Righteous.
(In case any of you don't know it, The Left Coaster is one of the finest sites among the Left half of the blogosphere. This ain't no fucking chat room or coffee klatsch for hippies; this is a place for serious thought. And I say that as one who normally comes here to [pick a fight].)
Keep on truckin'.
Posted by Toby Petzold at June 14, 2006 05:19 PMSchumer's commentary demonstrates the wisdom of not supporting party politics - there is currently only one party in America, and its membership works only for each other. One can look beyond DINO Joe and see DINO Hillary, DINO Dianne, RINO John McC, etc.
In all seriousness, people should go read Washington's Farewell Address, especially the parts where he denounces 'factions'. Then, it becomes easy to pick out the RINOS and DINOS and BEARs (Beltway-Embedded Activist Reporters) - OH MY!
Posted by pessimist at June 14, 2006 05:35 PMI saw Schumer's comment on support for Leibermann and thought, oh shit, train wreck. Your post is exceptional and right on the money. I've been working for the last couple of months to get my small local contingent of Dems herded into the internet and away from the bake sales. Schumer, et al is bound to start a power play soon (can't believe I used the word power with Dem leadership ... sigh) regardless, the Dems can't win without the blogs' intellect, energy, determination and brain trust, that I am certain of. And we can't allow them to toss us aside for the sake of a power(less) play. I AM SO GLAD YOU BROUGHT THIS UP!
Posted by mainsailset at June 14, 2006 06:22 PMHolding the media and Dem. party folks' feet to the fire IS the best way to achieve change. It is all to easy to be co-opted. I thought of this a bit reading and watching the YearlyKos action last week. When words from the Boxers and Reids and Warners are matched by actual deeds, we will know they really get it, but not until.
Schumer's comment on Lieberman as an independent was just shameful from the guy leading the fundraising for the Dems in the Senate. He only is concerned about Joe's vote for organizing the Senate, not whether the party is doing sensible Dem. actions.
Posted by JimPortlandOR at June 14, 2006 06:24 PMThis Jim Webb victory tears my nuts. I recall when Jeffords of Vermont turned from a Republican and became an Independant and we called him a hero! Reagan was a Dem before he became a Repub. Eisenhower was a Dem before he became a Repub. Laura Bush was a Democrat and look what she fucked!
Corporate fascists decided the Dems are going to win mid terms anyway, might as well place a Repub lite in to for cover. I heard this from a caller to a public radio station today all pissed over the VA Senate primary among Dems, as if any remain.... makes sense to me!
Posted by Mal Feasance at June 14, 2006 06:24 PMSchumer needs a little reminding of what his fooking job is as head of the DSCC.
Posted by Duckman GR at June 14, 2006 06:41 PMMr. Soto, this is going to sound like a thought struggling to get out in one piece---for a long time, the established political class of the Democratic party have been viewed as ponderous,equivocating, and incapable of hearing sounds outside the Beltway. Yet they "lead" the party. And more energetic minds in the web-world have thought as you did--they can be brought along, made to see, made to connect the dots. And now you doubt it. And so do I. They are the obstructions to altering the status quo as surely as the Republicans in power are. So, if there is no strategy among activists to pull them along, or nudge them this way or that, is there a strategy that will simply push them faster into the Republican camp? Joe Lieberman is an excellent start. Maybe we get behind his Republicanization, and that of any number of Democrats---we should help them become automatons of George Bush. The faster we do that, the faster we clear the decks of dead-wood. At least we will know they are finally where they belong, truthfully labelled. My Dad used to say he did not fear snakes, but he respected them. That's because you can learn to deal with a snake once you know what one is. There might even be some benefit to it all---imagine if Pataki and Hillary were fighting to be the Republican nominees for office in New York. Hell, throw in Schumer---there wouldn't be enough money in all of corporate New York to pay for that 3-way Republican Primary! Push where they belong. In the Republican Camp. What say you?
Posted by gtash at June 14, 2006 06:47 PMgtash is right about the DLC types. As they used to say back in the day:"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
Posted by herbal tee at June 14, 2006 07:06 PMI'm going to say it as many times as it takes to bring newbies up to speed and remind those who rely on dubious sources to spoon-feed them Cliff's Notes regarding the official party line.
Democrats have voted for a laundry list of atrocious Conservative legislation. Iraq and the Patriot Act are generally well known, except for the fact that it has become disgustingly "accepted" that Democrats after the fact have come to say these were mistakes. Mistakes that cost about 100,000 lives, but "forgiveable" because of bad intelligence. Whoops!!
Since so much Propaganda has been employed to help make sure Americans swallow that line, let me remind all of you of the other 12th hour Conservative Page-4 legislation that Democrats quietly voted for. How about the Bankruptcy Bill. Someone please tell me how changing the law to allow Profitable corporations to declare bankruptcy, break labor contracts, and then dump their Pension Plans off on American Taxpayers help's American workers? Especially since that same bill makes it harder for unemployed Americans to declare Bankruptcy without having to effectively pay off their debt....
Wow. That sounds REAL Progressive doesn't it. Almost as Progressive as rubber stamping Right-Wing ideologues into lifetime appointments. Almost as Progressive as giving the Neocons and the Telcos a free pass for the NSA Domestic Spying Program. Almost as Progressive as voting for cutting Marginal Taxes while increasing Military Spending. Etc. etc.
The Democrats have really showed their stripes since 2004. I hope more Progressives/Liberals will consider that when writing about Democrats.
Posted by Tampa Student at June 14, 2006 07:12 PMI remember making a comment at my state DFA convention a couple of years back that "if Lieberman got us 51 Democratic Senators, I could support him but ask me again when we had 52 Senators." I've come to the conclusion that Lieberman just undermines the Party in too many ways to go with that anymore.
Nothing gets me pissed of faster than a Greenie whining about the Democrats. I love the Democratic Party and think it's our last best hope of achieving a progressive agenda. The Greens will never muster a majority in America with their holier-than-thou attitude. Just think what kind of compromises they will embrace if they ever got close enough to real power.
No, I will work with almost any Democrat to achieve a majority but there's a bunch of them who would sooner throw us progressive/populist Dems overboard than give up their privelaged positions in the Party. They've come to power under the Republican majority and they've learned the ways of the corporate insider and the DLC is the embodiment of that mentality. They're "companymen" and they'd just as soon sell the people out than threaten they own access to power.
They may hate the Republicans but they want to be just like them when power changes hands.
Yikes.
Posted by fightingdem at June 14, 2006 08:29 PMI posted this letter I wrote to the editors of the New York Post over at Low & Left. It was written in response to this opinion piece in todays edition of the Murdoch rag.
It’s interesting that Eric Fettmann begins his defense of Joe Lieberman with a slander upon an event he did not attend and a group of people he did not meet. I can assure him that those, like myself, in attendance at the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas were anything but ‘web wackos’. The professionalism and character of those who contributed to making the event the success that it became was truly inspiring and left me with a renewed feeling that indeed political discourse in this country is not dead. Mr. Fettmann speaks of the grass roots activism typified by the DailyKos community as having a ‘real chilling effect on political free speech’. Is he kidding? Mr. Fettmann would have all those concerned citizens in attendance at YearlyKos, sit down, shut up and simply hand Joe Lieberman re-election. Why? Because it is, as Mr. Fettmann says, “a shame that Joe Lieberman has had to put his career on the line”. Hello! If Joe Lieberman is concerned about putting his career on the line he should go into another line of business. One where he is not dependent upon the will of the people every seven years to keep his ‘career’ on track. Or perhaps Mr. Fettmann feels that Joe Lieberman has somehow elevated himself above such trivialities as being accountable to his constituents? Make no mistake, if Ned Lamont is nominated as the Democratic candidate for Senator from Connecticut this August and Joe Lieberman is sent to look for a new ‘career’ it will be because the people of Connecticut have decided it should be so. The fact that everyday people are making use of the tools afforded them by the Internet to make their voices heard in the campaign is far from a ‘chill on political free speech’. It is the ultimate expression of political free speech. At long last, the big money interests content to maintain the status quo are being challenged by citizens organizing at the grass roots level. No longer will elections such as this be in the exclusive grip of the Washington power brokers and special interests. Mr. Fettmann would like nothing better than a passive electorate content to blindly accept a system that has devolved to a point where it is nearly impossible for an entrenched incumbent to lose his or her office. That is the real ‘chill’ on political free speech. Why is it that Mr. Fettmann cannot see it?
Posted by snark at June 14, 2006 08:42 PMThey are the obstructions to altering the status quo as surely as the Republicans in power are.
gtash
I have come to believe that this is not only a true statement, but that it represents THE problem faced by progressives. The fact that the religious fanatics have made an Unholy Alliance with the ruling class is bad. The fact that the only organized opposition does not really oppose this Unholy Alliance is what is far worse.
This is so because all dissent, every potential alternative voice, has no way to be heard.
Posted by James E. Powell at June 14, 2006 08:43 PMNothing gets me pissed of faster than a Greenie whining about the Democrats. I love the Democratic Party and think it's our last best hope of achieving a progressive agenda. The Greens will never muster a majority in America with their holier-than-thou attitude.
Because of the proximity of this statement, I'll go ahead and clarify that I have always been a registered Democrat. I also have wasted my time organizing for Democrats in the past. Democrats that proceded to pander to Conservatives.
The problem with comments like the one above is that it ignores the ACTIONS of Democrats and insists that people set aside their principles to play this grand football game called politics. There isn't an electoral solution to IRAQ, just like there wasn't one for Vietnam.
Progressive change in this country will not happen until it's the true will of the people -- the will of the people meaning their individual values as expressed in their decision making in everyday life -- not once every 2 years at the voting booth. Before anything else, Americans have to actually care about the lives being lost in our names -- lives lost via the decision of a majority of Business leaders and Politicians (of both parties).
Wasting your time and effort in a rigged election process with a propaganda fiction media storyline is a fools game that only serves to perpetuate the status quo and bolster individual ego.
Posted by Tampa Student at June 14, 2006 09:29 PMsnark, great letter. Kudus.
Posted by weinerdog43 at June 15, 2006 06:09 AMThe Beltway Dems are following the exact same playbook they did in 2002 and 2004, waiting for the Republicans to self-destruct. Well, it didn't happen then, and it is not happening now. The Rs looked pretty bad in the Spring of 2004, but then look what happened. The Party About Nothing strategy didn't work then, and it won't work now.
Posted by Mister Go at June 15, 2006 07:58 AMPolitics is about power, pure and simple. The DC Dems figured out that attacking and ignoring their base proved to be an easy way to hold their own seats, and they bartered away larger political goals for that tiny modicum of power. But since we've been speaking up, they've gotten louder, more aggressive, more ready to launch character attacks.
Democracy, at its core, is ritualized warfare. We like to pretend we're genteel and civilized, but let's not forget that we are essentially in the business of fighting succession battles. Historically, thousands have died in such battles -- today, millions of dollars are spent. But the underlying logic remains the same: the people on top only respect those who are powerful. And, in our democratic system, the only way to express power is to forcefully assert our values when one of "them" refuses to do so.
The blogs first started to come to DC's attention when we proved we could raise money. At that point, they wanted to co-opt us. Then we raised our pretender to the throne: Howard Dean. Beating back that challenge gave them something to crow about, but they weren't able to stomp us out. And with each high profile challenge -- whether winning or losing -- we gain followers. Now we're to the point where we're taking out some of their "minor nobility", but we've got our sights set on one of the Big Boys now. The fact that a liberal like Schumer is slamming is the ultimate proof that this is about power first, not ideology. The rabble is too close to kicking out the gentry, so expect to see things get even more intense and brutal.