I don’t know who the hell these people are but..-
- My Party upholds the sanctity of Roe v.Wade.
- My Party does not “cash in” on an illegal war.
- My Party believes in protecting labor rights ie it does not sell out it union base by voting for CAFTA or overturning overtime pay etc. etc.
- My party protects the voting rights of all citizens
- My party protects the civil rights of all Americans
- My party protect the environment
- My party supports excellence in public education
- My party believes what will make this country stronger is jobs and healthcare.
- My party does not sell its soul to any and every corporate “john” that pays for its vote, even if it is against the wishes of the base.
“Take back the party” … yeah… if there were a party to take back… the Democratic Party is dead and pod people inhabit its shell.
Now, my so-called party calls all of these values EXTREME left-wing radical “single issues” that are the reasons why Democrats are not winning… My party no longer exist they have been taken over by a bunch of Republican wingnut assholes.
The same people advocating “take back the party” will be the same people telling everyone to STFU and vote for Casey and any other shitty so-called Republicrat that the GOPers (YES, REAL REPUBLICAN MASKING AS DEMOCRATS) in our party puts up.
Fool me once shame on you… fool me twice shame on me…
We went through all before. The DLC/NDN would rather burn the party to the ground than hand over any power or move one inch on their agenda. They have already co-opted parts the blogosphere and some blogs have more political operatives blogging than regular people.
Boo outlined the jist of the future of the Democratic Party yesterday:
We cannot unite around trade policy, or gay marriage, or the unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, or opposition to the Patriot Act, or universal health care, or even, it appears, the absolute sanctity of Roe. But what we can unite around is our opposition to the kleptocracy and corruption running rampant in the highest reaches of the Republican Party. We can unite around clean and open government.
Gee… thanks. We can fight for “clean and open government” just as long as we don’t use it for those “icky” special issues like trade policy, or gay marriage, or the unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, or opposition to the Patriot Act, or universal health care, or even, it appears, the absolute sanctity of Roe.
Boy now, that is worth fighting and taking back the party.
I think Andy Stern and the union split up is right… it is better save the healthy parts and cut it away from the disease ridden sections before the entire body dies. To even talk anymore about “taking back the party” is absurd and a waste of time when Democrats just last night aided Tom DeLay in delivering CAFTA to Bush.
For me, if the Democrats capitulate on Roe that will be the line drawn in the sand… there will be no returning to this party.
Divorce although traumatic can be healthier than staying together. Many marriages have broken up after several years being together because the couple have taken decidely different paths. Mature people realize that it is better EVEN FOR THE CHILDREN to part their ways than to live in an unhealthy unproductive environment.
Yes it would be a minority party… but… even when the Democratic party has a chance to win in it’s minority status… ie Roe, CAFTA they would rather roll over and play dead.
This doesn’t mean that there can not be cooperation some where down the line. However, if there is a split I would assume it would be the Labor/Democrats who survive and the DLC/NDN Democrats (“Centrist” is a misnomer, they are far right.) who would be absorbed into the GOP as they have more affinity with the GOP than they do the Democratic Party.
Nor mine. We are all over the place-chaotic in major disagreements because we have no power. The only thing, in my view, that might make sense right now. is to STOP reacting. Stop the endless bitching. Check the egos and create SILENCE. Step back individually. Walk the walk and REVOLT. Stop shopping. Boycott. etc.,
These issues should not be issues in a ‘free’ world. We lost our freedom ages ago. Right now we can choose to keep ‘trying’ to play with the big boys and rant and rage endlessly. Or just STOP. Period.
A massive sit in- in our own homes- Don’t watch TV- stop allowing the dumbing down- don’t do anything for awhile. Try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Take your money out of the banks. Get rid of credit cards…yeah utopia, I know, but we have lost the government , we have lost honest voting. Unless you are a billionare None of you will change anything. None of us can, not even as a group. It’s broken! The world is in crash and burn mode and we are wasting our energy and only fueling the chaotic energy of the downfall. If we want to change anything we need to STOP wasting our time by reacting with endless chatter.
Just Stop and regroup SILENTLY. Walk the walk. REVOLT!!
to help facilitate change rosee and I don’t believe we have crossed the cusp where our country can’t be taken back from the evil that has slowly and methodically worked to destroy its very foundations. If I believe that we could not win, I would not be living in the US today.
I agree, Revolt, stop shopping at wal mart, cut up our credit cards, keep minimal money in the banks, recycle, buy locally, grow your own and turn off the damn TV. Listen to those around you, nurture those that have even a semblance of your beliefs and watch as we take back our country for the evil that grows within it.
I’m getting two contradictory messages from your post: Turn inwards, and fight back. You cant do both.
“A massive sit in- in our own homes- … don’t do anything for awhile. Try to be as self-sufficient as possible. … Unless you are a billionare None of you will change anything. None of us can, not even as a group. It’s broken! The world is in crash and burn mode and we are wasting our energy and only fueling the chaotic energy of the downfall. If we want to change anything we need to STOP wasting our time by reacting with endless chatter.”
I understand your sentiment, but i dont think that giving up and turning in is what we need to be doing.
I think you can live your life in one of two ways: you can accept the world as it is, or you can change it. I feel that the current condition of our country and the world is unacceptable, and i therefore have an obligation to change it. more than an obligation, i feel that if i were to reject the current state of affairs, and not take action, i could not maintain my sanity. I’d probably lock myself in my apt, read a lot of novels, never talk to anyone, and slowly rot.
Not only is fighting back a hell of a lot better than surrendering, I also think that we can win this fight.
Not we “the democratic party” can win. There is no democratic party. There’s a lot of liberal-to-left people, and a few (i’m talking 3-ish) halfway decent people in leadership roles. Its just a matter of how long it takes people to accept the party’s death and move on.
But regardless, we THE PEOPLE can still win. The party may not care about women, or minorities, or democracy, or workers, or peace, or justice, but A HELL OF A LOT OF PEOPLE STILL DO. In fact, i’m gonna say AN OVERWHELMING MAJORITY DO.
We need to organize all the people that the democratic party wont. We need to REALLY reach out to working people, and unions, and minorities, and everyone. We need to offer all of the ignored and oppressed AN ACTUAL VOICE through an ACTUAL DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURE capable of ACTUAL CHANGE.
What we really need to win is a new everything.
We need a radical, democratic, populist, labor party. We need to take all of the time, energy, and dedication that people (you + formerly me) devote to the democratic party, and use it on something that isn’t going to be negated by some unelected DLC-types who get the air time because they have the connections, and the money, and the structure, and because the corporate media likes them more.
We need a movement, not only to end the war, or to protect abortion, or to protect workers, or whatever, we need a movement TO TAKE THE POWER BACK. We need a party that can SUPPORT THE PEOPLE, rather than expecting the people to support it simply because its candidate isnt bush.
What makes you think a party like that would have the support of an “overwhelming majority” of voters? I just don’t see it. I think its support would fall more in the “underwhelming minority” range…
-Alan
What you’re saying is that a party that supported a woman’s right to choose, AND wanted to give workers fair wages, AND wanted to provide universal health care, AND wanted to end the war in iraq would be too left? You think a party like that would be an “underwhelming minority”, even though each one of them alone is something that ~60% of the country agrees with?
You dont think that people are tired of being ignored, and having issues they care about being bartered away behind closed doors in washington? You dont think that a party that would take a principled stand with its supporters would be successful?
I think that we need both a mass movement and a mass party to address these issues. I think that the democratic party is not interested in any of these things, and needs to quit getting in the way of progress.
If you have any alternative ideas, i’d love to hear them, but i’m tired of people telling me that “it wont work” and having nothing but their own demoralization to back up their arguments.
WE need to do a lot of things but all we seem to do is TALK.
I feel like we are re-fueling the republicans with this unharnessed energy. We can’t seem to agree on a platform, we’re all over the place-chaotic. We are react-ionaries.
Believe me I do not give up. I am suggesting SILENCE and contemplation in MASS as a tactic. Go underground and regroup. Or just revolt in any way we can.
Our attention is diverted continually from the ‘issues’ by non-stop repetitive diaries on the same topics for days when something NEW hits the fan.
Example- while many are concentrating on Plame-Rove, Tom Delay snuck a 1.5 billion pork thing into a bill. If the heat had stayed on Delay he wouldn’t have been able to still be doing his dirty work.
The whole Bush admin is corrupt and THEY all have to go NOW, not by zig-zagging-that’s not going to work.
But Dems cannot stay in-step long enough to accomplish anything.
So I have decided to independently TAKE BACK my power and freedoms. That’s what I meant.
What I was referring to was your original “radical, democratic, populist, labor party”. That sounds like a party that–assuming it had only the GOP as competition, and was on every ballot in every state–might net 30-35% of the vote. I’d be one of those votes, but I’d be pissed off that the left wasn’t putting out a more realistic, marketable product.
But you do have to be careful before you assume that “Since A, B, and C are each supported by 60% of the public, a party that combines them all will also get 60%.” T’ain’t necessarily so–some people support A but not B or C…etc.
Anyway, I don’t agree at all that I’m coming from some “demoralized” position. Quite the contrary: I’ve got Judis and Texeira’s The Emerging Democratic Majority on my bookshelf, and I’ve read every word–and still believe it! But it can’t happen, at least not any time soon, unless we win over a good chunk of swing voters. These are people not like you and me: they are willing to vote for Republicans! That’s pretty fucking lame of them, huh? Think we ought to let on to them how lame we think their confused, muddled centrism is? (The answer: no, not if we want to sweet talk them into giving us power.)
So yeah, I’m generally optimistic–but you guys are severely testing that optimism. We need to be realistic!! I’ve said it over and over and I’ll keep saying it:
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE.
HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE!!!
-Alan
“I’d be pissed off that the left wasn’t putting out a more realistic, marketable product.”
you mean you’d be pissed that you weren’t getting more john kerry’s? You think candidates who cant and wont make a stand on anything are “marketable”?
“you do have to be careful before you assume that “Since A, B, and C are each supported by 60% of the public, a party that combines them all will also get 60%.” T’ain’t necessarily so–some people support A but not B or C…etc.”
Yeah, but at the same time, I dont see either major party supporting ANY of these things in a REAL way.
Furthermore, i think that if a party supported a living wage, health care, and abortion, for example, it would help to associate progressive social causes with progressive economic causes.
“I don’t agree at all that I’m coming from some “demoralized” position”
I disagree. You’re saying that the democratic party can win, just not if it stands for anything. Thats pretty demoralized, imo.
I think that swing voters can be divided into 2 groups: people who are upper-middle-class, and really dont know which party better serves their interests, and working class social conservatives, who see one party as supporting their “value system” in some way, and the other party as supporting their economic interests. Our party needs to support their economic interests more strongly than our opposition supports their so-called values.
Then there’s non-voters, who for the most part are like the 2nd group of swing voters, except without that social conservative crap. These people want a party that will support their economic interests (ie, living wage, health care) but dont think that either party does so. These people are NOT apathetic, lazy, etc, etc, as many assume. Green party GOTV seems to work pretty well with many people like this, for example. They’re just people who don’t like either choice right now, and therefore see voting as something “not worth missing work for”
half a loaf is better than none for a while, but only having half a loaf forever is not a winning strategy.
Look, there are better speakers/framers than Kerry, I won’t deny that (though I don’t think he was as bad as all this piling on suggests). But if you are asking me “would I take a Senate controlled by sixty John Kerrys” you better frickin’ believe I would!! Sorry to disappoint you again, but when it comes to his actual voting record and stands on issues, Kerry is at the left end of what I think is realistic for us nationally. Not past the point of realism, but close.
Bullshit. I’m sorry, but this pisses me off. If it stands for “half a loaf” that is still something, and something very significant. And I take umbrage at being told, essentially, that what I’m trying so hard to accomplish is worthless.
I’m excited and optimistic about the prospects for a Democratic majority (and, I’ll add, for fine tuning that majority using primaries, not third parties). But it is all this trashing of the Dems I see here that pushes me more toward being demoralised. It’s the prospect of not having a chance to win, rather than lacking ideological purity, that demoralises ME (you can have your own criteria, but leave me to mine).
-Alan
I forgot I wanted to address this too. In my opinion, the idea that people who don’t vote are really progressives who don’t see either party as offering them an option that’s far enough to the left…well, I think it’s frankly a pipe dream, a chimera, something many on the left take as an article of faith, something to get them through the night. They can’t deny that polling and election results prove they can’t get a larger share of the current electorate by moving left–but they so badly want to move left, so they cling to this idea that the nonvoting masses will rise up and support them if they do.
I just don’t buy it. Oh sure, there’s going to be some of those in there–I know one personally, in fact. But I just see no evidence of this for the vast majority, and in fact I think we might end up with even more cretins (“regular guys”) like Bush if more people voted.
-Alan
“I’d be one of those votes, but I’d be pissed off that the left wasn’t putting out a more realistic, marketable product.”
What’s the point of having a more realistic marketable product when upon purchasing the product, chances are it will vote the same way the other side does anyway?
Look, I obviously get pissed about that sort of thing–look at my diary from the other day, for example. But I remember a while back I took a look at legislative scorecards from various progressive organisations. In the Senate, excepting Zell Miller (who is obviously a complete traitor), the most conservative Democrats (yes, even Ben Nelson) scored higher than the most moderate Republicans (yes, even Lincoln Chaffee). The average Republican scored around 20 and the average Democrat scored around 75. In the House, there were a few members who overlapped, but once again the average was far apart.
I can go back and do this analysis again, and in fact I probably will on Monday (when more people will be reading). I think it’s crucial not to let “the perfect become the enemy of the good”. Psychologists tell us that we tend to remember (or notice) the negative more than the positive, and I think that is exactly what’s happening here. On the whole, Democrats vote much more progressively than Republicans, even if it’s still not as progressive as we’d ideally like.
So don’t cut off your nose to spite your face!
-Alan
Tell me again what are we fighting for??
More Republicans crossed over to try and save CAFTA than Democrats crossing over to kill it…
We should have won this…on CAFTA even the GOP wanted us to win… but the Pod Democrats killed the win for the entire party!!!
<quote>the Democratic Party is dead and pod people inhabit its shell.</quote> I’ll be stealing this 🙂
Thank you for your great post.
I’ve recently been making contact with the Green Party and they sent me this link. I thought you might appreciate the irony of it.
I was released near the start of this year, but reading it feels like going back in time, doesn’t it?
That has been my comment this week as I’ve had to defend my views from the supposed left-wing blogosphere and told to get with the program:
Why am I being asked to support a Democratic Party when it’s own Congresspeople don’t vote with the Democratic Party?
Sorry guys, you’re wasting your time with me, the folks you should be going after are the Dems who vote like Republicans!
In contradistinction to the stance taken in some parts of the blogosphere, I am not a partisan Democrat. I am an ideological liberal. I care about liberal ideals and nothing else. Parties interest me only insofar as they serve those ideals.
Indeed, why would I care about a party that doesn’t deliver on those ideals? This isn’t baseball, it’s politics. I don’t give a rat’s ass if my “team” wins — it’s what they win that matters. If party unity gives us an ascendant but conservative Democratic Party, what is there to rejoice about in that?
Ross Perot, in whom I never had much interest, did sum up the major parties very aptly once. He said that the two parties were giving us the choice of driving off the cliff quickly or driving off the cliff slowly. No one is giving us the choice of not driving off the cliff at all. If anything, the situation is much worse than when Perot was speaking.
To those who keep urging that we stick with the party no matter what, I say this: um, no. If the best the Democrats can offer is to slow the rightward drift, you have nothing to offer me but a little extra time to look for a new country to live in. If, on the other hand, the Democratic Party commits to pushing a liberal, progressive agenda forward, not only to reclaim the ground lost under Reagan through Bush II (and that includes crypto-GOP moderate Bill Clinton), but also to continue from where we left off, then I will follow you through hell itself.
No partisan Democrat has yet offered a good reason why I should support a party that supports none of my core values — and it does appear that it is indeed unwilling to fight for any of them. At present, the only thing the Democratic Party seems to care about is crafting a compelling message that is at the same time devoid of any actual content, engineered to offend absolutely no one.
Partisan Democrats need to get off their high horse and stop acting as if liberals need the Democratic Party. We don’t. We can go elsewhere. The Democrats, on the other hand, do need liberals because — get this — we’re the only people who vote for you consistently anymore. Conservatives already have a conservative party that suits them, and the “swing voter” population, well, swings. If you win them in this election, you’ll lose them in the next. Only liberals will vote for the Dems, time and time again, but only if the Democratic Party is a liberal party.
The partisans can whine all day about the rightward shift of the country as if it’s an excuse for their failure to lead. The country didn’t shift to the right all by itself. It was pushed, hard and steadily, by the GOP. It can be pushed back, but someone has to push, and that includes elected leaders. Unfortunately, the current crop is so ridiculously afraid of losing elections that they don’t dare. It’s as if they believe the GOP never lost elections, never had setbacks, and never had a bad year. Newsflash: they did, and they kept fighting doggedly anyway. That’s why they are the undisputed masters of all three branches of government. If the Dems want to knock them off the top of the heap, they need to fight for liberal-left ideas, day in and day out, possibly for decades.
Sure, it’s possible they’ll fail anyway. That’s part of the risk that goes with any great venture. But they will certainly fail if the best message they can crank out is, “Surrender! Let us stick a donkey on top of a mound of elephant shit.”