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You can find me now at Digby's Hullabaloo 14 Nov 2012 9:18 PM (12 years ago)

However you found this blog, welcome! I haven't updated this page in forever and a day, but it's not because I've stopped writing. As always, you can find much of my work under thereisnospoon at DailyKos.

More importantly, I started writing at the award-winning blog Digby's Hullabaloo last year, writing two posts a day on most weekdays, and once a day most weekends. So come on over to Digby's place and see what all the fuss is about. Cheers, and see you around the bend of the spoon.

--David

Carrots, Not Sticks: THANK our Public Option Supporters! 17 Aug 2009 6:00 PM (15 years ago)

The most valuable function of conventions like Netroots Nation is that they provide a venue for dedicated, highly intelligent people to network and share ideas in real time. The just-passed Netroots Nation shindig in Pittsburgh was no exception.

One of the principle ideas that kept coming up again and again from in conversations with such luminaries and Meteor Blades, Darcy Burner, Jim Dean and many others was the notion of using not just sticks, but also carrots. This idea of rewarding our friends and allies is something the wingnuts do well, and remains to be adequately learned and incorporated by the online left.

This is entirely understandable: our movement grew and matured as a distinctly opposition movement, at a time when no other serious resistance to Republican policies was being offered by Democrats in Congress or by the supposed watchdogs in the fourth estate. We screamed into the ether, made angry calls, and did all we could to be a fly in the ointment of our foes. We raised money for favored candidates like Jerry McNerney and Jim Webb to beat selected Republicans or bad Democrats; and proceeded to revile them at turns when they failed, by some accounts, to live up to their promise.

Rarely, however, have we rewarded our representatives and Senators for doing the right thing. Rarely have we engaged them in conversation, given them pedestals on which to stand, and showered them with the respect and encouragement they deserve. Here in California, Senator Dianne Feinstein has received 100 times more attention for being consistently wrong on the issues than our usually excellent Senator Boxer has received for being so consistently right.

Human beings are psychologically predictable creatures, much like Pavlov's famous canine. We do respond well to negative reinforcement, but we respond just as well if not better to positive reinforcement. Do nothing but beat a dog with a stick, and the dog is likelier to be aggressive than lovingly loyal. Do nothing but scream at a child, and the child will eventually fail to respond to the screaming. Senators and Representatives, no matter how elevated, are still just people: the rules of psychological conditioning still apply. If all we can do is scream at people who don't do what we want, eventually no one will listen to us at all.

On the issue of healthcare, the time has come to reward those Democrats who have committed to standing up for the public option by refusing to vote for a bill that does not include it. Fortunately, the always excellent folks at Democracy for America have made it easier for us to thank our healthcare heroes for doing the right thing, by giving them words of positive encouragement for continuing to stand up for the public option.

Piggybacking and expanding on that idea is an ActBlue page created by Howie Klein called Take the Pledge to financially reward those 64 representatives who are doing the right thing. This is part of an effort being put together by Jane Hamsher, Howie Klein, Darcy Burner, my brother Dante Atkins, myself and others that I am dubbing the Carrots, Not Sticks Initiative to help generate fundraising, blogosphere attention and broader media attention for members of the Progressive Caucus and for likeminded Senators. If the insurance industry and other big GOP donors are going to help reward those who dance to their tune, the least we can do is to help reward those who do what we want in whatever way we can, through the power of small-dollar fundraising.

From the ActBlue page:

These are the progressive members of Congress with the guts to stand up to Big Insurance, Big Pharma and to the pressure from their own party bosses. They stood with the American people and ordinary working families when push came to shove and both political parties decided propping up a disastrous health care system and a corrupt Insurance Industry was more important than keeping the promise made over and over to working families. These were the men and women who promised to vote against any health care reform bill that didn't include, at the minimum, a robust public option. 57 signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi and 18 took the FDL Pledge.

Democratic members of Congress need to understand that a healthcare reform bill with a Public Option is simply not an option-- it's a requirement. The congressmembers on this list have said in no uncertain terms that they will not vote for a bill without a public option all the way through Conference. That takes courage, and we need to show them how much we appreciate them for doing so. Please make a contribution-- and thanks for everything else you're doing from the public option.

If Anthony Weiner is right that there are at least 100 potential Hosue members to join this effort, their names will be included on the ActBlue recipient list. And, of course, if any Senators decide to sign on to the effort, they will be rewarded as well. The time has come to provide a real progressive incentivizing counterweight on the organizational side, to the series of positive reinforcements available to Republicans and conservative Democrats on the right.

As funds accumulate for this effort, those Democrats in very safe seats can be encouraged to donate funds to their more endangered counterparts in an effort to make maximally productive use of the money. They Took the Pledge also allows you to donate to specific candidates on the list, rather than to the list as a whole, so that individuals can determine how best to allot their financial carrots.

Please do what you can today to help reward our Democrats.

Donate at They Took The Pledge.

Send a good word for Progressive Caucus members through DFA's Thank Our Healthcare Heroes.

And join the Carrots, Not Sticks group on Facebook to learn more about other initiatives to help reward our best progressive Democrats for getting our backs.

Title 2 Aug 2008 4:09 PM (16 years ago)

With unemployment on Friday jumping by 51,000 to take this year’s job losses to almost half a million, Mr Obama is mining a potentially rich seam. But a number of Democrats, including advisers to the Obama campaign, are worried that the Democratic party’s overall electoral advantage this year has not yet translated into comfortable leads for Mr Obama. On Friday Gallup showed Mr Obama just one point ahead of John McCain – a significant tightening in the past two weeks.

Bullshit alert #1: using Gallup's national polling. Gallup has already forfeited its claim to credibility on the presidential race this election cycle by fudging the numbers "just to see under a scenario where McCain supporters are energized" while pretending the poll represented a normal result, and by showing consistently closer margins than almost any other pollster in the field. If you're intending to write a hit piece against Obama, cherry-picking the closest poll you can find (and one that still shows him ahead) is a good place to start.

But that's only the beginning. Mentioned only briefly and misleadingly in the article is the state-by-state polling tally, where Obama holds a huge edge and is playing heavily on red-state turf. Given Obama's huge polling deficits in Appalachia and certain southern states, the fact is that Obama could easily be almost tied with McCain in the popular vote, yet win by a landslide in the electoral college. One of the most infuriating aspects of any traditional media on the campaign horse race is the seemingly intentional refusal to get into the details of electoral vote projections, and how those results are going to impact targeted advertising campaigns. In short, just as in the primary campaign against Clinton, if Obama wanted to shore up his national popularity, all he would need to do is reinforce his popularity in blue states. But that's not where elections are won or lost. One would think that the 4th estate, charged with informed the general public, would take greater care with such a seemingly simple fact of campaign politics.

But it gets worse. Next come a few grafs praising the supposed efficacy of McCain's recent ad campaigns painting Obama as a celebrity messianic elitist:

the signs are that Mr McCain’s continuing attacks – most recently in a commercial that portrayed Mr Obama as a vapid celebrity against images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears – may be striking a chord with the white working class voters who shunned Mr Obama so emphatically in many of his primary contests with Hillary Clinton.

With just one month to go before Labour Day – the traditional beginning of the general election – and only three weeks before the Democratic convention, many Democrats fear that time is running out for Mr Obama to overcome the suspicions of this key swing vote.

These "many Democrats" who are so concerned are mostly anonymous in the article, of course. It is extraordinarily tiresome to hear pundits and journalists consistently refer euphemistically to the "white working class" voters: the sort of people susceptible to dog-whistle racism, suspicious of a candidate who might be too fit and skinny, and deeply distrustful of a candidate who can produce adoring throngs overseas--mostly because they've never been overseas themselves.

There used to be a simpler way to refer to this kind of voter: a conservative. These are not "moderates": real moderates are turned off by McCain's recent approach. Or, with more nuance, this kind of voter might be called a "Reagan Democrat", the sort of "Democrat" that makes up the majority of PUMA's and No Quarter's consistuency. The Democratic party of the DLC and Bob Shrum has spent countless hours and untold dollars attempting to woo back these conservative "Reagan Democrats", largely to no avail. Bill Clinton won some of them back (with a great deal of help from Ross Perot), but the larger Democratic Party never did. The traditional media needs to understand something very clearly: the Democrats do not need to cater to the conservative social values of "Reagan Democrats". Those that are swayed by Democratic economic messaging will come our way; those that don't will be overwhelmed by the youth vote, the Hispanic vote, and the midwestern and western Obamacans that are making up part of this year's realignment election.

After more piddling, the article continues:

The numbers back up the concern. Although Mr Obama has a good shot at winning traditional Republican states such as Colorado, Virginia and even North Carolina, he cannot capture the White House if he loses more than one of Pennsylvania, Ohio or Michigan – the more traditional, blue-collar swing states, which Mrs Clinton won by huge margins in the primary contests. Polls suggest these states are too close to call.

Too close to call. Um...ok. Let's look at this. States were Obama has "a good shot" include Colorado (Obama currently ahead by 1.5% according to Pollster.com average), Virginia (Obama currently ahead by an averaged 2.6%), and North Carolina (McCain ahead by under 3% averaged). States that are too close to call, meanwhile, are Michigan where Obama has a 6 point lead with excellent trendlines, Ohio where Obama has a 3.6% lead, again with excellent trendlines, and Pennsylvania where Obama holds a commanding 9-point lead with damning trendlines for McCain. In other words, the states listed as "too close to call" in the article are, by and large, much more uneven in Obama's favor than the states in which Obama has "a good shot"--two of which are already in Obama's favor.

Meanwhile, the article makes no mention of former red states Florida (Obama ahead by over 2%), New Mexico (Obama ahead by almost ten points), Colorado (Obama slightly ahead), Montana (Obama ahead), or Iowa (Obama ahead by about 7 points). To say nothing of all the other red states about as close as North Carolina, including Nevada, Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri, McCain's own home state of Arizona, and even--if the latest polls are to be believed--Alaska.

And none of this makes any mention of the massive voter registration efforts by the DNC and the Obama campaign that will boost Democratic numbers beyond those shown in the polls. But then, none of these inconvenient facts would fit the "why isn't Obama further ahead" narrative, would they?

At this stage in the 1988 presidential race, Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate, had a 17 percentage point lead over George H.W. Bush, who went on to win the election. John Kerry emerged from the 2004 Democratic convention with a strong lead over George W. Bush only to lose the election as well. In 2008, conventional wisdom says Mr McCain is running a much less effective campaign than either of the Bushes.

Hmmm....let me think for a second. Do you think that could possibly be because of the hyperpolarization of American politics since 1988? Show me any modern presidential candidate in the America of the Bush-Gore and Bush-Kerry races with a 17-point lead in the polls, and I'll show you a squadron of flying pigs still sporting the icicles they carried out of hell. But surely the Financial Times will find some idiot to shamelessly reinforce this meme...

That reinforces disquiet about Mr Obama’s inability so far to take a decisive lead. “Even on his worst day, Bill Clinton was able to signal that he understood voters’ concerns and that he felt their pain,” said Douglas Schoen, a Democratic consultant. “Obama has no trouble with the campaign stagecraft. But this isn’t Harvard, it’s the beer hall. He has to talk in language that people understand.”

Ah, yes. When you need an idiot to back up Republican ideas with the cover of a "Democratic consultant", look no further than world's biggest moron Doug Schoen, who also happens to be http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.salon.com%2Fopinion%2Fgreenwald%2F2007%2F09%2F27%2Fschoen%2F%3Faim%3Dyahoo-salon%26source%3Drss&ei=Z_OUSK-oFJnOtQOA3pS7Cg&usg=AFQjCNGEf69GaegcTNPMhorPUDTX73UPjw&sig2=ybSCV4yfH0BBLMjUgKwxZA">partner of fellow idiot Mark Penn. Do you get the feeling, somehow, that this entire article is the bitter backlash of a few diehard DLC and neoliberal Clinton backers, attempting to subterfuge the Obama campaign? I do.

The article closes by once again taking Obama unapologetically out of context over his quote about being a symbol of restoring America's traditions, followed by McCain operatives quoted as saying that Obama thinks highly of himself. In the interest of fair use--and of preventing symptoms reminiscent of ipecac in my readers--I'll omit the last few sections.

So I guess the question is this: is the Financial Times a merely stupid tool of Republicans and DLC "Democrats", or is it actively attempting to subterfuge the Obama campaign?

Because an article this lack in journalistic ethics and this devoid of basic respect for the truth--much less balance--brooks no other alternatives.

kcrw test 22 May 2008 1:41 PM (16 years ago)

This is a test of the KCRW embed:



Test

BlogTalkRadio 27 Mar 2008 5:01 PM (17 years ago)

Want to start your own radio show? Well, you're going to need an agent, a lawyer and a big contract. Just kidding! With new online radio platforms, all you need to get started are a few basics. Oh, and co-hosts aren't a bad idea.

***Scroll down for an On Topic radio show discussing this diary***

First of all, some of you are probably wondering why you would want a radio show at all. There are several compelling reasons to add audio, and particularly radio shows, to your content:

• Some topics are better suited to the radio format. Got a great interview lined up on a topic you would like to diary? Well, if you set up the interview as a show, you can diary the topic and allow readers who want to go more in-depth on the topic access to the actual audio. You can even set up call in shows and allow readers to pose questions to your guest directly.



• It's nice to have a voice sometimes. A lot of writing is story telling, and being able to provide a first hand account or source, or even just your own commentary can be powerful.
• It can add a greater depth to your diary--especially since most readers will only look at so much text before they move on. Providing a radio link with more discussion on the topic can break up the information and allow those who want to hear more a different way of accessing your information.



• Reach new audiences. Especially when it comes to organizations and issues advocacy, a radio show or in-depth interview can be a great way to reach new audiences and even keep your current supporters up to date on the projects you are working on. Call in shows mean the dialog can run both ways.



• Why not? It's essentially FREE, and as I will show you, pretty easy to boot.

Getting Started

There are several ways to get started in putting together your own radio show. First is deciding what platform you are going to use to record. A radio show is simply an audio file or a podcast (unless you have some hot distribution deal, in which case, maybe YOU should be writing this), so this means recording is the biggest factor in which approach you take.

Anyway you can make a podcast, you can make a radio show. There are numerous audio recording programs you can download, Mac Books often come with recording software, or you can even record Skype calls. The challenge is if you want more than one person on the recording (which I hope you do) and whether you will be dealing with feeding in calls. For the sound engineers among us, no problem! But for the rest of us, there are sites that offer a means of circumventing this problem and I highly recommend using them to get started.

BlogTalkRadio.com is the site thereisnospoon, clammyc and I currently use. It employs a recording platform that run via phone. You sign up, schedule a show and they give you a number to call into via landline, cell phone, or skype and it records a digital audio file for you and hosts it on the their site. You can link to it from your own site like we did for a time (politicalnexus.blogspot.com) or use their host page as your main site. And you can pull links for your most recent show and embed them in your diaries.

Pretty simple. Now for the tricky part: actually creating the shows.

The difficult part is putting it all together: live radio means you don't have to deal with pesky editing, but it also means you need to do more planning so you don't have dead air time.

So when you put together a show, you should consider several things:

1) How long should my show be? And how much content do I need to cover that amount of time?

2) Will I have a co-host? Different guests?

3) How often will I produce my show?

4) What do I want my show to be about?

5) Have I come up with a show intro and show close I can use?

6) Do I have copyright free music I can use as an intro to my show?

Our shows are typically 15-20 minutes when it comes to a single topic like our FrameWork shows, and 30-60 minutes for our in-depth interviews with Congressional Candidates or On-Topic shows. Our call in show Don't Hijack My Thread is 60 minutes.

We typically plan out five topics for Don't Hijack My Thread--but we rarely get through them all! For our shorter shows, we started out with five or so questions but we largely abandoned structuring our shows too much once we got used to the format.

In my opinion, one of the most important things you can do is not talk those last few seconds before your show goes live! If you have a clean intro to your show and a solid beginning it sets a good tone, even if you flub some of the other parts.

Transcripts of shows are something we get commonly requests for, especially since many cannot listen to audio at work, but we gave up on being able to provide them since they simply took too long to compile.

In terms of promoting a show, the best way to go about it is to compile the email addresses of people that you think might be interested, and send them

• the link to the show for downloading
• the phone number to dial in (if you want to take callers)
• the topics and details of the show

Any more questions? Just post them in the comments and we'll be answering them over the course of the next 24 hours. Also, any of you audio geeks who have expertise in sound engineering, equipment, etc. please share your thoughts as well. And of course, I am the first to admit there are many more knowledgeable than myself, so pipe up!

A radio show discussing the topics of this diary can be found here: On Topic Kossacks Under 35: How to Start Your Online Radio Show We just taped it but it the audio should be available soon so please check back if there are problems.

Also here is a link to a previous interview we did with Kath25 herself about the Kossacks Under 35 series

Kossacks Under 35 is a weekly diary series designed to create a community
within DailyKos that focuses on young people. Our overall goals are to
work on increasing young voters' Democratic majority, and to raise
awareness about issues that particularly affect young people, with a
potential eye to policy solutions. Kossacks of all ages are welcome to
participate (and do!), but the overall framework of each diary will
likely be on or from a younger person's perspective. If you would like
more information or want to contribute a diary, please email kath25 at kossacksunder35 (at) gmail dot com

Stop the Sucking 13 Mar 2008 3:39 PM (17 years ago)

Sure, she's wasting campaign money. And Democratic opportunities to attack John McCain. And attempting to create divisions in the Party.

But of all the many reasons that Hillary Clinton should graciously concede the Democratic nomination to the clear winner of the contest, none has been more overlooked than the impact on downballot races.

No, I'm not talking about Obama's major coattails, though that is certainly important. I'm talking about the oxygen that this continued farce of a campaign is taking away from the deserving and overlooked women and men running for Senate and Congress.

Clinton supporters not making their votes based on identity politics, and who are not currently deluded enough to believe that their candidate is more electable, presumably are making their votes based on specific issues. Maybe they believe that mandates on health insurance programs are a good idea (I don't); maybe they believe that freezing interest rates for 5 years is a good idea (I certainly don't); maybe they believe that we should pull out of Iraq more slowly (I disagree). Who knows?

But the truth of the matter is that without a strong Democratic congress to help the Chief Executive to push these plans through the legislature, none of them will come close to passing in the forms being pushed by the candidates. Any voter truly making decisions about these candidates based on the issues while ignoring the state of the downballot races is making a colossal error in judgment. Much I find Clinton's candidacy and modus operandi highly distasteful, I know that a Clinton presidency with a strong Democratic, progressive congress is likelier to lead to the policy outcomes I desire than an Obama candidacy with a weaker Democratic congress. The reverse is, of course, doubly true.

I know that there are some who say that continuing this primary is good for the party, as it registers new voters and create ground operations in every state. But that help is dramatically overwhelmed by oxygen being sucked out of lungs of our deserving candidates: the media attention and money that are the lifeblood of such campaigns. Every second of every minute of every day that the Clintons spend desperately trying to maintain their grip over the Democratic Party and its levers of power is precious sand running out of the hourglass for the candidates who could actually use the most time, energy and money from the netroots and the progressive movement. Every campaign donation drive from the pockets of the netroots faithful on behalf of the Obama or the Clinton campaigns to maintain this petty and ultimately pointless intramural fight the Clintons are waging, is not only money that could have been going to attack John McCain: it's money that could have been going to candidates like those on the Red to Blue list--to say nothing of the many other deserving candidates like Ron Shepston, Mary Pallant or Gilda Reed.

My good friend clammyc and I have been conducting a series of online, podcastable radio interviews with deserving progressive, Democratic congressional candidates (the interviews also get posted to Heading Left, in case BlogTalkRadio's format is a too intimidating). In every single show, I make the case that as important as the Oval Office is, and as much as the presidential candidates deserve our time and effort, these candidates need our aggressive support to succeed in sometimes extremely difficult circumstances. Not all of them will have Bill Foster's good fortune in having a single special election to focus on, or having Barack Obama appear in ads for them, or having as sadsack an opponent as Mr. Oberweis. These are very difficult battles, and they could use a little more love coming their way. And they won't get that love from most of us unless Hillary Clinton ends her quixotic quest to put herself and her husband back in the White House.

One of those candidates I'm talking about is Ron Shepston in CA-42, running against the odious Gary Miller. As many of you know, Ron Shepston (whom clammyc and I will be interviewing tomorrow) started his political career right here in the blogosphere, posting under the name CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream, and has had our backs as a progressive activist for years. Fellow Kossacks hekebolos, theKK and I just hosted a fantastic fundraiser/house party for him this last Saturday. And Ron is just one of many, many candidates who stands to gain enormously by our party turning its attention away from the Clintons' desperate power ploy, and back to the issues and candidates that matter.

If Hillary Clinton or her supporters care anything at all about the Democratic Party, the issues we hold dear and the legislation we want passed, they must know that the time has come to end this charade. We've got more important things to worry about at this point.


--------------------------------------

By the way, for those interested in hearing the real voices of some great candidates, you can hear prior interviews in our candidate series below:

• Betsy Markey (CO-4) - The diary about Betsy is here. The link to her interivew can be found here
• Gilda Reed (LA-1) - the diary about Gilda is here. The link to her interview can be found here.


• John Laesch (IL-14) - the diary about John is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Dennis Shulman (NJ-5) - the diary about Dennis is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Barry Welsh (IN-6) - the diary about Barry is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Charlie Brown (CA-4) - the diary about Charlie is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Mark Schauer (MI-7) - the diary about Mark is here. The link to his interview can be found here.


• Heather Ryan (KY-1) - the diary about Heather is here. The link to her interview can be found here.

What Hillary Means By "Obama Isn't Vetted" 25 Feb 2008 11:52 AM (17 years ago)

Among the memes this election cycle that are so patently stupid that it makes me want to beat my head against a wall is the idea put forth by the Clinton campaign that "Obama isn't vetted." Here's just one example of Hillary Clinton herself pushing this idea:

“I’ve been tested. I’ve been vetted. I have been in the political arena in our country very intensely for 16 years. There are no surprises. There’s not going to be anybody saying, ‘Well why didn’t we think of that?’ or ‘What, my goodness, what does that mean?’” she said. “I am going to be able to go up against any Republican who they nominate.”

And here's longtime Clinton booster Taylor Marsh:

I'm getting quite a lot of heat these days for my posts on Mr. Obama. Frankly, I don't care because when a man running for office hasn't been vetted by the media or our own party, it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

The pertinent question is, "What could the Clinton camp possibly mean by this?" It certainly can't be the fabricated Rezko scandal, or the silly Exelon story, or the ridiculous charge about "present" votes, or the insulting "cult" insinuations, or the plagiarism charges, or his supposedly incomplete health care plan, or his supposed "lack of experience" in domestic or foreign policy. All of these are attacks are easily batted aside and debunked, of course--but more importantly, they've already been used by the Clinton campaign. Most of these broadsides are more influential with Democratic voters than with the general election; if hitting Obama with them hasn't sunk his presidential campaign in a Democratic Primary against an opponent with better name recognition who started off 20 points ahead in the polls, why should anyone believe that they'll stick in the general election?

Certainly she can't mean that Obama has yet-unseen skeletons in his closet. After all, she had to have been using at least some of the $140 million she wasted on oppo research. If the Clintons couldn't dig up serious dirt on Obama with over 13 months to run against him and most of the Democratic establishment until recently at their disposal, Democratic voters should not too afraid of what 9 months of Republican research in Obama's background will bring. Not to mention the fact that the Clintons' last seven years of financial dealings have not been vetted, as the disclosure of the $100 million Boratgate scandal reminds us. Add to that the fact that Clinton refuses to release her tax records until after the nomination has been secured and continues to resist releasing Clinton Library records, and it becomes a serious question who has more undisclosed skeletons in their closet (to say nothing of the numerous Clinton skeletons that have already been exposed and are lying all over the bedroom floor). That Hillary Clinton has survived rightwing assaults is no great shakes: surviving a challenge from Rick Lazio in bluer-than-blue New York is no more a badge of honor than Obama's beating Alan Keyes in Illinois.

No, the frustration and exasperation seen on the faces of the Clinton campaign and its supporters about Obama's supposed lack of vetting has nothing to do with scandal or experience: it's all about race and Muslim smears. This is an uncomfortable truth that was first pointed out by Bob Novak, of all people.

The Clinton camp is frustrated because they know that the "Black/Muslim" line is the only one they can't use in a Democratic Party without its blowing up in their faces. They also know it's the only one that has a prayer of working to smear Obama enough to stop his incredible grassroots movement and fundraising momentum. And as is typical of the DLC, weak-willed finger-in-the-wind bunker politics practiced by the Clintons and many of their backers, they believe that when Republicans use this strategy on Obama in the general election, it will destroy Obama and secure the nomination for John McCain.

But they couldn't come out and say that explicitly--not, at least, until the Clinton campaign became as desperate as they are today. Now that the Clinton camp is all but certain to lose the nomination, they are throwing all caution to the wind and actively going with the sort of campaign that they have been signaling with various dog-whistles that Republicans would be running: an overt strategy to paint Obama as a black African Muslim.

It is actually a boon to the Obama campaign to see Clinton begin this line of attack, especially after her ridiculous attempt to accuse Obama of having started the gutter politics first, right before she knew that she would be using the filthiest line possible against him. To the Obama campaign's credit, David Plouffe has has responded quickly and coherently to this tripe, which just goes to show that the Obama camp, as usual, is on its toes and ready to counter such vile fearmongering. The Clinton camp, in true Fox News fashion, is playing coy, neither affirming nor denying that they were behind the attack, but stating with extraordinary nerve that

We think it is wrong for the Obama campaign to say that this is divisive photo. It’s not a divisive photo.

This Rovian strategy of accusing the other camp of doing exactly what you intend to do, combined with appealing to the worst instincts of the American electorate, is exactly what Obama can expect to encounter from the Republican machine.

It is the final barrier; the final vetting. Clinton has hit Obama with every other attack possible but the Black/Muslim smear. This last is what Hillary means by "Obama isn't vetted." So let's vet him and get it over with. That neither Obama nor any of the other candidate shave gone this route against Clinton (e.g., Vince Foster or Chelsea Hubbell rumors) even when things looked hopeless for their campaigns is a testament to their collective character. Let us demonstrate once and for all who our friends really are in the Democratic Party.

And, more importantly, let us demonstrate that the American people can respond to the better angels of our nature and reject the gutter politics being pushed by the Clinton campaign just as surely as we can reject it from the Republicans.

Yes, we can.

Am I a Cult Member? 7 Feb 2008 10:50 PM (17 years ago)

Am I a cult member? Jake Tapper seems to think so. The Guardian seems to think so. Many commenters here seem to think so.

One must, of course, admit that there has been more than a whiff of the euphoria of fervent aspiration among Obama supporters. It is certainly a phenomenon, a movement that has rarely been paralleled in American politics. Obama's message, his speeches, his policy platforms, and his personal charisma have been deeply inspiring to millions across America. But is there more to it than that? Is it about Obama--or is it about something else entirely?

One of the central tenets of a cult of personality is, by definition, that the cult disappears without the person behind the cult. Thus, by this thinking, if Obama himself were to die tomorrow and his candidacy disappear, there would be no movement. There would be no fervor, no animus, no euphoria. The cultists would, as though deprogrammed and removed from a trance-like state brought on by the sight and sound of the Obama wurlitzer, come to some "rational" support for another candidate--a candidate with a more pedestrian style perhaps, but with the hard-nosed experience to fight against Republicans.

The biggest problem with this thinking is not that the millions who have voted for Obama are too many to accurately describe as a cult, or that cults tend to be closed systems while political campaigns are not, or that cults utilize brainwashing tactics to recruit and retain their members (where's that secret Obama handshake?).

The biggest problem is that this movement--this phenomenon--was already in place. It was happening before Obama took it by the horns and ran with it. It has been growing and building since Howard Dean's candidacy gave progressive Democrats the will to believe, and provided a reason to hope for the future. And it has had many, many faces--Obama's is only the latest.

This movement is about CHANGE. Change from not only last eight years of Bushism, but from the previous eight years of Clintonism before that. It is about change from neoliberalism, from centrism (no, Obama's inclusivity is not centrism), from triangulation, from arguing over the same boomer battles from abortion to Vietraq year after year, from corporatism, from playing not to lose, from apathy. Change from the belief that we have to settle for the lesser of two evils. Change from the belief that the nice people at the top of the food chain will do what's best for all of us--whether that's supply-side economics, or a candidate who believes that LBJ's pulling the levers of power was more important than MLK's grassroots movement.

Obama didn't create this movement; he's just the last and most credible candidate left to harness it. Perhaps more importantly, it is a movement that cannot and will never have Hillary Clinton at its head--first female candidate or not. Not because of sexism against her first and maiden names, but because of anti-DLCism against her last name.

One way to demonstrate these twin points is by looking at candidate support on DailyKos over the past year. While acknowledging that Daily Kos readership is not the same as the Democratic electorate (obviously) or even Obama supporters in general, it is nevertheless indicative, in a broad sense, of the Netroots progressive movement that has been a key part of the "change" demographic since the rough-and-tumble days of Howard Dean and before. And since almost 80% of DailyKos readers now support Obama, they are at least somewhat indicative of a certain kind of very passionate and well-informed Obama booster.

Let us examine, then, the latest tabulated dkos straw poll results provided by Markos on 12/20/07:



What you will notice here is fairly obvious: Obama's support is a recent phenomenon. Obama support hovered on average around 25% of DailyKos all the way from February of 2007 until mid-December--even cratering to 16% as late as October. His fluctuating numbers are proof that many of his supporters were not so mesmerized by his personality that they didn't switch their support from him to other candidates--particularly Chris Dodd, who at that time and to this day showed himself a greater champion for progressive values and for change from the politics of the past than did Obama himself.

You will also notice something even more obvious to those who have paid any attention for the last year: DailyKos has historically been Edwards territory, not Obama territory--by wide margins, in fact.

You will also remember that many Kossacks (myself included) were holding out for Al Gore to enter the race, leading as many as 9% of voters to reject all of the candidates in the race in favor of the man who would not, unfortunately, end up running for more than an Oscar and a Nobel.

Most importantly, you may notice that in all these fluctuations, Hillary Clinton never broke the 11% barrier among those committed to this change movement. Not once. Even Bill Richardson (ugh) hit 13% at one point in May. But not Hillary.

Now let's examine the straw polls since then. Here we are on January 2, 2008 eve of the Iowa caucuses:



John Edwards reaches the height of his support at 48%. Obama has fallen to 27%. Dodd limps along with Dennis Kucinich at 4%. Hillary, the Democratic Default Candidate, stands at 8%--with 92% of 22,568 Kossack votes against her, spread out among various candidates.

But then came Obama's victory in Iowa. And after that came Hillary Clinton's surprising win in New Hampshire.

Now let's see what happens. From the straw poll taken on January 16:



By now several of the candidates (Dodd, Biden, Richardson) have dropped out of the race. Obama's momentum, stalled by his NH loss, has carried him to a 41% surge. Edwards' failure to take Iowa where he was putting all his marbles (combined with his dismal NH showing) deflates his support to 37%. In spite of Hillary's amazing New Hampshire victory being recently in the minds of poll-takers, Clinton once again hits only 11%--barely tying her highest mark to this point. With the first two states down, the "change" vote is split between two candidates--neither of whose supporters are yet being labeled cult members at this point.

Now let's move on to the latest straw poll to date, taken on January 30:



With Edwards out of the race, Obama has now taken a whopping 76% of 18,784 voters in the dkos poll; the die-hard supporters of dropped out change candidates plus Gravel account for 5%, putting the "change" vote at over 4-in-5 Kossacks and lurkers. As for Hillary? Once again, she stalls at 11%. Because Obama is the only credible candidate left to defeat the Clintons, all the support is now thrown his way.

-----------------------------------------

What all of this should tell you is that Obama's supporters aren't part of an Obama personality cult: they're part of a "Change" cult. A change cult that wants to end Clintonism almost as badly as it wants to end Republicanism. A "Change" cult that sways from one change candidate to another--be it Gore, Gravel, Edwards, Kucinich or Obama--but that is in no way motivated to switch its allegiance to a Clinton.

It is a movement that believes as much in itself as it does in its chosen candidate(s). It is a movement that needs no leader, no figurehead, no reason to exist beyond the courage of its own convictions and its own aspirations for a political future radically different from that of the past 30 years.

And this story is, in fact, my story. For months I held out in vain hope (get that word?) for Gore to jump into the race. His incredible book The Assault on Reason is in many ways my Progressive Bible, ranking right up there with Markos' own Crashing the Gate. I have never promoted Obama's books before; I have repeatedly promoted Gore's and Markos'. When it became clear that Gore would not enter and that he chose to make his mark in ways other than electoral politics and elections, I moved squarely into the undecided camp. I could not support Richardson or Kucinich for several reasons; Edwards bothered me, admittedly, for reasons that had much more to do with image and electability than with substance (perhaps I can write more about what I believe was wrong with Edwards' campaign when the flames of passion have died down here somewhat), while Obama's seemingly conciliatory rhetoric turned me off.

Like my good friend clammyc, I became a Dodd supporter because of his hard-nosed fights on our behalf. When I went to YearlyKos, it was Dodd I went to go see speak--not Obama. I still have the red wrist-tag somewhere to prove it.

But then, as it became clear that Dodd could not get traction for several reasons (again, grist for a diary someday), I moved into the undecided column again. As of two days before the Iowa Caucuses, I still couldn't make up my mind. And then, after leaning his direction for a while based on the movement he was building, this video sealed the deal for me and convinced me he would be the fighting candidate we need:



From this point on, my destiny was set. I signed up to become a precinct captain in my neighborhood; I went to Nevada where my suspicions about the lack of ethics of Clinton machine support were confirmed in ways that even I couldn't believe; and I've been turning out voters for Obama ever since.

Does that make me and the other 80% of Obama supporters here in the progressive grassroots members of a cult of personality?

Hardly. It makes all of us members of a Cult for Change: a cult that will continue to exist well beyond Obama's candidacy should it come to the same unfortunate end as Howard Dean's. A cult that will only with extreme reluctance unite behind Hillary Clinton as a nominee in order to end Republicanism (in the dual quest to end Republicanism and Clintonism, I guess I'll settle for 1 out of 2).

A cult that will not stop, come Republican or Democratic victories, until it has actually succeeded in creating the cultural transformations and political realignments demanded by the urgency of our times.

Congressional Democrats: Cynical Manipulators, not Spineless Cowards 8 Nov 2007 8:26 AM (17 years ago)

Enough with the Congressional Democrats are weak meme already. Enough of this idea that Democrats cave to the slightest pressure from the GOP. Really--enough. It may be comforting to progressive bloggers to say that our leaders are weak and all will be well when we've replaced them or given them spine transplants. That would be a pleasant fiction. But it's about as far from the truth as Mike Gravel is from the presidency.

It's time to put that tired piece of conventional wisdom to rest--if for no other reason than so that we can address the real root of the problem and stop tilting at windmills.

I've said it before. Other diarists before me have said it better than I. When we vent about the unwillingness of our elected officials to stand up to the Republicans on everything from Iraq to telecom amnesty to subpoena enforcement to Executive Branch nominations to impeachment inquiries, we are barking up the wrong tree to call our Democrats "weak." "Capitulating", certainly. But not "weak."

Conventional wisdom says that our Dems are so afraid of their own shadows that they wouldn't dare risk letting Republicans slander them as weak on terrorism or inadequately patriotic. Conventional wisdom says that our Dems are too worried about the next election to stand up for the principles they believe in. Conventional wisdom says that our Dems have bought into the DLC line that this is a conservative country, and that only by running as conservative lite can they stay ahead of the game. Conventional wisdom says that our Dems are so poll-driven and focus group tested that authentic progressivism never shines forth to inspire the public.

Bullshit.

Let's be clear on something: our Democrats are perfectly well capable of standing up to Republicans--and even to the American people--when they damn well feel like it.

Exhibit A: Gay Rights. Even though the "Democrats Support Gays" angle is one of the few tactics the GOP have been able to play against Democrats with any sort of continued success, our House Dens were more than brave enough to pass an anti-discrimination bill protecting gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination. Certainly, this is a wonderful development for a long oppressed minority, for civil rights, and for the American Constitution. And yet, if Democrats were able to do this on such a contentious issue where the polling, while improving, is still marginal at best, why not on other issues like Iraq or healthcare where the polling is so much clearer?

Exhibit B: Illegal Immigration. Even though the GOP had limited electoral success this year playing the anti-immigrant card, the polling on this issue remains abysmal for Democrats. Whipped up by nativist media elements from Lou Dobbs to Pat Buchanan to every Republican racist hack with a deep fear of any skin color darker than porcelain, the American public is deeply anti-immigrant at this time. And yet, Democrats are somehow finding the spine and courage to promote (or at least hem and haw about) giving driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants--despite polls showing that 3 out of 4 Americans disapprove of the idea. During the major war over immigration earlier this year in which Congressional Republicans eventually caved to pressure from their base, Democrats were more than willing to take the unpopular position of so-called "amnesty."

The same goes for affirmative action programs, which have mixed support with the American public. And certainly, Democrats have no difficulty standing up and opposing the majority of Americans who want more progressive policies ranging from healthcare to foreign policy.

So what's the difference? Why do Democrats seem able to show such courage on some issues, but not on others? Why in god's name does Hillary Clinton find it easier to consider giving driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants than to promise universal health coverage for all Americans? Why in the world does Barack Obama find it easier to support gay rights than to support the speedy drawdown of American forces in Iraq? Why in all hell does Dianne Feinstein have no trouble supporting the difficult issue of abortion rights, but cannot find the will to oppose the simple issue of the Mukasey nomination--even though her next election is years away and no one will even remember or care what she did on Mukasey come 2010?

The answer is simple: they're not poll-driven cowards; they're cynical electioneering manipulators. Perhaps they're right to be; perhaps it's the best way when all is said and done. Perhaps the end of electoral victory justifies the means of cynical accommodation and capitulation in the short term. Who knows? But weak and cowardly they aren't.

The awful truth is that--all references to "do-nothing Congresses" aside--when the people are upset (and make no mistake: the people are plenty upset right now), they tend to blame those who hold the power. They don't tend to blame those who are--or at least seem to be--powerless. When the people want change they lash out at whoever appears to be in charge, pretty much regardless of who they are. When the people think the the country's on the wrong track, they're pretty much certain to throw out whoever looks like they're conducting the train.


In fact, to act at all in such a way that would demonstrate they have real power, would be to take responsibility for the absolute mess this country is currently in--from housing troubles to currency collapses to global warming issues to foreign policy disasters to a host of other troubles.

On the other hand, to fan the flames of public resentment against the current holders of power for perceived wrongs is nothing short of electoral gold. Republicans were brilliant about doing this for years in their role as a minority opposition party: they would successfully trash Democrats while offering no coherent solutions of their own beyond a culture of "I've got mine; screw you." It was only when forced to actually attempt to govern that Republicans ended up sowing the seeds of their own demise.

An important and utterly perverse corollary of these two premises is that, so long as we have an unpopular Republican president and a Democratic legislature, the Executive must be seen as overwhelmingly powerful compared to the Legislative for Democrats to win. So long as the public believes that Bush is driving the train and the Democrats are itching but unable to get into the driver's seat, the public will be so angry by November 2008 that they will toss Bush and anyone associated with him out of the driver's seat and put Democrats in charge. Thus, so long as Democrats keep their eye on electoral victory rather than on their oath of office, Article I of the Constitution is doomed to near irrelevance if not extinction.

Indeed, the only way (to the congressional mindset) to screw things up for electoral victory in '08 would be, ironically, to act and exercise their authority rather than to complain. Why defund the Occupation of Iraq and risk having the voters turn their scorn on you when/if things go badly, when you can simply fume impotently about the President's Iraq policy and keep the focus on him, instead? Why risk taking real action on healthcare and making people upset about whatever transition pains may take place, when you can simply get people riled up about their HMOs? Why impeach the Vice-President and risk focusing the spotlight on yourself, when it's so much easier to rage with feigned indignation at Cheney's latest abuse of power?

After all, as far as the Congressional mindset is concerned, the only mistake Congressional Republicans made during the Clinton years was actually going through with stalling the budget and impeaching Clinton, thereby making the election more about Gingrich than Clinton. Never mind that Clinton was more popular and a better politician and policy-maker than Gingrich: to your average strategist, the problem was that Gingrich became an issue at all.

And let's be clear: to defund the Occupation of Iraq or impeach the President shows that you have power. To promote equal rights for all couples or affirmative action programs shows that you care for the Constitution at best, or are pandering to specific demographics at worst.

The Democrats have no difficulty standing up to Republicans and public opinion to do the latter, but they have major issues doing the former.

They're not weak; they just want to win. Their strategy is to act as weak and helpless as possible so that the other guy takes the fall for the current and coming disasters.

And until we realize that that's what is going on, our exhortations to stand stronger against Republican depredations will continue to fall on deaf ears attuned not the needs of the American people, but rather to a concerted strategy aimed at 2008 victories through the path of least resistance.

How Dare *Republicans* Use Katrina for Electoral Gold? 5 Nov 2007 1:32 PM (17 years ago)

As the next election season begins unfolds and the primaries get into full swing, it is natural to begin the process of writing epitaphs on the previous administration. This must be done, if for no other reason, than so that other campaigns can compare and contrast their prospective agendas with those that came before them.

In the case of the Bush Administration Worst Administration in History, the all-too familiar adjectives have already become shopworn: "Incompetent." "Misguided." "Reckless." "Misleading." "Stubborn." We who pay attention and aren't afraid to tell the truth, on the other hand, know better: Bush is not incompetent; he is, in fact, criminally negligent and pathologically corrupt. It is old hat for progressives at this point to say that we must continue to emphasize this point< in any way we can to demonstrate that the problem with the last 8 years is not a Bush Administration problem, but a problem of Republican ideology.

The Mississippi governor's race has given us yet another opportunity to do just that, in association with the debacle that did more to undo the Bush Presidency than the Occupation of Iraq: the criminally negligent response to Hurricane Katrina.

One would think that the issue of Katrina would be a political poison pill to Republicans. Not so in Mississippi, however, where recovery efforts and disaster response times have been much faster than in New Orleans. In Mississippi, the L.A. Times reports that current Republican governor Haley Barbour is trying to ride the issue of Katrina to re-election:

Haley Barbour, who impressed many with his quick disaster response [to Katrina], now hopes to ride that popularity to a second term...

Barbour, a former lobbyist and chairman of the Republican National Committee, is riding high in Mississippi, where he is widely considered to be the front-runner in Tuesday's election. Campaign finance reports from October showed him with nearly $6 million in cash on hand, compared with $23,000 for his Democratic rival, John Eaves.

Not only is this GOP machine operative who worked for Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign seemingly destined to cruise to re-election as Mississippi's governor, he's being touted as prime vice-presidential material--especially by the likes of Rudy Giuliani. Apparently, Giuliani's decision to place emergency anti-terrorism essentials in the top terrorist target, to fail to integrate emergency responders' communication equipment, and failure to address the concerns of poisonous particulates at the Ground Zero site makes him a perfect comparison with a governor who had the good fortune to have Trent Lott's porch within his territory.

And why would a Republican operative who used fiscal mismanagement as an excuse to cut tens of thousands of poor and elderly from Medicaid have the gall to run on Katrina, even if his response were effective? Well, first there's the partisan Rovian corruption involving federalization that Michael "Brownie" Brown, former head of FEMA, enlightened us about:

Brown, speaking at the Metropolitan College of New York, said he had recommended to President Bush that all 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast affected by the devastating hurricane be federalized, a term Brown explained as placing the federal government in charge of all agencies responding to the disaster.

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it,'" he said, without naming names. "'We can't do it to Haley [Barbour] because Haley's a white male Republican governor. And we can't do a thing to him. So we're just gonna federalize Louisiana.'"

And then there's the less directly overt but still insanely corrupt issue of reconstruction efforts. If you're a Republican, a little open graft never hurts:

The governor's critics, however, contend that his post-storm success was due largely to his Republican friends in Washington. Blanco, who did not seek a second term, has even alleged a "political conspiracy" in which GOP leaders in Washington stiffed Louisiana while lavishing money on Barbour's state...

The governor's supporters said they saw Mississippi shine where Louisiana stumbled. For one thing, Mississippians got their housing recovery money quicker. By January 2007, more than 10,000 Mississippi homeowners had received federal rebuilding grants from the program administered by their state. In Louisiana, fewer than 300 had received their money. (Louisiana officials say the comparison is unfair. Congress began fully funding Mississippi's program six months before theirs; Louisiana has since paid out more than 67,000 grants.)...

Few doubt that Barbour's Washington contacts paid off for Mississippi, especially before Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006. Until then, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) had been chairman of the powerful appropriations committee...

By some measures, Mississippi received a disproportionate share of the federal aid for recovery from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. A study funded by the Rockefeller Institute of Government found that Mississippi had 20% of the major or severe housing damage, but got 33% of the Community Development Block Grant funds. Louisiana had 67% of the damage and received 62% of those funds.

So here's the story: while Bush strummed his guitar and shared birthday cake with John McCain during th, the male former RNC head of a Red State gets to run his own show, get federal monies and assistance far in advance, use his contacts to pull strings, and finds a way to get much more money compared to its needs. He strides ahead in the polls and is on his way to running for the seat currently occuppied by Darth Cheney. And the people couldn't be more thrilled:

Look, I hate lobbyists," said Janet Densmore, 59, a Democrat from the hard-hit coastal city of Waveland. "But I've got to say that in the post-Katrina world, his connections benefited us quite a bit." Densmore was living in a government-provided trailer until September, when she moved into a tiny prefab Katrina Cottage as part of a program that Barbour championed. "And I'm proud of him for it," she said.

Meanwhile, the female Democratic governor of a blue state gets her power removed, is left helpless, gets federal funds in delayed manner, and receives fewer funds overall than needed. She will face a difficult re-election battle.

That's not what you call "misguided", "stubborn", "clueless" or "incompetent." That's what you call "criminally corrupt."

At the very least, if a Republican is going to dare run on Katrina of all things on a local level, the Republican Party as a whole should pay a price on a national level. The public should be reminded of just how competent the Bush Administration is in bestowing political favors to its cronies and allies, while letting the rest of America eat cake.

And that, when all is said and done, from Blackwater to Barbour, should be the final epitaph of this horrid Administration.

Bush Admin Loses Its Weak Claim to Moral Clarity 11 Oct 2007 3:30 PM (17 years ago)

Everyone who has been paying even the remotest attention to the events of the last seven years can say without a shadow of a doubt that this Administration is one of the worst--if not the very worst--in human history. Whether it's allowing the destruction of an entire American city, turning heavy surpluses into record deficits, the hollowing out of the nation's middle class, violating and shredding the U.S. Constitution in a way that would make Richard Nixon shudder, or failing to catch the world's #1 mass murderer and terrorist-in-chief, the points on a possible list of Administration failures of judgment and morality is astounding.

Arguably worse than all of them, of course, was the criminal, irresponsible and immoral move to attack and occupy Iraq at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and the desecration of America's image abroad.

Throughout all of this, however, the Bush Administration's one single line of rhetorical defense for its actions has been an appeal to a childish, simplistic view of moral clarity. Why more tax cuts for the rich? Because the people should keep their money, not government. Why torture and shred the Constitution? Gotta do what it takes to defend the American people. Why stay in Iraq? Gotta defeat the terrorists. It's the bumper-sticker party writ large: there's good, and there's evil--and America's on the side of good.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the Republican arguments for attacking Iran. We must attack Iran, we are told, because they are developing nuclear weapons and their President has made threatening statements toward Israel. And what do we constantly hear is one of the biggest proofs that Iranian President Ahmadinejad is an evil nut who must be attacked? That he is a holocaust denier. What sort of evil man would ever deny the fact of the Jewist Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis?

The America of the Bush Administration does not stand for such things. The America of the Bush Administration does not condone mass murdering terrorists and holocaust deniers. The America of the Bush Administration does not negotiate with evil regimes responsible for barbarous acts of cruelty (though we do little to stop the violence in Darfur or in Burma). The America of the Bush Administration knows black from white, white from black (especially in New Orleans, apparently). The Bush Administration, we are told, has the moral clarity necessary to condemn evil wherever it is (don't look into any mirrors, boys!).

Until, of course, it becomes inconvenient. This week the Democratic House Committee Foreign Affairs passed a resolution condemning as "genocide" the 1915 exportation and massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish authorities. In response, Turkey has recalled its ambassador and made condemnations of its own. In spite of Turkey's protestations, there can be no doubt that the actions of the Ottoman Empire were deliberate, cruel and directed squarely at the Armenian people; living as I do near a community of Armenians, it is difficult to express and the anger and anguish still strongly felt by this proud people about what they view as insufficient attention and admission of wrongdoing given to one of the worst genocides in human history. In fact, 22 other countries have already expressed the view that the Armenian Massacre was indeed a genocide The Bush Administration's stance?

The measure passed on Wednesday despite extraordinary last-minute efforts by Bush Administration officials, including the President himself, to have it shelved out of concern that it could hurt relations with a key NATO ally and affect U.S. troops in Iraq.

And why would the Bush Administration be so desperate to placate Turkey?

Seventy percent of American air cargo and a third of the fuel the U.S. uses in neighboring Iraq passes through the its air base in Incirlik in southern Turkey. Prior to the bill's passage, Turkish politicians had warned of possible retaliation by blocking the use of Incirlik...It comes as Washington tries to persuade Turkey not to launch a military operation into north Iraq to pursue separatist Kurdish guerrillas who are based there and who have been staging increasingly violent attacks in southeast Turkey. The U.S. is opposed to any such move, fearful that it could disrupt Kurdish-controlled north Iraq, the only relatively stable area in the country.

But the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is under huge public pressure after several deadly attacks by Kurdish guerrillas in the southeast that have killed 30 people in under two weeks. Members of Turkey's parliament are due to vote on allowing a cross-border military incursion next week, and the military machine is already preparing. "After the U.S. House vote, the Turkish public is going to think tit for tat," says Birand. "This is going to strengthen the nationalists, including the position of those people who want us to invade north Iraq."

Honestly, it is not for me to decide what is the right thing to do in this situation. From an emotional standpoint that takes justice and history into account, my heart goes out to the Armenian people and demands a recognition of the immense suffering to which they were subjected by a government and by a world that largely refuses to acknowledge it. From a rational standpoint, it is stupid realpolitik to be upsetting Turkey at the moment and potentially causing untold suffering today--especially over an issue that is over 90 years old and concerns a government that no longer functionally exists.

It is, in short, a gray moral area, fraught with the sort of complexity and difficulty so often overlooked and repudiated by the Bush Administration.

And yet, the Administration has explicitly chosen the realpolitik of attempting to salvage an impossible occupation of Iraq, over the moral clarity of condemning the very real genocide of 1.5 million people.

No matter what happens from here or what the right course of action is, one thing is absolutely certain: we should never have to hear again from outraged Republicans about Ahmadinejad's populist denials of the Holocaust, since they themselves refuse to acknowledge holocausts when it is politically convenient to them. We should never have to hear again from George Bush about the necessity to confront murderous regimes. Democrats should never again be tagged as moral sissies afraid to call an evil spade a spade, while Republicans stand up for human rights and against genocide regardless of the consequences.

Because the Bush Administration's last flimsy grasp on the issue of moral clarity has just disappeared.

Progressive: the OTHER Third Way 11 Oct 2007 3:28 PM (17 years ago)

Among the many prevailing bits of tragically misguided conventional wisdom is the idea that the word "progressive" can be used interchangeably with the word "liberal". Pundits use the words as synonyms, while pollsters like John Zogby use a measurement scale of political stances where the position farthest to the left is "progressive/very liberal". Even many on our side have a great deal of difficulty attempting to define the difference.

Most of the time, "progressive" is seen as the positive, new framing of the word "liberal", which is supposed to have been artificially stripped of its positive connotations by conservative ideologues. The best example of this view was seen in Hillary Clinton's response at the Democratic Youtube debate.

This particular view of things may to comforting to those of us on the left: it allows us to avoid painful divisions within our own party and movement, and it gives us a powerful word we can use both to rally our friends and attack our enemies.

The problem is that progressives very different from liberals--and we will never truly capture the hearts and minds of the American voter until we make the separation clear. Until we demonstrate this difference to the American public, we will always be just one major fear-inducing attack or catastrophe away from a terrified return to authoritarian impulses. It gets a little in-depth from here, but please bear with me: it's worth it.

While the battle between left and right has been going on since the beginning of civilization, the conflict between Liberalism and Conservatism as we have come to understand them in Western society today really begins with the Renaissance and the Humanist break from the strict hierarchies of feudalism and the Church, and comes full bloom with the Age of Enlightenment.

While the subject is obviously far too complex to adequately distill into a blog post, the essential battle lines between Liberalism and Conservativism traditionally rested on a conflict about fundamental human nature: from the theological conservatives of the Middle Ages to the Burkeian conservatives of the modern era, traditional Conservatism rests on a belief that mankind is basically evil--and that established authoritarian traditions are the only thing keeping human society from falling into chaos and sin. Traditional Liberalism, on the other hand, rests on the premise that human nature is essentially good--and therefore that given equal opportunities and a lack of inequalities that give rise to conflict, mankind can achieve a future devoid of tyranny, war and suffering. Conservatives, therefore, are traditionally wary of change and apt to view government as a tool essential to the preservation of order, while Liberals traditionally embrace change while putting a premium on individual liberty.

Obviously, this traditional order has been turned on its head: today, in spite of convincing arguments to the contrary, libertarians align themselves with "conservatives" and "neoconservatives" who make radical alterations (i.e., shredding) to the Constitution, while attempting to make radical alterations to the world map with the use of American troops. Meanwhile, "Liberals" find themselves in the uncomfortable position of appealing to the tradition of checks and balances while being more cautious about the posssibility of making rapid changes for the promotion of human liberty abroad, while "neoliberals" interested in "free markets" align themselves (in a most confusing turn of events) with "neoconservatives".

When "neoliberal" and "neoconservative" mean much the same thing, you know it is time for a reconception of the political divide, and a re-evaluation of what we mean by "left" and "right" in this country. kid oakland's fantastic diary on October 7th presents an excellent overview of this thesis--an argument I have also made less eloquently in various fits and starts.

Both Conservatism and Liberalism traditionally understood are at points of nearly disastrous crisis. For Conservatives, the decline of belief in organized religions, the abnegation of longstanding traditions and the extraordinary pace of societal change are terrifying. More terrifying, however, is that fact that society seems to be humming along fine without the need for culture-preserving authoritarian controls: if a multicultural, multiracial, polyglottal, areligious, semi-socialist society can function without adverse consequences, the entire premise of Conservatism is shot. Canada and Western Europe prove the failure of Conservatism every single day, causing great gnashing of teeth and extraordianry antipathy.

For Liberals, on the other hand, the 20th Century served to disprove any notion of the essential goodness of human nature, of the promise of Marxist thinking, or of the ability to transcend war, inequality and suffering. Nietzschian humanism helped give rise to Hitler; Marxism helped lead to the greatest atrocities in human history; and the great Aquarian revolution of the 1960's couldn't even keep that very same baby boom generation from voting in droves for Ronald Reagan.

What we are left with today in the 21st century is a situation nearly unparalleled in human history: on the one hand, the world is more diverse, globalized and uprooted from its traditions than ever before--leading to undeniable progress and prosperity. On the other hand, human beings have been shown capable of a massive selfishness, cruelty and destruction to one another and to our environments that not even our conservative ancestors could have imagined possible.

This is where Progressivism comes in. Progressivism is a new third way that is based not in liberal or conservative ideology but in the pragmatism of reality. Progressivism makes no pretense about the essentially selfish nature of the human condition--but also makes no pretense that cultural bigotry or authoritarian strictures will make any improvement upon it. Progressivism understands that the only way to improve conditions for ourselves and our environment is to look at what works for the common good and what doesn't--regardless of ideology or tradition.

Progressives appeal to the system of checks and balances and to the protections of the Constitution because they are the best way to maximize liberty while protecting us from the selfish interests of the powerful.

Progressives shy away from unprovoked military action overseas because we understand the reality of blowback and difficulty of imposing one culture on another through military force. We do not, however, oppose military action when truly necessary to defend ourselves, or because we are anti-war in general: after all, there really are some very bad people out there who do want to do us harm.

Progressives fear the power of corporations more than that of governments because governments can ostensibly work for the common good when an effective watchdog media is in place, while corporations will only ever work for the bottom line.

Progressives are content to let the free market do its thing when the market is truly free and the consumer is best served--but we are also quick to intercede when the markets are manipulated or cornered, and the consumer is being abused.

Progressives want to do something about the climate crisis if for no other reason than because the cost of inaction will be far greater, on a pragmatic basis, than the cost of action.

Progressives understand that while no one race or people are superior to any other, fundamentalism of any stripe or creed is always dangerous and must be opposed at every turn.

------------------------------------------

In short, a Progressive uses a pragmatic approach to solving the world's problems, one step at a time and without regard to ideology, with an eye toward the common good. A Progressive is not a starry-eyed liberal who believes in the essential goodness of human nature, or that all wars can be avoided through better diplomacy, or that all cultures and creeds are created equal.

Progressivism is, in short, a real new way forward that upends traditional divisions between the left and right, liberals and conservatives.

And if we make that distinction clear, we can establish ourselves as the vision of optimism and clarity that will lead in the 21st Century. If we fail to do so, we will be painted as pie-in-the-sky idealists unfit to lead the nation in times of peril when liberalism is once again shown to be an inadequate theory for solving the problems of the human condition.

You MUST see this film 8 Oct 2007 2:06 PM (17 years ago)

It has taken some time, but Hollywood is finally taking the gloves off and punching hard at the administration with unveiled force. Buoyed by artists, actors and producers passionately committed to promoting a serious political message of desperate straits and a need for public activism, this newfound courage has resulted in at least one film that deserves highest praise both for artistry of cinema, depth of emotion, and complexity of message. The film to which I refer is called Lions for Lambs, and will be distributed for general audience on November 9th and stars Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and Robert Redford (who directs as well). To use a trite but appliacable cliche, if you see only one non-documentary film this year, make it be this one--you won't be disappointed.

It is interesting to see the evolution Hollywood has taken over the last couple of years. Whereas before we were treated to thinly veiled allegorical and not-so-allegorical critiques of Republican ideology and American foreign policy in films such as V for Vendetta, Syriana, Children of Men, or even Star Wars Ep. III: Revenge of the Sith, it seems that this fall we are starting to see an explosion of films that are explicitly targeted at and based in current events. In addition to Lions for Lambs, there is also the upcoming Rendition, a film starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep about NSA wiretapping, harsh interrogation techniques and extraordinary rendition; In the Valley of Elah starring Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron, which looks at the psychological impact of the war on soldiers returning home; and The Kingdom currently in theaters and starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner, which explores the complications of American foreign policy in Saudi Arabia and beyond. It will be interesting to see how the public reacts--both at the box office and in the general culture.

Not having seen The Kingdom, In the Valley of Elah or Rendition as of yet, I cannot speak for their merits. I can, however, speak for Lions for Lambs. I was invited to see the film at a small private screening at MGM's tower in Century City: the producers are showing the film to select members of the political establishment, as well as the traditional and new media. Mickey Kaus of Kausfiles at Slate had been invited to see the film but couldn't make it--and after our BlogTalkRadio debate a couple of weeks ago he decided to refer the invitation to me.

I'm glad I was invited, and it is clear why the producers are showing people this film in advance with great confidence. Lions for Lambs is an extroardinary film that deals unflinchingly with our current political predicament, covering nearly every aspect of societal failure and distributing blame across the board in a plea to the American public to get out of their fantasy-land doldrums and get involved in the political process. The film follows three threads: Robert Redford as a UCLA political science professor attempting to motivate a privileged, apathetic but brilliant student; two young soldiers surrounded by enemy forces in a botched "new strategy" mission in Afghanistan; and Tom Cruise as an ambitious, talented, warmongering Republican Senator giving Meryl Streep's seasoned political reporter exclusive access for a story on the "new strategy."

It is a testament to the beauty and complexity of the film (and the subtle, incisive quality of the performances) that no one comes away looking good from this film, and yet no one comes away as a blackhearted villain, either. Tom Cruise's Republican Senator is perhaps the most despicable character in the film--and yet, he comes across less as venal and corrupt than he does arrogant and wilfully ignorant of history in his desperation to find a solution to the intractable foreign policy problem he and his Party helped create. Robert Redford's professor is perhaps the most likeable, and yet the consequences of his influence have mixed results, and we are left to wonder whether he himself might not be capable of doing much more to make a difference. The film provides no easy answers, or even easy targets; while there are a few important public policy points that I would quibble with (removing forces from Afghanistan is painted as equivalent to removing them from Iraq for some strange reason, and invading Iraq was painted more as a product of post-9/11 hysteria than as the direct result of neoconservative malice aforethought), the overall effect remains complex, powerful and mostly on target.

The painful lesson of the film is that the greatest evils are those that we do just in the name of getting by and going along: the apathy of students who fear a lifetime of debt and figure that their lives will be unaffected by whether they attempt to make a difference or not; the near irrelevance of educators ensconced in their institutions; the corporate media hierarchy serving up entertainment rather than news because it helps feed the bottom line; the reporters themselves unable or unwilling to report real stories for fear of their jobs; the soldiers and generals simply acting on the orders of civilian politicians not qualified to be ordering them; and the politicians trying to get re-elected while supposedly making the best of a botched situation.

The film's title is taken from a quote relayed by Redford's character and attributed to a German commander from World War I, stating that the British soldiers were like lions, but that their bravery was wasted by British commanders who were like lambs. The reference was, of course, to the American servicemen and servicewomen in Iraq and Afghanistan whose heroism is being wasted by cowardly and incompetent civilian "leadership" here at home--and betrayed by the apathy and cowardice of the American population at large, and by the Democratic political opposition (though the film only barely touches upon the last point). The parallel is strikingly apt, and the call to action, while late at this point entering the fall of 2007, could not come at a better time as we prepare for the Iraq Supplemental fight in January of 2008.

It is a rare thing for a fictional film to achieve the heights of complexity and clarion call to action of a progressive documentary--but this one gets the job done in a way that I believe will be palatable to the average American in both Red and Blue areas. The drama, editing and riveting performances are the sugar that may help the medicine of activist change go down a little easier for the general public. Every little bit helps when it comes to affecting public opinion and driving change: I encourage everyone to see this movie when it comes out in November, and to tell all your non-political friends to see it as well.

If you're interested, the trailer for the film can also be found here.

Why It's So Important that Hillary be Defeated 28 Sep 2007 12:16 AM (17 years ago)

I have refrained so far from explicitly coming out in favor of any Democratic presidential candidate, or of explicitly bashing any of our presidentials. In fact, many may remember my post I would work hard for a Hillary/Lieberman ticket, in which I took the position that getting Republicans out of the White House was too imperative to allow intra-party fights to sour our work ethic and enthusiasm.

But now I must insist on the importance of explicitly coming out against the Hillary juggernaut. As is obvious from observing the recommended list on any given day, many here are already boosting their own preferred candidates in a hope of defeatign Hillary for the Democratic nomination. But the majority of progressive bloggers here and elsewhere are taking more of a wait-and-see approach to this primary--partially, I am sure, in a desire to avoid the sorts of meltdowns that took place in the wake of Howard Dean's narrow loss in the 2004 primaries.

The first reason for my change in attitude about this election can be found in my post from yesterday titled The Time for Radical Change is NOW. As much as America cannot afford 4 to 8 more years of Republican leadership, America cannot much better stand 4 to 8 years of middling lack of leadership on ticking time-bomb issues that require immediate, radical attention: reversing the income inequality gap, significantly curbing carbon emissions, and defunding the military-industrial complex (which includes, of course, withdrawing troops from Iraq.)

But the second reason is one that strikes close to home for the netroots: if Hillary wins, it will not be seen as a victory for both progressives and Democrats, or a mandate for progressive values. No matter how far to the left Hillary tacks in the primary to make herself seen as a viable agent of change (laughable as that may seem to us), her eventual victory will be seen as nothing less than a huge slap in the face to the netroots progressive movement, and a vindication of DLC ideology.

If you doubt this, look no further than today's preening and repulsive column by Washington darling David Brooks in the New York Times. In the tauntingly titled "The Center Holds", Brooks takes the opportunity to disparage the entire progressive movement and the netroots by using a single cudgel: Hillary's increasing lead in national Democratic Party polls.

In the beginning of August, liberal bloggers met at the YearlyKos convention while centrist Democrats met at the Democratic Leadership Council’s National Conversation. Almost every Democratic presidential candidate attended YearlyKos, and none visited the D.L.C.

At the time, that seemed a sign that the left was gaining the upper hand in its perpetual struggle with the center over the soul of the Democratic Party. But now it’s clear that was only cosmetic.

Now it’s evident that if you want to understand the future of the Democratic Party you can learn almost nothing from the bloggers, billionaires and activists on the left who make up the “netroots.” You can learn most of what you need to know by paying attention to two different groups — high school educated women in the Midwest, and the old Clinton establishment in Washington.

The reason, says Brooks, is Hillary's lead in the national polls--which stands in opposition to the prevailing preference of the progressive blogosphere and many of the educated activists in Hollywood and elsewhere. Meanwhile, says Brooks, the DLC is still firmly in the driver's seat when it comes to making policy in the Democratic Party:

Clinton has established this lead by repudiating the netroots theory of politics. As the journalist Matt Bai makes clear in his superb book, “The Argument,” the netroots emerged in part in rebellion against Clintonian politics. They wanted bold colors and slashing attacks. They didn’t want their politicians catering to what Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of the Daily Kos calls “the mythical middle.”

But Clinton has relied on Mark Penn, the epitome of the sort of consultant the netroots reject, and Penn’s approach has been entirely vindicated by the results so far.

In a series of D.L.C. memos with titles like “The Decisive Center,” Penn has preached that while Republicans can win by appealing only to conservatives, Democrats must appeal to centrists as well as liberals. In his new book, “Microtrends,” he casts a caustic eye on the elites and mega-donors of both parties who are out of touch with average voter concerns.

Fourth, the netroots are losing the policy battles. As Matt Bai’s reporting also suggests, the netroots have not been able to turn their passion and animus into a positive policy agenda. Democratic domestic policy is now being driven by old Clinton hands like Gene Sperling and Bruce Reed.

Moreover, Brooks argues that in spite of the lip-service Democratic politicians may offer the netroots, the kowtowing and cowardly votes that the Congressional Dems make are reflective not of fear of Republican retaliation, but rather of their own (outdated) views of the electorate.

The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots’ self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don’t blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses.

My point here is not to argue with Brooks' self-satisfied pompous idiocy. It would be too easy to point to polls showing that voters prefer Democrats to Republicans on handling terrorism. It would be too obvious to point out that the electorate can no longer be described as conservative, or that the views of the public do not reside in vaccuum, untouched by recent events and experiences. It would be too simple to point out the victories of self-described progressives and the losses of DLC dems in 2006, or to indicate that Clinton's strong name recognition among those who barely pay attention to politics may be helping her significantly--especially since the attack ads haven't yet begun. It would be too facile to demonstrate that preference for presidential candidates is dependent on a variety of factors, arguably the least important of which is specific policy views.

None of that is the point. The point is that in the noxious air of Washington, D.C., in which the major decisions are made, people like Brooks will misguidedly see a Hillary victory as a reason to breathe a sigh of relief and remain comfortable with a lack of serious change in the way business is done in American government. Regardless of the reality of the situation, Hillary's inauguration will be nothing less than confirmation of the prevailing wisdom of the status quo--just with a little less swagger and explicit giveaways to Wall Street, the oil industry, and military contractors.

Hillary, unfortunately, has made her stance clear--and that tiger isn't going to change its stripes. She is the DLC candidate, and she is intending on staying that way. And as far as she has swung left in order to capture the Democratic primary, she'll swing just that far back to the center in the general election, working under the misguided theory that she must do so in order to appeal to "moderate" voters (who, by and large, actually stand to the left of the Party overall on most issues).

And because she has chosen that strategy, the actual repercussions of her hypothetical victory are beyond the control of us, the Congress, or even Hillary herself. The message that will be sent to America at large is that while Bush's excesses will be gone, nothing major will actually change--and "the adults" like Broder will still be firmly in charge.

For that reason, if for no other, there can no longer be any ambivalence about Hillary's candidacy among the netroots. This is not an issue of some better and some worse candidates from among a good field. The battle has been pitched by the Beltway class: either she wins, they get vindicated, and we lose--or we win, she loses, and people like David Broder are forced to explain just what happened to their precious conventional wisdom.

There's just no other way.

The Time for Radical Change is NOW 28 Sep 2007 12:15 AM (17 years ago)

I want to make a frank admission today: I'm beginning to lose faith in the power of political change. I'm beginning to lose faith in the power of activism. I don't feel like blogging, or supporting candidates, or uncovering the latest Republican scandal (though there seems to be a new one every day.) Attempting to shame the media once again into reporting some real news with regard for the actual truth, instead of serving yet again as a corporate infotainment venue, seems a notion so futile at this point it's almost quaint. I certainly don't see why I should bang my head against a wall hounding some braindead Democratic politician to support the most obvious, politically popular and strategically astute pieces of legislation.

I'm losing faith because the timelines even of progressive bloggers are too damn slow to make a difference. I'm losing faith because the minor changes being proposed to the way we do business as a nation are going to be utterly overpowered by the radical changes that will be forced upon us by external necessity. The time for demanding radical change, in short, is now--or there's little point in being politically engaged.

The principal reason for this goes to the very heart of why we have a government. The government exists for the purpose of long-term planning: primarily to protect its people from the byproducts of their own shortsighted ignorance, greed and stupidity, and to provide services that the people could never provide of their own accord without the benefit of long-term planning. Left alone and unregulated, the "free market" will accrue wealth and influence among the very few, whose shortsighted greed eventually causes a democratic system to collapse into oligarchy and tyranny--just as surely as the lack of an urban police force will cause the rise to power of criminal gangs and mafias. Without the influence reality-based, far-sighted thinkers, society is doomed to lurch from crisis to crisis, and entire civilizations to the cyclical rise and collapse that seems depressingly endemic to the human condition.

Today, any intelligent attempt at long-term planning for America and the world literally cries out for radical change. By any objective measure, the time for drastically changing the way we do business in this country is already well past due--and the gulf between what is seen as politically feasible, and what we need to do to save our skins, is simply enormous. Let's look at the issues, shall we?

The Climate Crisis

With every new emerging report, our deadline for acting to mitigate the climate crisis draws shorter and shorter--and the effects of failure to act become more and more severe. With every new report, the predictions of temperature increases and ice melts predicted for years or even decades from now are proving to be happening already. The latest report, published in the British paper The Independent (h/t to dkos diarist Barcelona for bringing this to our attention yesterday), put it in starkest terms yet:

A rise of two degrees centigrade in global temperatures – the point considered to be the threshold for catastrophic climate change which will expose millions to drought, hunger and flooding – is now "very unlikely" to be avoided, the world's leading climate scientists said yesterday...

Two years ago, an authoritative study predicted there could be as little as 10 years before this "tipping point" for global warming was reached ...

"Even if we achieve a cap at two degrees, there is a stock of major impacts out there already and that means adaptation. You cannot mitigate your way out of this problem... The choice (now)is between a damaged world or a future with a severely damaged world."

It's not just that the climate is changing increasingly for the worse: the rate of detrimental change is rapidly increasing. Even if we made major legislative changes today, it is unclear just how much effect we would be able to have on the problem by the time those changes in the law resulted in changes to corporate and popular behavior.

Certainly, if we wait until the expiry of George Bush's term in office, the effect will be that much more muted, and the problem that much more severe. If we wait over a decade until we have courageous progressives in office (and presuming that cyclical political winds haven't shifted back in conservative directions by then), the train will have already left the station with no hope of recall. And none of this even gets into the problem that controlling our own behavior is only the first step: putting pressure on China and other nations in Asia to do their part is also necessary to deal with the crisis--something that can only be done once we have the credibility and moral high ground on the issue to make any demands.

Meanwhile, our Democrats can't even put increased CAFE standards or a decent feebate system into their latest energy bill. Unbelievable.

The Economy

The Republican Party has so screwed over the American People that it is difficult to know where to begin, or even what measures to take in attempting to mitigate the problem. The upward redistribution of wealth in the United States has occurred at such a rapid pace over the last 25 years that it is genuinely surprising that there is a middle class left. Certainly, Bill Clinton was no economic saint, as he did less than nothing to stem the collapse of the American manufacturing sector or to close the increasing gap between rich and poor. Even so, he left us with a balanced budget and huge economic surpluses--in spite of the landmines and booby traps left for him by the Republican Congress.

Meanwhile, the economic surpluses and strengthened middle class left to us by Bill Clinton have been transformed by Reverse Midas Bush into massive deficits, a huge national debt, and an American Dollar now being sunk into an inflationary spiral in a vain attempt to mitigate the housing and liquidity crisis caused by (surprise!) a shortsighted and greedy lending, banking and finance industry. Not, of course, that America has an exporting sector left to take advantage of a weak Dollar. And, of course, the Republican Party, aided and abetted by spineless Democrats, have ensured that declaring bankruptcy is now next to impossible.

The only real economy left now is that of the Plutonomy: as long as the rich spend money like water and the American middle class goes deeper and deeper into debt, the GDP continues to hum along nicely even as the system itself hollows out like a rotted tree. As I stated in my post The Economy of the Rich, by the Rich and For the Rich, all the industries that cater to the wealthy are performing beautifully, even as the rest of us take the dregs of what they provide and struggle (usually underemployed) in recessionary conditions. It was difficult to know whether to laugh or the cry as I watched CNBC yesterday, and the commentators were expressing shock that rising energy prices didn't seem to be having a dampening effect on economic growth: the idiots who currently run the system don't seem to understand the economics of a Plutonomy--if only the rich are driving economic growth, little things like rising energy costs that don't affect them, won't affect economic growth.

What is required to even attempt to fix this situation is a far-sighted plan to reward work instead of wealth, to reverse the trend of income inequality, and to invest in the sorts of biological and energy technology fields that will provide the good jobs of the future.

Obama and Edwards have each come out with some good-looking plans to accomplish some of these things. The problem (beyond the fact that neither of them, unfortunately, looks set to win the Democratic nomination) is that by the time they take office and fight to pass some of these programs through Congress, it will already be late 2009 or 2010: far too late to undo the damage occurring to the American Economy at incraesingly rapid pace.

The War

It is obviously important to stand and fight to end the Occupation of Iraq as soon as possible. And yet, while the Senate and the President bicker over just how many American troops stay in Iraq and for how long, the bigger and much more important picture is going completely unaddressed. While progressives fight to end this war/occuaption, we are leaving ourselves completely vulnerable to going into the next war on the slightest pretext or excuse.

Progressives are failing to address how we got dragged into Iraq in the first place. Anyone who has read American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips and Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson knows that we are in Iraq for two reasons: 1) to protect oil resources, and 2) to help perpetuate the military-industrial complex.

As long as America continues to be hopelessly dependent on oil, and as long as America continues to increase the amount of money and the size of its economy dependent on warmaking (the film Why We Fight is a must-see on this topic), America will continue to wage oil wars overseas. It might be Iraq today, but it will be Iran tomorrow. Or maybe Venezuela. Or maybe a Caspian nation. Or perhaps an oil-rich nation in Africa. Heck, maybe even China a decade from now.

Until and unless we make the major structural changes and bold moves necessary to decrease military spending, create an Apollo Program for new energy, and devolve the military-industrial complex, Iraq will be just one in a long series of expensive and crippling oil wars that bring our nation to its knees just as surely as the overreaches of the Roman and British Empires destroyed their ability to thrive and function.

And yet, as things stand politically today, the popular move of withdrawing forces from Iraq is seen as too radical a goal to achieve, while reducing military spending is seen as political suicide. If that is truly the case, then there is little point in political advocacy on foreign policy: by the time we wait the decade or two we need for real progressive leadership, Americans will already have endured two or three more destructive oil wars. By then, it will be too late.

-----------------------------------------------------------

In short, the stepping-stone changes we as progressives are attempting to make in American politics are too little, too late. We don't have five, ten, twenty years to do something about global warming, about the hollow economy, about the oil-military-industrial complex.

The time for demanding radical change and serious guts from our politicians is now. Small-scale gains and trading out Republicans for Democrats on a case-by-case basis, election by election, isn't even close to enough. We need major, serious change--and quickly. We need the current crop of Democrats to stand up and fight; we can't wait another ten years.

Otherwise, the long-term planning required of government will be superfluous: the painful changes that are demanded of us now, will be forced upon us tomorrow or else we, as a democratic nation, will fall into the dustbin of history. Either way, it won't be pretty.

The Economy of the Rich, by the Rich, and for the Rich 10 Sep 2007 2:56 PM (17 years ago)

As anyone closely following economic news knows, the American economy lost 4,000 jobs in August, even as analysts had expected job gains of over 100,000--a fact that caused tremors in the markets, even as fed bank presidents played down the results as a temporary aberration from a strong economy.

These assertions of a strong economy are based on a variety of misleading indicators, but principally rest on retail sales and consumer spending. As Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank president Dennis Lockhart said today, the recent bad news

should be evaluated with recently positive reports in retail sales...readings from July show that consumer spending remained strong.

Ignoring for a moment that heavy retail spending by the American consumer is only made possible by increases in consumer debt, it is important to note that consumer spending accounts for 70% of U.S. GDP; if Americans slow their spending significantly, the consequences for the global economy would range from harsh to dire.

The only problem is, consumer spending is propped up almost enitrely by the rich, while the middle class and certainly the impoverished struggle on valiantly in conditions that are little different from those of a recession. This disturbing but unsurpising phenomenon was reported on this Friday in a fantastic article by Daniel Gross in Slate, titled Will the Rich Save the Economy? The full article is fairly short and well worth the read--it's dificult to pull the juiciest parts and still fall within fair use. As Gross says, the incomes of the wealthy have increased dramatically; with those increases have come a concomitant rise in spending at the shopping venues they frequent.

First, the incomes:

And how are the rich doing? Quite well, thank you. Median income has been stagnant lo these many years, as the Census Bureau reported last month, and it is still below the level of 1999. But as David Cay Johnston reported (article purchase required) in the New York Times last month, people making more than $1 million "reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000" and "received 62 percent of the savings from the reduced tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends that President Bush signed into law in 2003." Jonathan Chait's excellent new book, The Big Con, smartly argues that such outcomes are the intentional results of economic policies designed to redistribute income upward. (Few members of the Bush economic team will cop to the intent.)

Actually, I can verify this intent with more than just numbers. I had the personal opportunity to hear Commerce Secretary Gutierrez tell an audience of CEOs and CFOs in Washington D.C. (more on this to come in future posts, I promise) last month that he viewed it as the federal government's job to allocate as much capital as possible in their hands in order, ostensibly, to spur investment and growth in the global economy. Most progressives would argue that this upward redistribution of wealth is pure theft by Republicans to reward themselves and their wealthy donors. I am convinced, however, that it goes beyond even that: Republicans, by hollowing out the middle class economy, have created a situation wherein the rich must continue getting richer, or else the entire economic house of cards will collapse on their heads. Consumer spending is the most prominent example of how the rich are the only ones keeping the American economy from sputtering into the ground. After all, even as sales figures from mainstream retailers such as Wal-Mart, JC Penney and Sears have faltered, retailers catering to the wealthy are booming:

At Saks, same-store sales in August were up a stunning 18.2 percent; at Tiffany, same-store U.S. sales rose 17 percent in the second quarter. Indeed, luxury retailers are in an expansive mood. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week (subscription required) that "this year, some 30 high-end retailers have opened boutiques in Austin [Texas], including Tiffany & Co., Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, David Yurman, Louis Vuitton and Burberry." These stores are located in a new mall anchored by Neiman Marcus, where same-store sales rose a healthy 4.6 percent in August. Among the strongest performers: "designer handbags, shoes, designer jewelry, women's fine apparel, and men's."

This phenomenon has been written about extensively, of course. My favorite term for it is Plutonomy: an economy that is driven by and/or that disproportionately benefits wealthy people. In a plutonomy, energy prices or unemployment numbers have muted impact on overall consumer spending, since they don't significantly affect the wealthy. In a plutonomy, retail sales in mainstream stores fall, but consumer spending remains "strong" due to heavy spending on ultra-expensive items and niche investments. In a plutonomy, asset bubbles that fall in the general market continue to rise in the tony markets. Another such example of this plutonomy, as Gross says, is in real estate:

Nationwide, the housing sales market may be a bust. But the Journal reports (subscription required) Friday morning that while many California housing markets suffer, "[e]ye-popping sales are spreading along a 40-mile stretch of southern Santa Barbara County." In July, sales in the area, "the only region of California where the median sales prices surpassed $1 million," rose nearly 28 percent. Publicly held home builders that cater to middle-class buyers are faring poorly. But the very wealthy are still building. This 50,000-square-foot home under construction in West Hartford, Ct., is worth 20 starter homes—and probably more, given the amenities. Or take personal transport. While auto sales are down, "the market for private jets is stronger than it has ever been," said Richard Aboulafia, analyst at the Teal Group. Economically speaking, a Gulfstream G550, which is made in the United States and goes for $48 million, is worth the equivalent of 3,200 Ford Focus coupes, which go for about $15,000 each.

This is the product, of course, of a redistribution of income and economic power from the middle class to the wealthy--a redistribution that has been taking place on massive scales virtually unabated since Reagan, and accelerated under George W. Bush. This trend has been partly due to the pressures of global trade, but mostly due to an intentional scheme of income displacement fostered and brought about by hyper-conservative and corporate ideology. Reagan, Bushes I and II, Norquist, Gringrich, Rove and corporate K-street have conspired each in their own way to create an economy in which Main Street is no longer connected to Wall Street--unless, of course, Wall Street suffers major losses. In that case, Main Street becomes a Brazilified place of increasingly disquiet desperation.

And that is exactly what we are in danger of today. While the American middle class suffers in a recessionary environment, the only things that continue to prop up the house-of-cards economy are the stock market and real estate gains of the wealthy. The stupidity, greed and sheer incompetence of the uber-rich and their Republican allies, however, has resulted in exploitation of the middle class through the very credit and mortgage ponzi schemes that are now causing such fear and even panic in the financial markets. Add poor employment numbers, a declining dollar, an unpopular, expensive and disastrous foreign occuption, huge trade and national deficients, and slow mainstream retail sales to the list of economic downward pressures on the investment markets, and the situation becomes even more precarious.

In the old days, if stocks lost significant value, the country could count on the resilience of the American middle class to absorb Wall Street's shock and excess, take cuts, send more family members into the labor force and rely on savings during periods of income instability. No longer. Now that the entire economy, such as it is, depends on the spending of the very wealthy, it is almost unthinkable to imagine what will take place once the trust find kiddies lose their trust funds and the rich get spooked by evaporating paper wealth. And yet here we are.

But that's what you get when you create an economy of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.

Hear me on Meet the Bloggers 9 Sep 2007 9:07 AM (17 years ago)

Just got off a great Meet the Bloggers show hosted by Joh Padgett, where we discussed Iraq, the presidential candidates, and the shaky state of American Democracy. Give it a listen!

Hear nyceve LIVE @ 8pmEST talking healthcare w/ me & clammyc! 6 Sep 2007 6:25 PM (17 years ago)

You've read her magnificent diaries time and again on the rec list over at Daily Kos--now hear nyceve in her own voice talking about this all-important issue with me and clammyc tonight at 5pmPST/8pmEST on BlogTalkRadio!

As many here may already be aware, clammyc and I have regular internet radio shows every week on BlogTalkRadio which we also post to our radio blog Political Nexus. In addition to our regular shows Framework and Don't Hijack My Thread, we also do hour-long interviews with netroots candidates and bloggers: click the links for our interviews with Digby on Impeachment, Armando on the first Iraq Supplemental this year and MSOC on abortion.

Tonight will be nyceve's turn in the spotlight to talk about the failed American for-profit healthcare system. Among the issues we will be touching on include:

• Personal stories from nyceve's professional experiences in medicine
• nyceve's panel at YearlyKos 2007 in Chicago
• Michael Moore's Sicko
• recent actions by the American Cancer Society
• SCHIP
• the benefits and drawbacks of various solutions to the growing healthcare crisis in America
• and much more

Again, don't miss this opportunity to hear nyceve in her own voice live on Blogtalkradio. Click here tonight at 5pmPST/8pmEST to listen to the show, or you can come back later and get the interview off our blog at Political Nexus.

See you there!

Top 4 GOP Candidates Refuse "Moral Values" Debate 6 Sep 2007 6:24 PM (17 years ago)

Much as tonight's laughable GOP debate has garnered media and blogosphere attention today, it may have been easy to overlook yet another telling GOP debate story: the snubbing of a social conservative so-called "values voter" debate. This debate, scheduled for September 17th and hosted by ultra wingnutty ValuesVoter.org (I refuse to provide a link), will be attended by most of the 2nd-tier contenders for the GOP nod, but will be avoided by McCain (though he's pretty much 2nd-tier now), Romney, Giuliani and Freddy.

The Murdoch-infested New York Sun has the story:

If self-styled "values voters" have felt snubbed by the Republican presidential candidates this election season, that snubbing is now official.

Mayor Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, and Senator McCain are all declining to participate in a September 17 debate in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that's being hosted by an umbrella social-conservative group called ValuesVoter.org. Social conservatives will be upset; other conservatives might well be heartened by the waning power of the religious right.

A number of second-tier Republican candidates have confirmed attendance at the event, according to the news site WorldNetDaily.com, whose editor, Joseph Farah, is slated to moderate the debate. They include Rep. Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Rep. Tom Tancredo, Senator Brownback, Rep. Ron Paul, and John Cox.

Much as the top-tier GOP candidates scrambled tonight to please the Neanderthal Christianist mirror-image of the Taliban that comprises an increasingly large portion of the Republican base, their refusal to attend this event was extremely telling: several major players in the Christian Conservative movement including anti-feminist icon Phyllis Schlafly will be asking questions, and the debate will be streamed over the Internet and on satellite television. In many ways--from media coverage to political environment (strong activist base), failure to attend this debate would be similar to a Democratic candidate refusing to attend YearlyKos. It's a duck of extremely significant proportions.

Not that Rudy McRomneyson aren't stuck between a rock and a hard place:

Without any of the top-tier candidates in attendance, the ValuesVoter.org debate is unlikely to garner much attention from the mainstream press. The question is whether skipping the debate will hurt the Big Four more with the base than attending it might have hurt them with the rest of the country. Given the agenda of those who will be asking the questions-- anti-abortion, anti-stem-cell-research, anti-judicial-independence, anti-immigration, and pro-censorship--it's likely the Fantastic Four made the right decision.

While they may have saved themselves from the stinging questions from these nuts, they haven't escaped the wrath of the base for evading the forum. Just look at the thread over at FreeRepublic:

Freeper Sun:

What a bunch of chickens.

Now we know that Rudy McRomney are part of the RINO establishment.

Freeper puroresu:

If social conservatives are losing power in the GOP, then the GOP is history and we’ll be a full socialist nanny state in twenty years.

Freeper jsdude1:

Lets see the Republican Party (and their liberal donors) Win without Christians..I WILL ACTIVELY PORTRAY THEM AS TRAITORS/AND CAMPAIGN FOR THE CONSTITUTIONL/LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE-AGAINST THEM!! If they support a liberal RINO as Republican POTUS Standard Bearer-08.

Freeper Man50D:The Republican party has been incrementally replacing Conservative core values with Socialism for many decades. Conservatives are the minority RINOS because they have been pushed out of the party. Consequently the GOP and the Socialist Democrats are essentially one party. Conservatives only logical alternative is to leave the GOP and unite with the large number of unaffiliated Conservatives.

Freeper AD from Springbay:

If this: GOP Candidates Snub Social Conservatives is true in September of 2007 then this: GOP Candidates Fail to Win Election in December 2008. As a 'social conservative' I'm tired of being a Republican step-n-fetchit.

Of all the candidates to take heat from the Freepers, however, Freddy seems to have come off the worst, because he would have been expected to attend:

Freeper GhostofFreepersPast

That’s a deal breaker for me. Fred is on my won’t vote for list rigth along with Rudy McRomney. Game time is over. These are the issues I take most seriously.

Freeper puroresu:

Fred should participate. I don’t understand why he’d avoid this. The other three have good reason for being busy elsewhere that night.

Now, it is true that some have with some reason argued that the major candidates cannot attend every forum--but with base conservatives already worried that the probable do not respect them or their "values", every evasive move like this carries increased significance. Personally, I think it's extremely enjoyable to watch the "moral values" party of Vitter, Craig, and Mark Foley excoriate their head candidates as they attempt to dance on the head of a pin.

Pass the popcorn!

Also at MLW

If Dems Give Inches on Iraq, GOP May Take Miles--Into Tehran 31 Aug 2007 10:31 AM (17 years ago)

There is nothing I would love better than to wake up in the morning and have nice things to say about the Democratic Leadership. I mean that--really, I do. I would love to read the news, read the blogs, and give a congratulatory pat on the back those we progressives worked so hard to elect and represent the interests of justice, fairness, and the reality-based community

But I can't. I find myself once again astounded at the cowardice and/or cluelessness (take your pick) of the Democratic leadership and their braindead messaging teams.

As I write this, two extremely important and confluent events are occurring side-by-side in real time. On the one hand, both Durbin and Reid appear set to cower before lame-duck president George Bush and his soon-to-be-shrinking Republican minority in Congress and grant them an additional $200 billion on top of the $120 billion of the People's Money already appropriated for the Iraq fiasco. On the other, serious rumors are abounding from various sources that there is a coordinated effort about to be pushed for an attack on Iran after Labor Day--which is, as Andy Card reminded us, when new products like a new war are to be launched.

That the Democratic Leadership does not understand or pretends not to understand the close connection between these two events is both astonishing as a political observer and infuriating as a progresive American. One need not believe that the supplemental money will be directly used an assault on Iran--though Gates' surprise at hearing about the extra $50 billion is extremely disturbing--to understand that the Bush Administration's success in getting its way on Iraq will be directly proportional to Dick Cheney's success in staging a successful push for an attack on Iran.

It's very simple: if Democrats bow to Bush now continuing our Occupation of Iraq and running roughshod over the will of both the American and Iraqi people even in the face of unequivocal poll numbers and insurmountable evidence of failure, corruption, incompetence and treachery, there will be no way for us to oppose Cheney on the much murkier and less obvious question of Iran. If Democratic foreign policy is to be waged on the basis of fear of Republican accusations of "weakness" on an issue as clear and easy as Iraq, how much more difficult will it be to break that pattern when it comes to deciding how to proceed in Iran? As long as the Democrats refuse to use the power of the purse or challenge/overtun the 2002 AUMF when it comes to Iraq, how will they propose to do when it comes to Iran? With impeachment "off the table", what hope can we have of even distracting, much less threatening or stopping, Dick Cheney from his own stated goals?

The Democratic Leadership believes that it can continue to give the Bush everything it wants on Iraq while pretending to stand its ground enough to keep Democratic voters motivated. The Democratic Leadership believes that it cannot safely politically achieve a change in Iraq policy until George Bush leaves office. The Democratic Leadership believes that if it does nothing to stop the Occupation until 2009, the election will be about Republican failures--whereas, if the Democrats do step up to the plate, the election will be about Democrats stabbing our soldiers in the back. The Democratic Leadership does not understand that more is at stake in Iraq than just Iraq--and that failure to stand up on Iraq will have disastrous consequences that their apparently small minds still do not understand.

Unlike many in the progresive blogs, I have not stood up and screamed that the sky is falling every time rumors came along of a war with Iran. I was skeptical when Sy Hersh was claiming an imminent attack back in 2006, and my skepticism proved to have been well-founded. Now, however, there is more reason for concern about a strike on Iran than ever before--the primary being that a cornered animal has no choice left but to attack. Beyond the recent rumors and the stationing of carriers at strategic points in gulf, the circumstantial reasons for suspecting an imminent attack are numerous:

• The "surge" is failing--and will continue to fail whether or not the Administration receives the supplementals it is requesting. The need to blame an external enemy for this failure will only grow stronger over time.



• The economy is teetering on the brink of a collapsing asset bubble in the midst of a credit crunch, and the heroic efforts on the part of the Fed and major banking institutions to stem the tide of worried investors will only last so long. There is nothing like a new war to stimulate an economy and take the minds of American people off of economic uncertainty.



• Republican hopes for 2008 are in a tailspin. Now that God, Guns and Gays don't quite have the same effect that they used to, the GOP is turning to increasingly desperate dirty tricks to attempt to maintain power. With Independents, Hispanics and Young Voters--three of most rapidly growing demographic segments in America--moving steadily away from the GOP, they will need to do something drastic to attempt to scare the American people into somehow voting for them again. There is nothing to do that like an exciting new war against a supposedly dangerous new enemy.



• Nearly every Republican candidate refused to rule out pre-emptively using nuclear weapons on Iran to prevent Ahmadinejad from getting his hands on nuclear weapons. More than an astonishing deficit of irony, it was a clear indicator of where the Republican Brand stands on the issue of attacking Iran: sooner rather than later, and as forcefully as possible



• The Religious Right is all but completely deflated in the wake of the scandals surrounding Foley, Vitter, Craig, Gannon, and the like. Larry Flynt supposedly has his hands on 30 others as well, whose names he will be leaking in a slow-drip fashion. Without a strong turnout from the Religious Right, the GOP doesn't stand a chance. Given the current state of things, the only thing that could motivate the Christianists at this point is another all-out crusading war against a Muslim nation.

Even if all of these pieces of direct evidence, rumors and circumstantial fears about an Iran attack turn out to be little more than hot air, it must be conceded that given what we know now, the danger of a last-ditch Republican assault on Iran cannot be discounted by any rational observer.

Give the GOP its inch on Iraq, and it will take a mile--quite possibly into Tehran. By allowing Bush to do what he wants on Iraq, the Democratic Leadership believes it is giving the GOP the rope with which to hang itself, at the expense of the lives a few thousand more U.S. soldiers and countless more Iraqis. That is a not only an immoral gamble, but a foolish one: for the rope that the Dems give the GOP will not be used to hang just the GOP, but rather will be used to hang all of us in one way or another.

The time for courage is now--before it is too late.

Getting In Front of the Economic Elephant in the Room 24 Aug 2007 11:53 PM (17 years ago)

It has often been said that intelligence is the ability to learn from one's mistakes and not repeat them. If we take this postulate as a given, it would appear that most congressional Democrats suffer from an epidemic of intelligence deficit disorder.

Time after time, the majority of Democrats fall into a familiar pattern:

1) Watch as Republicans start to push or do something disastrous, shortsighted, and/or evil;

2) Say nothing for fear of being called unpatriotic or inadequately optimistic;

3) Observe in stunned silence the inevitable rotor-driven fecal storm;

4) Express feigned indignation after the fact at the callousness and shortsightedness of Republican policy--thereby prompting actually intelligent observers to ask where said Democrat had been before the worst repercussions of Republican policy took place.

We saw this pattern in the lead up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, as Democrats cowered before Bush Almighty, failed to exert oversight of any meaningful nature, and then finally began to take the Administration to task about three years too late--well after their opportunity to take a morally consistent and meaningful stand had long since passed.

We saw this pattern in the authorization of the Patriot Act and its spawn, as Democrats too afraid to vote against anything with the word "patriot" in it stood by in tacit approval so long that their credibility in denouncing its obvious excesses was utterly shot.

We saw this patten with FISA (can't be seen as coddling terrorists!); with tax cuts (can't be seen as tax-and-spend liberals!); with trade (can't be seen as protectionists!); the list goes on and on. It's almost enough to make one question, as an aside, whom our "leadership" is hiring as their communications directors--and how much they are getting paid to internalize GOP talking points without pushback.

And yet, we see this happening yet again right in front of our eyes--and on an issue that is likely to be the most important focus of any campaign in 2008. If, as has often been said, the biggest difference between human and machine intelligence today is a wide gap in pattern recognition, then it would appear that many elected Democrats--or at least their communications directors--have the brains of an Etch-a-Sketch.

While I don't pretend to be an economist, it is a near certainty that the American economy is headed into some pretty rough times in the near future. While the Fed's extroardinary efforts to quell immediate investor panic and sustain credit flow, combined with recent surprisingly strong growth (albeit misleading) have led to the veneer of temporary stability in the marketplace, the overall trends for the next 12-18 months are not good. There isn't enough money to service debts; the indebted and overworked American consumer is in a historically poor position to withstand an economic downturn; and real estate numbers are expected to fall for at least the next six months. Consumer comfort has decreased sharply. As Henry Paulson and even our own bonddad are quick to remind all of us, the American economy has proven very resilient--but fundamentals are still fundamentals, and it is conventional wisdom even among bullish investors that the American economy is due for a correction.

Not, of course, that the majority of regular Americans have enjoyed the fruits of Wall Street's recent ride of prosperity. Average incomes have fallen over the last five years as productivity has risen and the incomes of the wealthiest 1% have increased dramatically. But it is the unfortunate fate of those of average and below-average incomes that while Wall Street gains may not help them, Wall Street losses will certainly hurt them as corporations eager to maintain their ridiculous profit margins begin to cut jobs in an environment of weakened consumer spending.

Whether the economic turbulence is contained to a credit crunch leading to rough patches over the short term (less likely) or instead leads to broader economic recession over the upcoming three to four quarters or more (more likely), the fact is that the state of the economy is going to be a major campaign issue as we approach the November 2008 elections.

Yet Democrats are silent. Democrats are silent even though many of these economic difficulties can be laid directly at the feet of the Republicans. It is, after all, Republican policies that have:

• managed the economy over the last six years or more
• aided and abetted the inflation of one asset bubble to the next
• precipitated an historic upward redistribution of income from the middle class to the wealthy, weakening the structural supports of the economy
• plunged the United States into record budget and trade deficits through suicidal tax and trade policies
• aided and abetted the destruction of manufacturing jobs in the United States while failing to invest in education, broadband access, or alternative energy jobs--all of which are necessary to survive as a service-sector economy in a globalized world
• embedded the United States in a military quagmire in Iraq, preventing the United States from even taking the immoral route of warring itself out of an economic slump

Most of all, Republicans knew that this was coming: that's why they were so eager to pass the Bankruptcy "Reform" bill. They needed to make sure that the over-leveraged consumers with negative savings rates and no ability to earn extra income would not be able to escape their debts to the bloated bottom lines of corporate America. And where were the Democrats when the Republicans were making these preparations? Nowhere to be seen until it was far too late.

And why are Democrats silent? They are silent because, as with Iraq, the Patriot Act, FISA, tax cuts and all the other examples of Democratic fear of the negative, Democrats do not want to be seen as contributing to an economic downturn by blaming Republicans for what everybody knows is the coming economic downturn.

The time has come to end that silence and--for perhaps the first time--to get in front of the elephant in the room for a change. It is time for Democrats running for election from every office from the presidency to the local mayor's race to hammer Republicans for scandalous mismanagement of the American economy--before things go really sour. The time has come for Democrats to cease being afraid of Republican accusations of insufficient optimism, and instead go on the attack. The time has come to learn from our previous mistakes and claim the policy high ground in advance. If our candidates position themselves correctly, they will be able to do much more than say, "see what the Republicans have done?" They will instead be able to say, "See? Didn't I say this would happen?"

And that could make the difference in 2008 between a year of Democratic victory, and the sort of landslide we need to turn this country back around and get it on its feet again.

We May Need Moderates, But We Don't Need Centrists 15 Aug 2007 2:32 AM (17 years ago)

Watching the debate between Markos and Harold Ford yesterday was a bit like watching a rerun of Rocky IV, wherein Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa goes to the Soviet Union to fight Dolph Lungren's Ivan Drago. Not because Markos took the fight into the hostile territory of Meet the Press, or because Markos endured Ford's blather patiently before emerging victorious, or because the entire spectacle was brimming with the expectant propaganda of two competing ideologies.

Rather, the resemblance lay in the fact that the fight was already over before it started: we already know who wins in the end, because the end of the debate already took place. As everyone knows, Rocky wins at the end of Rocky IV; in the case of Markos and Ford, the debate was over when labor unions, issue groups, and seven Democratic Presidentials came to YearlyKos, overlooking the DLC's annual convention. There is no more doubt as to whether triangulators or the people-powered, reality-based movement will wield more influence within the party: we won that one already--whether the traditional media realize it yet or not.

It is curious that Ford would choose to attempt to debate on ground that he not only knew he would lose, but that he had already lost in advance. The DLC's sun has set in terms of the party's overall strategy going forward, and it is unlikely that they will return to the height of political influence, only to be rendered weak-kneed and sucked of their courage by the strong political winds and rarefied air they find there. No matter whom the party nominates in the upcoming primaries, they will forced to adapt to the changed political landscape regardless of their previous predilections--and should she they fail to do so, she they will lose, adding yet more fuel to the blazing fire of people-powered influence.

The question that remained unresolved during and after the debate, however, was the proper role of moderates and centrists in the party and within the new movement. This was a question that David Gregory, whether he realized it in his unflattering framing or not, feebly attempted to ask without receiving a completely satisfactory answer. This was primarily because Mr. Gregory failed to understand the question in the right way, but even more so because Markos and Mr. Ford were both using different words to convey what appeared the be the same idea, when in fact the two ideas are quite distinct from one another.

For, you see, the traditional media (and many in the netroots as well) does not quite understand the distinction between a moderate and a centrist. The first problem started when David Gregory framed the debate as between "Liberals" and "Centrists", when in fact those terms describe not apples and oranges, but rather entirely different food groups. When Markos told Mr. Gregory that we would need more conservative candidates in places like Kentucky where we had little other choice, both Mr. Gregory and Mr. Ford were taken somewhat aback; Mr. Ford, somewhat disconcerted, promptly ignored Markos' endorsement of moderate candidates to claim that the party needed not to go "too far to the left" and instead embrace a centrist agenda. It was clear that two intelligent men were talking right past one another about very different things (though I suspect Markos understood this, while Ford did not.)

The key to clearing this confusion and resolving this conflict lies in gaining a more precise understanding of the dichotomies involved. As diarist and Calitics frontpager dday and I will be discussing on our FrameWork show over at Political Nexus today, there are really two axes of division at work:

MODERATES vs. PROGRESSIVES

and

CENTRISTS vs. PROUD DEMOCRATS

The first mistake is to believe that a "moderate" and a "centrist" is the same thing. A "moderate" is a person who is neither ideologically left nor ideologically right, but rather has policy positions which set squarely within the middle of the Overton Window of popular political possibilities for the mainstream American public. Thus, a moderate may want lower taxes, be pro-death penalty, and desire slightly stricter controls on abortion, but be fairly progressive on a number of issues where public opinion resides squarely with us--issues from guaranteed healthcare to Iraq to the environment to even national security at this point.

A "centrist", on the other hand, is a person who stands squarely between the two major political parties. A "centrist" is a person like Joe Lieberman, who assumes a smorgasbord of policy positions taken from each of the parties, and has no compunction about trashing his/her own party if it benefits his/her political career. Due to the rightward shift of both political parties over the last 25 years, a "centrist" is guaranteed to stand to the right of the American Public on most issues, while trashing the overall image of the Democratic Party brand. Joe Lieberman is no "moderate"; rather, he's a crazed "centrist."

This crucial distinction was the source of the miscommunication between Markos and Mr. Ford. While Markos was conceding the necessity of backing moderates in areas weak in progressive voters, Ford was insisting on the necessity of taking a centrist line that minimized divisions between the parties. When Markos stressed the need for the candidates to be "proud Democrats" regardless of their specific positions on specific issues, both Mr. Gregory and Mr. Ford looked flummoxed and confused. It was as though they could not understand how a "moderate" could also be a "proud Democrat" emphasizing divisions in the party. The confusion was further intensified when Mr. Ford attempted to take ideological credit for the victories of James Webb in VA and in Jon Tester in MT, ostensibly because they had conservative positions on a few key issues, much to the astonishment of Markos and most of us here in the netroots. What neither Mr. Ford nor Mr. Gregory quite understand is that Tester and Webb are not centrists, but rather moderates on a few key issues: their popular positions on some issues do not prevent them from drawing sharp distinctions between themselves and the out-of-touch, corrupt Republicans they oppose.

It is an unfortunate byproduct not only of politics itself but also the way congressional districts have been gerrymandered, that we will certainly need moderates to win in many areas--especially when it comes to House races in red districts. The last thing we need, however, is centrists who serve only to weaken the Democratic Party's core brand and core values while selling both moderates and progressives down the river if ever they manage (rarely) to win elected office. The vision of Harold Ford and the DLC is moribund because the politics of "centrism" have been proven an absolute disaster. That says nothing, however, of the politics of "moderation" when necessary, especially in deeply red areas.

It is an important distinction to keep in mind as this debate continues into the future--past Harold Ford and his increasingly irrelevant organization, and into the trickier territory of swing states, purple Senate races and uphill Congressional races. The temptation of resorting to "centrist" rhetoric to win these races will be great, but it must be avoided. If, on the other hand, we maintain proudly progressive candidates in blue areas, with moderate but proudly Democratic candidates in red areas--and they speak directly and honestly to their constituents all the while, without DLC-style packaging--we will succeed in taking back our country.

The Economist: Republicans in Big, Big Trouble 9 Aug 2007 2:30 PM (17 years ago)

After a long six and a half years of watching almost helplessly as the Republican Party loots, rapes and pillages everything from the Constitution to the middle class to non-threatening countries overseas, it's always satisfying to see rats call a spade a spade and jump off the pirate ship known as the modern GOP.

But rarely has the sense of schadenfreude been more poignant to me than when reading the latest Economist article today about the woes of the Republican Party and American conservative movement in general.

Today's article, titled The American Right Under the Weather, is but one piece in the new overall issue covering the leftward shift of American politics in recent months. As anyone who has read the magazine knows, the editorial staff of The Economist is certainly no friend to Democrats, favoring a decidedly corporatist agenda valuing "free trade over "fair trade" and a foreign policy usually at odds with progressive values. As a result, however, they find themselves increasingly at odds with the social conservatives who have all but taken over the Republican party's activist base: in fact, they say so directly in the cover article:

The Economist has never made any secret of its preference for the Republican Party's individualistic “western” wing rather than the moralistic “southern” one that Mr Bush has come to typify. It is hard to imagine Ronald Reagan sponsoring a federal amendment banning gay marriage or limiting federal funding for stem-cell research. Yet Mr Bush's departure hardly guarantees a move back to the centre. Social liberals like Mr Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in a minority on the right. On the one issue where Mr Bush fought the intolerant wing of his party, immigration, the nativists won—and perhaps lost the Latino vote for a generation.

As a result, The Economist's temporary post-mortem on the enthusiasm and dynamism of the American right is a strange mix of joy and tears: it contains equal doses of worried regret, tempered with palpable glee at the overreaching failures of the social conservatives whom they blame for much of popular rejection of Republican ideology. But it's nothing if not utterly brutal--and well worth the read.

The sheer numbers are staggering. Some key statistical points from the article include:

• 40% of Republicans think that Democrats will win the next presidential election, compared with only 12% of Democrats who think the reverse
• Q2 money to the Democratic presidential contenders nearly doubled that given to the Republican contenders
• As has been frequently mentioned by Markos, the DSCC and D-Trip are vastly outraising the NRSC and NRCC
• 61% of Democrats are happy with our choices of candidates, while only 36% of Republicans can say the same
• Young voters and Hispanic voters are trending overwhelmingly Democratic
• Registered Democrats and Democratic-leaners are now 50% of the population, while registered Republicans and Republican-leaners only comprise 35%--a strong swing from an equal 43%-43% tie in 2002.

And the list goes on and on. Things are so bleak for the pirates on Capitol Hill right now that many prominent Republicans are simply manning the lifeboats and looking for the best way to weather the storm. This little bit about former RNC chairman and self-hating closet-dweller Ken Mehlman is really poignant:

No wonder Ken Mehlman, a former Republican Party chairman who oversaw George Bush's 2004 victory, is now advising hedge funds on how to deal with a Democratic-leaning America.

Most intriguing, however, is the article's nearly ferocious rejection of the idea that GOP woes are entirely the fault of Bush, the occupation of Iraq, or the corruption of specific Republican party officials. Instead, the Economist is unafraid to lay the blame squarely where it belongs: the embrace of a hyper-conservative agenda of social moralizing, beyond-the-pale cronyism, an unhealthy dose of nativism and racism, corruption so blatant it has become institutionalized, a borrow-and-spend budgetary philosophy, and redistribution of wealth to the very rich that has appalled all but the Christianist right and some very wealthy allies:

In fact, the Republican Party in Congress is just as responsible as Mr Bush for most of the recent troubles. The Republican majority routinely appropriated more spending than the president asked for. It also larded spending bills with as much extra pork as possible. The number of congressional “earmarks” for projects in members' districts increased from 1,300 in 1994, when the Republicans took over Congress, to 14,000 in 2005.

The Republican majority also cheered Mr Bush all the way to Baghdad. Add to this the corruption of congressmen like Tom DeLay, a conservative hero, and the semi-corrupt institutional relationship that the Republicans formed with lobbyists, and you see that Mr Bush was only part of a much bigger problem.

Nor can conservatives claim that Mr Bush is a country-club Republican like his father. He has devoted his energies to giving “the movement” what it wants: the invasion of Iraq for the neoconservatives (who had championed it long before September 11th); tax cuts for business and the small-government conservatives; restricting federal funding for stem-cell research for the social conservatives; and conservative judges to please every faction.

This desire to pander to the conservative movement is partly to blame for the administration's practical incompetence. Mr Bush outdid previous Republican presidents in recruiting his personnel from the conservative counter-establishment. But this often meant choosing people for their ideological purity rather than their competence or intelligence. Some 150 Bush administration officials were graduates of Pat Robertson's Regent University, including Monica Goodling, who put on such a lamentable performance before a House inquiry into the firing of nine US attorneys. A more pragmatic president would surely have sacked many of the neoconservative ideologues who have made a hash of American foreign policy.

And as the editors astutely observe, the Republicans are now locked in a civil war for supremacy between their corporatist paymasters, the closely allied NeoCons, the Christianist base that actually mobilizes the votes, and the few die-hard libertarians who used to make up the bedrock of American conservatism and are the GOP's only hope of holding onto the rapidly changing West. Whoever prevails in that fight, however, two things are certain: the party will be weaker than it was before, andthe fight will be very, very ugly and very, very public. After all, there is no honor amongst thieves.

In the end, though, The Economist makes the excellent point that Democrats have yet to convince the American public that we are anything more than the lesser of two evils. Certainly, failing to stand up for progressive values such as we saw recently the with FISA capitulation won't do much to help that. Further, Republicans have always been more at home and more comfortable as a minority party than they have been in the position of actual governance. Like the moral and intellectual children they are, it's far easier to complain and snipe at those attempting to actually govern, than to attempt to put a failing ideology in place that gets the job done. Still, I would rather be in our shoes than in theirs. As the article correctly points out:

But even when you enter all the qualifications the right's situation is dire. It is a sign of weakness that the conservatives are retreating to their old posture as insurgents, and need a bogeywoman like Mrs Clinton to hold them together.

The Republicans have failed the most important test of any political movement—wielding power successfully. They have botched a war. They have splurged on spending. And they have alienated a huge section of the population. It is now the Democrats' game to win or lose.

Indeed. Things are looking extremely bleak for the GOP pirates, and it's fun watching the rats jump off the ship. Now all we have to do is stand for what we believe in and do the difficult work of holding ourselves accountable, standing in the way of Mr. 23% for the remainder of his term, and passing legislation that will benefit the American People for a change, rather than GOP monied interests.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Froomkin Scourges Cowardly Dems, Explains Horrific FISA Law 7 Aug 2007 3:19 PM (17 years ago)

Dan Froomkin has a must-read article over at the Washington Post today in which he takes the cowardly Dems to task for their appalling failure to stand up to Mr. 25% in passing the so-called "Protect America Act". His intro is brutally appropriate:

We won't have President Bush to kick around anymore in about 18 months. But until then, Bush has someone he can still kick around: the Democratic Congress. At least when it comes to terror issues.

Despite his 65 percent job-disapproval rating, Bush was able to cow congressional Democrats over the weekend into granting him unprecedented authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.

As I said yesterday, this appalling capitulation was not inevitable; it came, rather, in a rhetorical environment in which Bush and the Republicans were able to come out on offense accusing Democrats of weakness on the "war on terror", while Democrats could do nothing better than argue in defense of the constitutional rights of those being spied on (presumably terrorists). But without the courage to come out on offense beforehand by accusing the Administration of spying on Americans with no links to terrorism whatsoever and demanding to know what the Administration was trying to hide, it was almost a foregone conclusion that many on our side would cave to political pressure once placed on the defensive.

And it was certainly being on the offense that gained Bush this unnecessary and far-reaching victory. Froomkin quotes Jim Rutenbergy in the NY Times:

"For a president who has played defense most of the year, relying on veto threats and, in terms of Iraq, almost plaintive pleas for time, it was a rare, winning use of offense. The victory points up an enduring challenge for Democrats, even as they have gained other advantages over Mr. Bush and his fellow Republicans. . . ."

And once again, of course, the Democrats claim to have been taken utterly by surprise:

In interviews, Democratic leaders and their aides acknowledged being outmaneuvered by the White House, which they accused of negotiating in bad faith, and portrayed the bill as a runaway train. . . .

"Everybody was afraid they might be branded as soft on terrorism,' Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a Democratic presidential candidate, said Monday while speaking to Iowa voters."

The "we were blindsided" meme that Democrats have been taking for the last six years of the Bush Administration is getting as old as the Bush Administration's own Nobody Could Have Predicted meme. It was enervating enough to hear Chris Dodd mar an otherwise fine performance by claiming to have been blindsided by the Alito and Roberts nominations at the YearlyKos Presidential Leadership Forum. It's worth remembering that these people get paid to be in public office: to continue to claim to be taken by surprise by an obviously bad-faith Administration means that they are not doing the basic job of earning their paychecks, much less standing up for the country.

It's not even as if this is a particularly new gameplan or political strategy for the Bush Administration: they've pulled this same "get it done now or else" stunt multiple times before. Heck, even a 6-year-old child could see this coming by now and be prepared for it. Froomkin quotes Charlie Savage in the Boston Globe:

"Legal specialists who have criticized the expansion of executive power during Bush's tenure compared the law to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which expanded the White House's power over detainees in the war on terrorism, and the Iraq war authorization in 2002.

"Both times, Bush abruptly urged Congress to give him greater national security powers shortly before lawmakers went on recess, warning that there was no time to wait. That strategy was echoed in the White House's sudden rush to enact the Protect America Act last week."

Unfortunately, unless we can accomplish a major shift in our rhetorical stance, as well as hold accountable those cowardly Dems who were cowed by a lame-duck Administration with 25% approval ratings, our citizens are now subject to the arbitrary spying authority of some of the most corrupt political appointees currently working in our government. As James Risen notes:

"Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

"They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens. . . .

Remember J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and it habit of spying on such well-known "subversives" as MLK Jr.? Looks like that will be small potatoes compared with what's in store for us from Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and the rest of their merry crew.

Froomkin then spends multiple paragraphs with quotes from various media figures detailing the various underhanded subterfuges now being attempted by the Republican Noise Machine to obscure the issue in the traditional media, and to intimidate major newspapers from publishing the truth of the matter to the confused and apathetic public. As with the the 2002 AUMF, the Patriot Act, the Patriot Act II, and countless other pieces of war and "national security" legislation, there is a sharp division between the actual text of the law as written and interpreted by Administration officials, and the more innocuous stated intent of the law that the WH Press Secretary coos to an all-too-willing WH Press Corps. Greg Miller of the LA Times states it perfectly:

But officials declined to provide details about how the new capabilities might be used by the National Security Agency and other spy services. And in many cases, they could point only to internal monitoring mechanisms to prevent abuse of the new rules that appear to give the government greater authority to tap into the traffic flowing across U.S. telecommunications networks. . . .

"[I]ntelligence experts said there were an array of provisions in the new legislation that appeared to make it possible for the government to engage in intelligence-collection activities that the Bush administration officials were discounting.

"'They are trying to shift the terms of the debate to their intentions and away from the meaning of the new law,' said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence policy analyst at the Federation of American Scientists.

"'The new law gives them authority to do far more than simply surveil foreign communications abroad,' he said. 'It expands the surveillance program beyond terrorism to encompass foreign intelligence. It permits the monitoring of communications of a U.S. person as long as he or she is not the primary target. And it effectively removes judicial supervision of the surveillance process.'"

Froomkin closes by included a variety of furious quotes from editorial boards and major bloggers across the nation, ranging from the New York Times to the LA Times to the Washington Post to Glenn Greenwald and even the normally feckless USA Today, whose editors unequivocally state:

[T]he attorney general and the director of national intelligence will decide without any court review when it's OK to monitor certain phone calls, e-mails, faxes and text messages between foreigners and U.S. residents. Such surveillance can go on for a year. Left on the books long enough, this is not just an invitation to abuse; history suggests it is a guarantee...

It's dangerous to give any administration permanent powers to fight a temporary war, even one that could last as long as the one against Islamic extremism. It's just as dangerous to trust an administration to police itself without court supervision.

A skittish Congress allowed itself to be stampeded last week into granting the president unfettered surveillance power. When it returns to Washington, it should do what it can to make sure that the sun goes down on this flawed measure.

Go read the entire Froomkin article: it's worth it. Then get to work. We've got six months until this horrible Frankenstein bill comes up for sunsetting. Let's start by reframing the debate so that we're playing offense rather than defense for a change, and putting the necessary pressure on the cowards who caved to bad-faith authoritarian politics rather than stand up for progressive values, the Constitution and the American people. You know their names. You know their phone numbers and email addresses.

Now let's get to work.

How To Handle FISA Next Time 5 Aug 2007 12:01 AM (17 years ago)

As we are all aware by now, cowards in the Democratic Party in the Senate yesterday and in the House today voted to give more power--yes, even more power--to the Bush Administration. Well, not just the Bush Administration; they gave more power to Alberto Gonzales, a self-admitted perjurer who barely survived a no-confidence vote and should by all rights be impeached and thrown in jail. And the power they gave this evil man in an even more evil administration? Just the power to wiretap phone calls without any significant oversight of any kind. And why did they do it? To avoid being seen as weak on terrorism, of all things--even though Dems poll higher on national security than do Republicans.

Those who voted to do such a thing deserve to be called spineless imbeciles, regardless of their personal histories. It is unconscionable that senators such as Dianne Feinstein or Jim Webb should have done such a thing.

But in a very large sense, this is not their fault. The fact that they voted the way they did is all of our fault. It's our fault because, from the beginning of this issue right up until our bitter post facto recriminations, we have been talking about the whole FISA issue in entirely the wrong way.

Some of you may remember my post almost a year ago on the FISA issue, titled What Are They Hiding, Anyway?. In that post I make clear a point that should have been heeded long ago before this travesty of a capitulation. It is a point that, if internalized by Democrats and Progressives on the correct side of this issue, will prevent us from capitulating again when the preposterously named "Protect America Act" is due to sunset in six months.

That point is simple: while the "rule of law" and "defense of the Constitution" are indeed at stake in this issue, that must not be how we talk about it to the American People. In a battle between a post-9/11 President--even one as disastrous, deceitful and unpopular as Dubya--taking a stand to defend America from evildoers overseas by monitoring their calls, and the constitutional legal principle of getting a warrant from a FISA judge first, the American People will side with the President well over half the time. That may be unfortunate. It may be infuriating. But it's just the political truth, no matter how many heartrending posts may be made by brilliant folks like our own Kagro X.

As I said way back then:

t's high time that Democrats made something very clear to the American people: THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE OF BALANCING SECURITY VERSUS CIVIL LIBERTIES. In a battle between Security and Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties usually loses. ON THE CONTRARY: We think it's a great idea to wiretap terrorists--just get a warrant so that we know you're actually spying on terrorists...

More importantly, however, if I'm a Democrat with a national voice, here's what I say: "The whole purpose of getting a warrant--and they're really easy to get--is to make sure that the person being spied on is really a terrorist suspect, and not a political opponent or ordinary American. The ONLY reason NOT to get a warrant is if they wanted to spy on somebody who wasn't a terrorist. My question is, what are they trying to hide?"

This is what it all comes down to: THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO GET A WARRANT IF YOU ARE LEGITIMATELY SPYING ON TERRORISTS. This is not an issue of abuse of power alone. This is not an issue of trampling the Constitution alone. This is not an issue of rule of law alone. It is all of those things, but none of them are or ever will be enough to convince enough Democrats to stand tall in the face of accusations that they are standing with the terrorists.

This is instead an issue of trust. We all know good and well that Bush, Cheney and the gang aren't being this secretive just for the sake of being secretive. Rarely do they go to such lengths unless they are hiding something truly awful--and rare is the individual short of the 9/11 conspiracy theorist who has gone wrong by assuming the worst of this corrupt batch of thieves, villains and scoundrels occupying the White House.

As I said last year, the only reason for them to be this secretive is if they were spying on people they shouldn't have been--people they knew good and well weren't terrorists or anything resembling terrorists. We all know it; our leading Democrats just either don't have the guts or the smarts to say it.

The proper question to be asking here is not, "shall we uphold the Constitution and rule of law?" but rather "what are they trying to hide?". As I said last year:

What we have to erode in the minds of the American public is TRUST. And we don't do that by screaming about civil liberties or Constitutional niceties.

We erode TRUST by letting the American people know that the Republicans are HIDING something. They're spying on ALL of us--if they weren't, why wouldn't they just get a warrant? WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?

If the law as written weren't good enough, why wouldn't they just change the law? WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?

Erode trust, and you win. Whine about constitutional liberties, and you lose.

"WHY NOT GET A WARRANT?" "WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?" "CAN YOU REALLY TRUST THEM?"

These are the questions that will turn this issue into a progressive victory; failure to ask them will turn this issue into a GOP club against Democrats.

This issue is really cut and dried. The criminals in the White House act like a mafia gang, and ask us to trust them with our secrets, our privacy, and our basic human rights and liberties. The proper response is not to say that they are taking too much power, or that we should have a vigorous discussion about the balance between safety and liberty (whatever that means). The proper response is to tell them to go to hell because we know that they're using that trust against us, not for us. It's not about protecting the constitutional rights of suspected terrorists: it's about protecting America from Bush, Cheney and Gonzales listening in on anyone they damn well please, including their political opponents.

Like so many other issues from Iraq to healthcare, the only way to win this fight is by going on the offensive in a way that not only evokes our core values, but makes clear once again that the Bush regime stands in opposition to oppresion of not only the American constitution and American values, but the American People themselves. Only when our Democrats--even those who vote the right way--begin to do that, will we begin to back Bush far enough into a corner to make real headway to protect the American People from his long train of abuses and usurpations.