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

Re: The Democrats are part of the problem (none / 0)

it isn't necessarily true that they come from the elite.

I know that of course; anyway, "elite" is a vague word, and I didn't define it. But you're right, as I was using the word, the statement I made is true by definition.

Anyway, someone can be born into the very top of the elite and still act in the interest of the people, the prime example being FDR, of course. And then you can have someone rise to power from the very dregs of society only to shaft his own people.

There are plenty of things we can do to prevent them from voting against our interests, and we have already done many things.

If you see things in perspective, you will realize that on the three critical issues of the day—ending a futile war, restoring our civil liberties (not to mention keeping them from eroding further, which is the subject of this diary), and restraining a rogue president whose administration now openly proclaims that his will is constrained by nothing (not to mention removing him from office)—we have been able to get the Democrats to do nothing.

* CQ Party Unity Scores | Presidential Support Scores

Voting against Bush when you know your vote will be on the losing side is part of their game. The "classic" example of that was when Pelosi put the Republican FISA bill up for a vote, and then voted against it. That conveys the problem I'm talking about in a nutshell.

The main point I was trying to get across in that post is that when we fall for (or pretend to fall for) the recurring Democratic charade of actually wanting to stop Bush but being unable to do so, for whatever reason, we enable Bush's collaborators, and so become part of the problem ourselves.

If the view were widespread on the Netroots that the Dems actually want to enable Bush—to continue the US occupation of Iraq, to bomb Iran, to make the Office of the President not bound by US law or the Constitution—and that their motions to restrain him are nothing but a confidence game, it would be harder for them to keep on pulling this con off.

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

by Alexander on Tue Sep 4th, 2007 at 04:09:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: The Democrats are part of the problem (none / 0)

except you are about 90% wrong.

In no meaningful sense do 'the Democrats' not want to end this war, want to bomb Iran, or give the president unwarranted powers. If you think that is what is happening then your analysis is going to off the mark every single time.

There is a foreign policy elite (yes, bipartisan) that thought war in Iraq was a good idea (although they were badly divided). Most of them are unwilling to face up to the consequences of their error or risk serious erosion of our position in the Middle East. Above all, they don't want to take responsibility for what happens in the region as a result of, or following our withdrawal from Iraq. They are procrastinating. They also do not trust the Bush administration to withdrawal in a competent manner and are willing to wait for a new president to do the job.

But this foreign policy elite is not the same thing as 'the Democrats'.

A quick look at the BushDogs shows that the problem in the House is mainly isolated to a bunch white southern dudes, many of which serve on the Armed Services committee. We have a similar problem in the Senate with the Armed Services Committee. Those Senators will not cut off funding.

These same people are the people that caved on FISA. If you read up on it you'll find out that the Dem caucus in the House had a bitter fight over it, with people like Jerrold Nadler and Patrick Murphy insisting that they adjourn without passing the FISA law, and a bunch of Blue Dogs taking the opposite argument. We know who won that argument, and it wasn't 'the Democrats' but a faction withing the Democrats.

This isn't some conspiracy where the Dems secretly agree to go along with the president while publicly opposing him. It's a dynamic within the caucus. And it's also a dynamic where too many Dems are afraid to stick their necks out, especially when all metrics (except generic congressional job approval) show things looking better than ever for the Dems.

by BooMan on Tue Sep 4th, 2007 at 04:31:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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

... entered the White House. From the very first days of his presidency, I saw that he was doing it all wrong, by giving the Republicans the time of day and treating them as a legitimate political party. They are most certainly not a legitimate party, since they would barely have a single seat in Congress (their sole chances being districts which consist of the wealthiest suburbs) if people voted according to their own interest, that is, if the Republican Party and the corporate media did not conspire to defraud American voters.

Since the Republicans are not a legitimate party (in fact, they are all criminals, since they have conspired in treason, since stealing an election is treason), it is a huge mistake (and unethical as well) for the Democratic leadership to take Congressional Republicans into account when determining what prevailing opinion they should accomodate themselves to.

In other words, when considering what is the majority opinion in Congress, the Democrats should simply ignore the other party: that is exactly what the Republicans did when they controlled Congress. Yes, there are Blue Dogs, but most Congressional Dems are not Blue Dogs. The Republicans together with the Blue Dogs make up a majority over sensible Dems, but if you take out the Rethugs, sensible Dems make up a majority over Blue Dogs.

In cases when the Blue Dogs would side with the Rethugs to vote in undesirable legislation, all the Democratic leadership has to do is not put the legislation up for a vote. That would end the war right there, as you well know.

You can defend the Dem leadership all you want, but all your arguments are based on the premise that the Republicans are a legitimate party, which is simply wrong.

The Republicans treat the Democrats as if they are not a legitimate party. Why should we treat the Republicans as if they are a legitimate party? Look where that has got us.

The Dems pretend that they need to treat the Republicans as legitimate. But they don't. That's just part of their con.

If the Dems behaved toward the Rethugs the way the Rethugs behave toward the Dems, most of our problems would be over.

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

by Alexander on Tue Sep 4th, 2007 at 07:07:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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

The President is a Republican. That makes the party legitimate. This argument makes no sense.

You don't seem to understand the political process at all. You can start learning here. How do you think your strategy of not bringing forth bills is going to work out in that context?

by BooMan on Tue Sep 4th, 2007 at 07:45:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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

The President is a Republican. That makes the party legitimate.

Are you not aware that Bush's presidency is not legitimate, since he was not elected? Something that is illegitimate cannot legitimize something else. Yes, various prescribed rituals were followed to "enthrone" him, but since it was an error to follow them, the fact that they were followed doesn't make Bush's presidency legitimate.

Legitimacy is not a legal concept, but a moral and political one. What creates the impression for most people that Bush is a legitimate president is their impression that most people think that Bush is a legitimate president.

Also, you don't appear to understand that the Republicans see themselves as the only legitimate American party. If they engage in that kind of thinking, why shouldn't we (especially because we would be on much stronger grounds)?

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

by Alexander on Tue Sep 4th, 2007 at 10:51:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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

You have to have realistic expectations. I don't have a problem with asking for what you want. I have a problem with expecting something that will not happen.

I also have a problem with analysis that is lazy and inaccurate.

Here's where I agree with you. On the most important issues (the war, civil liberties, and holding this administration accountable) the Democrats have disappointed. And that is unacceptable. But, first of all, let's keep things in perspective. This Congress is the most hostile Congress to a sitting president on record. Okay? That is a far cry from there being no difference between the parties.

The Democrats have pursued a strategy...not the strategy I advocated...but a coherent strategy. That strategy was threefold in your areas of concern.

They would take impeachment off the table, but they would investigate and build a case that might lead to impeachment. Results? Mixed. Goodbye Rove, goodbye most of the Justice Department. But now they are dealing with a constitutional crisis over subpoenas. Let's see how they deal with it.

They would push a lot of Iraq votes and make Republicans pay, over and over again, for supporting the war. The goal was to peel Republicans away from the president. Results: the Republicans can't raise any money or recruit any candidates, they are the most unpopular institution in America. But they still seem unwilling to budge. The ball really is in their court. Do they want to survive as a major party?

Lastly, they would restore our civil liberties. The administration immediately agreed to stop the NSA program, rewrote the Military guide, etc. But the Dems have failed in this area. I give them an 'F'. This is a result, in my opinion, of fear. The only thing that can rescue the Republicans now is another terrorist attack (as they keep pointing out) accompanied by an easy way to blame it on the Democrats. Too many Democrats are afraid of that possibility. They're bedwetters. Either that, or they know their adversaries better than we do, and trust them less.

Regardless, the Republicans have pursued an insane and self-destructive course and they will pay for it. By 2010 there may be only 28 Republicans in the Senate. It could happen, through retirements and defeats and strong Democratic recruitment.

For the first time in history the Democrats are outraising the Republicans. I think we are going to win 6-11 Senate seats next year and another 5-10 in 2010. It is not at all out of the question. And that is also part of the strategy of forcing the Republicans to dig their own grave.

by BooMan on Tue Sep 4th, 2007 at 11:20:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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 ]

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

Now that the Republicans are in general disfavor, we must seize the opportunity and do to them what the regressives did to us in the 1980s, turning "liberal" into a dirty word. We must not simply rely on the Republicans becoming unpopular so that we can get more votes, but also create new ideological formulations and arguments to make "conservative" ideology unappealing to the mainstream American in every possible way.

The right wing did it in the 1970s and 80s with their think tanks, making "liberal" mean soft on crime and defense, weak on morals, and indulgent of welfare queens, and making "free" mean little more than having consumer choice. We don't have think tanks, because think tanks require wealthy donors. So who else is going to do this but bloggers?

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

by Alexander on Wed Sep 5th, 2007 at 12:31:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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

The argument appears to make no sense to you because the Republicans have framed what is legitimate. I am saying that we should be doing the framing.

I am sure that to many Royalists, the argument that the English king's rule over the American colonies was illegitimate would have made no sense, either.

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

by Alexander on Tue Sep 4th, 2007 at 11:00:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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

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