If you look at the commentary appended to some previous posts, you'll find a discussion of the PUMA movement. To what degree has it been infiltrated (or manipulated) by Republicans?
My answer: I stand with all liberals who mistrust Obama. Ours is an increasingly respectable position -- look at Krugman, Kuttner, Galbraith.
Still, I have to admit that one can find a fair amount of crap -- some of it right-wing crap, some of it just crappy crap -- on PUMA sites. I stick to blogs which are (mostly) crap-free, but other sites may have varying degrees of toxicity.
I no longer embrace the PUMA label, although I do not regret having done so during the campaign. Truth is, I resist all labels. Don't follow leaders. Don't join movements.
27 comments:
Joseph, as I mentioned in a previous post, when you have sites like Democratic Underground, which was one of the worst offenders of Obama-as-Messiah and trashed all the other candidates for the Democratic nomination, you KNOW a LOT of people throughout the liberal/progressive/Democratic spectrum are pissed off with him.
Yes, "we" warned them of this guy's neoliberal tendencies, but what is done is done. We have to put pressure on Obama to act like a Democrat or else the party will lose badly in 2012.
I'm about ready to drop the PUMA name just because I'm tired of arguing over what it means.
I'm also tired of being expected to answer for anyone who claims to be a PUMA
A new book, The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, argues that no voice in the FDR administration was more influential in shaping the New Deal than Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, the first-ever woman cabinet member in the United States. Author Kirstin Downey interviewed on Democracy Now, March 31, 2009.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/31/the_woman_behind_the_new_deal
IT's the Obama campaign that was infiltrated by Republicans - if not flat out run by 'em. Why would Republicans support the group trying to derail one of their own from being elected? Christ - what has Obama EVER DONE IN HIS CAREER to give Republicans reason to oppose him? What reason is he giving them now?
PUMA PAC unfortunately allowed a lot of right wing commentary to creep into the threads without chastising or explaining why it's bullshit. I was very sad to see the "Queen Nancy needs a private Jet" smear make it's way into a thread one night without anyone rebutting it. There was always sommeone quoting Limbaugh over there. Hopefully, that has changed.
Just Say No Deal officially embraced Republicans. They embraced anyone opposed to Obama, but PUMA is not JSND.
PUMA needs a real leader to step up to the task and that hasn't happened yet.
What fascinates me is that no one has picked up yet on how important PUMA may end up being.
If you sit back and think through Obama's next few months in a general sense you see the following:
His failures will mount, the stress on people will increase and the republicans will pry more and more people away from him by using attacks that worked during the primary (Republicans are now for the poor working man apparently).
As the Wizard of O's power fades he will start to look to where for help...the middle-PUMA-you know those uneducated bad people they said the party could do without.
And wont that be something to see.
As a Republican, I'd be happy to see the moderate Democrats take back their party.
I have concern for PUMA too. What happened to Will Bower?
In any event, I remain without a party and no organization gets my money.
some times I feel that the pumas are content to be successful bloggers more than anything. they think such blogs like daily cos or Huffing etc are the reason obama is the president, which of course is not true. you can't ask people to be leaders if they don't have it, but at this point it is the only grass roots thing with potential so i hate to let go.
Find a better name for those of us who've been onto Obama since the beginning, those of us who suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous racism accusations, who no longer have a political party to call home, and we'll gladly drop the PUMA label. And while you're at it, find us a leader with a high enough profile to garner some media attention that doesn't drip with derision.
Kat, and others, no worries.
Get a grip, people. Both the New Agenda and PUMApac are works in progress, and both have been and will be successful.
I really don't care what CLOWNS have to say about dropping PUMA labels...my view is that those calling themselves PUMA shouldn't have given clowns a soapbox to begin with.
That aside, Joseph has his own schtick...meaning his personal outlook regarding the promotion and profit and so on of online "brands"... and I don't understand it, but I accept it and shrug it off because he has unique, interesting and intelligent views I want to keep up with, whether or not he wants to be promoted or "followed" or whatnot. So, it's a-ok for him to say "don't have leaders, don't follow leaders" and he's right, in a way. For him and his and idealists fashioned in this mindset.
However. Where would women's suffrage have gotten without Alice Paul, and other leaders? So, leaders of movements are quite necessary at times. Not to mention, such "followers" of these kind of sea-changes are very strong in and of themselves ...both in action and ideas. Witness all the suffragettes who protested and were jailed and tortured and came through victorious.
Personally, if I had the wherewithal to have my own site, which obviously I don't, so it's a moot point, but *if* I did, I wouldn't have tolerated those with the nonstop rightwing agenda. They'd have been tossed out on the garbage heap with the obots.
But hey, for whatever reason, my two absolutely favorite women's sites alternatively tolerate obots and rightwingers. But I go there to read the site-owners' posts, which are dead-on, and material you can't find elsewhere.
So even tho those rightwinger comments aren't always answered, I know for a fact there are those wanting to wrest our party and our principles back from the Chicago thugs, and not one of us are going to be won over by the rethuglicans, so let them waste their time trying.
Maybe the reason they aren't always countered is that countering rightwingers with facts sends them into endless rage and it derails the thread worse than ignoring them...I know. The furious spittle I encounter when speaking up is almost comical.
And there are reasons to tolerate those from the other side of the aisle, too. A ton of women are completely DONE with the sexist pig attitude from both ends of the spectrum, and they are ready to forge ahead regardless of left or right.
It's a process...we'll come together when we can and our future will be the better for it. Do you think women won the right to vote in some kind of "pure" fashion? Get real.
So, while I think Joseph was within his rights to bring this up as a topic because his readers were making comments on PUMAs I think the people sneering and sniping at the movement behind its back would be better off using their time to help, instead of whining about the rightwing infiltration from afar, while doing absolutely nothing about it themselves.
The New Agenda has been quite successful at infiltrating the media without getting sneered at, and it's my hope and belief that eventually these disparate groups will evolve into a grassroots movement, and yes...with some totally new name, if that makes a difference, so maybe people had better check out the posts (the posts, not the comments), the meetups and the plans and get more involved directly, if they truly care about real progress and change.
And, incidentally, these groups are far from just blogs. Step over the crap, and see for yourselves, instead of letting the sideshows distract you.
speaking only for myself re: republican talking points, etc.
do you stop women in battered women's support group while they are venting? that's what puma comment threads and radio shows were to me.
will bower's mo seems to be hanging back and doing what others want to do.
So the "expert" is tired...WWHHAA. Sounds more like a "I think I know more than..." buttnotch. So give Sid his credit
Zee:
You seem to have lots of issues with clowns. Is it the big shoes?
Perhaps you should start your own blog so you can share your wisdom with the world.
Then you won't be bothering poor Joseph with your personal stuff.
Puma was right about Barry.
Now that it's clear that bitter Puma was right, in order to avoid saying that, Puma has to be gotten rid of.
But let's not close the book on Puma before is acknowledged, Puma was right and the left blogosphere was wrong. However that will be never I'm thinking.
In the articles where the kool aid seems to be wearing off, the authors will say stuff about Barry, that PUMA said many months ago and they say like it is new. It's not. In these articles around the web, I've yet to see the words
Well, PUMA was right
I ain't holding my breathe
PS Anyone who thinks it's possible to pressure Obama to " act like a Democrat" ,has not accepted who Barry is and has not dropped the kool-aid jug IMO.
When was the last time the Democrats acted like Democrats, much less Barry?
Trying to get results by " pressuring" Obama to act like a Democrat may work if one's goal is making Obama weak with laughter.
Annie, you may ridicule us about "pressuring" Obama to be a Democrat, but what is YOUR suggestion we do? He's president, and we are STUCK with him for the next four years, like it or not.
And I don't want Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush in 2012. Sorry.
What turned me off was the obvious personal animus against Obama. This imparted a rancid flavor to most PUMA-oriented blogs, and I do not share this animus.
It was tres bizarre to see folks at NO QUARTER embracing Jerome Corsi, one of the world's foremost Hillary smearers.
I talked to many Obama supporters and found them to be perfectly good people who did not call women nasty names and who had not drunk any kool-aid. I was moved by how happy people were that Obama got elected.
The whole world was dancing and singing, while the PUMAs were off in the corner sulking.
Nor do I agree that the PUMAs have "proven right" about Obama--at least not entirely right. The PUMAs, including me, were wrong about Obama's electability and wrong about what kind of campaign he would run. In my estimation, he has not proven to be anywhere near as crooked as we thought.
Many PUMAs said, and still say, that Obama is a radical socialist. There goes your movement. People who believe this cannot possibly be Democrats.
Where we were right is in Obama's being a quasi-neocon. He really is blowing it for the Democrats and the country.
PUMAs have been right all along. proud of my association. The only part of the label I am having trouble with these days is the "P" - it makes me feel like I am still one of them. Democrat in exile is a better fit, but sometimes when you want shorthand, one uses the acronym still. But the time to hit people over the head with "Party unity" has gone, so, that makes PUMA dated. Not the political stands which are forever relevant.
Perry, I think, has found the right word: "Socialism." Those Pumas who feel comfortable using that term to describe Obama are really Republicans, and I really do not care how they think of themselves. And this is one reason why I will join no movements, except under temporary circumstances.
Perry,
PUMAs were entirely proven right about Obama. The GOP, since you didn't notice, didn't actually spend much money opposing him. McCain took public financing and the GOP 527s only spent $27m opposing Obama. What PUMA did not forsee was the GOPs willingness to allow him to be elected - something that is far more understandable now that we have actually seen him in action. I mean, right now he is moving to bust up the auto union's pension and health agreements. If he's successful, he will prove to be as destructive to unions as Reagan was. I find him as vile as Reagan. Utterly without any merit as a human being.
The whole world may have been dancing but the whole world didn't know that Michigan's primary prevented another candidate from receiving the nomination and the action that cut their delegation in half, was taken entirely by the GOP. The GOP bill to move Michigan's primary up passed only with Republican votes. In keeping with the DNC threat, no Democrat voted for that bill. Clinton lost the nomination entirely because of a Republican action.
No Quarter was never really PUMA. They happened to oppose Obama as well, but they weren't the PUMAs. PUMAs were mostly The Confluence and PUMA PAC.
If I thought Obama was really a socialist I probably would have voted for him in spite of everything he did.
Excellent points in both posts, Lori. I'm with you.
And Perry, you'll have to to forgive me for sulking through the inauguration. That's what I do when fair elections & a free press (i.e., democracy) are subverted. 2000 & 2004 were no different. Sorry that I abstained from sweeping it under the rug just to make you feel better!
Perry, the animus or hostility is anger and bitterness at the misogyny and corruption of the campaign. If you look closely, the most angry or "hostile" as you call it are PUMA women who are much more sensitive to sexism than men.
Speaking only for myself, PUMAs were right about everything including his electability. We knew Wall Street and its media funded his campaign and may someday find out they were behind the financial crisis that elected him. Obama paid off Wall Street right away.
Diversity is the strength of the movement. There are hardcore leftists, progressives, liberals, centrists and conservative Democrats, Independents and Republicans in PUMA and New Agenda.
The second wave's strength was the joining of liberal and conservative women and I think the second wave was the strongest wrt changing consciousness.
Bottom line: The 18 million voters (at least) that Obama threw under the bus deserve representation.
A little late distancing yourself from PUMA, Joseph. ;) Barry Eisler's already written his blogger book:
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/03/hbc-90004625
"The names in your novel read like a roll-call of the civil-liberties blogosphere—you have Hilzoy (Hilary Bok), Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald, and Josh Marshall worked in. And the man running the black ops killing program is named Scott Horton. Ahem. But I was also taken by the fact that characters in Fault Line turn continually to the blogs—not to newspapers, radio or television—for their information, and in the end of the book, for solutions to their dilemma. Would it be fair to call this a blogosphere thriller?"
Susan, I don't want Jeb or Milt either, but I believe one would get just about as far in pressuring them to act like a " Democrat" as one would with Barry.
I don't have an answer,but pressuring Democrats to act like Democrats hasn't worked in nearly a decade and at this point,it isn't an answer either.IMO.
Perry, Obama is MORE corrupt than we expected. The bank bailout is the most corrupt act I have seen from our government at least in the financial sector.
And to clarify, I don't use Republican talking points in my comments.
When I say "speaking for myself only," I mean I don't speak for all PUMAs. tamerlame accused me of speaking for all PUMAs in my post of the same name but he eventually agreed with my goals of PUMA.
As a leftist, I don't use Republican talking points in my comments or on my own blog.
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