The thread gives us the "greatest hits" of prog fantasyland: The 90s were The Nightmare Years, Hillary is a Republican, "DLC policies are destroying my friends and family," the dreaded DLC is "the Poison Pill or corporate Trojan Horse," the way to victory is to ignore the middle in favor of that all-important 2% Kucinich vote, and the Kucinich campaign failed due to the MSM (not personal unpopularity) -- so let us now give the SIBPATS speech while we vote for McCain out of spite.
For a new low in prog stupidity, check out this explanation as to why Bill Clinton "failed":
90% of the rest of it was overturned by Bushco within two years. All those clean water initiatives - gone. Clean air initiative - gone. Protected forests - gone. Counter-terror measures - wasted. All because he was unable to effect PERMANENT change.By this logic, Carter gets the blame for Reagan, Wilson gets the blame for Thatcher, and Claudius gets the blame for Nero. What rot!
One commenter on the thread points out that Al Gore was part of the DLC. Thus Gore stands damned as Mr. Evil! Yep, the same Al Gore who wrote The Assault on Reason, the same Al Gore who put together An Inconvenient Truth, the same Al Gore who was the numero uno prog choice for president just a few months ago, is now considered a bigger corporate shill than Ronald McDonald.
The thread also heaves hate at the Blue Dog Dems. Let me repeat a fact of the universe once again, DUmmies: WE LIVE IN A CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY. I do not like that truism, but I will not blind myself to it. Your prog friends do not represent the nation. People who think as you think are a minority.
In many congressional districts, the choice is not between a Blue Dog and a Dennis Kucinich clone. The choice is between a Blue Dog and a Mike Huckabee clone. Sorry, but the only way to build a majority is to welcome the cerulean canines as they come scampering into your living room. If they soil the rug...smile. For chrissakes, don't tell 'em to go outside, not if you want to win.
Then again, progs don't really want to win, do they?
10 comments:
It's ironic that you spend so much more time attacking a faction on what is ostensibly your side of the ideological spectrum when you could and should be attacking the right.
Jamie in Boston
jamie, extremists of ANY stripe are our enemies, especially within our own ranks, not in the least because they help the right win more than anyone!
just look at what happened to the republican party when they gave these freaks a voice!
there's hardly a position in the extreme wing of any party that makes any democratic sense. e.g., the assertion that clinton is trash because he failed to make his good initiatives PERMANENT!!
how idiotic!! NOTHING in a democracy is permanent!! by definition. we can always change a law; that's the beauty of it.
the lesson here is NOT that we should be electing progressives or extremists in our party, but that democracy is not a spectator sport, and it behooves us all to participate. when we ALL participate, the fringes remain... the fringes.
now, as for joe's assertion that the country is conservative, i take enormous issue!! in a comment above, someone else noted the link to an issues poll in the past week or two that showed the country is actually polling VERY liberal on the issues.
and look at what this country has done throughout its history! the very concept of democracy is a liberal one, as is every manifestation of it in our greatest legislations.
what has clouded dear joe's eyes, and the eyes of so many others, has been the conservative agenda to shift the rhetoric, to make 'liberal' a dirty word, and to try and reconfigure the most liberal of policies (e.g., social security) as dangerous to our freedoms.
to a great extent it worked, particularly with reagan. but this bush43 and his henchmen have exposed way too much of the reality behind that agenda, and i sense that the country is most definitely leaning far to the left of this new center the right carved out about 15 years ago.
that's not to say that what is liberal now is still way right of liberal then; this speaks to the success of their rhetorical shift and animal farm speak.
but make no mistake, when folks are asked about how they want the govt to act on specific issues, they come up liberal every time. it's in our blood, guys; most of us grew up assuming these things like a decent education and infrastructure and justice. now that we see what it means to have it really challenged in our faces, it's just not going to fly.
the only way the repugs will win much of anything in november is ...ya know, i can't hardly imagine it, to tell the truth. mccain is just not going to cut anything like strength, even for his own party!
and even if the big dick pulls another new pearl harbor - i've said it before and i'll say it again - i just don't think this population is the same one that was hit on 9/11; they've wised up, they're suspicious, they're pissed, and they're not gonna take it anymore.
in fact, i'm a firm believer that, should dick try something like an iran invasion, it will backfire. we'll have madness in the streets (as he tries to pull evil liberals off to the camps).
Screw the DLC. Democrats are losing because Democrats have been acting like a bunch of spineless jellyfish. There is a reason why people don't want to vote for Hillary Clinton. Has a lot less to do with the DLC and a lot more to do with the fact that she comes across as a person that will say anything to get elected.
This blog spends so much time attacking people for calling out bullshit that I wonder what's going on here. You attack CD theorists and Progressives like they were the worst of nutjobs. And yet yesterday you linked to Rigorous Intuition and you have a link to it on the left of this page. The craziest nuttiest stuff on the internet is found on that site... with the except of CD theory which Jeff won't touch... UFO's is ok for him though. Makes no sense. I really don't get what is going on here.
CapnDudeGuy
If the country is conservative, which it may be in some senses, this works to favor the Democrats in today's environment, in which the so-called conservatives are radicals who do not wish to conserve any number of things that are bedrock American programs, such as Social Security or longstanding understandings of Constitutional protections, and care nothing for such conservative values as frugality and balancing a budget (at least when they're in charge).
However, driven by the chattering classes (Tim Russert is a prominent example on the Social Security issue), Democrats too often think that to be considered credible, they have to bow to the conventional wisdom and be willing to 'reform' SS, which is neither a Democratic Party position, nor a true conservative position, but a stampede caused by massively misinforming the public, deliberately done so that Wall Street can get their hands on billions in fees. Similarly, to be thought credible, many Democrats vote for wars they should not vote for, on behalf of Zionist and/or MIC lobbying.
The populism message is one that all Democrats are trained to avoid, because if somebody attacks the rich and powerful, it is an attack on the large campaign donor class.
And this is the problem with the DLC types. The American polity is faced with a great enemy within, which is the money power that works in favor of private interests against the interests of the people and the country. This fact was recognized by all US presidents, starting from the founding fathers through Lincoln and forward, and still mentioned by US presidents well into the 20th century (TR Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, etc.).
Rather than frankly admit this private/public interest conflict, that was so obvious that even presidents talked about it, and line up on the side of the angels in this matter, the side of the people, the DLC embodies a kind of Vichy government approach, collaborating with these forces in the interest of campaign contributions.
It's more or less their founding principle. Since the GOP gets a huge funding advantage from business contributions, the DLC proposed that the money field be evened up by the Democrats taking more pro-business stances and pimping themselves out as the 'permanent government party' in Congress. (This was how Tony Coelho and Speaker Jim Wright tried to raise money during the Reagan years, leading to sufficient financial scandals that both were forced out of office in disgrace just ahead of the sheriff, figuratively.)
This strategy had a superficial plausibility and attractiveness. After all, we cannot get our wonderful Democratic Party programs put through (or saved) unless we're in office, so those ends justify the means required, which is taking massive money from elite interests. However,once you've taken the king's coin, you become his subject, and the DLC guys began to put through multiple program changes that were against longstanding Democratic Party positions, and worked against its constituencies, such as labor (in the case of the various 'free trade' initiatives), and against the interests of the people overall.
...sofla
It bears repeating: "and look at what this country has done throughout its history! the very concept of democracy is a liberal one, as is every manifestation of it in our greatest legislations."
The ram in the room is religion. My college religion professor said that every religion is only one generation away from becoming extinct. That kind of extinction can't happen soon enough. I happen to be in favor of school prayer: O master and ruler of the universe, my creator and redeemer, help me to learn and master math, rhetoric, and science, geometry, music, and dance, and teach me to love them with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my might.
I would challenge the assumption that we live in a conservative country. The right has defined both conservative and liberal through its dominance of the media so the fact that more Americans self-identify as conservative can be misleading.
It appears to me that Americans want leadership. They are looking for political leaders that will keep them safe, take care of what they see as problems in the country, and not require much from them in return.
They are usually presented with a Republican who is gung-ho on "national security", tough on crime, against taxes, and hostile to homosexuals and abortion. The Democrats then present a candidate who has a nuanced view - a policy wonk who talks about the complexities of international relations and the rights of people you may not like very much, and our common obligation to contribute to society. While the Dem may represent a better choice on domestic issues like health care, social security and jobs, even those issues are couched in nuanced complexities that obscure the real policy position of the candidate.
What Democrats need is a clear vision of the America they want to bring and a simple, coherent set of proposals to achieve that vision. It is obvious they are failing to do this. Democrats cannot even agree on the simple matter of honoring their oath of office and protecting the Constitution, much less health care or Middle East policy.
The Republicans stand for something - I abhor everything they stand for, but they do clearly all support a set of core ideas - in spite of the fact those ideas are obviously erroneous. The Democrats don't seem to have a set of core ideas. Voters, particularly the ill-informed and mis-informed majority, are faced with a choice between a known and an unknown, a person who stands up for what they believe vs. a person whose beliefs aren't really clear.
Building a majority is not a matter of opening the tent flaps and letting anyone who wants go in and out. Building a majority requires a purpose, a vision, a goal and a strategy. The Republicans who are a minority party, have near totalitarian lockstep voting in support of their perverted goals. They have no canines soiling their rugs. They can't be beaten by either an indistinct "we're not as bad as they are" politics nor by a "we support every cause in the left-wing playbook" politics. We don't need to emulate their totalitarian party loyalty, but there should be some clear understanding of what it means to be a Democrat.
"I would challenge the assumption that we live in a conservative country. The right has defined both conservative and liberal through its dominance of the media so the fact that more Americans self-identify as conservative can be misleading."
It's not a matter of self-identification. For me, it all comes down to what I call Milton Friedmanism, or radical laissez faire. In the real world, this approach has been tried over and over, and has failed disastrously every time. But Americans continue to see it as a bold NEW idea, untried and filled with promise. And as long as they feel that way, then I say that have have a conservative citizenry -- and never mind how folks respond to poll questions on other issues.
"The Democrats don't seem to have a set of core ideas." Yes, they do. They think that government has a role to play in the protecting the workers, not just the capitalists. However, the public's embrace of Friedmanism as a religion has made that notion inexpressible. Thus, Democrats do not SEEM to stand for something.
Friedmanism is ALL. No other issue counts.
As long Friedmanism remains popular, as long as anti-Friedmanism is considered Thoughtcrime, we must confess that this nation is conservative to the core, and any non-conservative can sneak into power only by stealth.
Joseph,
I agree that this is a conservative country. But it is also a liberal country.
Most Americans are some combination of the two, depending on the issues.
This doesn't mean they are wishy-washy or confused. It means that their needs and views are a lot more complex then the 10-second sound-bites and stupid polling questions we've been getting for many years.
Plus, as at least one other commenter here has pointed out, the words themselves are ambiguous. The Bush-type conservatives and Neocons are extremely radical, not "conservative" of anything but their own money and power. Many liberals are extremely conservative about family and community.
Although the "Progressives" may be annoying in some ways, that doesn't mean everything they say is wrong. They're right about the DLC, for example.
Joseph, your comment about Friedmanism is quite apt. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine is a good source for anyone who doesn't take you seriously on that point.
Democrats used to believe that "government has a role to play in the protecting the workers, not just the capitalists", but it's hard to see evidence that the leadership of the party continues to hold that view. Have they watered-down their views because the public and the media are sold of Friedmanism, or has the public's seeming embrace of that doctrine been strengthened because there appears to be no alternative?
If Democrats actively pointed out the obvious and continuous and debilitating failures of the Friedman ideology to the public, wouldn't that weaken the hold of Friedmanism? Doesn't the party's intentional capitulation, lead by the DLC, actually reinforce the idea that there is no alternative?
Democrats have accepted the Friedmanesque frame for the economy and acted to reinforce it during the Clinton presidency. If that is the reason for their political weakness, then wouldn't attacking it be the better strategy?
"Democrats used to believe that "government has a role to play in the protecting the workers, not just the capitalists", but it's hard to see evidence that the leadership of the party continues to hold that view. Have they watered-down their views because the public and the media are sold of Friedmanism, or has the public's seeming embrace of that doctrine been strengthened because there appears to be no alternative?"
They've watered down their views, or at least kept them disguised by coy hints and euphemism, because the public an the media have been sold on Friedmanism.
It is as simple as that.
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