(Cross-posted from mediagirl.org)
Some 25 years ago, the Democratic Party did something precipitous: they abandoned progressive values in a political gambit to ride the coattails of the conservatism that was sweeping the country. Like Judas, they cried, “I’m not liberal. I don’t even know any liberals!” The gambit paid off in the form of two terms for Clinton, and massive losses in Congress.
Yet they’ve stuck to their guns, under the guidance of the DLC. They generally backed many of the conservative attacks on our government infrastructure. They are culpable.
And now, in the disastrous man-made disaster following Katrina, We The People are paying the price.
The loudest howls have been in the indifferent, contemptuous, ineffective and arrogant responses from President Bush and his minions. It’s bloody obvious that FEMA, now a part of the Department of Homeland Security, has been rendered all but totally ineffective — and even obstructionist.
Imagine if this had been a terror attack. Clearly there is no preparation to protect the people. Clearly the federal government has squandered the past four years since 9/11.
But let’s face it: There’s plenty of blame to go around. We have local officials to slacked or fell down on the job. We have state officials who seemed to think protecting property from looters was more important than getting drinking water to desperate survivors. We have police doing their best to impersonate blackshirts.
What went wrong? One can point to a number of things, from beaurocratic incompetence to, as conservative Robert Tracinski claims, welfare shirkers and criminals who chose to die rather than do anything that doesn’t involve government handouts.
But what caused this obscenity that is still unfolding is a political culture built upon this pernicious notion that the government can’t do anything, that the government is the enemy, that government should be gutted, disabled and dismantled.
Obviously, some strong and effective government could have come in pretty handy this past week. In fact, a strong and effective government could have prevented this horror from ever happening.
We’re paying the price. Our leaders failed us. And we failed ourselves by not demanding better of them. Not only is New Orleans under 25 feet of water. Conservative ideology is all wet as well. Protecting the people isn’t up to the private sector. And it involves a lot more than sending in boys with machine guns.
This is OUR country, and it’s suffering. And this is OUR government, and it’s broken.
So what are we going to do about it?
Relize that “our country” includes people of all social, economic, and political stripes; that there are 300 million of us “Americans”; and that helping involves leaving behind labels and parties.
The construct is horizontal, and requires little to no supervision, and will not be labeled. Start with that concept, then contribute and advocate for those issues you feel are most important. As elections draw near choose candidates that work for you, irrespective of party affiliation.
I for one have never bought into the proposition that this country is a two-party duopoly.
Wow, what a depressing, defeatist attitude.
Go ahead, just sit pat and let a relatively few people pick your choices (primary candidates) for both parties.
(Is this where you contribute and advocate? — as candidates start to announce?)
Then sit back and wait for a few special interest hyper-partisans narrow that tiny field down to the two people who have a chance at winning any position.
(Is this where you contribute and advocate? — during the primaries?)
Then, by your model, you choose the people who ‘work for you, irrespective of party affiliation’.
Hey, I’m happy for you — you choose to disbelieve this is a two-party duopoly. I like people with active imaginations, like creationists, who can ignore the plain evidence in front of their faces to maintain their own personal beliefs.
So feel free to vote for any ‘good’ Republicans you find. Oh, nevermind that their caucus wants to reshape our country into a bright and beautiful place for those blessed by god with riches (or old college roomates, to pass their FEMA jobs onto) — who see govt as a way to enhance the profits of particular businesses.
Or vote for the Democrats, who I have to say, recently distinguish themselves as the party of “We’ll drive you to hell, too, just not as fast as the Republicans”.
Or vote for a 3rd party candidate — make a statement! Of course, with only a very few rare exceptions, that statement usually is just “go ahead Republicans, we won’t oppose you”.
Anyhow, I disagree with your assessment of Americans.
We’re a hardworking, happy lot. Some of us are superstitious, and believe that anything bad that happens in our personal lives is for a greater purpose.
We take our politics as seriously as we take… well, less seriously than we take our entertainment, or our consumer choices.
And some very rich people have figured this out. If they can make us love Fords vs Chevy’s, and Coke vs Pepsi, and convince us that handbags and shoes are worth 3-4 figures, and get us to swear fealty to a different purveyor of denim pants every other year — odds are they can find a way to market their political interests as if they were ours.
It takes an event larger than the media spin, like 9/11, or Katrina for us to express our true thoughts and feelings. Some Americans are bigots, others are classist, but the vast majority have good intentions, if not always good actions.
Given a choice between right and wrong, we’ll most always choose right.
Which is why the politicians have learned to repaint the picture as “what’s good for you vs what’s good for someone else”. They make it appear our self-interest aligns with their self-serving agendas.
They make us think its all about the money, and the marketing (campaigns).
Which is the cruelest irony. Its really about the votes. We could easily defeat their chosen puppet-politicians in the primaries. We could defeat them in the generals. But all they have to do is convince a small percentage of us Americans to go along with their plans…
And thanks to simple technology, its become possible for them to divide America into the slimmest majority of ‘supporters’ and the barest minority of ‘opponents’, letting them promise their half more, and do it ‘cheaper’ by giving our half nothing. And they can do this with the help of a complicit media, and hedge their bets with token (but controlling) donations to the ‘other side’.
Personally, I think the ‘contruct’ could use a heck of a lot of ‘supervision’. While its true that we are indeed Americans (underneath all the party affiliations and such), its just plain naive to believe that we honestly act as ‘Americans’ except in the most unusual of circumstances, like Katrina or 9/11. The rest of the time it seems we play out our little assigned partisan roles — the Conservative, the Liberal, the ‘Independent’, the uncommitted voter, and the disinterested non-voter.
But the day I vote for a Republican is the day I believe they have a plan that works for all Americans, including the ones they fundamentally disagree with. I’m not holding my breath. And no Republican candidate, regardless of his or her personal positions, is going to make me an enabler to a small cabal of people perfectly content to destroy what makes America great, simply to benefit themselves and those they consider to be friends and allies.
That is simply a matter of timing, and brand of politician. Ross Perot helped get Clinton elected, for example.
And it’s also a result of political strategies. For example, in 2004 there were a couple of anti-war candidates in the Democratic primary. But everybody voted for the guy who was “electable”–and thus lost the election.
Until people vote for candidates that they actually agree with, and drop the “strategic voting” theory, we’ll continue to end up with losers.
What part of recognizing ALL Americans do you disagree with? I’m having a hard time reconciling your perception with what I wrote. Once past the first paragraphs, you make my point very well. Thank you.
What do we have to be happy about? The largest economic inequality since the great depression? The lowest social mobility of any industrialized nation? Rising prices for everything? Falling wages? Record profits for the ruling class? The lowest unionization rates since before unions were legal?
No, the ONLY thing that people have to be happy about is that they’re “Americans.”
Whatever the hell that means.
You dont understand how central politics is to everything in our society. You live somewhere? You go to work? you drive a car? you go to the doctor? You have electricity? you eat food? drink water? use the sewage system? ITS ALL POLITICS.
its not just you, no one seems to realize this. All of these things matter A LOT to people, but no one labels them as politics. To the average person, politics happens once every 4 years, if then.
What all the rich people have figured out is how to seperate politics from people’s lives. The wealthy, more than anyone else, depend on politics, to preserve their class position.
You think your landlord would have 7 houses and you would have none if you all got together and voted on it?
When you put it that way, you bring politics back to the people.
Hey, hey, hey!
Believe me, you and I do see eye to eye.
I wrote that in response to rba’s ridiculous summary of what “all Americans” believe. Since his was the Sunday School version, I wanted to address his statement, but in dirty gritty realism.
I’m just as frustrated about the situation as you are. I’m just as upset that even those who do feel the same as you or I have given up thinking they’re powerless, or the “dumb redneck’s” deserve this.
Not everyone is a blind sheep, but the media and the powers that be sure as hell wish more of us were.
And I honestly believe most people don’t think of themselves as sheep. They’re just acting “in their own best self interest, and on principle”. Which is why they’re opposed to a tax on the wealthiest that never has affected them, and never ever would, and that common sense would say can’t be replaced with just more borrowing — not without some pretty nasty consequences in the future.
Anyhow, sorry for giving you the impression I was “one of them”.
As for the landlord and the 7 houses — we’ve been indoctrinated to believe that the landlord obviously deserves them by simple right that he already has them. And even if you can prove he got them by ripping off old people and tricking them into a nasty reverse mortgage, they’ll still believe he deserves them as long as you tell them it was legal. After all, the system’s great. And even when it isn’t, you just can’t fight the system…
And we either have to address this, or use similar tactics to win a majority of support away from the few running the country solely for their benefit and feeding everyone else the line of BS that this is the best/only way to do it.
I am not talkin about political tactics, but political philosophy in this country. Chasing after issues can happen under any philosophy. I’m saying it’s time to see that they all fit together in terms of progressive values, where government does have a role to play in our society.
Look at the lame attempts by the radical right to assert that the cause of the disaster is too much government. It doesn’t fly.
My comment was a response to your question.
I guess I don’t understand the whole “without labels” concept. Labels are how we understand the world. Labels are language, and through language our ideas form.
Maybe the labels are wrong. Maybe the labels are missing.
Building upon commonalities across demographics I think is a goal we share. But to me that’s not about avoiding labels, or deconstructing labels, but redefining labels by redefining the values from which we operate.
“Small government” has been a knee-jerk dictat in politics lately. But it hasn’t actually led to small government, just ineffective government. But until we can get past this pernicious notion that “government is the problem,” it won’t matter what labels are or are not applied. What we might call progressive values have to be articulated and advocated hand-in-hand with building these bridges. And that requires language, it requires articulating these values clearly and compellingly.
The Democrats have fled from labels long enough. Either they can start speaking clearly for values, or they can find themselves left out.
What can we do? Demand this of our leaders, and support those who articulate a progressive vision.
That’s my view, anyway.
I am not going into a GD voting booth with no information on the candidates. You know all the letters and emails they start sending you around this time before an election? Don’t just read it. Find their speaking event schedule and go to those events and ask the tough questions. I know I never did that. I know, very honestly, I just voted for “our side”. Look what we are stuck with right now. A handful of politicians that really do work for the people..Conyers, Waters, Barbara-Lee, Boxer. Find a model of a representative you believe in and start looking for a candidate that is similar. Don’t settle just because they have a D behind their name. Go to meetups and rallies and work at campaign headquarters, GOTV, from your computer, do mailings.
This is a call for action folks. I am the first to admit earlier that I was a lazy voter. Not anymore. If we don’t do this, if we sit idly by at our computers and bitch and moan and wait for someone else to do it for us we are failing our children and we will just get more of the same.
Stay on your reps ass. Call their offices everyday and ask the tough questions. Email them every day, fax them every day. Just do it!! Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month…TODAY! I’ll start you off. I am going to my first meetup ever tonight. What are you doing for the future of our country today?
I don’t know if it’ll do any good, but I’m going to do it anyway. Details if and when I get it finished.
I am all open for suggestions. Can’t wait to read what you come up with.
alohaleezy
“Stay on your reps ass. Call their offices everyday and ask the tough questions. Email them every day, fax them every day. Just do it!! Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month…TODAY! I’ll start you off. I am going to my first meetup ever tonight. What are you doing for the future of our country today?”
YES, YES, YES. Go Fer It. Bury them with emails, DEMAND answers and COMMITTMENTS from them.
Whatever you do, DO NOT PROMISE THEM ANYTHING, DO NOT PROMISE THEM, YOU’RE GONNA VOTE FOR THEM.
Keep them guessing.
AND do NOT VOTE EITHER, DEMOCRAT OR REPUBLICAN.
Haven’t any of you worked it out yet ??? THEY ARE ONE AND THE SAME, in cahoots with EACH OTHER for cryin out loud.
Stay away from them so called THINK TANKS, every one of them is financed by big money who most definately does NOT have YOUR welfare at heart.
But most of all, MAKE NOISE, let em know your more then happy, to pull that confortable chair from beneath their fat bums, and the fat pension they stand to gain by staying on that chair until retirement.
of what we’re all suppose to be about. Very simple really.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Now ask yourselves, has your government upheld the Preamble of the Constitution? If not, there’s little reason to test it on the Articles, which would seem moot.