Two thoughts. The Democratic Party has yet to recover from the murder of Robert Kennedy. Whether he became president in 1969 or not it is unlikely that he would have remained silent as consultants and pollsters took over from the former "solid south" as the key driver of the national Democratic Party.

While this country is generally conservative in many ways the Democratic Party from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 could be progressive in the face of the Depression both because at its begining it was a national movement and it helped the rural south as much as any region in the country. Without the South the Democrats could not win the Presidency, still has not won the Presidency, without trying to cultivate various interest groups.

Part of what set Bill Clinton apart, was that he would talk back to various Democratic interest groups and win back Southerners and urban ethnics, was he was willing to defend the value of government against the standard anti-government tropes of Reaganism and Republcan conservatism.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

just a wild guess.

Maybe it is GODS TENT????
http://www.audio-bible.com/bible/revelation_16.html

http://www.audio-bible.com/bible/revelation_16.html
http://www.audio-bible.com/bible/revelation_18.html

HOW IN THE HELL CAN THIS BE CLAIMED AS A "HUMANITY WAR"?????
THIS IS IN NO WAY A HUMANITY WAR!!!!!!!!
THIS IS A WAR FOR PROFITS AND PROFITS ONLY
THIS IS A FREEDUMB WAR , A WAR FOR RICH FREE SOCIETIES!
definitely has nothing to do with humanity!!!!
FOOLS!
http://www.audio-bible.com/bible/revelation_18.html
¶ And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

"GOD"!

The great disappointment of the last few months is not so much the bad votes on things like warantless wiretapping, but the fact that the White House seems to have retained the power to define the questions.
This is precisely upside-down, inside-out, and backwards. Its falsity is also a precise indication of the problem that the Democratic Party has.

I doubt you're really sorry about that great closing sentence.

Oh, yes, Casey, because the "instincts" of the men runing the party tell them that women don't care about reproductive rights anymore. Why did you know that not even 60% of the voters are women! What is the Democratic Party doing representing such a paltry group of voters?!

Don,

Fascists? Please. Mark's chickenshit hypothesis is much more plausible, since the primary interest of politicians in being reelected, and there is vast evidence that such calculation leads the right wing of the Democrats to crump out when it comes to such measures as easy surveillance. What's the evidence that in their hearts of hearts, they're fascists? I don't see how such loose talk is helpful.

Todd Gitlin

Chuck Shumer.  Hero in November; goat in September.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I can respect a person who has a sincerely anti-abortion stance on the abortion issue as a matter faith.

What I cannot abide is the cynical, amoral, triangulating, throw the women to the wolves expediency of the Schumers and the party establishment who chose Casey precisely because he votes against reproductive rights! It's this cynical, nothing and no one matters only my tactical opportunism today, that has led me to have so much contempt for our party today. I no longer trust it on any issue.

The choice issue isn't my top issue but it's a weathervane issue for me. It shows what the politician is willing to do and who he is willing to do it to in order to win a few votes. Because that same attitude enables the politician to casually vote for a war that kills hundreds of thousands and lets that politician continue it indefinitely regardless of the cost in life and treasure, no matter what the cost in life and treasure, as long as that politician keeps his safe seat. That politician will send someone to his 4th or 5th tour in Iraq so he can keep a few votes he doesn't even need.

Chuck Shumer. Hero in November
Whose? Pas pour moi, ma soeur.

Good point. They might breed. Miscegenation is such an ugly thing.

Offer void in Kansas, Oklahoma, and south of the Mason-Dixon line or where otherwise prohibited.

I know that large numbers of women have always been anti-abortion as a matter of faith or who simply can't imagine terminating a pregnancy.

But women are split on the issue because it is an issue where there are conflicting moral imperatives.

The only people I see willing to sell out reproductive rights as a matter of political expediency are Democratic men and a few Democratic women politicians. I think here again the establishment Dems don't understand their own base. I believe women take a stand on this issue from a much more passionately committed place than do men.

I don't love Bai and his new book sounds stupid, but he's a good reporter when he stays within his own intellectual limits. His piece on Rudy in this week's Times magazine was very good.

What I'm trying to say is that it's unfair to lump him in with Broder. Bai may be flawed but Broder is a cancer that will completely kill all intelligent discourse in Washington, if it hasn't already.

aa,
You got me cold, podner. There are as you know no polls to indicate that the electorate, much less the working class, are distraught about the unconstitutional FISA extension. None. Zippo. It could be that nobody got around to it, it could be that nobody would think that it was worthwhile to ask people if an unconstitutional law was okay with them--we just don't know.

Now as to the Dems failing to stop the Iraq War, enact universal health care and provide economic fairness and fair elections it's clear that the Dems are not providing what the working class wants, but you got me on FISA. I'll keep googling, perhaps I'll come up with something. Give me a shout if you find it first. I'll spend a couple more hours on it and that's it.

Incidentally, do you live and die by polls? You must be a politician.

No, I didn't mean that Kossacks are necessarily representatives of the working class. I apologize for confusing you. I'll try not to include two different Dem constituencies in further postings so you won't become confused. Actually, you do bring up a good point. Whom do the netroots represent? The Kossacks undoubtedly thought that they had a quid pro quo with the Dems they worked so hard to elect, like Senator Webb, so is this what they get? Is this all there is, a slap in the kisser?

Now as to the Dems failing to stop the Iraq War, enact universal health care and provide economic fairnes

But those are all already on Gitlin's list for an agenda platform, specifically chosen because he knows, has studied that they appeal to a majority. No argument there.

So who is your beef with exactly? This is Book Club about Gitlin's suggestions for making a new "big tent," about the future of the Democratic party and how to enable it to win elections. It's actually not about the current Congress. Maybe it's Howard Dean, the DNC, that your unhappy with and who they ran for office? Maybe you should start a blog entry on that or something?

P.S. You're the one who mentioned a poll, it's in the quote of your text that started my comment. I was asking to see some proof of what you said.

Mark,

You make a major point that the Democratic Party up through the 50's was an association of Liberals on one side and segregationists on the other. That association fell apart when Civil Rights had to be addressed, and the outcome was a Democratic Party which faced a semi-authoritarian right-wing juggernaut ever since.

Yes, I over-generalize greatly, but that does seem to get at the core of the problem on the Democratic side. I will continue to over-generalize, drawing a picture of two different social views and ignoring the fact that most people belong somewhere in the middle between them.

But the Republicans have an equally mismatched association. They have two groups also. The first is the free-market economic liberals who represent the capital-management side in the modern industrial society. These people identify themselves as financial conservatives or libertarians, but they agree that they are under attack and need an authoritarian government to protect them.

The free-marketers are allied with the social conservatives who find that the extreme and rapid social and technological changes that the modern industrial society and post-industrial society have created frightens them to death. Like the free-marketers, they believe that a more authoritarian government will protect them from the rapid and unpredictable changes in society.

Both of those groups at the moment believe that the solution to their problems lies in control of the authoritarian powers of government and both are especially prone to use military or police force to get their way. But the social conservatives are finding that while they put their energies, hearts and money into getting control of elections, they get nothing real back.

The two groups are each unified by a different Ur-Myuth (see Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism.) One is an economic myth, and the other is a religious-social myth.

The leaders of the social conservatives deal with failure to achieve their goals by redoubling their efforts, becoming more energetic and more extreme. This has led them to almost complete take-over of the Republican Party and elimination of the traditional moderate Republican politicians.

The ultimate goal has been to gain control of American society by any means possible, with the means of gaining such control being unimportant. That's why they do such a good job of speaking with a single voice, yet have the think-tanks that put out the ideology of the day with no real consideration of consistency. They cover up inconsistencies the way the Soviet Communists used to - by putting out the word regarding the latest ideology and making the previous ones into non-ideas. Ideology is more important than experience or understanding of reality, so staffing is based on who you know and whether you can keep up with the latest ideological buzzwords. This leads to inefficient government, as the similar form of management of the USSR demonstrated.

The Democratic Party has had nothing that could counter the combination of extremism, unity-through-authoritarianism, and funding by the big business extremely wealthy capitalists. At least not in the short term. But instead of ideology being the ultimate goal of the party, effective government and a well-run society is. There is no authoritarian arm of the party to enforce an ideological standard, and no central think tanks creating a standardized party ideology-of-the-day to enforce.

Debates are not resolved by who has the best ideas (in a vacuum) but by which ideas have been demonstrated to work. This leads to a lot of debates, even arguments, and makes for really rotten press come election time. Reality doesn't come in press-ready sound bites. Without sound bites to unify around, the Democratic party becomes a lot more of a party of equals associating with each other.

Most of the very wealthy will not be Democrats because they do not believe that poor people are their equals, and less wealthy people always want to take some of what they have to make society work better for everyone. Since someone usually becomes extremely wealthy and stays that way by sharing as little as possible with others, they will oppose any political party that proposes true economic equality of opportunity and provides a safety net for those who are less economically successful. Defense of wealth usually leads to authoritarian methods.

The Democratic party lacks the drive to become authoritarian, since being authoritarian and enforcing an ideology does not give effective government or a good society. That's what it means to be a "Big-Tent Party." But since an ideologically-based authoritarian party carries with it the seeds of its own self-destruction, the Democrats will generally just wait for the Republicans to self-destruct. I am not sure that the cost of this strategy can be accepted when the Republicans start preemptive wars to maintain their domestic power, however. Still, I don't see an immediate action that would change the situation for the better.

The alternative is for the Democrats themselves to become more authoritarian and less willing to permit internal disagreements.

Since the Republicans appear to have again self-destructed nationally we Democrats really just need to make sure that it is totally clear that Iraq is a Republican war fought using American soldiers, borrowed Chinese resources, and fought for Republican ideological reasons. I doubt that the Republican coalition will survive the 2008 election if American troops are still being killed in Iraq.

The Democratic politicians are still, properly, afraid of the Republican war cry of "Who lost China-Vietnam-Iraq?" which explains the apparent paralysis of the Democratic Congress at this time. Since ALL of the Republican candidates for nomination for the Presidency are tied tightly to Bush's War, this will become less viable as the election gets closer.

So I like the point you made about the Democrats having been an unstable coalition that had to shake itself out to deal with Civil Rights. I just think that the Democrats are a reality-based coalition that looks quite disorganized when compared to the authoritarian coalition that this the Republican Party. But that's because the Democrats are the party for reality-based effective government, while the Republicans are for authoritarian (and high finance) based defense on wealth and ideologies rather than effective good government.

There should be no split on the issue of a person's body being immune from government attempts to impose its brand of morality on that person's liberty.

It is encouraging to an old liberal to see some embers at least of an old flame. It is not just about choice but the bigger picture of what choice is about.

New Democrats are not just throwing out the welcome mat to fascists but excluding civil libertarians as wingers; e.g. Jefferson was a conservative.

Keep banging the drums, friends. Music to my ears. Damn the tent. Let the people in. There is no tent that big.

Best, Terry

Consider editing the duplicate post -- deleting text and substituting "Duplicate post due to commenter's impatience. Sorry"

What I like about this site is the broad generalizations based on suppositions. My daughter is 12. Many polls show that younger people a bit older than her are the ones more inclined to be opposed to choice.

Part of the problem with the entire abortion debate is that both sides tend to be dishonest and confusing. Abortion, regardless of what happens to Roe, will remain legal in some states and undoubtedly if Roe is reversed the politics of abortion will also reverse.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

aa,

It's actually not about the current Congress.

I'm surprised that you missed the major part of the diary. A true art appraiser should be observant!

If you'd scroll up you'd see that a good part of Mark's diary, the major part of it, deals not with the Dem agenda but with people--who's allowed in the tent, with comments like: "those who succumb to the pressures", "the current Democratic congressional majority", "today's Democratic party coalition", "broad progressive coalitions", "The marginal Democrats of today", "it's the guts that are lacking" and the statement that I targeted -- "They're just fearful", which I question.

What good is an agenda if our representatives thumb their noses at it? In case you haven't noticed, the 110th (Democratic) US Congress has disappointed a lot of people and has fully earned its three per cent approval rating. They actually make Bush look good, an achievement which many thought to be impossible.

P.S. I have no problem with polls, but while polls on progressive issues might be informative (and the current congress has flopped on these as well as on FISA) we don't really need a poll to tell us that an unconstitutional law is wrong, do we. Or do you?

Quite good, but you overlooked how Cheney has changed the powers of the Presidency.

When #6 occurs, President Clinton will begin to apply the new powers of the Presidency against the republicans, who will cry foul (until they are imprisoned, disappeared or shipped to the new resort camp at Guantanamo.)

The New Clinton Democratic Party will arrange a restructuring of the corporate media, so that only DLC-oriented reporters are hired and DLC-oriented pundits will take over the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. As is presently the case, this takeover will start at the Editorial level. Rupert Murdoch's U.S. citizenship will be found to have been illegally purchased and will be revoked. That will eliminate News Corp ownership of FOX news and associated media because American law does require that only U.S. citizens be allowed to own TV stations (that's why he bought the U.S. citizenship in the first place, of course.) Those media will be turned over to the DLCers. Massive on-air personnel changes will occur, after which the change will not be recognizable.

None of this will matter, however, since about 2010 the Chinese are going to call in all their debt. Like Hong Kong, the U.S. will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of China, but - again like Hong Kong - the Chinese promise that the takeover will not involve any interference with the American way of life. Since the U.S. Army and Marine Corps will still be involved in the military occupation of Iraq, there will be nothing that can be done about it.

Chinese imposed quality control standards will improve the quality of American-produced products.

See? All quite easy to anticipate. You just left out the ways Cheney has changed to powers of the Presidency. Mix that with the DLC positions and "High Broderism Bipartisanship" and the rest is logical.

I can't tell if you are being serious, sarcastic, or Swiftian (as in Jonathan). I will assume option 3.

I suspect that Senator Clinton and her close advisers are intrigued by the Unitary Executive Theory and how it has been implemented by Mr. Cheney. However, I doubt that there is any Democrat, including Senator Clinton, who is ruthless enough to actually use those powers in the face of opposition from both Republican congressmen and the traditional press. Democrats simply aren't impervious to media criticism the way Rove, Cheney, Libby, Addington, and Bush are. Also Democrats have a built-in respect for Congressional oversight, separation of powers, and limits. This is to their credit, but it does cause a problem under the pendulum theory of government when Democrats alternate with Radicals who have no such respect. Finally, Democratic congressmen would join with Republicans to stop any attempt to usurp Congress' powers (of course the reverse was not and is not true). So I don't see that happening.

I think you are in full sarcasm mode on ownership of the traditional media, so I will pass on that.

The relationship between the US and the PRC is going to be a difficult issue in the future, but I expect that future to take 20-30 years to unfold and not necessarily to involve confrontation so much as power jockeying/shifting.

sPh

Thank you. I consider your introduction ("I can't tell if you are being serious, sarcastic, or Swiftian (as in Jonathan). I will assume option 3.") to be a high compliment, although any time I ever say something like "See? All quite easy to anticipate." you can pretty much rule out "serious."

I was taking your comment (the one to which I responded) as being both serious and somewhat tongue-in-cheek. My intent was to take what you had written, throw in the elements of the Unitary Executive (which frankly scare the pants off me) and push the whole thing a little further towards the absurd.

I wonder if that is how Swift operated?

Mind you, I wrote the above explanation, and I will stand by it now, but what I was really doing earlier was writing one line after another and then muttering to myself (and then what??) Since I am not much of a writer, it surprises me at both the process and the results. I have only just now as I write this comment become aware of what my strategy for writing that really was.

Needless to say, I post here more to learn than to inform. It continually fascinates me how educational the process of writing really is.

As for your paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, you are correct. I rather wish that in paragraph 3 something could be done about Murdoch, but when his family inherits the business it will not be as aggressive or conservative. Regression to the mean and diversity of ownership among the heirs will see to that.

concentrate on things that the people, not just political junkies and bloghoholics, care a lot about
I'd actually recommend concentrating on things that the Founders cared a lot about. Bread and circuses is a GOP tactic. Remember the $300 tax rebate? Neither do most of the voters.

The Religious Wrong likes passages like Gen 3:16.  It gives 'em license, in their minds, to treat women as second class citizens. 

It gives me the warm fuzzies...

/sarcasm 

My home when I am not ranting here...

I certainly have no religious stake in the abortion issue, nor would I make abortion illegal. However, you make the issue too simple. You left out the fetus. The fetus is what makes abortion totally unlike creationism and prayer in school. When a fetus is entitled to rights is a matter of law, not religion, but whether a fetus has rights it is a potential human being which makes abortion a much more complicated issue than what a woman should be able to do with her own body.

Justic Blackman in Roe understood that which is why he crafted a trimester system which hinged on the viability of the fetus. What happens as viability gets earlier and earlier? To the extent the issue is a balance between the mother's life or health it is not much of a test. However, an abortion for other reasons and a fetus viable before the second trimester might, even under Roe, cause an abortion ban.

Even more importantly I am not clear why you don't see it as a moral, not a religious, issue worth considering? If a fetus can be allowed to survive from any early point you choose what makes it different than a child except that it is both inconvenient and the law can make it so?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I do not see the issue morality of the fetus is only held by men. Women seem to be on both sides of the abortion debate. If there not women on the anti-choice side of the argument there would be no political issue.

The denial of the significance of the fetus at any level seems to bring us close to justification of infanticide. Why does birth empower anyone with rights except that the law grants them? A fetus is a far cry from sperm since at some point, and it gets earlier and earlier, a fetus can survive on its own. (have you ever seen a sonogram of a fetus?) It would be shame if you are correct that women are so morally obtuse not to recognize there are no moral issues in abortion.

What is most unfortunate is that Blackmun's effort to parse the difference in Supreme Court decision only elevated the political acrimony and failed to the comprises that he worked out in his majority decision. One should remember that though she abandoned it Sandra Day O'Connor saw the abiltiy to move the viability of the fetus to an earlier time could undo Roe without ever reversing it.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Daniel,

You are able to recognize that the fetus may be viable at earlier and earlier stages of life.

Consider that there is a similar situation with its mother. Girls and I mean girls not women, go through puberty at a younger age than they once did and may be sexually active and sexually abused at a very young age. The same medical wonders that enable the fetus to survive also make it possible for very young girls to have children. The extremists on the "pro-life" side don't acknowledge the moral issues involved here either. Experts on brain and psychological development will tell you that the biology of good judgment doesn't fully develop until after 16 and sometimes as late as early 20's. That's not exactly a shock to anyone who knows teenagers. It's a tragic fact that girls are capable of having children long before they have the judgment to raise them. So you often have two children involved in this issue and two lives that can be destroyed by arbitrary and rigid regulations.

It is a wonder, is it not, that the children of the wealthy and highly place politicians never, ever seem to become pregnant as young teens. What do you think accounts for this miracle? Good judgment or private abortions? It has always beens so and it always will be so. The people who suffer from rigid laws on abortion are the youngest, the poorest, and the most vulnerable -- and they don't vote and that is why they are politically expendable. They don't count. They don't matter. They are not capable of speaking for themselves.