Principle is fine up to a point but you really can't have a democracy w/o compromise and w/o prioritizing what's most important in order to get what's actually possible. Our side needs to continue winning elections or being the governing party will once again become a nice fantasy. And Republicans have historically done a great job beating us up over abortion. You know—what's the matter with Kansas?
And even Democrats themselves are not unconflicted on the subject. Harry Reid, for example, opposes abortion. What about his principles?
What our side could do is point out what a ridiculous failure abstenance education is and emphasive education about and access to birth control to cut down on the rate of young women getting knocked up to say nothing of diseased while also cutting down on the number of abortions. We could also sell abortion a lot better than we're doing now. Instead of talking about a woman's rights to exclusion of a fetus's—an argument which convinces no one but the already converted while pissing everyone else off—we could emphasise the advantages of raising children who are actually wanted and loved.
Unfortunately, when it comes to abortion the liberal/left seems to be stuck in a definite mental rut.
September 3, 2007 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The liberal/left is stuck on principle and principle when it comes to life and death issues is not just fine up to a "point".
No woman I know would EVER --- SELL --- abortion. Abortion is a tragedy but it is sometimes a necessity and it is not something to be bargained away by someone who figures that if a woman or child gets "knocked up" her life is not worth a damn if her life is at stake in Mississippi or South Dakota or anywhere else the coward caucus will no longer fight for her reproductive health. That "knocked up" woman may be twelve years old and yes in that situation I do believe you don't cast the life of that child away so you can save a fetus that may never come to term anyway.
As to Harry Reid's principles, his principles got forced down our throats by the sell out centrists who have abandoned the poor, the vulnerable and the defenseless.
September 3, 2007 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Abortion and Immigration are two issues that should not be a part of the Democratic Party list of principles. Neither issue will win any more votes than it loses. And, winning votes is the whole point of this exercise. I can respect people who differ with me on both issues, but I won't change my position, and I don't vote according to anyone's stand on either issue. This is the attitude that is needed in order to make a big tent party function.
I don't think any Democratic president will work to overturn Roe v Wade and I hope no Democratic president will forget the part that immigration, both legal and otherwise, played in building our country. It is acceptable to me to have a president who is neutral on both issues.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 3, 2007 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
No disrespect but I was struck how stuck in the past your outline was. There was no consciousness at all of the environment movement and the climate change emergency convulsing the planet. It seems for all your awareness of the blogosphere, etc. you are still stuck in an old paradighm. Liberalism has to stretch and grow,as did the Whig Party in the 1840-50s when it morphed into the anti-slavery republican party. You need to break out of your old notions.
September 3, 2007 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen, and again I say, Amen.
I managed to read this in the Chicago Trib on the 30th, and it struck me as something I could never say, and also why I'm a Liberal (yes, one of those) and a Progressive (one of those, as well).
I'm sure that Valmeyer, Illinois is/was as much a national jewel as New Orleans, but to suggest that inaction was the appropriate policy made my gorge rise.
There is plenty of room under the big tent for policy wonks, but the persons who erect that big tent aren't the wonks, they're the dreamers and storytellers, who understand and respond to what noblesseoblige articulates. We need prophets and poets and visionaries to help remind us who we are, to what we should aspire, and who we can be, at our best. In my case, the current figures on the national stage who do this best are Barack Obama and John Edwards.
I want someone who can preach justice like thunder. I remember those from the same sixties, who could preach that way... some still famous, some too soon forgot. I'd like to see TPM Café Management recruit a few of those, eloquent in their outrage and graceful in their expression of the good that could be, if we exerted ourselves to strive for it.
aMike
September 3, 2007 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the problem is that the Republicans are the party of slogans that will fit on bumper stickers. We need to be smart. That's all I can come up with that would go on a bumper sticker.
On war, I think the right formula is that the burden of proof is on the party advocating the war. We should expect that competent adult judgment by policy-makers would have resulted in saying yes to our joining World War Two, and no to the Bushies' silly conviction that Iraq was a problem that needed immediate military response. Some years back (unfortunately I don't remember when or other details) there was a proposal for a UN rapid reaction force, a proposal that conservatives managed to kill. This would have been (with Security Council approval) the better way to deal with the former Yugoslavia or the Sudan.
But how do you advocate for a party that will elect competent adult policy-makers who will hire competent adult advisers? Bombing Iran is a real bad idea, but explaining why it's a bad idea ("You damn fools, what do you think they'll do in response? How do you think the Iranian public will react? What's going to be the reaction in the rest of the world? Do you understand the reverse Midas touch we're acquiring, more and more?") is not all that easy. [In parody tone] "Ah, you guys are just a bunch of wimps! You don't understand that we have to defend ourselves!" After years of listening to all this stupidity, and hearing so many fall for it, most of what I come up with is the infamous crude participle followed by the crude compound noun.
You see, I don't think just saying we're always for peace will work politically -- I couldn't honestly say I really believe it myself. But I really can say I believe in competent adult judgment. And just because I'm a 75-year-old white male shouldn't stop me from asking that foreign policy should include consideration of what we should allow for situations like Darfur.
Competent adult policy-makers will try to forestall problems; but sometimes they have to deal as best they can with problems created by their foolish predecessors. The foolishness of the end-of-WWI peace arrangement pales by comparison with the problems the Bushies will leave for intelligent Democratic successors.
After the triumph of BS in the '00, '02, and '04 elections, maybe it's only a silly conviction of my own, but I don't see how we can or should do other than look people in the eye and spell out some of the complications of competent adult judgment; can we really spout BS we know to be BS, or worse yet are too stupid to realize is BS?
September 3, 2007 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahhh... but is he still 'in' with the DLC, still buddying up with his Gang of 14 mates. The Senate is a Club remember.
September 3, 2007 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very quickly. In 1948 the Democratic Party split over the issue of race, and the National Democratic Party took a monumental step which some might argue has led to the creation of the solid Republican south.
Some good sources on this.
aMike
September 3, 2007 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now see how long it took a democrat to say "you are your government"?
September 3, 2007 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
While we are calling them radical, let's take away their lock on "life" issues. Are we talking abortion or Reproductive Privacy? The use of the words 'Rights' raises Constitutional issues. And it's harder for them to argue about Privacy.
The worst thing you can do to a dogma is give it an empire. Anon
September 3, 2007 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only 30?
C'mon, you can do better than that. My aunt Gladys, a fellow Minnesota, celebrated her 100th birthday yesterday. :-) (If you were in Chicago rather than Minnesota you could continue to vote indefinately...just remember to get the your mail forwarded to address of your final resting place). <grinmode></grinmode>
aMike
September 3, 2007 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you miss the item below in his list? It was the 2nd listed:
>> Public incentives for the development of sound alternatives to fossil-fuel energy.
September 3, 2007 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you aren't a teenage girl are you, or an abused spouse, or a working mother who already has more children than she can support? So it's rather a moot point for you isn't it? You can afford to be neutral. Those who cannot afford to be neutral are generally young, abused, poor, tired and vulnerable.
Winning is the whole point of the exercise? Why? For what? For who?
September 3, 2007 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the risk of sounding somewhat cynical (haha, and I often take that risk) I see the disparity between the Republican/Conservative successes and the Democratic/Liberal failings as something directly related to their characters. Now in saying this I’m approaching it from a distance and speaking in generalities rather than getting into the nuance of detailed specific policy. And no, I’m not going to say the Republicans are tough and Democrats are wimps. That’s a silly thing to say and is simply derisive propaganda tossed out by conservatives to chum up the waters. I think that from a distance is the ideal place to view the differences because as the expression goes – the devil is in the details and in fact it is the details that are the root of the Democratic/Liberal dilemma. (I wish I could think of an analogous expression at the moment that didn’t have religious overtones...)
From my perspective, Republican/Conservatives do not require the one thing that continually confounds Democrat/Liberals – facts or you could say reality. The Republican/Conservative exists nearly entirely on a diet of opinion and innuendo. And with no shortage of food, this political species can thrive and grow to vast numbers rather quickly. This is especially true given vast fields of Americans (who hate to think any longer than the time it takes to decide what to watch on TV) they have to graze on. Democrat/Liberals on the other hand are much more fickle eaters. They demand thoughtfulness and reason which can be very scares in some regions. In fact entire packs of Democrat/Liberals have been known to starve to death debating whether or not there was indeed enough thoughtfulness or reason in the particular region in which they were residing to actually get around to eating.
I suppose my point is that it is simply easier to be successful when you are not hindered by such things as law, decency, reason and accountability. When you operate solely on fear, hatred, ignorance and greed then there is no room for conscience and there is no looking back. And these are very often the hurdles that trip up Democrat/Liberals and lead to cannibalistic behavior within the party. Who was wrong and how wrong where they? While the Democrat/Liberals swirl around clawing at one another, their opponent sits back and gleefully watches his/her competition wane. And sadly it is not just their competition that is waning but also compassion and reason.
How many Republican/Conservatives genuinely feel bad about having screwed up so horrifically in these last 6+ years? If you answered very few then you are correct. No they feel no remorse, they blame others. They blame the Democrats & Liberals. They blame the terrorists. They blame the Iraqis. They blame a “few bad eggs” from their own ranks. They blame anything and anyone in order not to have to deal with their own glaring failures. And truth be told, they really don’t care. Their myopic world view is so burnt into their retinas that they can only see what they want to see and refuse to see anything else. It reminds me of the gag escape ploy you sometimes see in cartoons – when the obviously trapped character points behind his/her pursuers and says “LOOK OUT!” and then gets away as they turn to look. The problem in reality is that we all turn and look too! And that laugh track you hear as those Republican/Conservatives scamper away to cause more bloodshed and mayhem... That was supplied by Republican/Conservatives themselves (but was taped before a live studio audience).
~ Maybe I can write a book myself called "They're Criminals, Stupid..." It really won't take terribly long to write and I'm sure I could find some publisher to put it out. But what I don't know is who exactly do I would send it to in order to start making a difference! ~
September 3, 2007 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope you have a family member who drives her to the polls. We had a nice weekend for her celebration.
September 3, 2007 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
The 1948 election was fascinating. Not only was it Truman, Dewey, and Thurmond, Henry Wallace led the Progressive Party. All three parties - Dems, Repubs, and Progressives met in Philadelphia's old Convention Hall (where I saw Wilt Chamberlain's Warriors duel Bill Russell's Celtics many times). Truman was able to win in spite of all these divisions and the Chicago Tribune headline "Dewey defeats Truman". Truman's last minute whistle stop campaign against the Republican "do-nothing" Congress turned the tide.
Tom
September 3, 2007 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with AnnS. Perhaps it's because we're not seeing the forest for the trees.
I think our Constitution allows for all sorts of civil society models. One area that I think is of grave concern is the sustainability of our own cultural model. It seems to me that the youngest of us are gathering around the idea that our consumerism and materialism is simply not sustainable. If one thinks about all world societies adopting our current model, I think it becomes clearer that it is not "doable".
What's interesting is what that conclusion means politically for parties and for government policies that our leaders should be calling for. I don't see much of that sort of discussion and as AnnS suggests it simply seems we are stuck in the past and are dealing with old ideas.
Don't have any answers here; just lots of questions about what sort of society we "should" have for sustainability and how we begin moving toward that model politically.
September 3, 2007 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Much of what I see is people shopping for their own little ideologically-friendly group, and digging their feet in about that, circling the wagons, shutting their ears to disagreement
Although I find it completely warranted, this criticism of Clinton supporters may be unnecessarily harsh.
September 3, 2007 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is also the fact that any sort of "big tent" approach would simply be repeating a bad bit of history wouldn't it?
The whole Republican "big tent" proved exactly what happens with this approach and also what needs to be done to attain it. You need to lie to everyone in order to get them in the tent. That's mandatory. Then you spend the rest of your time simply trying to keep them inside. You have chaos with all those members fighting to have their voices heard over the din. And within that chaos there are opportunities for wolves to slip in through tears in the side. Isn't that what happened to the Republicans? Promise all the world then kick them to the curb? Ask the Christians about it, there's been some stellar quotes about what they were used for and how highly they were thought of. (Oh and I'm not crying a single tear for them don't worry...)
September 3, 2007 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you know, we need to compromise with the Right exactly the way Adams, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Hancock & cie. compromised with the British.
In fact, the Right would be just as willing to bargain with us as the British were with them.
What ever happened to "we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor"?
September 3, 2007 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Many thanks to both aMike and tlees on 1948. Together, really illuminating. I'd often heard about how inspiring Humphrey was, and my father always called Truman's integration of the military a touchstone for his liberalization.
Another comment discussed intelligently why the Republicans always gain on the idiot issues of toughness and terror. I think Bush has for once handed things to the Democrats if they want it, because it's easy to boil down: "We'll keep you safe; they'll invade Iraq. We'll keep you safe; they'll invade your homes."
Very interesting article by Gary Younge in The Nation, though, on not getting too optimistic. He's British, black, and radical by U.S. standards, happily talking the language of imperialism. In this column, he differentiates himself from the blogosphere's backing of Sheehan's assault on Pelosi as counter-productive, but he also urges us not to take for granted a paradigm shift. He says that while America hates the war, it hasn't adopted a real dislike of imperialism, just a dislike of losing and could be turned around were it actually possible (nope) to gain in Iraq. He doesn't mean you have to compromise thusly; he means to take nothing for granted and keep fighting.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/September 3, 2007 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, I think I've heard that one before. It doesn't seem that long ago. It was, I think, by who I am often told in the blogsophere is one of those nasty triangulating founding members of the evil triangulating DLC. Yes, here it is:
:-)
September 3, 2007 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that was shortly before he took over the White House and pushed all those welfare recipients out on the street.
September 3, 2007 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe I've been taking them on for about 30 years now.
There's a chapter on the press in the new book.
Todd Gitlin
September 3, 2007 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Back when Bill Clinton was being savaged by the press I formed an opinion I still hold. The press needs to hold the office of the presidency in some degree of fear. They have to believe that if they step over some ill-defined line their career is down the tubes. My thought then was that during Clinton press conferences those reporters who insisted on treating it as a National Enquirer feed fest should have found that their access to federal officials had vanished. And those news services whose reporters behaved in that way should have found it far more difficult to get big stories to cover.
Part of the reason none of the press seriously questions members of the Bush administration is just that - they know what will happen if they do. Just because the questions not asked of the Bush administration are serious questions of great importance, and turning a cold shoulder to those who ask such questions is wrong, is not a reason for refusing to turn that cold shoulder to members of the press and their employers when their job performance is as abysmally bad as we see today.
I hope President Democrat, once in office, maintains the fear that Bush has generated, but uses it much more selectively. I'm encouraged by the boycott of FoxNews by Democratic candidates today - maybe my hopes will be realized.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 3, 2007 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
With all due respect, does this actually go far enough? Fuel efficiency; incentives for improving homeowner energy efficiency; buy local; mass versus auto transit--come to mind without much thought on my part.
Perhaps Number 2 needs to be restated to be much more broad.
September 3, 2007 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gitlin rates my comment a 1.
Doesn't reply to it.
A classy guy. Proves my point.
September 3, 2007 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure that the "race card" has ever been taken out of play. It's been euphemized in a million ways, (well, maybe only a couple of hundred), but to think the card is gone is to guarantee we'll be blind-sided when the next version of it pops up, whether crime, charter schools, immigration--how often does one hear about illegal immigrants from Canada or Northern Europe?
And we need to be a bit cautious about envisioning a "mixed race" population, if by that we mean something other than mixed race communities--themselves fairly uncommon. According to the 2000 Census, about 2.4% of the population reported itself of "mixed race". This is more than in previous censuses, but of all the "mixtures"--ethnic group, religion, socio-economic class--this is the smallest reporting "mixture".
aMike
September 3, 2007 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your answer is here in his essay:
Most of your list is about agendas that most people would classify as popular with liberals. He's trying to limit the liberal agendas to priorties that non-liberals can also get behind. You obviously think you can list all these agendas and form a "big tent" with them. I can't speak for him but I would he willing to bet he probably thinks that adding a lot of those issues would make for a much smaller tent. A lot of them strike me as very balkanizing issues within the left of center blogosphere alone!
September 3, 2007 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democratic leadership is either stupid and lacking courage, or complicit.
Stupid in that any sane human being capable of reading who believes one word pimped by anyone in the Bush government, or who ignorantly afford anyone in the Bush government (and especially the pampered papa's boy and Andover Cheeler "commander guy" one nanopartical of respect, goodfaith, goodwill, or trust - is an idiot.
Lacking courage in the pathetic failure to forcefully challenge, or question, or to stand firm regardless of the socalled political ramifications in opposition of the Bush governments naked fascism and rank mangling, perversion, and betrayal of the Constitution and every principle that formally defined America.
A shattering example of this cowardice, is the refusal of the democratic leadership to use, and to marginalize those who do use, terms like fascism, or fascist in describing the Bush governments pernicious and criminal machinations and wanton profiteering, when in fact these are entirely accurate and exactly applicable terms.
While the democrats dance around attempting to offer tempered responses and challenges in dainty diplomese, the fascists on theotherside are quick to label democrats unpatriotic, antiAmerican cowards, giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Complicit in that klans, cliques, cabals, coteries, cronies, and oligarchs in or beholden to the Bush government profit wantonly from the Bush governments fascist policies, predations, and relentless warmaking, and there may indeed be some crossover in the democratic party leadership with one or another of these interests.
The netroots movement also suffers from the same debilities or complicity.
Stupid in imagining, or holding the dim and fruitless hope that any change is possible through political or processes alone.
Cowardly in failing to take a stand beyond the detached mutterings or faceless contributions through the blogs, or the internet. This nations history was shaped on battles fought, lost, and occasionally won in the streets. Unless and until, large numbers of the America people muster to courage to stand up in public en masse are refuse to accept this governments policies, and utilize the tactics of revolution and mass demonstrations, large local, regional or national acts or events of civil disobedience, labor strikes, and the shutting down of public buildings, or parks, or transportation ports, hubs, and thorough fare and DEMAND accountability, and CHANGE from the Bush government - the children of America will be doomed to hazard and endure a future of neverendingwar, fascism, and a ruthless division, and dividing of those who have, and those who have not.
Complicit in that certain elements of the socalled netroots movement masked as centrists, or socalled realists, whose primary function is obfuscation, distraction, disinformatio, and distortion are probably infiltrated, if not actually operated by the fascists in the Bush government.
"Deliver us from evil!"
September 3, 2007 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've no idea how to change this but one thing that needs to stop is the brazen, full frontal lying by our public officials. The most recent was Bush absolutely falsifying the record of A. Gonzales when Bush addressed it upon Gonzales' resignation. It made me ill for our president to so thoroughly and so obviously lie in a public address to the American people.
This simply could not and would not have happened in 1950 or 1960 etc. The media would not have stood for such blatant falsification. And the only reason it is able to occur is through the conservative right wing collusion between government and big business. Bush knows he can freely make these outrageous statements, and intentionally mislead the nation, without being challenged. This has got to change. If our president can do this and walk away unscathed everything else we may attempt will fail. There must be very public, front page accountability for such an affront. We have Iraq for this very same reason and it can't get much worse than that.
Any hoped for change must start with the truth. However sad or frightening it may be, persons who have drawn parallels with the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany of the mid 1930's are correct in their comparison. Elevated military spending, multi-faceted religious conflict, government control of everything, reduction of freedoms, losses by the labor movement, an increasingly powerful economic elite class etc are all similarities we need to recognize. During post WWII the U.S. and the world recognized the dangers of unchecked political power. The conservative right wing has been doing everything possible to gain such power again and we need to recall what it brings. People don't want to hear this and think it can't happen (again) but we are watching history repeat itself as sure as can be.
September 4, 2007 3:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: He says that while America hates the war, it hasn't adopted a real dislike of imperialism, just a dislike of losing and could be turned around were it actually possible (nope) to gain in Iraq.
I think it's more complicated than that. The average American is not an imperialist; the average American has strong isolationist tendencies and would rather steer clear of foreign entanglements altogether. On the other hand the average American also believes the US can do no wrong and when the US is attacked, even rhetorically, from abroad he wants revenge for it. Had Bush withdrawn American forces from Iraq immediately after overthrowing Saddam the public would have celebrated him as a victorious leader no matter what debacle followed in Iraq.
September 4, 2007 3:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: How many Republican/Conservatives genuinely feel bad about having screwed up so horrifically in these last 6+ years? If you answered very few then you are correct. No they feel no remorse, they blame others.
Actually, they aren't blame anyone, because they don't think they've screwed up. rather they think things are just fine and, at most, the media is just lying or exaggerating about any problems at home or abroad.
September 4, 2007 3:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. I've seen him do this before, makes me want to discount everything he writes.
September 4, 2007 5:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
You take my meaning exactly.
Todd Gitlin
September 4, 2007 6:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good for you, write a book about them using names, dates and quotes. :-)
I think Somerby is writing a book on the Bush/Gore race and how the media handled it. I'm sure he'll mention Chris Matthews, Ceci Connelly, Maureen Dowd, Joe Kline, Frank Bruni, Katherine Seelye, Dana Milbank,
and Mike Allen to name a few of the supposedly objective journalists, and this partial list omits the right wing nuts at the Washington Times and the New Republic etc.
Somerby's story doesn't end in 2001; till this day he shows how the MSM attacks Dems in a way they won't attack Republicans. Its a major story that needs coverage in a major way by the liberals and progressives.
Today you might stop at The Daily Howler to see how the "liberal" Washington Post is covering recent fund raising controversies; notice the difference between their reporting of a recent Republican "scandal", vs Democrat "scandals".
What good is it to push altruistic causes if we allow these so called journalists to continue, with impunity, having a good time at our expense.
September 4, 2007 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ok, so, please explain what the heck you are doing "muttering" on TPMCafe and on other blogs instead of being "on the streets?" Is it that you're with the Keyboardist Propaganda Regiment of The Revolutionary Comintern? A revolutionary chickenhawk, as it were?
I've got news for you: in a real fascist state, your comment would have been deleted by now under threats to Josh Marshall that if he didn't delete it, and identify your email address and ISP number, this site would be shut down. Then you'd be arrested. (I know, I know, the N.S.A. is watching us all. And it's not just the N.S.A., but the entire world population that can read your "mutterings.")
BTW, your comment has been written before, as handbills and "underground" publications in the U.S., in 1917, 1953, 1968, other times. (A skillful archive researcher might even be able to find something similar by Todd Gitlin himself!) Only small minorities ended up "on the streets." Things eventually changed, not through "street action" (there's a good argument to be made in each case that street action in most cases probably delayed the change,) and the U.S.A. survived as a republic.
September 4, 2007 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. What then should the Democratic principles be? My thoughts are they should be the principles upon which the country was founded. Individual freedom, liberty, justice, dignity and respect for our fellow man. All Democratic soundbites should embrace these very basic American values and they should be framed as being conservative by virtue of the fact they are our founding principles and the very fundamentals that America has prospered from.
When we talk about respect and dignity we should be echoing the populist message of John Edwards who says they are not going to give up their corporate greed we are going to have to take it back. Those are messages that will rally the working electorate. Since when in a democracy do corporations rule the masses?
When we talk about individual freedom and liberty, we should focus on national security and how wiretapping and stripping Americans of their civil liberties does not strengthen American but rather dismantles it's very core established in the Bill of Rights. Since when is strength measure by a loss of freedom and liberty? That is weak and a recipe for tyranny which we fought against in the Colonial Wars. Why are we moving backwards instead of forwards when it comes to strength?
When we talk about justice and dignity we should emphasize the right of all Americans to make a living wage and have universal health care. Why is there such wage dispartiy? Who created these trade policies?
We already have Democratic principles, it is just that we do not have the conventional leaders out there pushing for them.
Only one candidate is running against conventional wisdom and leadership and Americans are too focused on a 'lack of traditional experience' to understand that it is traditional experience that has lost our civil liberities and tied us down in a war indebting the nation such that we can not fulfill the domestic obligation to the mases in terms of education, housing, health care and jobs.
We are clamoring for change while building a bridge to the past with politicians whose time have come and gone. Ameirca cannot move forward by looking back. Nostalgia is great but it is not progress.
September 4, 2007 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a hard argument to enter, and the very reasonable attempts in the comments to substitute a one or two or three liner for policy priorities only shows how hard it is to do so. They tend to come off as too close to a civics class and too detached from real lives. When it comes down to it, success often has involved picking out priorities, backed by (a) maybe a good but very short slogan and (b) the fact that most priorities say something about what you broadly want to do to even casual observers.
How about something nice and simple like..."We will protect both your safety and freedom." Even though after the FISA Bill debacle they might not have the credibility needed to make that statement in terms of protecting our freedom.
My home when I am not ranting here...
September 4, 2007 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
You might want to revisit your American history lessons artappraiser, because every major political evolution in America's turbulent and violent history, from the borning of this nation, to the civil war, to the labor rights and union struggles, to the womans rights movements, to the civil rights movements, to the ending of the Viet Nam war were struggles fought and won by large street movements. The delays are always the result of political or legal processes. With regard to Iraq, and the Bush governments insidious and ruthless nazification of America, - there will be no change in any of these policies through the political or legal systems. The Bush government and the republican reich have total control of both systems, and will not relinquish that control peacefully.
I know this is painful information to absorb, but the reality is that both the political and legal structures of America are irrepairably BROKEN, or actually purposefully dismembered, dismantled, and reengineered by the fascists in the Bush government who now commandeer total control of the political and legal structures of the American government. NOTHING will ever change if America STUPIDLY and BLINDLY holds to the dim hope that the political or legal structures that formally defined our unique experiment in democracy will allow for any mechanism for change, or afford the people the right to "petition the government for redress of grievances," or in anyway enable the people to demand remedy, or accountability from the fascists in the Bush government.
The fascists have entrenched the death grip on America. The America we were all born into is dead. Salvaging any thread of our once more perfect union will require large masses of the population taking to the streets, disrupting the fascists machinations of Bush government, and demanding accountability and change.
We are doomed to face these exact scenarios and struggles anyway. After 9/11two, or some ghoulish nightmare resulting from attackiing Iran, when the fascists are collecting immigrants, notwhite and notrich people, and all Bush government opponents, forcing them into FEMA trains, or transports, and whisking them off the those many new HOMELAND SECURITY DETENTION CENTERS, - some will go blindly, stupidly, and sheepishly to the tombs, - other I assure you, - will not!!!
Echoing thepeoplechoose above - "However sad or frightening it may be, persons who have drawn parallels with the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany of the mid 1930's are correct in their comparison." and further "The conservative right wing has been doing everything possible to gain such power again and we need to recall what it brings. People don't want to hear this and think it can't happen (again) but we are watching history repeat itself as sure as can be."
"Deliver us from evil!"
September 4, 2007 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Atrios has made the very pertinent observation that it is not enough that a fact be printed or spoken--once or twice, on the back pages of the NYTimes or WaPo. Or on Democracy Now. Even on blogs. Many true facts about the run-up to the Iraq Invasion were made available before the war began.
But hardly anyone talked about them in the MCM*.
Atrios thinks most people get their knowledge about current events and politics from the "talking about the news" venues, whether broadcast, cable, or written (op-eds, plus opinion, snark, and "analysis" inserted into big name papers' actual news articles).
When the MCM primarily parrots the talking points of one party, it becomes extremely difficult for the message of the other party to become known and understood.
That is what must be fought over and over and over again. It must become seriously embarrassing for an MCM reporter/pundit to appear on a program and just let fly with party talking points, hackneyed and false conclusions, even lies drawn from, say, The Drudge Report. It ought to be job threatening to write or speak such junk.
That will happen only when people such as yourself who have some access to the MCM outlets actually call MCMers on the games they play with journalism standards. Now, it may be that you will feel you'll lose that access if you speak unkindly, albeiet justly, of those in the MCM.
That is a very real risk. Witness Chris Matthews having an on air hissy fit when Naomi Wolf "spoke out of order." She apparently said something which Matthews considered off topic, and told her so--very sharply. IIRC, he told her she would not be back on if she couldn't stick to the topic--fuzzy on that. I have never heard him do such a thing to a Republican spokesperson. But, then, I stopped watching his show if I can help it.
*MCM--Mainstream Corporate Media
*MCMers--Members of the MCM
BTW, Jim Lehrer told the host of a program on Wisconsin Public Radio that he did know who Amy Goodman was.... Good indication of how limited the range of information access is for the insiders of the MCM.
September 4, 2007 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: After 9/11two, or some ghoulish nightmare resulting from attackiing Iran, when the fascists are collecting immigrants, notwhite and notrich people, and all Bush government opponents, forcing them into FEMA trains, or transports, and whisking them off the those many new HOMELAND SECURITY DETENTION CENTERS
You realzie you are suggesting that sometghing like 70% of the population would be locked up.
This sort of hyperbole is not helpful. It reminds me of the far right's nightmarish fanatsies about Bill Clinton back in the late 90s: that he would use the Y2K "crisis" to declare martial law and become a dictator. That did not happen, nor will your dark fantasy become reality. In January 2009 the Bush administration will leave office in the normal manner (to a vast sigh of relief both at home and abroad), and Bush and Cheney and their henchmen will spend their remaining years writing tomes to justify their mistakes and crimes. America will move on and in time this decade will be just a bad memory and a rhetorical prop used against the GOP so that "Bush" wil become the same perjorative that "Hoover" and "Carter" are in American politics.
September 5, 2007 3:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
~
First: I must agree with what Puissant said unthread yesterday when stating what must remain the central basic Democratic principles:
Now to start this crazy comment. I'll keep it simple by first playing the bumper sticker game.
The body within the Democratic "big tent" must overcome the following rallying cries from the right.
Now with the droolers over simplistic out of the way: How will the following information fit on a bumper sticker?
A subject that will weigh most heavy on the future direction of our country?
A little less than a month ago, the U.S. Comptroller, David Walker was interviewed for the following article in the Financial Times. I have a feeling that this message of dire warning is what hangs as a shadow in the corner over every other important issue that will be taken under consideration within the "big tent" in the next year.
--snip--
--snip--
And of course Comptroller Walker was out and about letting the public know what was ahead two years earlier, well before the above article was published:
.
Presently David Walker is in the midst of defending the GAO versus the Pentagon/White House September "Song and Dance" Surge Report.
But Walker's warnings of our country's long-term future needs should NOT be lost over the next month of spin and spew out of D.C. .
~OGD~
September 5, 2007 6:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any Democratic philosophy must have a strong base in populism, and income disparity must be a central focus.
Universal healthcare also should be promoted in a populist framework.
Without populism, the Democrats are just a bunch of left-leaning thumb-twiddlers.
September 5, 2007 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hyperbole or not, Clinton did not suspend and dismss habeau corpus, or sanction torture, or authorize secret data mining programs to spy on Americans, or subvert the elections process, or decieve the American people into a catastophic and failing war, or pervert and betray the Constitution and every principle that formally defined America.
Those who dismiss now what is all to easily laballed hyperbole today quickly forget all the rank abuses of the Bush government over these last six years, like the former conspiracy theories proven true Vigilant and Global Gaurdian wargame operations on 9/11, the spiriting out of the country of 140 Saudi nationals including bin Laden family members in the dark hours and days after 9/11 when all Americans were grounded. Then there were the pernicious and fascist programs that were too repugnant for even the GOP to stomach such as Total Information Awareness headed by that convicted criminal Poindexter, War and Terror Futures trading, Kissinger heading the 9/11 commission. You ignore the wanton profiteering and the fact the 70% of our intelligence apparatus is now jobbed off to contractors awarded multihundred million dollar, nobid, openended contracts with no review, no recourse or remedy for abuse, no accounting, and no clear mandate on missions, duties, standards, or loyalties, all of whom are piloted by extreme rightwing fundamentalist kristians in some way connected to the Bush government.
Look up Sibel Edmonds, or Indira Singh and get back to me with regard to what this government is capable of stopping and silencing.
In my opinion your feeble hope that "the Bush administration will leave office in the normal manner (to a vast sigh of relief both at home and abroad), and Bush and Cheney and their henchmen will spend their remaining years writing tomes to justify their mistakes and crimes" - is cold comfort and belies and/or ignores the brutal realities and well documented designs and Pax Americana pipedreams advanced by the fascists in the Bush government.
Dismiss my suggestions is you so desire, - but you cannot label it hyperbole. Every claim I make is well documented.
I could be wrong about 9/11 two or the reprecussions of an Iranian attack shortly prior to the election, and the Bush government suspendinig the elections process, declaring martial law, and proclaiming total dictatorial powers, - but it is well documented that this is a very real possibility, well within the modus operendi of this government, and certainly not beyond the capabilities of the fascists in the Bush government.
It is rather your rosy hopes and quaint visions of an America long ago lost, that rings hollow and are woefully lacking supporting or substantiating evidence.
Deliver us from evil"!
September 5, 2007 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, that's a nice center-right party. Yes, it is.
But, the reason I've been bothering to vote for the past 35 years is because I'm passionate about all those issues non-liberals have yet to get behind.
So, don't wake me up on election day.
September 5, 2007 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
~
There are folks in our country who in their lifetime have never experienced Martial Law. And I'm happy that they haven't. But the experience is quite an eye opening learning experience. There is nothing like sharp slap in the face to wake a person up to understand how fine a balance it is to maintain the civil liberty and freedoms we take for granted.
I have twice in my lifetime experienced being basically "locked-up" by order in my own residence with another 2 million of my fellow citizens in their abodes. The first time was the Watts Riots. No hyperbole there. The second time was the Rodney King Riots. Again, basically locked within our own residence, by order, the entire population of Los Angeles and many communties within the county adjacent. No hyperbole there, either. And don't anyone ever bullshit yourself to think there was anything voluntary about it.
Unfortunately, there are many within are body citizenry that are quite adept at pulling their comfort blankets hard up around their heads and refusing to accept such dire information. It's less painful to just warble "hyperbole."
Take for example the Real ID Act that's simmering in the stew in some Congressional committee basket. What's the big deal? My privacy, that's what! And that is NOT hyperbole.
When the California legislature has to go so far as to institute a law forbidding the involuntary implant of RFID implant chips in employees by companies and corporations that attempt to use the thinly-veiled excuse of company business security, you can't call me an alarmist blabbering out hyperbole.
And while talking about hiding under the comfort blanket... as I posted above:
If we folks don't look over in this corner that the U.S. Comptroller has brought to light, then none of us will have to deal with that dark shadow over all that's hanging there.
But it is understandable that that is not a sexy issue to get into during the election cycle.
We must sell a positive platform and all, ya' know.
~OGD~
September 6, 2007 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Really, people, this is just foaming. If anyone would like to read the book and engage the issues, I would like to have a serious discussion. But this sort of ranting is decidedly an obstruction, don't you think?
Todd Gitlin
September 6, 2007 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds center-left to me.
September 6, 2007 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
My rating on your comment is because that's such a skillful professorial redirect line, it made me laugh. Please do consider moderating an internet forum when you retire from moderating students. :-)
September 6, 2007 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oy, the eye of the beholder thingie, so simply and well put.
Could that picture have something to do with having nascar parents, mebbe?
I would this re-direct again, back to reality, away from the travel to inner space by many here, from Gitlin's post:
September 6, 2007 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink