Kind of them, at last.
They admit they saw this coming (who did not?), and today not even the most slavish Democratic exhortation site can muster the usual pro-leadership slobber.
The Democratic push began in earnest on the last weekend of April 2001, when 42 of the 50 Democratic senators attended a retreat in Farmington, Pa., to hear from experts and discuss ways they could fight a Bush effort to remake the judiciary.
Emmett Till and his mother,
Mamie Bradley, 1955
[NAACP photo]
But why plan early (they claim they did) when later they willingly state the following:
Democratic aides said there had been even less strategy than usual in trying to coordinate the questioning by the eight Democratic senators. The situation was complicated because senators and staff were out of Washington before the hearing.
Selma to Montgomery march, 1965
[NY World Telegram and Sun collection]
As I read the Nagourney article in the NYT yesterday, the pale walls around me turned to blood, blood red. I was shocked at my anger.
“By Any Means Necessary”
Malcolm X, d. February 21, 1965
From CNN, Jonathan Turley on Saturday:
NGUYEN: Yes, going through the motions, but what are we truly learning?
Jonathan, let me ask you this very quickly.
Do you think he will be confirmed?
TURLEY: I think he will, and he will owe that to the Democrats. I think they have done a perfectly horrible job in advancing their interests here.
They lacked strategy, direction, discipline. There’s little evidence of a Democratic Party.
And I think most of us are very surprised about it. If they can’t muster their troops on this one, I don’t understand when they could.
NGUYEN: Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University, thanks so much for speaking with us this morning.
All I ask is this: please box the party up, give the carcass a burial.
Edmund Pettus Bridge, Bloody Sunday,
March 7, 1965
Not much to say.
I, and many others, have spent years railing at the party for lack of strength, lack of cohesion, lack of purpose, lack of real and therefore visible belief in the great civic changes they had been privileged to assist into being. Yes, those who fought and died needed a political partner, however fractured.
Edmund Pettus bridge March 7 1965
[Estate of Martin Luther King, jr]
Across decades, they have walked away, abandoned, left town, turned away, did not show up. Finally, as a party they just morphed, became the lesser versions of the modern Republicans.
Bush is outcome, but so is Reid.
“ABC News interrupted the network’s Sunday night movie, the premiere showing on television of Judgment at Nuremburg (a movie about bringing to justice the Nazis guilty of war crimes in World War II), to show 15 minutes of raw and dramatic footage from the attack on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.”
[Isserman and Kazin, America Divided, p. 136]
What the Democrats walked away from (above all else, the list is long) is the vote.
People died in this country for the vote, it is the truth… They were imprisoned for the right to organise to register others to vote.
Women were beaten and tortured in prison for the vote. Blacks and whites died, side by side, for the right to vote.
Chaney Schwerner Goodman,
d. June 21, 1964, Philadelphia MS
If you abandon the right to vote, you have abandoned the electorate and, further, you have abandoned the citizenry. There is no worse crime committed in office.
The Democrats need to stop talking about Bush… and look to themselves.
Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking in support
of striking AFSCME sanitation workers at
Mason Temple, Memphis,
April 3, 1968
.
Thanks Marisacat!
New York Times excellent overview ::
Judge Alito's opinions,editorial perceptions and the
legacy of the Supreme Court
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼▼▼ READ MY DIARY ▼
Let them know where you stand: if Repug, tell them “No” to Alito; if Democrat: FILIBUSTER!
CONTACT YOUR TWO SENATORS
John Edwards has endorsed this petition for FILIBUSTER!
Phone, fax, and email addresses for the Judiciary Committee.
People for the American Way has collected over 60,000 signatures to send to the Senate, please add yours:Save the Court Petition
Move On.org’s Stop Alito petition
Democratic Party’s Reject Alito Petition
Stop the NRA’s Oppose Alito Petiton
And while you’re at it, please sign: Planned Parenthood Petition
Naral Anti-Alito Petition
Urge Congress to support Plan B
UPDATE:
MORE NEW ACTIONS AND PETITIONS:
National Coalition for Disability Rights
Brady Campaign
Human Rights Campaign
National Abortion Federation
National Council of Jewish Women
National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Women’s Law Center
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
US Action
I am emailing this diary to my two Senators…DiFi and Boxer. I suggest everyone do the same. They too must be held accountable for the chaos we are in and the bleak future ahead of us unless there is a drastic, radical change in the Beltway! Thank you for this.
Now, corporations and special interests are essentially running the show, without real limitation save for the size of their wallets. To sum it up, opponents don’t get paid much.
It feels like another lifetime: They are called marches but no one strutted in lock step behind MLK, Jr., Andrew Young, Julian Bond, John Lewis, Ralph Abernathy… It wasn’t like a parade. It was more like shuffling, shoulder to shoulder, with so many others, moving forward slowly, moving forward. Sometimes we held hands. Sometimes we locked arms. Always there was singing and faith in the promise of our country.
I believe in the Declaration of Independence. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in equality before the Law and equality of opportunity for all colors and races and genders. I used to put my body in the streets…
It may be important to remember that the Democratic Party was not united then either. In 1965, the Governor of Georgia was Lester Maddox, a froathing-mad racist — and a Democrat. George Wallace was a Democrat.
It was the power of people coming together that made change. And leaders, powerful impassioned speakers, who called us together to follow behind them and show our support for their words. We don’t really need a united Democratic Party; we need someone to speak for us and call us to action.
Democratic aides said there had been even less strategy than usual in trying to coordinate the questioning by the eight Democratic senators. The situation was complicated because senators and staff were out of Washington before the hearing.
Did Adam Nagourney write the article that said this.
Adam Nagourney was a Republican flack in 2004 and still is.
That said, the Senators’ comments on the Sunday talk shows do not give me hope.
The Dems in the Senate are amazed at not seeing enough opposition to Alito.
THEY are supposed to be the opposition. What a colossal failure of courage, and victory for corporate, crony capitalism.
Why is there no Senator who can see past his or her own ego to defend against the Constitutional setbacks that will surely come? I think we have more than a failure to have a single strong leader, we also have a failure of any sort of collective identity.
Your braided essay and visual history is stunning, Marisacat, a very poignant reminder of where we were, and where I fear we are headed again.
We’ll see Bread and Circuses, but a loss of freedom.
The Dems in the Senate are amazed at not seeing enough opposition to Alito.
If true, this indicates to me that they’re completely blind to the consequences and results of 25 years of ‘centrist’ triangulation strategy for short term political gain. If I and millions of other people hadn’t been screaming about this for the past 10 I would feel more forgiving. Never forget that 2 weeks after he assumed office the 1st time, Bill Clinton held a meeting discussing ways to silence the liberal voices in the party.
I wonder if John Kerry was at that conference and if he still thinks of women’s groups as “special interests”.
I wonder if they realise yet that Lousiana is now a very red state. So much for ‘pro-life’ Democrats.
And pretty soon,we will see Caligula’s horse,Incitatus, appointed to the Supreme Court.
BAH
Thank you for the fine words and moving pictures.
On this of all days, I am reminded that my parent were once Republicans. They thought of it as the Party of Lincoln. In the sixties, it became clear to me that the bigots were congregating in the Republican Party, and that the people I was working with for peace, justice and equality were Democrats. I have voted for Democrats in every election for nearly 40 years. Sometimes I’ve had to hold my nose, but I did it.
Where is my party ? Who speaks for the poor, for women, for people of colour, for GLBT, for Labour ? Who speaks for hungry children ? Who speaks for the displaced of NO ? Who speaks for Peace ? Who loves our mother, the earth ? Who respects our Native people ?
The list could go on and on, but it’s easier to ask who represents all of us who aren’t selfish, greedy bastards who’d sell their mother for just a little more money and power.
so ya all got kicked off dkos yesterday? 😉
delaware dem wrote a diary telling everyone who didn’t support the dem party to get the fuck off the kos site …
no wonder the thugs keep winning –
the peons and leaders on “our” side are, for the most part, toadies, clueless, or politically incompetent.
i was a cook / shef for 15 years, and it is hard work carrying 100 pounds of onions around the outside of the hotel – it also don’t get the chowder or stock made.
I HATE when people tell me to work harder, everything is fucked up cuz I did NOT work harder for these politically incompetent sons of bitches — so much of the work is about as effective as carrying onions around the outside of the hotel.
btw – 5 years of that cooking was in fine dining in boston,(four seasons hotel for 1.5 yrs) 1 summer on the vineyard –
how many of you REALLY know how well these kerrys and difis fucking live?
if I burned 3 omelettes I’d be fired, but, these fucks can lose for decades and … poor little toadies come to their defense about how kerry is better than bush …
ya, so what?
I am better than bush. my sock is better than bush.
we need people to get shit done, NOT just be better than bush.
rmm.
delaware dem wrote a diary telling everyone who didn’t support the dem party to get the fuck off the kos site …
well! so much for paricipatory democracy.
I gotta laugh. I had one of the ‘centrist’ posters call us ‘liberal principle hawks’. Oh my God, I’ve been laughing about it all day. what message discipline. Pretty soon there’s going to be another purge at DK, I can smell it. Michelle Malkin will be delighted.
I wish the Democratic party would hire people who when I meet them or read their thoughts the first question that does not come to mind is, “How many TROs does this guy have out on him.” Some experts….
It would be a better fit culturally, as well as put a stop to endless debates over the theory of a causal relationship between which candidate gets the most votes and who takes office.
How the Nonpartisan league once took over the R party in ND.
[…] Nonpartisan League:
These movements procreated the Nonpartisan League, North Dakota’s greatest political insurgency. The NPL, born in 1915, united progressives, reformers, and radicals behind a platform that called for many progressive reforms, ranging from improved state services and full suffrage for women to state ownership of banks, mills and elevators, and insurances. Led by A. C. Townley, the NPL used the primary election to take control of the Republican Party in 1916, dominated all state government by 1918, and enacted its program in 1919.
[…]
highlighting is mine – NDD, for ref on this go here and scroll down to NPL stuff.