According to House Dem aides, House liberals appear to be leaning in the direction of supporting the legislation -- though nothing is at all certain. Earlier today, an aide says, an internal count of House members showed very strong opposition among liberals to the bill unveiled today. But later in the day, some liberals appeared to be privately concluding that many of their demands -- which they unveiled amid last week's revolt in hopes of influencing the process -- had been met, this aide says.Get it? Let me repeat: THE DEMANDS HAD BEEN MET. What part of those five words can you not understand?
And yet many people have lapsed into automatic anger mode over the FISA legislation. I heard quasi-psychotic tirades on Air America all day yesterday -- especially on Randi Rhodes' program. (She really has become an insufferably hyper-emotional silly-billy.)
You know why progressives are so angry? Not because of the law. They refuse to read it. They are angry because they like to be angry.
TPM is thought to attract the more centrist and thoughtful lefties. So how did they respond to the news that the demands of the liberals had been met?
I would be more than happy to have the REthuglicans win everything in 2008...
What an utterly pathetic sell-out.
They are nothing but cowardly, sniveling, whining...
W-H-O-R-E-S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i have no plan to vote Republican and looks like I won't vote Democrat as well.
I'm an Independent and no Democrat is going to get my vote if they continue to act like spineless jellyfish. I will simply stay home on Election Day.
What's the difference between Republicans and Democrats again? I keep forgetting.
For those of you who are fed up with the Democrat betrayal, should look in the mirror for blame.I guarantee you that none of these Dem-haters has read any version of FISA. They have read about it, and now they think they are experts. But they have not read the law.
Next time..VOTE GREEN.. VOTE FOR CHANGE..
How can I be so certain? Because I literally begged my readers to read the thing during the last round of arguments, and none of them would.
Equation 1: Intellectual laziness + Rageaholism = Progressive purism.
Equation 2: Progressive purism = Defeat.
I defy anyone to cite the occurrence of a single exception to equation 2 in all of human history.
12 comments:
Joseph,
The Rage addicts are not just dependent on Rage, they thrive on hopelessness. The only thing that scares them more than a fascist takeover of Washington is victory by a democratic coalition that could accomplish much of what they desire.
And there is one level of fear that they ... well...they just don't talk about it out loud.
They LOVE LOOSING!! That empty, depressed world against what's right despair can be a love drug for some. They way they run their politics, you would think so.
I have read every word of all three bills, and I agree with you completely. (OK, I'm lying. I didn't read one word more than you or someone else quoted for me.) But while we may passionately disagree on some issues, I have never encountered an instance where I have disagreed with you over a matter of cold, hard facts.
Glen Greenwald, while seeming to "strike a pose" of sympathy with the progressive purists, but he was a pretty high-powered lawyer, and a good one at that. The good ones cannot just shut that off. True to form, he is writing his way through all of the issues and processes and buttons that need to be pressed, and the real concerns of those who have to form a coalition if this thing is going to work at all, and is so doing, he has produced YOUR PICTURE, in greater detail and with softer colors
As a high powered and good attorney, he would not have much choice, I don't think.
In fact, most of our disagreements come from our differing views on how to approach such dilemmas as the self-immolating democratic liberal purists. Not this time, though. Those were the folks who kept me out of the Party for the first 20 years of my political life to begin with.
JFK was the most liberal president this country has ever had (one could possibly argue for FDR, but it would be a heck of a debate.) The liberal purists HATED him, and pilloried him to no ends for not going far enough. But at least they had enough sense to vote for him first.
Why did they vote for him? Because their "Beautiful Looser" Adlai Stevenson wasn't going to offer himself up for a third straight cycle as the sacrament in their quadrennial purification exercise, wherein they are CERTAIN of their superiority in all things, and either win the election with the votes of the other 500 members, or the lose, but they do not compromise their principles. This year they had no Beautiful Loser to rally around while they drenched themselves in narcissistic self-satisfaction that they remained "true" to the end.
Lacking that pure choice, they could go for a lukewarm semi-liberal POLITICIAN, or they could throw in with Nixon, so they'd know exactly what they would get.
Fortunately, JFK made the effort to connect with these people, without promising them things he could not give them. But he shared their concerns, and he connected, and people liked that. In fact, had he not actually been elected and done something, they probably would never have a bad thing to say about him.
But one thing he never would be is a "beautiful looser". He WON, which is THE Cardinal Sin among the purists (though many of them don't know it.)
The purists would have to suffer all number of indignities through his presidency, wondering how they could possibly have picked such a scoundrel, while that "scoundrel" played hard-ball politics with a lot of scary men with different ideas, and deftly attempted to dance through the minefields in search of peace, while simultaneously working hard to advance the legitimate civil rights of all citizens over the murderous outrage of the privileged south, without having the whole country blow up.
And there was the matter of trying to get re-elected. Lord knows no other candidate of those times was going to come in and do a better job. (But politics wasn't pure.)
Because he did not do everything they felt was the right thing to do when they felt he should do it, to the most delusional of all progressive purists, such leading lights as Noam Chomsky argue that it isn't worth digging for the truth about JFK's assassination, or pursuing justice there - he wasn't pure enough.
Assassination of President Kennedy was of no political significance - because The Kennedys were in it to win, not for the power, nor for personal enrichment, but for the chance to make a better world, But ACCOMPLISHMENT was all that mattered. ACCOMPLISHMENT, as opposed to writing critiques, or acting like you are above it, when the truth is, you can't stand getting your fingernails dirty.
As much as I despise this group, If I was running, I'd do my best to charm them into voting for me, agreeing with their views without making promises, and hoping for their votes.
If it isn't too much trouble, I'd like a single-post collection of your purists stuff.
I don't know exactly where this was going when I started it, but it is done now. Hope it makes sense.
C'mon, Joe. Their demands have not been meant is the WRITER'S phrase, based on nothing substantial whatsoever. It's how the writer portrays this situation, of what some of these people have allegedly 'privately concluded.' Nobody is named, nobody is quoted, and the phrase is an orphan of entirely uncertain parentage here. Please. This proves nothing at all. Going off like this on a second- to third-hand likely paraphrase that doesn't even pretend to be a quote is something I expect from Rush or other mentally challenged talkers who have no need to be logical, not a sharp person like yourself, meaning no disrespect.
As for successful purist campaigns, women's suffrage comes to mind, as does the successful enactment of Prohibition. (Sure, the latter was a disaster, but a success from the standpoint of the stated goals of the WCTU, etc.). While I'm not entirely sure they meet your entire criteria, there is no doubt they were Johnny-one-note advocates with little humor or acceptance of their opponents' positions.
sofla
Upon further review of your posted quote from TPM, the referrent for 'liberals' is a group of more liberal members of the House of Representatives who have problems with the law that you don't see.
There is nothing unusual or inappropriate for a group of like minded members of Congress to demand this or that change in a law, with a promise to vote for or against that law, or other pending matters, conditioned upon whether they get that change. This is merely the political process in action.
Those House members, all of them, you can bet, DEMOCRATS, really cannot be thought ignorant of the law or how it differs in practice from past versions, as you think anyone disagreeing with you on this must be.
In fact, the link you provided to a discussion back and forth with someone disagreeing with you on this matter showed that a lawyer specializing in this area, who was intimately familiar with the law, also disagreed with you.
I agree with you that those who will condemn others with whom they agree on 85% to 95% of things, over the small and likely justifiable difference of opinion, are making a mistake.
However, condeming THEM for that attitude, when THEY too are in the 85-95% agreement consensus, is another mistake. We need their passion, however annoying it is when it is misguided. But this fascist path the country is going down overall (not arguing the FISA changes in particular, but generally) needs opposition, and merits ballistically emotional opposition, for it is quite that bad. Yes, we need to minimize the friendly fire casualties, of course. But this should be a matter of patient education among compatriots, and not the kind of Stalinist purge you rightly accuse those of performing.
Shrill friends may be shrill, but they're still on your side, overall.
sofla
ARRGH! I just wrote a MASSIVE reply to all of the above...and it got LOST!
I'm too frustrated to rewrite. later, later...
It's amazing how progressives have no sense of strategy whatsoever. They have destroyed the impeachment movement and the anti-war movement with their divisive tactics.
Dr. Stern surmised that..”Assassination of President Kennedy was of no political significance - because The Kennedys were in it to win, not for the power, nor for personal enrichment, but for the chance to make a better world, But ACCOMPLISHMENT was all that mattered.ACCOMPLISHMENT, as opposed to writing critiques, or acting like you are above it, when the truth is, you can't stand getting your fingernails dirty.”
What in the world are you saying here? Because of the assasination o0f Kennedy there was a Coup d'Etat in the United States and the Viet Nam war raged for ten years..ten merciless and bloody years with Kent State ‘s bullets ripping into the flesh of teen agers, and assasinations up and down main street in the aftermath. Dr. Stern, stop smoking that stuff and take another sober look at what you said here. And by the bye who are all these "purists" that you are railing against. Chomsky is a lier and a master of deceit in his brainiac vomiting of half truths and lies about Kennedy, both Robert and Jack.
All we "purists" are asking fpr is honesty instead of the constant tap dancing in front of ccameras and microphones shouting political slogans and paying offf the media with their trunks full of goldbacks donated by the very corporations that they pretend to abhor.
Fascism is upon us Stern, now what are we going to do?
Dr. stern:
Sorry, I should have disallowed publication of that last comment. Hit the wrong button, I did.
Anon, when David said these words...
"Dr. Stern surmised that..”Assassination of President Kennedy was of no political significance - because The Kennedys were in it to win..."
...he was not expressing his OWN opinion. He was characterizing Chomsky's well-known stance toward the assassination.
Yeesh. Is this who reads me? Why write?
Well, write enough to say whether my two examples meet muster, at least!
I mean, please write.... (etc.)
sofla
Joseph,
Hey! I read you too, you know!
Thanks for saving me the trouble.
I definitely feel your pain vis a vis the lost post. I've lost more than a couple of essays that way. I've taken to selecting all the text and ctrl-C ing regularly, or composing in notepad with frequent saves, then pasting in the window, to avoid that.
Anon, if you are interested, you can read this:
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/rc/rc-contents.html
But I think it would be a waste of time. Chomsky is a linguist, and a man in love with his own mind. It is a very good mind, just not as good as he (and his acolytes) seem to think it is.
If I were you, I'd skip right to the analysis here:
http://www.webcom.com/lpease/media/cockburn.htm
I can see how my post might have been misread. My punctuation and paragraph structure were not very good in places. It was written on the fly at the end of about 24 hours with no sleep. :)
Okay sofla, sorry I did not get around to this earlier today...
Yeah, prohibition was a successful purist campaign, but I restricted my words to PROGRESSIVE purism. There were some progressives in the prohibition movement -- Upton Sinclair supported the amendment, and he could be considered the original patron saint of progressive purism. (Upton defended the damned thing until the day he died.) But there were also a lot of reactionary "Carrie Nation" types involved with that movement.
At any rate, the example of prohibition is nothing to be proud of.
The suffragette example is interesting. There were radical suffragettes who condemned Wilson in wildly hyperbolic terms during WWI. I would say that they did their cause harm. Wilson was certainly more likely to give women the vote than were his Republican opponents. He did, in fact, support the 19th amendment.
The most troubling example would be civil rights, because that is one instance where the progressive purists were unquestionably in the right. But our present argument is not about goals; it's about tactics.
Hubert Humphrey was a civil rights champion, yet the lefties hated him because he was willing to sign off on half-measures. His response was that he was in the business of politics, not theology. Best to take what you can get and try for more later.
I can understand why that compromising attitude would anger many people, especially when folks turned on their TVs and saw Bull Connor and the water hoses. Still, let's face it: We were a nation filled with bigots, and bigots voted. It wasn't easy to bring about change under those circumstances. I think HHH did the best he could.
By the way, I know that the writer of the original article on RESTORE does not name his source. I'm willing to take the writer's word for it in this case. But I admit that it's a judgment call, and if you are more skeptical, that's your right.
By the way, I've been thinking about that brouhaha I had with that lawyer over on Crooks and Liars. As you will recall, he echoed the opinion of those who favor the "unitary executive" theory. This theory holds that the president can pretty much ignore any law written according to a "may-if" formulation -- such as FISA's "The executive branch MAY eavesdrop IF certain guidelines are met." The unitary executive creeps argue that the word "may" means the prez can choose to follow the FISA guidelines, or he can choose to follow some other set of guidelines of his own devising.
It's an absurd argument, but it's still the official stance of the WH lawyers.
I understand that the new FISA legislation closes that loophole. "If" is now "If and only if." The FISA way to eavesdrop is the ONLY way to eavesdrop.
That's progress.
But I still cannot freaking believe that the Bushies have actually forced everyone to take into account such a tortured reading of the English language.
Oh, and Dave: You were so freaking right about the attraction of hopelessness. Hopelessness sells. I don't know why. Maybe because the conviction that the "fix is in" absolves people of the perceived obligation to DO something.
"Hopelessness sells. I don't know why. Maybe because the conviction that the "fix is in" absolves people of the perceived obligation to DO something."
THANK YOU!!
Now THERE is a topic worthy of an essay - something to offer the "Goth" liberals that might actually serve as a stimulant and wake them up, so they can GROW up.
HHH might have been an unfortunate choice. He was pretty easy to hate in the immediate wake of losing Bobby, especially considering he was a War Whore - the overriding and unifying issue of the day among "liberals".
I lived in Minneapolis for the last stages of his career there, and it was a hotbed of civil rights sympathies. Which is interesting, since even the city itself only had about a 7% population of African-Americans, and the entire state had historically been a Republican stronghold. (If you look back at some of the old election day Tribune issues, they'd have banner headlines of "REPUBLICAN VICTORY!!" that exhuded unbridaled entheusiasm.)
I know this is a late post, but I'm trying to catch up.
Don't you think it possible that these posters you declaim are really freepers trying to annoy the left? My tip-off would be the repeated use of 'democrat' for democratic. I just don't hear real democrats use that term. It would really only take one persistent poster to make several posts and that is not too low for them to stoop. I'm just sayin'.......
fallinglady
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