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Get Radical

by BooMan
Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 12:18:20 PM EST

I think the Democrats need to rethink their strategy. Seventy perecent of the people disapprove of the way Bush is handling Iraq and 57% disapprove of the way Democrats in Congress are handling Iraq. I'd say that is a pretty clear green light for the Dems to do something kind of radical to stop the war.

Get Radical | 17 comments (17 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Get Radical (4.00 / 3)

It's pretty hard to be radical on the war while your're standing in line like a bunch of preteen girls waiting to kiss the ass of anything wearing a uniform.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

by DaveW on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 02:07:02 PM EST

Re: Get Radical (4.00 / 3)

There are two war parties, remember? The Democrats don't want to stop the war.

All they have to do is convince us that they feel our pain and that they really want to stop the war but can't, because they don't have the votes. And that seems to still be working, since you think that the problem is "their strategy", as opposed to their intentions and goals.

To quote Arthur Silber once again:

To believe that the Democrats are dedicated to peace and opposed to non-defensive, needless war and overseas intervention, one must blind oneself entirely to ... history...

Blinded by the Story: Liberals and Progressives as Political Creationists

Once More into the Land of the Blind

There is no political reason for the Democrats to stop the war, since whether they stop the war or not, most people will vote for them, since they are less responsible for the war than the Republicans are. Therefore, they will not stop it, because they are as invested in America's empire as the Republicans are. It's as simple as that. Empires do not retreat from lands they have occupied unless they are forced to, and so far, the Iraqis have not succeeded in forcing us to leave.

by Alexander on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 02:27:18 PM EST

Re: Get Radical (none / 0)

it's a clever argument, but it isn't true. The problem is that the Republicans have given us only one way to end the war, and it is a method that will shift the blame for what goes on in Iraq over from the GOP to the Dems.

Too many Dems are unwilling to do it under those circumstances. But if the had bipartisan support they would be much more aggressive.

It isn't that the Dem caucus secretly wants to stay in Iraq. They don't.

But they know that we need a good plan for withdrawal that has the blessing of Pentagon planners and hopefully the executive office that needs to carry it out. Short of that, cutting off funding and forcing unplanned withdrawal on an unwilling executive, is a recipe for military disaster and a surefire way to let the GOP off the hook for the mess THEY created in Iraq.

That's why we're not seeing any radical moves.

by BooMan on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 02:40:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (4.00 / 2)

uh huh! Well, why call for them to get radical then, since it is too hard for them to get radical? I do believe many secretly want to stay in the war and the Iran chestbeating, not to mention the denouncing of moveon proves it.

The people to get radical. Forget about the shitty ass politicians.

Stray Roots Message Board,Thus far unmoderated! Dameocrat Blog

by StrayRoots (dameocrat@STUFFTOREMOVEpeacemail.com) on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 02:47:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (4.00 / 4)

There are two ways to end the war: cutting off funding and impeachment. Neither would shift the blame for what goes on in Iraq to the Dems, if the Dems weren't afraid of their own shadow.

As each month goes by, your attempts to explain the Dems' behavior in terms of their wanting to get out of Iraq but being unable to find an effective strategy for doing so because of one trap or another that the Republicans have laid for them become more and more implausible. I wonder if you will ever be able to accept the simplest possible explanation for why the Dems aren't getting us out of Iraq.

Don't you understand that you are blinded by American exceptionalism? No other empire ends an occupation unless it is forced to do so by the people it is occupying. Why should the US be any different?

by Alexander on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 02:51:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (4.00 / 5)

It isn't that the Dem caucus secretly wants to stay in Iraq. They don't.

I agree with this, but only because you used the word "secretly".

The "Dem caucus" doesn't want to do anything in particular about Iraq because the caucus isn't unified on the issue of Iraq.

Some members of the caucus quite openly want endless war in Iraq - Joe Lieberman is one of them. He may not be a Dem, but he's part of the caucus.

Some members of the caucus are sympathetic to endless occupation of Iraq - they may think that Bush screwed up the plan, but they don't think that the basic idea is bad. Hillary Clinton belongs to this group, but it's not a tiny group by any means.

Some members of the caucus want out but are too afraid of the repercussions of demanding a pull-out. The "cowards caucus". I suspect that this group is actually smaller than we want to credit, and that many of the members we might assign to the "cowards caucus" are actually in the previous "Bush screwed up a good idea" camp. But there are probably quite a few members of the "cowards caucus".

And some members are openly pushing for withdrawl. Unfortunately, there aren't enough of them to get the caucus to do anything. And so the caucus is paralyzed to do anything but go along with the Republicans (who are united in wanting endless war) - so we get endless war.

This is standard political practice for the Democratic caucus - it is a fractious group of people who rarely agree on anything and it has been since I started following politics. That's why, at least since the 80s, the country has been trending conservative - the moderates and conservatives among the Dems find it easy to team up with the Republicans because they fundamentally agree with the Republican point of view, if not their methods.

We have 1.5 conservative parties in this country and less than 0.5 liberal ones. We have 1.5 pro-war parties in this country and less than 0.5 anti-war ones. I'm not sure why it is, but it's been that way at least since Reagan. To fight against it you need to acknowledge that it's the case and work on expanding that 0.5 liberal party to something approaching 1 - and if I knew how to do that I'd be a bigwig in a liberal Democratic Party right now.

by nonynony on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 03:44:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (none / 0)

Thanks for making my general line of thought much more precise.

you need to acknowledge that it's the case and work on expanding that 0.5 liberal party to something approaching 1 - and if I knew how to do that I'd be a bigwig...

Don't the Netroots already have a basic strategy for doing this: namely, challenging Blue Dog Dems in primaries with progressive candidates?

by Alexander on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 04:14:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (none / 0)

Yeah - saying that there are 2 war parties is not literally correct, and rhetorically it tends to turn the conversation in ways that start arguments. There really are a number of honest Democrats in the House and the Senate who really do want to end the war and bring the troops home. Just like there are Dems who really do have a good solid progressive agenda and aren't just trying to be "republican light". These are often the same group of people.

Unfortunately, they're probably under half of the Democratic caucuses in D.C. right now. So it makes it look like we have 2 parties that are hellbent on war, even though it's actually more like 1.5 war parties.

If we were in a Parliamentary system we'd probably have a party breakdown more like Britain - Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrats. Unfortunately with our two party system we've somehow ended up with one Conservative Party and one Liberal-Labour-Moderate-Conservative Party. It's obnoxious, and I'm not sure why the Republicans have the magic alignment to be a pure Conservative Party. I suspect it's the fact that they get all of the racists who would be more economically liberal if it weren't for their racism, personally, but that's just a theory.

by nonynony on Sun Sep 23rd, 2007 at 02:26:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (none / 0)

I'm not sure why the Republicans have the magic alignment to be a pure Conservative Party.

I think that the reason that the Rethugs are more aligned than the Dems is pretty clear. In our present corrupt system, both parties have to balance serving their paymasters on the one hand, and getting votes on the other. By having conned their base so successfully, the Rethugs don't face much of a contradiction between pleasing their electoral base (right-wing Christian fundamentalist nuts) and pleasing their paymasters.

In contrast, the conflict between the paymasters of the Democratic Party (the same ones as the paymasters of the Rethugs) and the Democratic Party base (the American people) becomes more obvious with every day.

by Alexander on Mon Sep 24th, 2007 at 03:10:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (none / 1)

so, once again they've been out-maneuvered...caught in a wide stance with their pants around their ankles.

doesn't instill a hell of a lot of confidence in either the desire to make a change, or their ability to do so.

just more excuses to avoid a difficult situation because they're afraid?

sorry Boo....they're proving themselves inept, or worse, complicit, every day. and l'd go so far as predicting that this is going to bite them in the ass...hard...in the elections.

lTMF'sA

the revolution will not be televised...

by dada on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 02:59:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (4.00 / 4)

Strategy? First of all they had better go to the dictionary and look up the word strategy to know what it means. Then they might consider tying to work together as a whole party and not just a a bunch of singular people but with a bit more unity. Carl Levin said he wouldn't try to persuade or even talk to any democrat who doesn't agree with him cause gee you know they had to vote their own conscience....excuse me? Why bother with a party at all if you're not going to talk to other dems or discuss this?...What kind of bs is that?

They are too worried about what 'might' happen if they actually cut off funding and troops started coming home..you know what why would that be a bad thing for the dems? If they did that and got together and acted like a cohesive and coherent party and kept up the public awareness of this being a good thing it would be to their advantage..they act like bringing the troops home will somehow turn into a bad thing politically for them..why?

It seems like they want to have their cake and Edith too....making noises about bringing the troops home but then say they just don't have the votes or whatever to do so...thus pissing off just about everyone. Some strategy that is...but they are getting very very good at that aren't they.

'Poverty is the worst form of violence'--Gandhi

by chocolate ink on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 04:15:09 PM EST

Re: Get Radical (4.00 / 2)

The war is an unmitigated disaster now by every single standard anybody can imagine. It will be a disaster when we leave, too. The Dems are scared that they'll be blamed for the leaving disaster and the nonexistent "victory" they aborted. Whether you're an individual or a country, you can't just walk away from a murderous catastrophe that you caused and not pay the price. Dems and Reps are united in their wishful thinking about avoiding the inevitable.

To get radical about the war, Dems would have to face reality and act upon it. That would involve admitting that the war was wrong and bad from the beginning, punishing the people whose lies made it possible (including impeachment), begging forgiveness for the terrible damage we caused, offering painful reparations for our criminal behavior, and behaving with the humility demanded of a people who have committed such atrocity.

Such a policy would begin to restore America's reputation in the world, provide Iraq's best chance of salvaging some kind of livable future, and drive home crucial lessons for the American people. To approach such an outcome, Democrats would have to quit harping only on the incompetent carrying out of the war and finally utter the forbidden truth: that it was a murderous campaign of fraud and lies from the very beginning.

Given (to pick at random) the spectacle of Democrats' pompous defending of a uniformed bureaucrat against justified criticism, they are about as likely to propose such a course as they are to question the virgin birth. So they'll just try to wait it out and hope the GOP makes some more mistakes.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

by DaveW on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 05:34:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Get Radical (none / 1)

It's pretty clear the Republican strategy is to divide and conquer, persuade the Democrats to denounce their own base (MoveOn vote) and persuade the base to give up on their elected leadership.

dunno what to do

by AliceDem on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 01:30:21 PM EST

Re: Get Radical (none / 1)

I hope it's a green light Booman..I also hope the Dems are not colorblind and confuse green with red (again)! But after this week, I've given up holding my breath.

We need to push for Progressive change, now more than ever.

by keepinon (jaukkuri@sbcglobal.net) on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 03:24:02 PM EST

Re: Get Radical (none / 1)

John Walsh, Who Will Lead a Filibuster of the Iraq War Spending Bill?

To get their way prowar Senators are on their way to using the filibuster provision a record number of times in this the 110th Congress where cloture has already been invoked 56 times at which rate there will be 143 such votes in this session! But the question must be raised, Why do the so-called "antiwar" Senators like Feingold or Obama or Kennedy or Kerry or Clinton or even Hagel not initiate a filibuster to stop Bush's supplemental funding requests for the war? Think about it for a moment. Yes it takes 60 votes to continue debate but by the same token it only takes 41 to terminate a debate--and then the bill is dead. So why not filibuster Bush's forthcoming spending supplemental? Unless Bush can muster 60 Senate votes, his request is dead in the water. The bill is then a corpse and there is nothing to veto. Now the 47 Senators who voted Friday to bring the U.S. troops home from Iraq are more than enough to filibuster Bush's spending requests and end the war. Why do they not do it? Could it be that to a man and woman they are really prowar but this tactic allows them to appear antiwar to their constituents? Are they proclaiming their prowar bona fides to the voters while demonstrating to their real masters in the military industrial complex and at AIPAC that they will do nothing to stop the war? That is the way it looks from here.

by Alexander on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 03:40:54 PM EST

Re: Get Radical (none / 0)

Get Radical! Wow Boo- are ya sure. In the Suit and Tie or can everyone take off the coats and gloves and start to act like the party that forced the civil rights of millions and stopped the war in nam. Wasn't the bugle call sounded by Move On? Wasn't the rumblings being felt every time the folks polled at less than 30% while the piece of shit in the WH kept telling the country that things were getting better and we neede to show support
What do you mean by-Radical?
How about a list!

by billjpa (billjpa@aol.com) on Sat Sep 22nd, 2007 at 06:08:11 PM EST

Re: Get Radical (none / 1)

Under the circumstances, I'd say "Do Nothing" is pretty goddam radical.

We are all captives of the pictures in our heads - our belief that the world which we have experienced is the world that really exists. - W. Lippman

by stormkite on Sun Sep 23rd, 2007 at 12:57:07 PM EST

Get Radical | 17 comments (17 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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