This Will Happen Again and Again.
This whole pathetic episode has made even clearer the problems with our political system.
1) The presence of an anti-democratic body within the federal government.
2) The absence of a real, viable leftist party.
3) The cowardice and insularity of the leadership of the less conservative major party.
4) The importance of fundraising in elections.
5) Right-wing voters.
We need to eliminate the Senate, period. At the very least we need to eliminate the filibuster immediately. We need a strong, effective national labor/socialist/green party, and we need to make whatever changes to ballot access, fundraising, or election laws are necessary to make that possible. We need a complete removal and replacement of the Democratic leadership class. And we need all federal elections publicly funded, with private donations made illegal.
As for the right-wing voters, they're the most important problem. The present system would actually work if there were no conservatives in it. The presence of wackos is the biggest impediment to fixing any of the other problems, but to the degree that we can accomplish these other changes, the wackos will become less relevant.
1) The presence of an anti-democratic body within the federal government.
2) The absence of a real, viable leftist party.
3) The cowardice and insularity of the leadership of the less conservative major party.
4) The importance of fundraising in elections.
5) Right-wing voters.
We need to eliminate the Senate, period. At the very least we need to eliminate the filibuster immediately. We need a strong, effective national labor/socialist/green party, and we need to make whatever changes to ballot access, fundraising, or election laws are necessary to make that possible. We need a complete removal and replacement of the Democratic leadership class. And we need all federal elections publicly funded, with private donations made illegal.
As for the right-wing voters, they're the most important problem. The present system would actually work if there were no conservatives in it. The presence of wackos is the biggest impediment to fixing any of the other problems, but to the degree that we can accomplish these other changes, the wackos will become less relevant.
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This blog shows how very little you know about our common history or our system of government. It doesn't show even a basic understanding of anything you cited as being central to our failure as a nation.
"Liberals" have been every bit as damaging to the Republic as "conservatives" have been and for many of the same reasons. Not the least of which being ideological blinders that makes common sense thinking impossible. It wasn't until both camps started coming together in the middle that we started solving things.
There remains much to be done, but ideologues won't be part of the solution.
February 7, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to disagree with the one person that take me seriously, but I disagree. The problem is that the "middle" is not in the "middle".
The Democrats and the Republicans are now just different parts of the spectrum for what in other times would be known as conservatism.
Except no one conserves any more. The Republicans spend as much as the Democrats. Sometimes more.
We need a real left in this country!!!
February 7, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
What if the "real left" is actually found in the center? Expand your mind. :O)
February 7, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason,
You are just thrilled that you have two right wing Republican parties to choose from. I understand your delight but that certainly does not mean the full range of opinion let alone policy alternatives are being presented.
The classic example is healthcare. We could not even present the alternative of a single payer plan because the DEMOCRATS will refuse to do it.
Americans can have any choice as long as it is to the right of the western world.
I am not in favor of socialism but I do favor a strong liberal alternative no more radical than that of the fine folks who live a few hundred miles north of me.
It's ridiculous. We call ourselves a democracy but our alternatives are so constrained by the right and those like yourself who are fixated on some valueless amoral anti-philosophy called "centrism" that people really have no choices presented to them at all.
February 7, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It ridiculous that you can't have a rational argument without resorting to ad hominem attacks and reductio absurdum in place of logical, respectful debate.
You have never even taken the time to ask what my preferred solutions might be, let alone read and understand a policy-related blog I wrote, so how can you possibly assert that I want two right of center parties. Maybe I don't agree with that framing at all? Perhaps I think 20th Century definitions and partisan conflict isn't the answer to our 21st Century problems?
I am way further "left" than you are with how I would fix things, but hardly expect you to understand the distinction. I don't believe we can ever get to that future without convincing people you consider "enemies" to help us get there.
As soon as you are willing to discuss the issues like an adult, I'll be happy to treat you as such. Until that time, derision is really the best I can offer.
February 7, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bluebell, I love you!!!
That's because the Democrats are not the real left. They are just an alternative version of the Republicans. Thanks for saying soooooo!!!
February 7, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fun comment Jason, but well... you know.
Fox News has successfully taken away words like "liberal" from our vocabulary effectively stunting our political spectrum.
What's funny is that TPM people who probably don't even watch Fox News are also infected.
Those people at Fox are smart!!!
February 7, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The solutions I would like to pursue are far to the left of even the most ardent liberal. Fox news doesn't speak for the millions of Americans who still get most of their news from one of the big three.
This country is much more complex than you or many "lefties" give us credit for. Right now, all the "left" advocates is continued yelling and screaming and badgering in an effort to get their way. The far right does the same thing.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of us in the middle who would agree on things like a health care system that works, most likely a non-profit entity of some sort. Most of us agree that education and infrastructure investments make sense for the long-term health of the nation. Most of us agree on the broad strokes of societal fairness and we belong to both parties, no matter what the "leaders" of those aprties might be doing.
What I am saying is that in order for your favored solutions (a long-term sustainable future that works for most people, most of the time) to become reality, messaging work needs to be done. We need to get all of the "far left" in addition to the fifty percent of the country who consider themselves moderate or centrist.
That isn't done by pissing in someone's open mouth while you wait for them so shut-up so you can tell them why you are right.
February 7, 2009 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point is that there is no leftist solution even on the table. People on TPM are definitely not leftist except for oleeb and possibly a few others I haven't seen post much.
February 7, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are progressive and most of our preferred solutions would be considered classically left, even if our methods aren't as dogmatic as you would like.
I am suggesting that you and oleeb and others can't see it because you are stuck with definitions developed decades ago. Leftist and rightist no longer applies to our world. The real solution will most likely be something that is a hybrid of many philosophies depending on the particular context.
There is no One-Society-Fits-All solution to the America we must build. None of those solutions you claim as important will ever get done if all you use if the strategy and tactics as suggested by oleeb's rhetoric. Sorry. They have been trying it that way for 40 years and accomplished next to nothing.
We are arguing about semantics.
February 7, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who is this "we"??? Most people here don't consider you one of them.
I'm confused.
February 7, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Really, because as far as I can tell, only a handful of idiots (the same ones I have been defending you to) consider me an outsider.
In fact, look at any of my blogs and most of the comments agree in one way, shape or form. That is why I am suggesting that despite Labels we are all really One. The only people who seem resistant to that idea are "liberals" or "lefties" which would be ironic if it wasn't so sad.
The "we" I am talking about are the people in the center around here who are independents or moderate democrats or moderate republicans. The people who don't use dogma and rhetoric in the place of logical thought. People who actually have open minds, especially with people they don't normally agree with.
The VAST majority of TPM bloggers who act like adults instead of children.
February 7, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish they'd post more!!!
Thanks, Jason.
February 7, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jason. I respect and understand your calls for a different type of discourse. But there's one thing you keep repeating that's bothering me intensely, and I hope you would rethink it.
A majority of Americans support single payer. So when you say things like this:
and some of the other things you mentioned in our discussion on this the other day, you are contributing to the notion that single payer is some radical, left-wing, ideologically driven notion. Keeping the idea marginalized has been an effective strategy for not getting it passed (i.e. That's socialism! Gasp!)
59%. 59%! That is not a slight majority. If you are not in that majority, that's perfectly understandable. Please do articulate different suggestions or critiques of single payer on its merits. But please reconsider continuing this notion that it is some crazy idea that only "screaming and yelling lefties" support.
February 7, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the preface and for disagreeing in an agreeable manner. That's why most of are here, I suspect.
Yes, but that 59% doesn't mean they support Single Payer as stated in liberal pamphlets or in dogmatic responses here at TPM. It means they support a health care system that is available and works for everyone. I have yet to see anyone link to a credible survey that says 59% of Americans support Medicare for All.
The devil is in the details and the details are delivered during implementation.
I support Single Payer as one of many potential solutions to our health care crisis, but don't necessarily believe it will look like any other nationalized health care system that is out there. It will be a hybrid of solutions that utilizing our existing systems but in a more creative fashion. There is no reason to tear down the whole edifice if what is supposed to replace it would take many years to implement if we are going to get it right.
The 59% also include the leftward extreme of the democratic party is in no doubt and they think the best solution is Kucinich and Conyers bill. They are perfectly within their rights, but that doesn't make whatever percentage that doesn't agree wrong to look for more creative and sustainable solutions. Medicare was first designed in the 1930s. Perhaps we could use some of the lessons learned by other countries to make ours a little more contemporary?
When I say the vast majority of us are in the middle on this, it is because the middle includes left and right of center who want solutions that work better than those that currently exist or have been offered in the past. Don't blow the dust off a bill that is five or ten years old and suggest it is the cure for today's ills.
We can do better than that.
February 7, 2009 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
JEM, you're wasting my time and this is the last time I'm responding to you. You, and people like you, are the problem. You don't understand what real democracy is, you don't understand history, and you know what it means to really believe anything.
There is not one issue -- none -- of the last fifty years that the right-wing has been right about and the non-Communist left has been wrong about. Not one. The left is always proven correct, often after it is too late to fix the mistake the country has made. If you can't see that, then you're not a liberal, you're not a progressive, you're not a leftist, and you're not even a real Democrat. You're just useless.
There is no middle. There is right, and there is wrong. If you'd rather pretend to be fair or moderate or independent or whatever people like you aspire to be, that's your business. But don't pretend to be a problem solver or part of any kind of movement for positive change. You are as much a part of the problem as the Republicans.
Now go away.
February 7, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just off the top of my head:
a) Supreme Court packing
b) Industrial Military Complex
These came out of the right.
February 7, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or should I say, the opposition to these things were expressed by the right.
February 7, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hear! Hear!
Skybolt, my hat is off to you!
February 7, 2009 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hats off from me as well! :-)
February 7, 2009 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are the problem and not the solution.
You are so filled with hate and anger that you fail to see the needed changes right in front of you. You claim to be liberal but you are every bit as dogmatic and ideologically blind as the Rapture and Reagan Right has been.
All the Dittoheads down below are part and parcel of the same failed "liberal" tactics that make more enemies than friends and have failed over and over to deliver meaningful progressive changes. At least for the last forty years, their anger and lecturing and intractable lack of confidence has led to a decades long rampage by the neoconservatives.
You blame everyone else for your failed tactics and strategies. You take a suggestion to change the "center" into a true progressive governing majority as somehow calling for a return to Clinton centrism. You lack imagination. You lack personal morality and ethics because at every turn you fail to live up to THE core liberal value.
The Golden Rule is totally lost on you as are most of my comments. Oh well, I am sure other people who are intellectually honest get plenty from me schooling you and the rest of the Hate Parade at TPM.
February 7, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the JEWEL of your DENIAL.
YES YES YES YES!!!
February 7, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe:
1) The right has flung so far right that the center is the left.
2) the left has flung so far left that the center is the right.
3) perhaps the center has expanded so vastly due to the left pulling one way, the right pulling the other, that it has become barren, unable to support life.
4) Right left center is too linear and static a model to define current political and socioeconomic dynamics. This linear right-left-center model has become a detached instrument in a vacuum, unaffected by the principles that govern motion. Because of this, it believes deeply that it is the center of all things but it is more like a lost wrench floating in space, not even aware of its own lack of gravity.
Turn on CSPAN and you can watch it live as it drifts, incapable of generating speed, velocity or momentum.
And as you watch it drift, recognize that you are part of a force in potentia that has always been much greater and more dynamic than it ever was or could ever be.
February 7, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm, too much CSPAN can drive one to despair.
I agree with you, though.
Simplifying things to "left-right-center" is merely another way of minimizing the electorate and dividing them against themselves.
February 7, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't FDR try to pack the Supreme Court by expanding its membership and installing his own justices? He was definitely of "the left", but probably too centrist for some bloggers here. JEM, don't give up the fight. Many of us lurk around here, but we stand with you.
February 8, 2009 3:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, cain! I find the vast majority of people who comment on TPM are reasonable and looking for new solutions. I would expect the readers who don't comment as often to follow the same trend.
February 8, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
You either need to immigrate out of the country, or go to jail as a subversive.
February 8, 2009 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Skybolt, I certainly feel your frustration, especially with those moderate republicans who are hijacking the process right now. There are several provisions which will help my employer operate, and we need it to avoid any additional layoffs - they closed our office down last March, and I watched 50 friends and colleagues walk out the door, wondering what next. Made it through the fourth quarter, but overall, it's getting worse, and fast for so many people I've lost count. I'm one of many who think it ought to be bigger, not smaller, and I'm aghast at some of the proposals that were cut, when the last headline in the local paper was about 300 teachers and the district budget being cut. And food stamps cut? Come on!
I disagree, however, with the post. Right now, all of the correct information is in the hands of the democrats, and the republican talking points have no basis in fact. But if you look at our history, there have been numerous situations where the situation was reversed - how many Southern Democrats, for example, did Johnson get to pass the Civil Rights legislation?
At some point, the pendulum will swing, our economy will be successful again, and it will be time to be concerned about the size of the national debt - and people who are fiscally conservative, regardless of the party label, will be valuable voices.
Remember the last 8 years? Did the White House listen at all? We need to hear the voices of dissent, and the Senate structure ensures we do, though the final results won't have everything we need. But there will be more bills - FDR and his congress passed dozens!
February 8, 2009 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink