Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ FISA: Don't Blame the Netroots

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FISA: Don't Blame the Netroots | 22 comments (22 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: This has been a problem since Clinton (none / 0)

Fine. You may well be right that the explanation for much of the Dems' recent behavior is fear. Others, including myself, see something more sinister going on.

I think it is good to have both kinds of explanation floating around in the Netroots. I hope that you will not disagree. My view is that attributing sinister motivations to the Dem establishment does more good to the progressive cause than harm, especially since the Green Party seems to be in its death throes, there are no signs of a new "third party" emerging, and no signs, as yet at least, of a noteworthy independent candidate for president. Thus, progressives' bad-mouthing the Dem leadership can be expected to have more of the positive effect of forcing Dems to watch their left flank than the negative effect of making them lose progressive votes.

As for calling the Bush presidency or the Republican Party itself "illegitimate": I think that the Netroots should develop a "radical" discourse, but one which does not have echoes of the old radical Marxist discourse, to counter the "radical" discourse of taday's right. For example, if enough bloggers to the left of Kos called the Republican Party illegitimate, something I do not believe Kos himself does, then it would be harder for the right-wing echo chamber to portray Kos as part of the "loony left".

Republicans are like fetuses: both are incapable of thought. That's why Republicans are against abortion.

by Alexander on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 at 12:21:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This has been a problem since Clinton (none / 0)

I don't have any interest in giving a false impression of where I stand on the issues. If I am radical in any area it is foreign policy, where I would rather see Canada try to control central Asia and the Middle East than for us to do try to do it. I'll take their health care and they can have our terrorism threat.

Other than that, I'm not radical at all.

by BooMan on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 at 01:13:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This has been a problem since Clinton (none / 0)

Other than that, I'm not radical at all.

I can see that. I don't think of myself as radical in the traditional sense either, since to me, all that should be expected of a society is what the Scandinavians achieved in the 1960s-70s. My general line of thought in the last few months has been that America has shifted so far toward despotism that politics as usual won't suffice to bring it back again. This is "radical" in a different sense: not that radical measures are required to create a good society, but that a radical approach is required simply to get us back to where we once were.

But I do not expect you to agree with me about that. I do however think it is important that a "debate" go on in the Netroots between people like Arthur Silber who believe that the political system in its current form is no longer capable of being repaired (and when you accept premises like, "The Republican Party is legitimate", you assume that it can be repaired) and people with positions such as your own.

Such a debate certainly isn't going to go on in the pages of the New York Times or on the Charlie Rose show.

Republicans are like fetuses: both are incapable of thought. That's why Republicans are against abortion.

by Alexander on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 at 03:57:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This has been a problem since Clinton (none / 0)

I don't know what you mean by 'legitimate'. It's some kind of abstraction. You can't define away the GOP. They have to be voted out of office. That is my problem with pie-in-the-sky solutions, like somehow the GOP funded Green Party is going to become the savior of the world. You don't beat back fascists by calling them names. You take out billy clubs and beat them down. Or you decimate them at the polling place.

The structural problems in American politics are well known and rightly disliked, but they've been with us for a long-time. The specific problems we have right now are generated by a group of thugs, perverts, pedophiles, warmongers, and thieves that have taking over one of the two 'legitimate' parties and the White House.

They must be beaten with the only tool available to beat them.

by BooMan on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 at 01:24:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This has been a problem since Clinton (none / 0)

You don't beat back fascists by calling them names.

You fight on all fronts, including the ideological/rhetorical. As I said, one reason that the right wing has been successful at marginalizing progressive thought is by delegitimizing the very notion of liberalism.

You say the GOP needs to be voted out of office. That is correct, but it is not enough. The right wing did a lot of the work creating the ideology that it subsequently used to hoodwink the American people during the Carter years, while they were out of office.

Republicans are like fetuses: both are incapable of thought. That's why Republicans are against abortion.

by Alexander on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 at 02:39:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

FISA: Don't Blame the Netroots | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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