What is Next for Liberals?
For argument’s sake, let’s concede the point that Obama has not turned out to be the Democratic President that he projected in the campaign. There is no “strong man” who is going to knock heads together on our behalf. There is no Democratic St. Ronny Reagan on the horizon, so the question remains, what now?
WTO/World Bank style street protests? No. Only a very small fraction of people who want progressive change would ever actually take part in some kind of street action anyway, so that “police state” stuff is really kind of silly. I think a good starting point is to stop attacking each other.
When disappointed liberals feel push back in these pages it is not from people who think they don’t have a point. It is from people like me who think that we first need to organize the liberal firing squad in an outward facing circle.
– Join your local RD?
– Join a single issue liberal group with a track record of getting its message heard?
– Work for local and state politicians that you think can move the ball toward the goal?
I don’t know. I want ideas not excuses. There has got to be something more effective than constant carping and complaining.
I’ve been thinking about this very question Jason. How do we unite the left? I think we need a common goal.
I do think a single issue group is a really good idea (like the NRA). I think a coalition of lefties with a lot of different issues is just not very effective. Some single issue groups are. The groups on the left tend not to be. Why? I’m not sure. We really need to study the NRA to see how to be effective. Basically you need a group with a lot of money, a lot of members and a laser-focused purpose. I’d certainly like to see a single-issue group focused on getting corporations out of our politics.
We also need to focus on getting beyond Congress. We need to push progressive action at the state and local level. I think we should use any tool in our arsenal to make that possible.
Let’s think for a minute – why were the teabaggers able to take over the Republican party? It’s because they are the loyal base. I don’t think being the group throwing stones from the sidelines gets that much attention.
Yes, take over the party.
We also need a more effective way of getting our message heard. I think we rely too much on cerebral messaging and not enough on emotional messaging. Look at how much time we spend pointing out hypocrisy. Do voters really care? They respond to drama and gut-level messages. We need to learn to do that.
It’s a very good question, and I’m not sure of the answer. I don’t think the Republican model will work with Dems – mainly because, under normal circumstances, Republicans will vote for Republicans. This happens because Republican candidates are homogenized. There simply aren’t a lot of gray areas, or nuance.
It’s a one-size fits all approach, and it’s been very effective. This year, with the emergence of the Tea Party, will be politically interesting. I have no idea how effective they will be.
Back to liberals… I don’t know how to homogenize free thinkers who excel at nuance. We’re probably too informed. 😉 What works (or has worked) for the GOP is simplicity. Taxes = Bad. Always.
How do liberals come up with such a unified message? Which one? Abortion should remain legal? War is evil? Big corporations are the enemy?
We just aren’t very good in dealing in absolutes. We see the exceptions.
Wow. All this typing and I didn’t answer your question. Guess, I don’t know.
I think we need to get more single-minded. That’s always been the problem, too many people with too many pet issues.
The single minded purpose that animated the Reaganites was: elect Republicans. I think we are seeing that a similar democratic version of that would not be tenable or even desired.
I’m leaning toward the model of “1,000 points of Fight” (c) jason330 2010.
That is to say – 1,000 kick ass liberal single issue groups that are absolutely bloodthirsty.
But the 50 state strategy was kinda like that, only… the Dems elected behaved like Dems instead of Republicans. They didn’t fall in line.
I’m willing to hold misspelled signs for a cause. Sign me up for something.
Well, I do think there is something we should do about elected Dems not falling in line, the Senate and House caucus should have certain rules for who qualifies for money and support and committee chairs. Senate Dems should not be allowed to vote against the party on bringing legislation to the floor. We need a stronger leader than Harry Reid.
“This happens because Republican candidates are homogenized. There simply aren’t a lot of gray areas, or nuance.
It’s a one-size fits all approach, and it’s been very effective. This year, with the emergence of the Tea Party, will be politically interesting. I have no idea how effective they will be.
Back to liberals… I don’t know how to homogenize free thinkers who excel at nuance. We’re probably too informed.”
Weeding out this kind of condescension might be a first step.
It’s not condenscension. It’s true. Show me the internal Republican debate on taxes, abortion, immigration, guns, etc. Show me R candidates who are walking out of step on these issues.
Are we better off than we were two years ago? I think the answer is incrementally yes. Obama made the comment early in his term that you don’t swing this thing around like a speed boat, it’s an ocean liner and it takes time to change course.
There’s a belief in the Organizing for America camp that getting the people who voted for the first time in 2008 to vote for a second time in 2010 will start a lifetime habit of voting and voting D. If that’s true, and those voters stay quietly mobilized, it gives cover to the politicians who want to vote progressive but can’t right now. (See Kaufman’s comments on Thursday.)
Conservatives have been working on this for the past forty years. We just started with the Dean campaign in 04. There’s no magic wand here. Just years and years of hard slogging. Knocking on doors and making phone calls in support of progressive candidates and making certain they win by wide enough margins so they can take courageous stands. If they just squeak by against a conservative it will color their legislative career. It probably should. Those conservative voters are part of their constituency. They have to represent them just the same as they do the progressives.
Recruit someone to run against Tom Carper. A strong candidate would be nice, but even a progressive with no chance to win would have a chance to get a lot of free media and get the progressive message out there.
If nothing else, a challenger for Carper could upset his little apple cart of whatever plans he has for retirement and a transition to another Blue Doggy type.
At a very minimum, stop saying things like “it’s better than nothing” and “we’ll fix it later” and accusing Democrats of being “purists.”
The teabaggers gained power precisely because of their purity purges. The GOP establishment is no longer laughing at them.
I don’ t think a grass roots message can take hold unless it is aligned with the narrative the media wishes to portray.
At bottom, I am very pessimistic. As I’ve said before – we had to starve for five years before we got the New Deal.
As has always been the case and as we have recently seen, primaries are where small united groups can make a difference. Not via the Democratic party locally where the endorsement process is way over-valued. Many incumbent Dems don’t fear primaries so they stick to the middle of the road…which is effective as a general election strategy. If they truly feared a real challenge in a primary, where their record as a D would be tested, maybe they would act like Dems.
“Comment by pandora on 2 October 2010 at 10:13 am:
It’s not condenscension. It’s true.”
Why did you italicize a word you misspelled? I think your sentence is too meta for me to even comprehend. You are attempting to say you aren’t being condescending, but your words belie your meaning. Then (!) you misspell the word “condescension” and draw attention to it no less! Thank you for having vouchsafed a reply, though.
it gives cover to the politicians who want to vote progressive but can’t right now
Sorry, I only believed briefly in eleven dimensional chess. It ain’t happening.
Only when you primary an incumbent with a viable challenger, do you find out how their base truly feels about them.
Maybe we need to take it to the corporations.
If every liberal cancelled their iPhone and cable TV contracts tomorrow, the corporations would come crawling to us asking what we wanted. Stop feeding the monsters.
It is time for another round of populist trust busting. With manufacturing gone, corporations have turned to a business model of assembling de facto monopolies and lock-ins on anything that cannot be offshored: data, telecom, credit, insurance, health care, housing, education.
Maybe the question is, how to transfer the misplaced anger against Big Government to populist anger against Big Corp.
If you can do that, the politics will follow.
I’m hearing three different possible courses of action.
1) Join your local RD. Work for local and state politicians that you think can move the ball toward the goal, and keep chipping away at the current Dem power structure from within (by showing big election day results).
2) Walk away from the current iteration of the Democratic Party and join a single issue liberal group with a track record of getting its message heard.
3) Be more stridently ideological. Make the Democratic “brand” mean something by adopting “tea party” tactics & purging “DINO” Dems through primaries which will at least scare “DINO” dems into acting more progressive.
Frankly, I’m leaning toward action item #2. I’m not patient enough for the long slog, and I don’t feel like being the toxic asshole I’d need to become in order to pull off action item number 3.
If every liberal cancelled their iPhone and cable TV contracts tomorrow, the corporations would come crawling to us asking what we wanted. Stop feeding the monsters.
And there’s your problem. Too many liberals carry their politics like they carry their iPhones — it is a brand that is supposed to convey something about the individual carrying it. If you could translate the bitching and complaining into real action you might be able to get powers that be to pay attention. Even better, you could give the powers that be — when they are your guys — more room to maneuver.
But I repeat myself. Knock yourselves out with all of the rationalizations as to why you can’t live without your cable (or whatever it is that you make a statement with).
I don’t believe we’ll succeed by going piously off the grid. They’ll just lock down all the parts we aren’t on before they come after us. I think, messy though it is, difficult though it is, we just have to engage with the process.
In my area, not too long ago, there were no D’s running. At all. Getting D’s elected means we now have people competing to carry the D badge into the general. Not everyone who shows up is utterly awesome, but we’re in the game, and we have a say.
That’s progress. But Nader-type behavior didn’t get us it.
There are some people who showed up for 2008, shoved ‘the party insiders” out of the way to throw their panties at Obama and haven’t been heard from since. If the D’s don’t get anything done in this election (or afterwards) they’ll just pat themselves on the back because they jumped ship before it went down.
Bail, idiots, bail! Or, better yet, navigate and steer.
It’s not condenscension. It’s true. Show me the internal Republican debate on taxes, abortion, immigration, guns, etc.
Oh, gee, I don’t know … like maybe right here in freakin’ Delaware maybe? Castle v. O’Donnell?
Wake up.
I wouldn’t regard it as going off the grid, but getting more focused. I have been with people like Auntie Dem since the Dean days trying to get the 50 state/27 RD strategy going and while I don’t think that it has been pointless – I think it is time to try something else. It is time for me to try something else anyway. Everyone is different.
I think, messy though it is, difficult though it is, we just have to engage with the process.
Every liberal movement has to solve the problem of how to win the support of the proletariat. Democrats aren’t succeeding, and they aren’t going to succeed by doing the same things over again.
Start by not calling them proletariat. (I wanted to beat Phil to that one)
I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful input. Over the next few weeks, I think I’m going to start something called, “The Delaware Progressive Chamber of Commerce” The existing Chamber of commerce is nothing but a front group for the GOP. A business group of progressive business owners, (even if it is small) could provider a little counter balance to the anti-middle class policies that are currently being sold as “pro business.”
Start by not calling it “progressive.”
That’s a good idea, Jason – and worth a try!
How about “The Small Business Leaders Group” ?
A few more thoughts:
– Progressives need to learn to take the long-term view. If you look at the anti-abortion movement for example, they’ve advanced their cause by a lot of incremental steps that hardly anyone noticed. It’s now impossible to get an abortion in many states.
– We need to stop kicking our allies in the teeth. We should celebrate successes instead of complaining about how it’s not perfect. I don’t understand how progressive think they’ll get stuff accomplished by constant complaining and backstabbing. More carrots, less sticks please
– Yes we need sticks, too. Taking you ball and going home isn’t a good one. Again, I look at the NRA. They withhold endorsements (which means $$$).
– We need a better way to get our message out. We need our own army of think tanks and young telegenic activists.
The “Small Business Leaders Group” needs to be very media savvy. Send lots & lots of press releases and have someone available to talk to the media.
I don’t believe we’ll succeed by going piously off the grid.
I’m not advocating this, either. But a whole lot of liberals telling Comcast to turn it off is less about going off of the grid than it is about creating a monster revenue hole that they’ll have to pay attention to. You can do the same thing with pretty much anything, but the point of getting committed to the long-term play is the same. Still, it is pretty awesome how liberals scared away most of Glen Beck’s advertisers, right? That was just one program too, so it isn’t as though it can’t be done.
UI’s points above are right on the money. But all of them require a long term engagement with the process to get what you want out of it. If you are expecting one man to make all of the changes you want — while you are sitting at your keyboard bitching — you have given up before the game gets started. What the other side knows that liberals never get is that they see *US* as their challenge — their work is about dominating the board in a whole lot of ways that keep the conversation and the legislation going in the way they want. Work at doing just as much work for our own people to be able to operate and you’d be on your way.
At the end of the day, leadership comes from above. If we want a change in course we need a change in leadership.
I agree Cass. Too many people thought they were done once Obama was elected. It’s continuous, grinding work that gets things accomplished. Once we get people in office, we can’t leave them to hang out to dry. It seems to me like progressives kept hoping for a hero to come along and save everyone. It just doesn’t work that way.
“Too many people thought they were done once Obama was elected.’ I freely admit that I am one of them. Silly, I know. But the whole point of this post was for me to get beyond the realization that there is no liberal superman. There will be no liberal deus ex machina after which Fox News will be compelled to report more truthfully and craven Democratic politicians will decide to see beyond their narrow self interest.
Given that reality and the fact that a common sense government that works for all Americans is fiercely opposed by a group of short sighted, zealous maniacs, we all have a choice to make. I respect everyone’s choice except for the bitchers and complainers. Considering all the possible courses of action, that is the most counter productive and stupid.
Yes, Jason, we have to make them do the right thing.
http://dsblg.wordpress.com/
If you know of any progressive business owners that would be interested in helping get this off the ground please give them my email address:
jason330DSBLG@gmail.com
But a whole lot of liberals telling Comcast to turn it off is less about going off of the grid than it is about creating a monster revenue hole that they’ll have to pay attention to.
It also defunds FOX News.
And you reach not only Comcast (or Fios), but all their advertisers as well.
What next? How about admitting failure and seeking an ideology that works outside of your fantasies.
“For argument’s sake, let’s concede the point that Obama has not turned out to be the Democratic President that he projected in the campaign.”
I think that Obama has turned out to be precisely the Democratic President he projected in the campaign. A moderate President, not a progressive one.
I think that part of the problem is that we progressives tend to too quickly cave into the argument that we have to settle for a moderate Democratic candidate, instead of really getting behind a progressive candidate. It seems as if that we accept almost immediately the argument that a progressive candidate is too marginal to be elected, so we end up postponing our support for those who truly represent our views on the hope (the grasping hope) that “someday” a truly progressive presidential candidate can emerge that will be electable after the reign of moderate Democratic politics has been instantiated in the USA.
But just think how awful, how unelectable, John McCain was in 2008, especially after the Bush era. I think that a Dennis Kucinich could have defeated McCain in 2008. I also think that Howard Dean could have beaten Bush in 2004…that, in fact, it was the moderate Kerry who was the weak candidate, not Dean. Yet in both those elections, early on in the primaries, many progressive Democrats counseled us to be “realistic” and to vote for who was “electable.” That initial pessimism, that defeatism, is killing the advance of progressive politics in America.
If you know of any progressive business owners …
I wonder where you can get a list of S-corps. There are a lot of one-man consultancies out there. I used to run one and I got tons of junk mail, so the lists must be available. I know wingnuts buy the lists because whenever I registered a corp I started getting letters from RNC and NRA and Club For Growth.
I think that Obama has turned out to be precisely the Democratic President he projected in the campaign.
Well, after the tax vote there will be no doubt, one way or the other.
And don’t forget, Comcast and Verizon are the main ones fighting Net neutrality, with your dollars.
I admit it would be difficult to turn off their Internet service, but the TV and mobile broadband I can do without, and that would hurt them more than enough to make the point.
in fact, it was the moderate Kerry who was the weak candidate, not Dean.
That is why the media worked so hard to take down Dean.
Remember the Republican schtick back then was “support the troops” and Dems thought nominating an actual war hero would make them bulletproof against patriotism-based attacks.
Good points Dana. it is still the “great man” theory of history though.
Dennis Kucinich? Now I know you’re joking. Let’s look at his legislative record, shall we?
“Dennis Kucinich has sponsored 104 bills since Jan 7, 1997 of which 99 haven’t made it out of committee and 3 were successfully enacted.” http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400227
If you cannot play well with others enough to get your bills out of committee you are not a Congressman. You’re a pundit with a federal pension.
Not sure what Kucinich’s voting record has to do w/ the political environment in 2008 and if in that environment, he could have defeated McCain.
As for this general observation: “If you cannot play well with others enough to get your bills out of committee you are not a Congressman.”
This sounds like code for “Dilute your bills to the point that they become moderate and not progressive.” And, to further my argument above, that kind of thinking is PRECISELY why we see little genuine progressive legislation enacted by Congress. Instead of heeding such voices, we should instead PUSH congressional members to sign on to the kind of legislation that is authored by a Dennis Kucinich.
The progressives are a big wing of the Democratic Party. They should flex their muscles more than they currently do.
The progressives are a big wing of the Democratic Party. They should flex their muscles more than they currently do.
True. Remember this? 60 members of Congress who promised to vote against HCR if it didn’t have a public option. Good idea, bad follow-through.
I don’t have time or the heart to check on how many of them caved.
Now we are on a similar vigil for the Obama tax cut plan.
rising for the first time in months out of lurker mode
Two observations on process.
1) Calling our system a “two-party system” tends to paper over the fact (that Pandora alludes to on a frequent basis) that the two parties are not, organizationally, anything near mirror images of each other. You have a genuinely ideological party [GOP] with an emphasis on homogenous views, membership, and voting. What you are watching in the Tea Party movement is a fight for control of THE MESSAGE, since the GOP can only have one message at a time or its voters will be really really confused. This is opposed by a Democratic Party that is not ideological (despite the fact that many of the individual members may be) but rather a coalition of interests allied by a tacit general agreement on some (often best unstated) principles. So what works for one party will not necessarily work for the other.
[That said, Dana Garrett has a great point about “electibility.” Given that in 2004 the two candidates started out solidifying their bases and then ran not for the center in the general election but even further toward their bases (because there were not enough votes up for grabs in the center that year), Howard Dean would have made a much more viable candidate than John Kerry.]
2) Anti-corporate populism would be a potential winner if the corporations did not already have enough of a stranglehold over the government and the economy right now to starve to death any genuine anti-corporate candidate. The corporations fund the leading candidates of both parties (check 2008: the patterns for Clinton, McCain, and Obama in terms of corporate financing were eerily similar). My personal (evolved from libertarian) belief is that today corporations constitute a greater menace to individual liberty than the US government could ever manage to be. (Yes, Dana, before you go back and look, this is a change of position. You were right.)
So as much as I would love to see a candidate with the potential to achieve something in this realm, I have reluctantly come to the belief that such candidates are either unelectable (denying a Howard Dean the nomination makes him de facto unelectable) or represent “trojan horses” (i.e. Obama) who promise real change in that regard but have already been purchased before the election.
From a political (not necessarily ideological) standpoint, Bill Clinton was the best politician of the 20th Century to become president because he had a more realistic ability to make deals, accept the dynamics as he found them, remake himself time and again as necessity required, manage the media (of his time), and still move the country closer and closer to his own political goals (which, incidentally, he kept fairly close the vest the whole time) than any other president in the century. Neither Ronald Reagan nor FDR, for all their political accomplishments, learned to play the presidency the way Bill Clinton did.
jason, my piece of unsolicited advice would be this: while I think your alternative chamber of commerce is a good idea [I have a consulting company and I’ll join if you’ll have me], I don’t think that direction is ultimately going to take you (or the country) anywhere decisive. I think there have to be more than three options that you listed. Howard Dean was so successful between 2004-2008 because he understood where the next media was going [Bill Clinton looked like an anachronism in 2008 because everything he knew about media from the 1990s was already stale.] I think the key to winning is to do what the kos did a few years back: figure out what the next “netroots” or emergent technological mechanism for political organizing is going to be, and engineer it with an eye on 2016.
returning to lurker mode again
Hi, Steve Newton! Good to hear from you. Don’t be such a stranger. Hope you are well.
Going moderate is not the answer. The image of liberals as vacillating pussies is already so well ingrained in the public psyche that only real and true fire is going to wake up and compel the public at large. You need a strong base to get anything accomplished. It might also help if the insiders were actually able to identify with the plights of blue collar people without sounding like condescending fuckwads. The Gop has mastered the politics of resentment because, for whatever reason, their leaders have the ability to identify with the unpretentious voter.
I can see ALL you cheese-dicks sat around pulling your puds and pounding your flaccid minds instead of doing something action-oriented like PARTICIPATING in the One Nation Working Together rally.UI,Jason330,Endora,anon,cassandra m.
You so called liberals on this Delaware Liberal website absolutely SICKEN me.WAH WAH WAH A bunch of belly-aching cry-babies.
You should seriously consider a “second amendment” solution for yourselves if all you’re gonna do is regurgitate drivel possibly drawn from first year poly/sci and old STAR TREC episodes.
FUCKING ASSHOLES!!!!
yipes, someone was picked last for the debate team.
Skip, i didnt know you were organizing these types of rallies….. i mean you are, arent you? otherwise your entire rick santelli style bitch-fit would be a tad hypocritical.
These people on here were WELL aware of this RALLY and it’s significance. They want the democrats energized to come out and vote,as I do. They LIVE nearby and could have EASILY been there. I DON’T even HAVE a job and sacrificed to work the event.Might not mean much to you.
HYPOCRITE? Buddy,if you knew me, you wouldn’t even hint at calling me that.Especially to my face.
I think a lot of the DL folks were doing campaign work in Middletown instead to help local Dems. Sorry they missed you skip, you sound like a lot of fun.
This is me in the morning,before coffee. I tend to be a little passionate.
I’m not apologizing. I had the DSBLG brainstorm and already have a web site and the membership committee up and running. It was a very productive day for me as far as advancing liberalism is concerned and still had time to wash the bag and paint a bedroom.
I am not kidding when I say the “Chamber of Commerce” gets a lot of its effectiveness from its name, which makes people think it is a government agency.
“The Chamber of Commerce said today more tax cuts were needed to promote economic recovery and job growth…”
“The Chamber of Commerce released an analysis today indicating the Obama tax hikes would cause the loss of eleven billion jobs and a drop of 250% in GDP.”
… see?
It is along the same lines as their bogus think tanks and institutes.
The name is not locked down, so if you have any suggestions. Vermont has a group that is pretty big (being Vermont). It is called Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR).
I’m wondering if “liberal” has been defined? Or does it have to be for all of this to work?
Or is saying you are “liberal” like saying your “catholic”? It has so many meanings but as long as you say you are catholic you get a pass even though it might mean you go to Church only on Christmas, it could even mean you’ve been baptized, or perhaps it means that you really believe you are noshing on blood and body parts during communion.
For any of this to work don’t the folks that think they are in the left but really in the center have to be willing to listen to the folks that are just left and not “far Left” (whatever far left is to the person defining it)
I agree that a De. Liberal Chamber of Commerce is a good way to go. You can pool tons of money and buy advertising and a lobbyists. I don’t know what kind of money you can raise but assuming it’s a decent amount. You can easily get a lobbyist on the pay roll. (not kidding)
Advertising is cheap in De and billboards get a message home. Buying television spots and making them are much easier these days too. I think people would be surprised what they can do with a small amount of money. The internet is a simple way to post ads too.
I’ve always been willing to help with the advertising and media angle. Contacting folks to advertise with and negotiating etc. It’s what I do currently and I love to be on the internet all day anyway 🙂
But I’d really like to know what is “liberal”? though… I’m wondering if people that think they are liberal are even liberal at all
I dunno. Every name I can think of sounds like just another PAC. “Chamber of Commerce” is pure evil genius. I’ll keep thinking about it. Maybe somebody smarter than me can come up with something.
“I’m wondering if “liberal” has been defined?” Down this path there is nothing but madness. I’ll keep you posted on the project. If we ever need a real people person who knows how to put people with different viewpoints at ease, and get things done with his diplomacy, tact, and ability to create “win/win” situations, I’ll give you a call.
Was Howard Dean an attempt to take the party?
at least when people ask me what have I done (which people always seem to do) I can say I offered 🙂
lol.
Perhaps you might consider that what you want, a truly liberal Democratic party, would be a solid electoral loser.
The 2006 and 2008 elections have deceived you. It wasn’t that the public was all that enamored of the Democrats, but that they were tired of the Republicans. The conservative base lost enthusiasm for the GOP because of the ridiculous spending done under President Bush, and conservatives just didn’t work that hard in 2006 for a party whose campaign seemed to be, “We stink, but not as bad as the Democrats.”
Then came the economic emergency, and the Democratic nominee was virtually guaranteed to win the presidency; they could have caught Barack Obama in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, and he’d still have won. But he won because he was the alternative, and not because the public were suddenly more liberal.
Now you’ve got some of that Change for which you Hoped, and the public don’t like it. One of my friends told me that he was voting straight Republican this year, saying, “I voted for change, but not this fornicating change!”
Add to that the fact that the Democrats, after forcing through a wholly unpopular ObaminableCare bill, haven’t managed to do their most basic job: pass the budget and the appropriations bills. When they left town, the House had passed two of the twelve appropriations bills and the Senate none at all.
You don’t seem to realize it, but the United States is basically a centrist, slightly conservative country. Y’all liked Howard Dean, but despite his early lead, when it actually came time for the Democratic primary voters to have their say, he couldn’t win their votes. In 2008, the further left candidates (Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel) got virtually nothing, and of the so-called “big three,” the furthest left (John Edwards) was well into third place.
You are flat wrong. I could debunk this bullshit point by point but I don;t feel like playing Morpheus to your idiotic NEO right now.
dv,
Perhaps liberal/progressive can’t be tied up in a neat package but I’d guess that most people who come here could get behind a few ideas . . .
It is time in the course of human events for the United States to scale back our military budget. We can no longer afford to funnel more than 50% of our budget into the Pentagon. There should certainly be some sort of re-focus on domestic policing to deal with the terrorism threat, but we no longer need to support military adventurism/colonization. The fact that we have this capability will continue to ensure that we are always at war somewhere on the planet. In the past the corporations have demanded and received protection for their global colonization but tax payers should no longer have to bear that burden in the global economy. GE can hire protection and their shareholders can bear the costs. There’s plenty of mercenary firms out there looking for contracts.
The United States should be leading the world toward renewable energy. Right now China is doing that. We are at a distinct disadvantage in the future if we don’t get this issue under control and move into the next century with our technology and job creation. Today’s N-J reports that permitting for off-shore wind power will take 7 years. That’s preposterous.
In a wealthy, industrialized nation every citizen should receive healthcare paid for by the government. There is simply no better use of our tax revenues. Healthy Americans are productive citizens and sick Americans are a drain on the public purse. Prevention and early intervention will save lives and money. Oh, and getting rid of the health insurance industry won’t hurt my feelings at all.
So dv, there, I’ve just taken on three of the biggest moneyed interests in our nation. The military-industrial establishment, we remember that President Eisenhower warned us about them; BIG OIL and COAL who each believe that it’s better to make a profit than save the planet; and the insurance industry which is based on peoples suffering and finding a way to make a buck off it. And I didn’t even mention the banksters.
Whadda ya think the odds are that any of these models are going to change in the forseeable future? Do you think the Corporatists are going to wake up tomorrow and decide that human suffering for profit is a bad idea? These folks have been making money off human suffering for as long as there have been human beings. It’s in their DNA.
I’m not giving up but I’ve adjusted my expectations. The best I can do is push back with all my might and take the occasional victory, because without those small victories things would be a whole lot worse. Utopia does not exist, nor Shangra-La, nor any other ideal society. The best we can do is keep from being completely devoured. It seems like a worthy cause to me.
What the hell did Jason do to get Steve Newton out of retirement?!?!?!?!
Dana – Can you say “Republican Obstructionism”? I knew you could. The Retardicans are why the healthcare bill got castrated, and they’re also why those bills you’re bitching about didn’t get passed. There are a lot of people who don’t like the healthcare bill/”Obamacare” in Retardican terms because it doesn’t go far enough.
But you are right – this country leans conservative, because of all the rednecks who can’t let their bible go in favor of science and reality. It’s a shame they can’t at least stop brainwashing their kids, so that society could move forward after they die, but progress is going slowly anyway.
Melissa: In case you hadn’t noticed, there is no filibuster available in the House of Representatives, and the Democrats have a larger majority in the House than the Republicans ever enjoyed during their majority years (1995-2006), yet they still got just two of twelve appropriations bills passed.
In the Senate, the filibuster exists only on action on the Senate floor, action by the entire Senate; have the two appropriations bills that were passed by the House even made it out of committee?
Melissa wrote:
Oh, I’m sure in your utopian society, children would be taken away from parents, to be indoctrinated by the State.
Jason wrote:
Flat wrong? That’s why the Democrats are so far ahead in all of the polls, right? That’s why President Obama has such a high job approval rating, correct? 🙂
You’ll get your answers in thirty days.
If you think Obama is hurting in the polls because he is too liberal, then your form of stupidity appears to self inflicted and not really curable. Have a nice day.
Wage-earners who support Republicans, do so because easy credit has so far insulated them from the worst effects of Republican economic policy. This is now coming to an end, and Republicans’ only possible winning strategy is to convince voters everything is the Democrats’ fault. Which they are having some measure of success at.
I’d love to tell people Obama is inching left, but I’m too worried I could be locked up, spied on, shot and killed by a drone and foreclosed on to say so
Jason wrote:
If we assume, for the sake of argument, that your statement is correct, shouldn’t we see Democratic — and even a few Republican — candidates trying to run further to the left than the right? After all, the candidates are the ones who have to actually seek votes!
My personal (evolved from libertarian) belief is that today corporations constitute a greater menace to individual liberty than the US government could ever manage to be
*
Steve is correct. The dominance of the corporate capitalist power is why modern presidential DEM candidates have been far from progressive. And why Clinton won with the Third Way of which Obama was an able student. I also disagree with UI’s telling progressive to get off their sticks and to start waving carrots. GAH! And we are supposedly getting freaking Robert Gibbs, Professional Left hater, as the new head of the DNC? Progressives are critical and stick to their principled stand as they should. They are also getting on buses and rallying around Obama and the DEM party as they should. But we need to keep the Overton window pressuring to the left, people.
Ergo, I think that the Progressive Chamber of Commerce Of Delaware is a great title for an oppo business group.
Ruth Calvo @firedoglake picks up the desparate wingnut spin about yesterday’s rally that exploits the “Progressives are a bunch of Whiners” meme being generated by the Obama inner circle etc. about progressives:
The same element that was talking about those ‘angry’ voices, from the rally that competed with Beck’s performance art last month, yesterday fed its hate spew with faux news about a rally that wasn’t.
http://www.examiner.com/government-in-atlantic-city/one-nation-rally-was-a-big-flop
The October 2, 2010, One Nation Rally, held at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D.C., can be summed up in three words: complain, complain, complain. The rally appeared more like a contest, to see which special interest group can outdo the other as the biggest victim of society.
We need Howard Dean in the form of a smokin’ hot brunette woman with 2 kids, a happy marriage, a JD, a PhD, and designer glasses to get elected as governor of a big southern state, and then run for President.
You guys live in a bubble. It’s an adorable bubble, but a bubble nonetheless. If you were to step outside of your bubble, you’d see that the country is slightly center-right. The problem with ideologues is the unwillingness to compromise. There are ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum, the difference seems to be that the ideologues on the right are organized while the ideologues on the left are so caught up in their self-righteousness that they can’t get out of their own way to organize.
You focus so much on your amazing intellectual capacity (and pointing out how STUPID everyone else is) that you lose touch of what matters to people. The average voter doesn’t give a shit how intelligent or well-read you are. They don’t care where you or your favorite candidate went to college (or IF s/he went to college). They don’t care about war strategy or the moral sin of not having universal healthcare or the rest of the world hating us because we waterboard people who want to kill us. The only thing they really care about is being able to pay their bills, put food on their table, save a little money and take an occasional family vacation. Unfortunately (for you), they see Obama as standing in the way of that. Also, the rest of the country doesn’t particularly care to be talked down to by a bunch of intellectuals. People’s opinions and belief systems are no less valid if they don’t read the NYT or agree with everything you believe.
Dana is absolutely right. The Dems could have run a squirrel with a nice smile and won in 2008. The voters were not voting for Obama; they were voting against the GOP. I’m among the crazies that will be voting for COD – not because I like or respect her, mind you, but because she is not a Dem.
Like Bush post-9/11, Obama pissed away an incredible opportunity to move the country in a positive direction. Instead, he focused on healthcare rather than the economy, spent money like a real NJ housewife, dug his partisan stilettos in and picked fights with the likes of Rush Limbaugh. Like a child. He should thank baby Jesus that the GOP has yet to produce a dynamic contender for 2012. Though, at the rate he’s going, the GOP may be able to run a squirrel with a nice smile by then.
BTW – Jason, good luck finding more than 10 business owners for your Chamber of Commerce. Most business owners want less government involvement. The ones that want to succeed, at least.
Dominique – the demographic you just described above –
“The average voter doesn’t give a shit how intelligent or well-read you are. They don’t care where you or your favorite candidate went to college (or IF s/he went to college). They don’t care about war strategy or the moral sin of not having universal healthcare or the rest of the world hating us because we waterboard people who want to kill us. The only thing they really care about is being able to pay their bills, put food on their table, save a little money and take an occasional family vacation
is the very demographic that does not get out and vote in the issues nor are they the “educated” voter. they vote for the squirrel with the nice smile – and that would be CODfissh this time around
lets say she wins – trust me – in 2 years they will be looking for their pound of flesh from her too – coz she won’t do shit for them either
Dominique wrote:
What business owners want is predictability and stability, and some sense of confidence that the regulations under which they have to operate today won’t be wholly scrambled next week. With the Obama Administration, a lot of business owners and potential entrepreneurs are worried that the federal government will keep changing things, keep adding more and more regulations, all to help the working man, of course. And nobody seems to have any flaming idea just what ObaminableCare will do to business expenses.
Right now, a lot of businessmen think that it’s just safer to sit on whatever cash you have rather than risk it investing in new production and job creation.
Aoine – You’re probably right. I’m one of those voters. I will vote for the freak this time around and vote her right out if she fails me. I’m not a party loyalist by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just particularly disgusted by the Dems this time around.
Dana – You said it way better than I. I am a member of the NCC Chamber of Commerce. I know a lot of small business owners – decent middle-class guys, not the corporate types the people on this board love to hate – who are scared to death about what HCR will cost them. No one really knows at this point. Obama likes to talk about incremental change and how the economy can’t be fixed overnight, but you’re absolutely right; the stagnant economy is his fault – not necessarily because of his reckless spending, but because of the unknown impact HCR will have on businesses.
Right now, a lot of businessmen think that it’s just safer to sit on whatever cash you have rather than risk it investing in new production and job creation.
This is bullshit. Bullshit pure and simple from folks who don’t have to grow or sustain a business. And who don’t mind passing around the bullshit that is supposed to scare people. Again.
If there was demand for that businessman’s services or goods, you better believe that they’ve be doing whatever investing they have to do to meet that demand. It isn’t as though the maker of this widget is going to tell *paying customers* that he won’t hire people to make those widgets.
The stagnant economy is because its *paying customers* are not buying — they no longer have jobs or are frantically paying down debt or are recovering from their credit overdose.
The dem’s should be able to unify against the corporations. Support small businesses, give them all the tax breaks they can, and make the large corporations pay for it.
As it has been shown repeatedly, when you tax profits, the companies bury the money back into their business… This causes economies to flourish.
You can say in all honesty. The entire reason life sucks now and was the best it’s ever been back in the Clinton days… Is .. because… we let corporations have the upper hand.
If you lost your job, it can be traced back to a corporations fault.
If you lost your house, it can be traced back to a corporations fault,
If you lost your 401 K, it can be traced back to a corporations fault…
This is exactly why we have job losses… Dems should platform that they will support the people, small business, and run the government solely on the backs of taxing large corporations. They may not be able to accomplish it, but they sure can win elections…
US Chamber of Commerce is hell bent on getting us back to the business-as-usual that led to the current fucked up economy because they speak for the multi-nationals who know no loyalty to Americans or our small businesses yet the State and County level business Chambers follow their lead. And FOX just gave the US Chamber a million towards their anti-Obama/anti-DEM ad war right after giving a million to the GOP, a pattern worth noting.
If Dominique had offered anything beyond the talking points of her preferred ideologues she’d have been actually saying something. Predictably she couldn’t. It’s all the DEMs fault. Riiiiiight. Maybe if the GOP hadn’t been %100 interested in screwing up government so they’d appear to be a better pick at the polls in 2010 – 2012 we’d be a good bit further along in getting the country back on track.
I just read today’s NYT Cheap Debt for Corporations Fails to Spur Economy
By GRAHAM BOWLEY because they are not spending.
“Companies like Microsoft are raising billions of dollars by issuing bonds at ultra-low interest rates, but few of them are actually spending the money on new factories, equipment or jobs. Instead, they are stockpiling the cash until the economy improves. The development presents something of a chicken-and-egg situation: Corporations keep saving, waiting for the economy to perk up — but the economy is unlikely to perk up if corporations keep saving.”
Also read yesterday in the National Journal about demand, stimulus and economic policy:
Oct. 2nd article: Ronald Brownstein with out-going Larry Summers
NJ: When you look at the high levels of unemployment we’ve been experiencing, is it primarily or predominantly or entirely, in your mind, a problem of inadequate demand, or are there other structural problems?
Summers: I don’t see how anybody can look at the facts of the American economy right now and not recognize that the overwhelming problem is the shortage of demand. So, if you ask what is the most important determinant of what’s going to happen over the next year or two, it has got to be what happens to the overall structure of demand. Equally, I don’t see how anyone can look at the data over the last couple of decades and fail to recognize that something profoundly important and structural is going on all over the world, and no matter how successful we were in creating demand, there would be very serious issues of those whose skills are less adapted to the demands of the economy than they once were.
Oct. 2nd article by Major Garrett with Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and former Federal Reserve Board official Vincent Reinhart
“Stiglitz: First, let me say that I think everybody realizes the U.S. economy is not doing well. Underlying this is very clearly a problem of lack of aggregate demand. So that means the critical question is, how do we get demand to increase? In standard economics textbooks, there are two instruments that we have to stimulate demand: monetary policy and fiscal policy. Right now, though, monetary policy has proven itself to be relatively ineffective. It stopped the utter collapse of the economy, but it’s clear that it’s not enough. And that means there’s only one thing left, and that’s fiscal policy.
There are a wide variety of ways in which government spending could stimulate the economy, create jobs, and put the economy on a stronger course. One question being raised over and over again is, can we afford it? I would actually rephrase it. We can’t afford not to stimulate the economy in some way or another. If we spend money on investments, education, technology, and infrastructure, that leads to faster economic growth in the short run, higher employment, higher tax revenues, and also to higher growth in the medium and long term. By appropriately designing spending programs, we can actually reduce the national debt. So there isn’t a conflict between the two. I think they’re actually consistent.
…Reinhart: The focus on fiscal stimulus diminishes the importance of the other thing the government should have been doing. We should have been forcing financial institutions to disgorge their [bad] legacy assets. We’ve let them carry them. It leaves financial institutions less willing to be lenders and support market activity.”
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/ad_20101002_3215.php
Summers also talks about the global aspect of the “uncertainty”. The uncertainty Dom wants to pin on healthcare or Dana wants to pin on scary Obama regulations. For this global economy, it is far scarier to look at what is happening in Europe etc.
“NJ: Last spring, you were quoted as saying, “I think the economy appears to be moving toward escape velocity,” and you were not alone in that. Six months later, the trajectory seems much more difficult. Why didn’t the economy achieve the momentum that you and others expected?
Summers: If you look at where the economy is relative to what many expected and feared on the day the president took office, it is considerably stronger, with the gathering force of depression we had at that time having been contained. It is true that the economy is not fulfilling all the promise that many of us saw in the spring. I think that is a reflection of three factors: the shock in confidence that came out of what was happening in Europe that proved to be much more virulent than most people expected. It’s also a reflection of the end of the inventory cycle, which had been a substantial source of tailwind leading to increased employment, increased hiring. [Once] inventories were replenished, they came to be a reduced impulse for growth. And third, it’s a reflection of the difficulty that firms have had in getting over the threshold and making a decision to expand their hiring, which led to lower levels of income, which in turn led to lower levels of spending. I think this reflected something that may have been insufficiently appreciated at that time, which was that the aftermaths of financial crises come with periods of very substantial uncertainty in which firms are hesitant about moving forward.
NJ: Is there anything in the underlying trajectory of the economy that would cause job growth to significantly accelerate from what we’ve seen?
Summers: I think the dangers that we will have too little job growth, too little demand far exceed the risks of the economy overheating. That’s why the president’s program — the investment, the infrastructure, the continuation of the middle-class tax cuts — emphasizes measures that have the capacity to put people back to work and to accelerate the process. I think it’s also important to understand that there’s an inherent cyclicality in economies”
Dominque is right to the extent that most voters are ignorant about basic civics and many can’t name their current Senators and representative. She is absolutely wrong about the country being center-right. Progressive policy ideas, such as the public option, have consistently high poll numbers, regardless of how people self-label themselves. We don’t get progressive policies because the corporations don’t want them.
So, Dominque, the battle is not between the left and the right so much as it is a battle between citizen rights and corporate control. The corporations clearly own both parties. Do you think corporations care at all if people can “pay their bills, put food on their table, save a little money and take an occasional family vacation?” Hint: They don’t.
Right now, as we speak, there is a huge foreclosure scam and fraud being perpetrated by the banks and the Courts. People are having their homes literally stolen from them based on fraudulent paperwork and an assembly line process that is another example of either under-regulation, under-enforcement, or both. Even people who own their homes outright have had them foreclosed!! And these now-faulty titles are going to haunt the home-buying process for decades. And where is the Obomba Justice Department? No where. Failures again.
But, dominque, if you’re voting for Xtine out of some sort of spite, you’re voting for somebody who you know is unqualified by both her dishonesty and her ability to make policy decisions. She is the corporate dream candidate: one who will do their bidding without question and then lie to her constituents without concern.
Do you think corporations care at all if people can “pay their bills, put food on their table, save a little money and take an occasional family vacation?” Hint: They don’t.
It is true. You would think that corporations would care if you pay your bills or not. But they don’t. They will just fire some more people to maintain profits and bonuses for the top 5% income earners. Eventually the whole shitpile will collapse, but they don’t care, because they are rich.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being rich, but if you don’t have a conscience or a soul, the government needs to provide one for you.
well said Anonone. The country is not center right across the board like Dom would like others to believe. Sure, we are largely fiscally conservative but the big polarization movement is a construct by the powerful to force the Doms of the world to take sides.
Here is more from Krugman on where the money is these days by pointing out that FOX now has all of the currently unemployed (less Romney) presdential GOPer wannabes on their PAYROLL.
“A note to Tea Party activists: This is not the movie you think it is. You probably imagine that you’re starring in “The Birth of a Nation,” but you’re actually just extras in a remake of “Citizen Kane.”
True, there have been some changes in the plot. In the original, Kane tried to buy high political office for himself. In the new version, he just puts politicians on his payroll.
I mean that literally. As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.”
And
“As the Republican political analyst David Frum put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox” — literally, in the case of all those non-Mitt-Romney presidential hopefuls. It was days later, by the way, that Mr. Frum was fired by the American Enterprise Institute. Conservatives criticize Fox at their peril.
So the Ministry of Propaganda has, in effect, seized control of the Politburo. What are the implications?
Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that when billionaires put their might behind “grass roots” right-wing action, it’s not just about ideology: it’s also about business. What the Koch brothers have bought with their huge political outlays is, above all, freedom to pollute. What Mr. Murdoch is acquiring with his expanded political role is the kind of influence that lets his media empire make its own rules.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/opinion/04krugman.html?ref=opinion
“Right now, a lot of businessmen think that it’s just safer to sit on whatever cash you have rather than risk it investing in new production and job creation.”
This is bullshit. Bullshit pure and simple from folks who don’t have to grow or sustain a business. And who don’t mind passing around the bullshit that is supposed to scare people. Again.
Yes it is bullshit. And every Republican, and some Democrats are still mindlessly talking about “freeing up capital for investment and job creation.”
“Freeing up capital for investment” is fighting the last war. This is a different kind of economic crisis now. This time, there is plenty of capital, but it needs a consumer dollar to chase after.
If Democrats aren’t calling out Republicans whenever they hear this false premise, then they simply haven’t mastered the basics of being a Democrat.
I love the “uncertainty” line the GOP has come up with to explain the economy — as if there was some past golden age in which uncertainty didn’t exist. They had to come up with something, because their fiercely held economic beliefs can’t explain what’s actually happening, but that line strikes me as incredibly lame.
Get yer Democratic populism right here. Watch the whole thing even if you think you are tired of this guy. The video just keeps getting better. If you like it, send him a few bucks.
I like the VBSR moniker…
I also am inclined toward an interest group along the lines of:
“Paying Taxes Is My Way of Tithing.” See, my theory is that we gotta take care of “the unfortunates” somehow. I suppose if I were a Christian, I would tithe 10%. But I am not, so I expect my government to take care of the disabled, the elderly, the orphans…
Or “Can’t Be Fiscally Conservative Because I’m Neither Religious Nor Greedy.” Or, “Yes, choice is still an important issue to me, even if my breeding days are long past.” Or, “Boy, do I love when big government creates state parks.” Or, “I don’t know why you think you know what’s best for someone else morally, but you think nobody but you knows what’s best for you fiscally.”