Author: Archangel M

2010 is nearly over, and the fight for the presidency in 2012 is beginning to take shape.  Corporate Democrat Barry Obama has not merely disappointed the public, nor has he merely failed to accomplish progressive goals.  He has, in fact, deliberately and stubbornly refused to even try to accomplish progressive goals, opting instead to continue and expand on the fascist, totalitarian policies of his predecessor and ideological brothers, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

I do not make that last charge lightly, or at all inaccurately.  Paul Street and Glenn Greenwald, as well as Jane Hamsher and the good members of the FDL family, among others, have documented the multitude of offenses which the right-wing Obama regime has undertaken against the public in the name of continuing the horrors of the Bush-Cheney years.

Sadly, the Democrat Party establishment is so powerful that no candidates exist within the institution who are willing or able to challenge Obama for the office of the presidency in 2012.  That being the case, and in agreement with Ralph Nader, Jane, and others that there is little or no chance Democrats will abandon their preferred incumbent candidate, we’re going to have to acknowledge that any chance for true change will come from outside the Democrat Party.  This is not an easy thing to do, but it has to be done.

Also required is a serious effort to draft candidates to run against Obama in 2012.  We’re not going to do it by indulging flights of fancy, and we can’t waste two years trying to build a new political movement from whole cloth when we already have progressive organizations that we should be building up into a viable challenge to both major political parties.

In my observation, there are perhaps four people we might be able to persuade to run for president, or for Congress, in 2012: Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, Mike Gravel, and Ralph Nader.  Their politics are well within the realm of progressive values, and they’ve all demonstrated their commitment to putting their efforts where their mouths are by running for public office.

I’ve created a petition below for people to sign, in the interests of drafting people to run for the presidency in 2012.  

It’s got to be done.  The goal for signatures is 20,000 but the petition will be sent to Cindy, Cynthia, Mike, and Ralph even if we only reach five thousand, even if we only obtain a few hundred.  If we’re serious about running a candidate against Obama in 2012, or in running genuine progressives for Congress, this is a good start.  It will show these progressive fighters that there is a base of supporters who will lend their time, energy, and money to getting them elected.

Time’s wasting.  Who’s with me?

Click here to sign the petition!

I’ll be interviewing Ohio gubernatorial candidate Dennis Spisak on Saturday, October 23rd, at 7:00 PM via my Blog Talk Radio show. The URL and call-in number are below:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/progressive-independence/2010/10/23/green-party-candidate-dennis-spisak

1 (347) 884-9121

The show is scheduled for two hours, though I don’t think we’ll be talking quite that long. This should allow some time for listeners to call in with questions for Mr. Spisak, though I do ask that anyone calling in please keep it short.

Lately there has been a spate of diaries at such web sites as FireDogLake and “Open” Left wherein lay members — typically under attack from site moderators, who act as Democratic Party hacks and gatekeepers — have sought ways to bring back the Progressive Party, or join the Greens, or build up some other institution, that will allow progressives to act together as a cohesive political unit.  (I posted an entry there myself, only to end up being attacked by site moderators, threatened with banishment, and ultimately banned when I refused to back down against their incessant bullying.)

FDL’s iphelgix explains the reason for leaving the Democrats.

Fellow FDLer TalkingStick points out the wisdom of studying the teabaggers for ideas about how we progressives can rebuild our own movement.

Mason calls for progressives to join him in building a Progressive Party from the ground up, apparently not aware that it already exists in states such as Vermont and Washington, and as Green Party affiliates inMissouri and Wisconsin.   He is joined in this effort by MadHemingway, who posted the 1912 platform the Progressive Party ran on.

FDL members are not alone in Left Blogsylvania in expressing their utter disgust with the Democrats; at “Open” Left, such lay members as Arthur Lukas gripe about where progressives are and asks where we should go from here.  Even at the Daily Obama, whereupon I also post, a poll I put up asking if it is time for progressives to break away from the Democratic received a fifty percent yes-vote.

Such discontent is often met by moderators and site owners with derision, insults, threats, and banishments of the “offending” members.  Nevertheless, it has grown more difficult for the access-bloggers to bully progressives into submission, a lesson FDL’s Jason Rosenbaum refused to learned after the beat-down his contemptuous post before the Massachusetts special election received.  In short, no one on the left is buying into the Big Lie that Democrats are any different from Republicans in terms of substantive policies, nor are we responding to threats and insults anymore for “failing” to be bullied into supporting Democrats no matter what.

This discontent and refusal to be bullied has created an opening for progressives seeking to organize the left back into a cohesive and more importantly, effective movement in opposition to the far right.  There are angry voices aplenty, people outraged by the betrayals of the man they though they were electing president in ’08 and the endless capitulations to the GOP made by Democrats.  Here we have an advantage.

The only thing lacking in the new political environment is effective leadership among progressives.  We will not find it among the self-appointed “leaders” of the ‘netroots, the access-bloggers like Chris Bowers, Markos Moulitsas, and the aforementioned Rosenbaum whose only real goal is to gain access for themselves — and only themselves — to the inner circles of “serious” political power and corporate media recognition.  It is therefore up to us to take on leadership roles and organize the left.

If we can take charge, we the progressive base, then we can finally begin the work of taking back America from the fascist elements that have usurped it for their own ends to the detriment of everybody else.  The Full Court Press is one tool for doing that, and it’s a very good start.

At what point do progressives stop being Democrats’ whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people?  David Sirota wrote today about Obama’s latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions.

How many of the extreme right-wing and criminal policies of Bush-Cheney has Obama adopted?  How many of those extreme right-wing policies has he exceeded?  Last month, knowledge that Obama has gone a step further than Bush, authorizing the executive branch to murder American citizens on the flimsiest of rationales.  This sh__ has GOT to end.

My political activities now are focusing on the building of a viable third party as a tool of a reinvigorated and independent progressive movement.  No efforts to reform the Democratic Party from within can succeed so long as the upper-level of the party establishment is able to crush dissent from within, as is explained here.

[T]the Democratic primaries will be where the action is … Maybe someone like Kucinich, Feingold … It will be a “good liberal,” not a radical, advocating positions that are reasonable but declared “unrealistic.” (“You’ll throw the race to the Republicans, we can’t have that!”) The basis of the campaign will not be a sudden embrace of Bolshevism, but rather Obama’s embrace of Wall Street. It will be a mix of angry rank-and-file and disgruntled party machine.

The insurgent candidate will lose. The candidate will not call for a 3rd party, will support Obama after the primaries — will make a concession speech that would shame the Moscow Show Trials. Many of her or his followers will follow suit. The candidate will not personally work to create an independent infrastructure within the Democratic Party. Obama will probably win, not because of his impressive performance but because the foaming-at-the-mouth Republicans will be splitting. After the election, the Democratic challenger will not lead a 3rd party.

This has been the pattern for decades.  There is no one within the Democratic Party willing to lead a progressive breakoff.  The day Dennis Kucinich kisses all party support for his re-election to Congress goodbye is the day I will rejoice, but it’s not going to happen.  So it’s on lay progressives to take charge, organize from the ground up, and lead the way to building both the movement and the political organization that will bring it to power within the halls of our nation’s capital.

This won’t happen overnight; it will take decades for a fully functional progressive political organization to be built, and we will be opposed every step of the way by Democrats, Republicans, and corporations now empowered to spend as much money as their executives want to sway public opinion against us.  But we have got to start sometime, and now is as good a time as any.

Those who claim this isn’t the right time will not tell us that the “right time” is never going to come — there will always be the enxt election cycle to worry about, too much at stake to “risk throwing it to the GOP.”  Never mind that all Democrats ever do is throw elections to Republicans simply by behaving like they’re members of their counterpart political party.  We must ignore such admonitions and press on.  There is no such thing as perfection in politics, to be the enemy of good things that will never come to fruition so long as the existing political structure continues.  And there is nothing more to be lost by doing what is right and necessary to take back our country.

The good news is that a Progressive Party already exists in some states.  In Missouri, Vermont, and Washington, progressives began rebuilding the political party that bears their name from the ground up, and they used smart strategies and tactics to gain power first at the local level and then at the state level.  They are now starting to branch out into national-level politics by running candidates for the House of Representatives, with a Vermont Progressive having run for the House of Representatives in 2008 on a platform that included calling for Bush’s impeachment.  And David Sirota has written previously about New York’s Working Families Party, which has gotten results at the local and state levels.

So the foundation exists for progressives to rebuild our movement.  The will is there.  What’s lacking is leadership.  If no one in the ‘netroots is willing to assume vital leadership roles, then it is up to each and every one of us to take charge and lead.  Enough is enough.  Progressives must stand up to the far right, which dominates both major political parties, and end its rule.  No more excuses, no more capitulations, no more waiting.  Let’s get it done.

I see that another Bowers-instigated flame battle is going on over at Closed Left.  I lurk the site from time to time to see just how much progressive issues are being censored in favor of the Chris Matthews-type drivel Bowers favors, and I saw this posted on the front page:

It turns out that if I delete content from a website that I–quite literally–own, then I am engaging in censorship.  I don’t remember the part of the first amendment that declares everyone is allowed to use everyone else’s printing press.

The latest mess appears to have begun when someone posted a quick hit to call Obama an ass clown.  Okay, nothing controversial about that since Obama is, in fact, an ass clown.  But the site administrator didn’t like it, so the QH was deleted.  After the fact, the justification was fabricated that the term “ass clown” is somehow homophobic, even though there is no evidence to suggest that it has ever been used in such a derogatory manner.  The comments are divided along the usual lines, with Bowers and his sniveling, lying little sycophants defending the action and others crying censorship.

This isn’t surprising at all, seeing as how Bowers routinely violates his own site’s rules only to turn around and chastise others for committing far lesser offenses.  For example, a while back the owner of Closed Left posted a snarkfest taking others to task for using the Quick Hits feature to call other people out.  Later, Bowers proceeded to use the quick hits section to call out another poster, whom he banned for voicing criticism against him.

When I posted about this glaring act of hypocrisy in both a diary and a quick hit, I was banned from posting.  The rules that apply to everyone else at Closed Left do not apply to the site owner, who is free to act like a child while treating grown adults like children.  The result?  More of the same bullshit that goes on at the Mediocre Orange Hype: scolding lefties to sit down, shut up, and drink the Democratic party Kool-Aid while pretending to be outsiders crashing the gates.  The left deserves better from its self-appointed “leaders.”

http://act.boldprogressives.org/cms/sign/supportsanders/?source=openleft1

Bernie Sanders has used a bit of Senate finesse to block the renomination of Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve.  Chris Bowers over at Closed Left explains what’s happening, but what it all boils down to is that Sanders has managed to hold up the renomination of one of Bush’s creatures to a hugely important office.  Obama and Wall Street want Bernanke to stay and keep fucking up the economy.  Sanders is looking like one of the only senators willing to go on record and try to stop this from happening.

So please click the link above and thank Bernie for looking out for us.  And while you’re at it, use the Senate phone directory to call your own senator and demand a filibuster of Bernanke’s renomination.  We need someone in there who will actually represent the public interest.

http://www.senate.gov/general/resources/pdf/senators_phone_list.pdf

Cross-posted from Progressive Independence

No, I’m not dead.  College and upcoming finals have eaten away at my time, but after next week I’ll have a few weeks to get back into the swing of things.  Now to business.  It’s no secret that since winning the recent presidential election, the left has been in an uproar over president-elect Barack Obama’s right-wing administrative-cabinet picks.  Complaints have been all over the blogosphere as well as mainstream news web sites such as Yahoo.

Obama’s creatures are pushing back, essentially telling people to shut up, drink the Kool-Aid, and line up behind the Obamassiah.  From the second link:

Responding to rising discontent on the left to President-elect Barack Obama’s centrist cabinet picks and early policy decisions, deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand has told progressive critics to take a deep breath.

With a long list of tasks ahead of him, Obama needs liberals to stand by him as he deals with a faltering economy, home foreclosures, an auto bailout and two wars, Hildebrand wrote Sunday on Huffington Post. Even so, Hildebrand added, Obama was elected “to be the president of all the people – not just those on the left.”

`This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making,” Hildebrand wrote. “Some believe the appointments generally aren’t progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn’t the way he thinks and it’s not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn’t, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges.”

I’m inclined to tell fellow left-wingers to shut up and stop complaining as well, although for very different reasons.  It was obvious to many independent left-wing voters that Democrat Obama would govern no differently if elected than his Republican counterpart, John McCain.  More competently, perhaps, and with smarmier rhetoric, but such differences are in style, not actual policy substance.  Too many liberals, fearful of another four to eight years of GOP domination, cast their ballots for the first politician with a “D” after his name that looked like a winner, either in spite of, or many cases, ignoring, the Democratic nominee’s actual record as a legislator.

Well, guess what ladies and gentlemen: you got the president and Congress you wanted.  You who voted for Obama have no right to complain now that he’s doing the exact opposite of what you deceived yourselves into thinking he’d do.  YOU voted for this.  YOU are responsible for making it happen.

This is not to say that all is lost, or that because people voted for a right-wing Democrat he cannot be pressured into fulfilling the false hopes placed in him.  Everybody makes mistakes, and mistakes can be corrected.  The time for complaints is over.  The time for action, for marching on Washington and demanding genuine change, for not going away until we get it, is now.

Now that we’ve had a couple days to rest up from the long presidential campaign, it’s time to get busy again.  President-elect Obama is not going to govern from the left, or even that mythological “middle” everyone seems content to obsess over — he’ll govern from the hard right, only subtly, as Bill Clinton did (a fact illustrated by his naming of Bush dog Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, advice-taking from corporate executives, and other unencouraging actions in the last couple of days).  Those who thought to use him as a springboard to enacting progressive policy failed to understand that Obama is a user, not someone who lets himself be used.  Let’s begin the work of making that fanciful notion so many of us held a reality.

I’ve done my criticism, and I’ll continue to criticize, because I take Theodore’s admonition regarding presidents to heart.  But this entry is about offering up ideas and starting points; future ones shall be along this line of argument.  We absolutely must organize, unite, and apply pressure before the tiny window of opportunity between now and January closes.  We cannot afford a repeat of the Clinton years.

A good first step is in redirecting oil policy away from the industry and more toward independence — alternative, renewable sources of energy, naturally, but in other areas as well.  The September-October issue of Science Illustrated contained a piece on bioplastics, that is, plastics made with chemicals derived from plant-based chemicals instead of petroleum.  I wasn’t able to find a direct link to the magazine article, unfortunately, but I did locate links pertaining to the subject.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5350/is_200707/ai_n21293471

http://www.justchromatography.com/general/plastic-that-grows

From the first link:

Scientists are one step closer to replacing crude oil as the main source for plastic, fuels and scores of other industrial and household chemicals with inexpensive, non-polluting renewable plant matter (Science, vol. 316. no. 5831, pp. 1597-1600, June 15, 2007). “What we have done that no one else has been able to do is convert glucose directly in high yields to a primary building block for fuel and polyesters,” says Z. Conrad Zhang, senior author who led the research and a scientist with the PNNL-based Institute for Interfacial Catalysis (UC; iic.pnl.gov). That building block is hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), a chemical derived from carbohydrates such as glucose and fructose and that is viewed as a promising surrogate for petroleumbased chemicals.

Glucose, in plant starch and cellulose, is nature’s most abundant sugar. “But getting a commercially viable yield of HMF from glucose has been very challenging,” says Zhang. “In addition to low yield, until now, we always generated many different byproducts,” including levulinic acid, making product purification expensive and uncompetitive with petroleum-based chemicals.

Zhang, lead author and former post doc Haibo Zhao, and colleagues John Holladay and Heather Brown, all from PNNL, were able to coax HMF yields upward of 70% from glucose and nearly 90% from fructose, while leaving only traces of acid impurities. To achieve this, they experimented with a novel nonacidic catalytic system containing metal chloride catalysts in an ionic liquid capable of dissolving cellulose. The ionic liquid, enabled the metal chlorides to convert the sugars to HMF.

What this means is that scientists are making glucose-derived plastics a viable alternative to the petroleum-based variety we commonly use.  As the first step toward moving away from reliance on fossil fuels, funding and regulations could be implemented so as to grow the bioplastics industry.  Glucose can be gotten from straw and saw dust — waste products generated by the agricultural and wood industries — for example, meaning freeing up more farmland for food production.

Combined with passing laws raising fuel efficiency standards, improving public transportation, and creating advertising campaigns to promote carpooling and energy efficiency, pushing bioplastics may be used to start us on the road to energy independence.  With fossil fuels dwindling, and wars to obtain control over sources increasing in frequency and intensity, this is a matter of genuine pragmatism and economic sensibility.  It’s also something to press our elected officials over.  President Obama will not be so stupid as to oppose his own political party if it passes progressive legislation.

Progressice-Independence.org has a show on Blog Talk Radio, which you can listen to by clicking the following link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/progressive-independence

We’re having a special show this evening, November 3rd, at 7:00 P.M. in the run-up to Tomorrow’s election.  Regular broadcasts will be tentatively scheduled for Sundays, from noon until one o’clock.  If you’d like to call in, you may do so at (347) 884-9121.

Tonight’s co-host will be Matthew, from our sister site, Liberal-Pride.org.  

Allison Kilkenny and Jamie Kilstein interview author Naomi Wolf today at 3:00 PM EDT for their online radio show, Drunken Politics.  Be sure to tune in!