Please Cut the Crap!

We Have to Be Patient, Progressives

I know there's a growing impatience with the Obama Administration among progressives.  And I see a lot of articles and blog posts out there expressing a growing sense that he's abandoning his principles for political expediency. There's this crazy notion that 30 years of neocon politics can be made to go away with a wave of his hand; that he can simply bring everyone in this often bipolar country together for a chorus of Kumbaya, which all of us who have ever had a brush with the wingnuts knows is pretty much impossible. But if he's going to keep the moderates on his side -- and make no mistake; we need them on our side -- he has to at least look like he's including Republicans in the process, even if they choose to bite his hand.

 

Believe me, my son sits in a tent in Kandahar as I write this. He joined the Army because he felt as if the only way he could pay for college would have been that way, or to leave college with a six-figure debt. I truly wish the president could snap his fingers and all of our bad neocon dreams will go away immediately.But that's not how life works. A lot of things about the neocon view of things have seeped into the culture, and it will take a phenomenal amount of work to reverse them.

 

I hereby beg progressives to have patience. President Obama hasn't abandoned his principles; at all; if anything, he's done just the opposite. He's living by them, and the end result of his presidency will be something pretty special. Don't let your ADD get the best of you; it's better to do something right than to do something fast.

Let's Be Careful Out There: Don't Blow Reform, Progressives...

As anyone who has read this blog knows, I am a huge proponent of the inclusion of a public insurance option in any health reform moving through Congress.  I keep wracking my brain, and I simply cannot figure out how to keep the private insurance companies in the game without a government option to keep the risk manageable. In a perfect world, I'd love to see a single-payer government plan, but we can't honestly afford the transition at this point, so a "perfect world" will have to wait. In the meantime, a government  health insurance option is a necessity. But we cannot afford an obsession.

 

I was around in 1994, and let me assure you; Harry and Louise didn't kill the Clinton health care plan, progressives did.

 

Yes, folks; the reason we are no closer to a universal health plan now than we were in 1994 is because of US. And I'm starting to see signs that it might be happening again.  I'm starting to get nervous again, for the first time since this process began.We simply cannot blow it this time.

Why I'm Not Always Nice...

(Don't panic. If you came here to see my deconstruction of the wingnut health care lies, it's right here...)

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I hate to burst some bubbles out there, but I'm generally one of the nicest people you will ever meet, if you should ever meet me. The passion you see in these posts is real. I truly believe this country can do better, and that we, as a people working together, can do anything. But  I honestly believe that sometimes requires us to bust some heads, rhetorically speaking. (I'm also non-violent). And I will admit to a few things with which I have little patience, and you'll see that in spades as you read this blog.

 

You see, I've been confronted with my horrible personality so many times in e-mails and comments the last few days that I'm not sure whether to laugh or laugh harder. So many people take issue with how I refer to certain people, and the ridicule I routinely use to excoriate liars and the terminally stupid, who get way too much face time in our national discourse.  Strangely and perhaps sadly, many of the people who take offense are liberals. Stephanie Miller refers to them as "stick up the butt" liberals, and I can't disagree with that term. While I can't and won't speak for her motivations behind the names, I claim a specific strategy behind the way I refer to people. In other words, there really is a method to my madness.

In 1969, We Moonwalked and Chewed Gum at the Same Time; What Happened to Us?

Today is the 40th anniversary of the day man first walked on the moon. I'm sure everyone who was alive then knows where he or she was when the live, grainy black and white video showed two men first climbing down a ladder and jumping onto the moon. It was a triumphant day, to be sure, for all of humanity. I know how cool it was to a dorky 11 year old kid who was an absolute space freak. I was excited by the space program. I watched every liftoff and every splashdown; I knew the name of every astronaut, and for a while, I could tell you which astronauts flew in every single Mercury, Gemini and Apollo mission. Here's a strange thing, though; I was never really into science fiction and fantasy to any great degree, even back then. I was astounded by what human beings were capable of when they put their mind to it, and put their nose to the grindstone to solve all of the problems related to doing something incredible. The space program made one proud to be an American, but more than that, it made one proud to be a human being. No other  species has the capacity to think about and solve problems to the extent humans do.

And yet, 40 years later, Americans seem to have forgotten that. The day we walked on the moon seems to have marked the exact moment that the United States gave up.  It was as if we proved to the world that we were the greatest, technologically advanced society in the history of the world, and then stopped right then, at that moment. 

Patience, Liberals; Obama is Your Friend

This year, Barack Obama won a huge victory, the GOP's far right is on the verge of being forced back to the fringes, where they belong, and Obama will have two houses of Congress with significant Democratic majorities to deal with.  And part of the reason for his victory was that liberals finally did what they should have done in 2000 and 2004, and supported the best of the candidates who could win.

 

Now is the time for patience, liberal brethren.

 

This is the beginning of a reform movement, folks. But I must stress that the turning away of a large portion of the right wing is the BEGINNING of that process, and is not the process itself. This will be a long haul, that will take at least a quarter century to happen. And that requires patience; a lot of patience.

 

I watch and read a lot of liberal commentary, and I am distressed at the way so many on the left are questioning everything Barack Obama does. I mean, if I hear one more supposed "expert" question Obama's choices of former Clinton staffers as appointees, and ridicule them because they don't see that as "change," I think I may just throw up on them.

 

Here's some history for you to use as background. After the less-disastrous-but-still-messed-up first Bush presidency, the populace elected Bill Clinton president by a huge margin. At the same time, they gave Democrats 57 seats in the Senate, and a significant majority in the House.  In other words, Clinton's election in 1992 was much like this year, albeit less of an absolute disaster than the second Bush.

 

So, basically, there was euphoria, there was talk of a major reform movement, etc, same as we’re hearing now from liberals, including me. And yet, two years later, Republicans took both the House and the Senate, and even though Clinton won a second term in 1996, he still failed to get a majority of the vote, and Democrats lost even more seats in Congress. In fact, it took 12 years to take majority control in the House and 14 years to win back a majority in the Senate.

 

Why did that happen? Because the first two years of the Clinton presidency were just about the greatest ClusterF*** in the history of American politics.  Clinton, in trying to be bold, and new and progressive, screwed himself, by surrounding himself with people who had great ideas, but had no idea how to get anything done.

 

Politics is about the process. Essentially, the core of our government is Congress, which is made up of 535 people, representing 435 distinctly different districts. Each member of Congress has to perform for his or her constituency, or he or she will not be there very long. Because of this, processes have developed, which have to be followed, if a president is going to enact any of his agenda.

 

In other words, you can have the biggest and boldest plan in the history of the country, but if you don't have people in your administration who know how to get the agenda through Congress, chances are, your agenda will remain on paper.

 

That's where Clinton screwed up. Apparently, in 1993, he believed that he was so enormously popular, that he could just mention a program, and Congress would jump to attention or something. And he hired a Cabinet and a staff who had no experience dealing with Congress, and getting things passed through Congress. Clinton and his people eventually learned, but it took three years and a loss of Congress in order to do it.

 

President Obama cannot afford to wait two to three years to move his programs through Congress, and he apparently learned from the Clinton Administration that, in order to get things passed, he needs people around him who can work the system. What you're seeing are not "Clinton retreads," you're seeing experienced people, who know how to get the job done. Obama will pack his Cabinet with experience for the first two years, and surround those people with deputies who reflect his vision, who will spend the first two years or so learning the ropes. Then, as the experienced people peel off and separate, by the second or third year, he will have largely his own team in place, and they'll be ready to take over seamlessly.

 

The President sets the tone, and the president himself decides the policies of his administration. Just because you're seeing a lot of Clinton people in his Cabinet and staff, does not mean we're looking at a third Clinton term. In the last 40 years, we have only had two Democratic presidents, and let's face it; the Carter people who are still around are probably a bit long in the tooth by now.

 

As I said, this is a long process, and Obama is only the first step in this, and we have to learn to have a little patience. Putting experienced people in top government positions, even if they do have ties to Clinton, or even Bush, is a smart move, and it's likely to prevent the same sort of shortsightedness that led to the Republican "Revolution" in 1994.

 

Let's trust Obama, until he gives us reason not to.

It Really Is the Economy, Stupid -- This Time, Let's REALLY Change It!

You know, one of the greatest frustrations in being somewhat liberal is the tendency for others of my ideological ilk to demonize individuals, and to focus on specific people as "the problem."

Our economy is damn close to a total meltdown, and we're closer to being a Third World country than at any time in our history. In a system that purports to be capitalist, we the taxpayer are now expected to bail out these "Captains of Industry" to the tune of $1 TRILLION, just to prevent the collapse of the economy.

Let me make something clear here, folks. This is not the fault of a few select individuals; it's about ideology. This election represents a turning point for this country. It's not about Republican vs. Democrat, it's not about Obama, or McCain, or Bush and Cheney, or Palin. This election is about repudiating an IDEOLOGY; an ideology that has kept us stagnate since the far right took over the government in 1981, that has managed to make the economy look better than it was with a series of bubbles and an unprecedented amount of debt, and which has pushed us to the brink of economic annihilation.

A good economy makes things and sells them for a profit. A good economy provides good jobs for as many people as possible, and pays them enough to create a good life. A good economy encourages entrepreneurship.

We do not have a good economy, and we haven't for at least 35 years. We started to recover in the right way under Bill Clinton, because he guided programs that propped up the bottom rungs of the economy, and he encouraged manufacturing and increased trade. But overall, our economy has been shipping most good jobs overseas, pay has been largely stagnant since the mid-1970s, and the level of actual entrepreneurship is so low as to be frightening. And has anyone even begun to comprehend the amount of debt we hold as taxpayers? We'd better start thinking about it, because that debt has to be paid back at some point. And the higher that debt goes, the harder and more expensive it will be to borrow money later. And since we're currently counting on borrowed money just to make ends meet in the current right wing economic environment, that will eventually cause us serious problems in the near future. 

And no matter what the people on the right tell you, make no mistake; it's not liberal policies, or free-spending liberalism, that is causing our economic problems.

The culprit is a right wing Republican ideology, which takes money from the poor and hands it to the rich. They still push the completely discredited concept of "trickle down economics," even though it's been nearly 30 years, and the only thing that's "trickled down" to the poor and working classes is the urine from the rich fat cats who have made out like bandits on your dime, and who are proceeding to piss all over you.

This election is about returning us to an economic model that worked, and abandoning the failed economic policies of a generation of right wing Republican theory that has proven itself to be both economically and morally bankrupt. Again; this isn't juast about a difference between Obama and McCain;this is about  complete change in mindset; to making people count again.

Stop Jerking That Knee and Become a Skeptic!

I can't tell you how many times in the last few weeks I've heard from another liberal about something Barack Obama supposedly said that was apparently outrageous or scary or somehow out of character. Liberals are often absolutely hysterical over many of their perceptions of Obama's positions on issues, and their screeching can be heard all over the blogosphere.

But then a funny thing happens. I actually look up what Obama actually said, and I think to myself, "Is that all?" Basically, what I'm finding is that a lot of people are hysterical about information that isn't actually true. For example:

• Barack Obama isn't in favor of expanding faith-based initiatives because he just loves combining government and religion. He's not planning to send tax money to churches for their basic operations. In other words, he's saying it's possible to assist churches in helping the poor and the sick, without violating the separation between church and state.
• Barack Obama hasn't reneged on his promise to extract us from the Iraq occupation, just because he says he will continually re-evaluate, based on what military experts tell him. Keep in mind, Bush SAYS he's listening to generals on the ground, but he's not; he only listens to those generals whose opinions he agrees with. He's fired every military expert that said anything he didn't like, remember? Basically, Obama's talking about responsibility. We broke the country of Iraq, and we owe it to the people there to pull out, but to pull out in a responsible way, that results in the least loss of life possible.
• Barack Obama has not abandoned his desire for campaign finance reform. The problem is, there's a large contingent of people who think the only way to reform the campaign finance system is by public financing, and the fact that he decided not to finance his campaign using tax money is seen by many as tantamount to treason. It completely disregards the reality that many of us feel that the public IS financing Obama's campaign, and he's actually demonstrating a campaign financing structure that works and is strangely not controlled by incumbent politicians, which would be the case in a public financing scheme.

See, here's the problem...

Reframe This!

Here are a few statements that some of you may find surprising, but they are actually almost inarguably true:

• In their daily lives, a majority of blacks have far more in common with white evangelicals than they do most self-described white progressives.
• The debate over abortion was lost even before Roe v. Wade, when we allowed right wing radicals to frame the debate in a way that made it very difficult for us to argue the issue logically.
• The average American is more concerned with being able to make a living and keeping his family fed, clothed and educated, than he or she is with whether or not the government is tapping his or her phone.

Now, the above statements seem kind of random, but they're not at all. They all point to the number one reason why progressive politics has taken a backseat to neocon blather for the last 30-40 years.

The average liberal/progressive had no idea what the average person thinks, or why. And that, my friends, is exactly why we've been standing on the outside of politics, and wishing we had a better seat. While the right wing has been eating political steak for the past 30 years, we've been largely fogging up the glass as political outsiders.

Let's take each of the above statements one at a time and address them.

Demand Leadership This Time!

How far we've come in a lifetime.

I turned 50 a few weeks ago, and when I think about what's happened during that time, historically speaking, it makes me smile.

When I was little, and I had just learned to read -- I was about 4 or 5 -- and my dad took me to the bathroom at the beach. The hand painted sign on the door read "Men," but poorly painted-over, I could make out another one a little to the left; and arrow and the word "coloreds." That would have been about 1962 or 1963.

About eight or nine years ago, I was doing research for a lawyer at a law firm. I had to peruse real estate ads Baltimore newspapers from 1963. What I saw shocked me somehow, as advertisements for homes and jobs clearly read "No Coloreds!" and "Whites only!" and some even read "Coloreds only!"

I felt chills as Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee the other night. I watched the entire speech, and I was proud of my country. Say what you will about the United States, but there are still few countries in the world in which someone with his background could compete with a woman of Hillary Clinton's background for the leadership of the entire country.

And then I considered the fact that this country has been moving forward consistently, making significant social progress despite the fact that most of our leadership the last 40 or so years has been little more than pathetic.  Imagine how great this country could be with good leaders running the show.

A Plea from Michael Moore: PA, END THIS THING!!

My Vote's for Obama (if I could vote) ...by Michael Moore

April 21st, 2008

Friends,

I don't get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn't get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote -- and yours -- on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you.

But that can't happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come -- but it won't be you. We'll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what's going on is bigger than him at this point, and that's a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, 'Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?' That's a damn good question. In November of '06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I'll tell you why. Because I can't stand one more friggin' minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I'm almost at the point where I don't care if the Democrats don't have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain't "Bush" and the word "Republican" is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that's good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That's why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters -- that big "D" on the ballot.

Don't get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.

It's foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that'll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!"

But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That's why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That's why he'll take us down a more decent path. That's why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is... 'can he win? Can he win in November?' In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it's possible to hear the words "President McCain" on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only "three fifths" human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com

It's Just Not That Simple...

One constant theme throughout Saturday's protest in Washington was this notion that Democrats are somehow just as culpable as Republicans when it comes to stopping the Iraq occupation, because they somehow hold "the power of the purse" and apparently haven't used it sufficiently. According to these folks -- and there seemed to be a lot of them -- this is due to the mere fact that they now hold a slim majority in the House and Senate. As this "conventional wisdom" goes , because they are now the majority party, Democrats can just cut off all funding, and thus force the president to simply stomp his feet, scream "aw shucks!" and bring the troops home.

 

Standing next to this too-large contingent of lefties is a group who is slightly more realistic, and suggests that Democrats just need to keep on sending bills to Bush and make him keep vetoing them. Their reasoning says that doing such a think would "show" everyone… um… what, exactly? That he's obstinately sticking by the war, regardless of what anyone thinks? Yeah! That'll show…. Um… whom, exactly? Is there anyone in the country who doesn't know this already? Constantly sending the president bills to veto over and over is just childish, and wastes time that could be spent on actually doing their jobs.

 

Stopping the appropriations process really isn't all that simple, anyway. It's not a matter of stomping your feet and saying "no more money, Mr. President." It's far more complex than that, and to expect it in the current environment is just plain silly and simplistic. Democrats hold a bare majority in the House, and several bills have gotten through there already. The Senate is another story, however. Under the circumstances, Democrats are effectively in the minority in the Senate, at least when it comes to Iraq. On Iraq, Democrats have exactly 50 votes in the Senate, and only since Tim Johnson returned from brain surgery; before that, they had 49. Meanwhile, the Republicans have 49 plus Lieberman, and Darth Cheney holds the tie breaker. The Democrats can't just vote away the war; they really do not have the votes. Republicans may hate this war, and there may be a point in the future in which Republican Senators hate the war enough to start voting against it, but to expect them to vote to cut off funding, well… it's just not realistic.

 

Even if Congress was able to cut off funding as of right now, there is no guarantee that such an action would have the desired effect, anyway. Approximately $500 billion has already been appropriated for Iraq so far, and that amount has been appropriated outside of the Defense budget, where there are tens of billions in discretionary dollars every year. It is unlikely that every dollar appropriated previously has been spent; there is probably a significant reserve built up, to keep the contractors happy for at least a year or two more. Therefore, even if the funding were to magically end right now, the war wouldn't necessarily end due to a lack of funding.

 

That said, imagine that the funding were suddenly cut off. Such a circumstance could potentially create a political minefield for Democrats, politically speaking. Any increase in violence could be turned against Democrats in Congress, for cutting off funding. This administration has been handed more than a half trillion dollars for this war, but hasn't been able to find the 20 billion or so it would take to provide body armor for all of the troops now; a reduction in funding would assure that they still don't get what they need. Halliburton, Bechtel and ExxonMobil will continue to make money from this war; make no mistake about that. Refusing to fund the troops isn't just a jingoistic Fox Noise Talking Point™, folks; the net effect of cutting off funding could be just that.

 

That is what the Democrats can't do. There is a lot, however, that they can do, although they need our help.

 

Many individual Congressional Democrats are doing a lot. They make speeches on the House and Senate floors, and they go onto talk shows and discuss the war. They tell everyone who will listen to them that this occupation is illegal and immoral and that it needs to stop. And they are doing that. Congressional Democrats have been all over the news this year, trying to drum up support for their bids to end the war.

 

If this war is going to end, we have to get more Republicans against the war, to the point that even THEY want it to end. That takes a hell of a lot more than a series of polls saying the American people don't like it. There has to be a groundswell that is so overwhelming that Congressional Republicans can't ignore it. That will take letter writing campaigns unlike any seen in years. I am not talking about e-mail, folks; I'm talking about letters. No petitions, no mass mailings in which you simply have to sign your name to a form letter. I'm talking about writing letters to Congress and your local newspaper, in which you express your disgust with this occupation, and its effects in the United States and the world.

 

We have to create a groundswell that makes the average person look up from their busy lives and say "You know, you're right! Iraq is a quagmire and a debacle!" to the point that they, too, write their Congresspersons and make their feelings known, as well.

 

The fact of the matter is, we don't have the votes to simply cut off war funding. That means, we have to create the votes. We have to make sure that 18-20 Republican Senators feel that they have no choice but to vote to end this thing. That's our mission, folks. If we can't get enough votes to override a veto, then there is nothing Democrats can do right now. Take this lesson into 2008, though, and make sure Democrats have enough votes next time. Right now, we have enough votes to stop the government hemorrhaging, and little more.  We need 60 votes in the Senate; more if a Republican like Bush is in the White House. 49-50 just won't cut it right now.

 

Constantly passing bills that are destined to die is not progress. Expecting miracles isn't progress. Progress takes a lot of work, and it requires a lot of passion. Not fake passion, but real passion.

Liberal ADD -- Let's Find a Cure...

I attended today's protest in Washington, DC, and once again, I have been able to pinpoint the problem with the left, and why we have such a huge problem getting our point across to a majority of voters.

 

Collectively, we have the worst case of ADD I have ever seen.

 

Now, the protest had been heavily promoted for a couple of weeks, and it was very clearly a protest against the Iraq, un, war. 

 

Okay, let me interrupt myself for a minute, because I have to make another point. (Is ADD contagious?). We are NEVER going to get a majority of the American people behind us if we always let the idiots on the right control the debate. And the fact that we are still using the term "war" when describing the occupation of Iraq, demonstrates a major problem on our part. We are not involved in a "war." The "war" was won more than four years ago. So, when we refer to what's happening in Iraq as a "war," we actually give the right wing their talking points. We have to stop doing that.

 

Now, back to the protest.

 

It was an interesting protest atmosphere; a lot of people, massed in several areas around the Mall and the White House; I was at Lafayette Park, across from the front of the White House, where several thousand people gathered at about noon to begin. Now, keep in mind; the flyers passed out all week identified the protest as a protest on Iraq. Most of the signs were about Iraq. It was a very good turnout for an sort f protest, and this one was ostensibly over Iraq.

 

I say "ostensibly," because the left's collective ADD was kicking in big time. If passersby were supposed to be impressed by the turnout, they were probably confused by the incredible lack of focus. This is a partial list of subjects covered by the speakers at the park, at a protest of the Iraq occupation;

 

• The Iraq "War" (of      course)
• Bush's shabby treatment of      Veterans and their families… (no problem, that fits)
• The Democrats' failure to stop      war funding… (not possible, and simplistic, but still… the theme fit)
• Racism (this war is very      racist, so okay, that fits)
• Cuban terrorists being allowed      to enter the United States…
• A call for an end to Israeli      Zionism, and for a Palestinian homeland.
• A call for an end to gun      violence in the United States...
• Economic Justice for the poor      in the United States…

 

And that's just the people on the stage. Milling through the crowd were people excitedly advocating for socialism, precisely the Socialist Party of the United States. I stood and listened in as three of these people tried to recruit members from the crowd, and not one even mentioned the Iraq occupation.

 

Then there were the PETA members, passionately pushing veganism on all who would listen, which wasn't many. One guy was obviously only listening to one vegan because she was really cute, but given what he was staring at, I didn't envision him giving up dairy anytime soon.

 

Another group of folks were advocating for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and yet another group was informing us of Global Warming because, well, no one's ever heard of that before.

 

And I haven't even mentioned the contingent of Libertarian Ron Paul supporters, who were sitting bored along H Street, and the cult-like Lyndon LaRouche supporters, who show up at every protest, and never seem to be discouraged by the fact that their cult never catches on with anyone.

 

Do you know why the right has been able to make so many political inroads in the last generation or so? It's because they're disciplined. Their followers are dumb as shit, but the people leading the right wing are an incredibly disciplined group, capable of focusing like a laser on those issues that its "base" finds important.

 

Now, I'm not talking about marching in lockstep on every issue. I don't want us to be like them in that way. But let's focus our efforts on issues one at a time. If we're going to teach the general public about what's really going on in the world, and how best to fix it, we have to focus on one thing at a time. Yes, war, social and economic justice and the environment are in many ways interrelated, but talking about all of them at the same time tends to simply confuse the hell out of people. Our goal in every protest march or in every blog article should be to teach people what we believe, and that is impossible to do if our views bounce off the walls like a box of superballs. For example, how many of those people we have to reach would continue to read an article on impeaching Bush and Cheney, if every other paragraph was about global warming and the genocide in Darfur? And make no mistake; we must stop holding protests and writing articles for ourselves; if we don't start reaching the masses, we'll never be successful in changing the climate in Washington, and saving the lives of our soldiers.

 

The next time we set aside a day to protest the Iraq quagmire, such as the March on Washington set for September 29, we have to put aside all other issues for that day, no matter how important they are to us every other day, and focus on the one. Learn everything you can about the war, and how to end it, and focus every fiber of your being on that. Then, a couple of weeks later, hold another rally and focus on the other topic close to your heart, even if it's veganism. By focusing on one topic, we are less confusing, and we teach more people those things they need to know.

 

And before you know it, we'll be living in a progressive country again.

 

You Wanna Know Why Progressives have No Power?

From: Pelosi's Stand Blocking Impeachment in the House is Killing the Democratic Party - The Smirking Chimp.

It's just the Constitution that's suffering because of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's nutty and unprincipled "impeachment-off-the-table" position blocking any effort to impeach President Bush or Vice President Cheney for their many crimes and abuses of power.

Her position on impeachment is killing the Democratic Party too, by driving away not just progressived members of the party, but independents who voted for Democrats last November expecting some action in defense of the Constitution.

I see this anger welling up among progressives and independents everywhere I travel, as people say they've simply had it with the Democrats. The support of the party for a bill continuing funding for the war through September was terrible. The Democrats' rush to pass a bill granting Bush the authority to spy without a warrant on Americans, and to expand the power to spy domestically well beyond phones and internet to even include break-ins was a last straw.

My own little call for people so sign an "I Quit This Party" petition has seen a jump from 300 to now 400 signers. (Sign up on the column to the right.) When it gets to 500 I'll be sending the list off to Pelosi, as well as to the offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean.

Four or five hundred party defectors may seem like small loss, but it reflects a larger trend across the country.

Okay, this is how stupid progressives are at times. A democratic body, like the Democratic party, isn't doing exactly what you want it to do, so you LEAVE IT??

Let's see... let's set up a hypothetical.

Say you have a group of 200 people. Of that group, 50 are true progressives, 100 are moderates, and 50 are conservative; 110 are against impeachment, while 90 are in favor of impeachment.

Now, 10 progressives LEAVE the party. Can someone PLEASE explain to me how reducing the number of progressives in the Democratic Party makes them more progressive?

Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage more progressives to JOIN? This is a democracy after all; doesn't it make more sense to INCREASE the numbers on our side?
It's NOT POSSIBLE.

The REASON the Democratic Party has drifted to the right over the last 40 years is because progressives have this fantasy that they can start a third party and revolutionize politics, which is patently absurd. Progressives, at best, make up 15% of the population; there are probably fewer of us than there are wingnuts. Progressives don't cause Democrats to cower in fear because they might leave; they already LEFT!

See, here's how politics works.

You recruit good progressives to run. You run them as Democrats, because the bulk of the population, for better or worse, will vote for a Republican or a Democrat, period. The Wingnuts will vote for pretty much anyone with a "R" next to their name, and do so in lockstep, so we really have to counter that effect.

Therefore, leaving the Democratic party, or even threatening to leave the Democratic party, is just the ultimate "biting off our nose to spite our faces" moment, and it's the main reason progressives are generally like the kid looking at the puppy in the pet store window, but never really getting it. We've had a generation of wingnut politics now, and this is exactly why.

Now, as for Pelosi "taking impeachment off the table;" she said that almost a year ago for Chrissakes! In fact, she said it on 60 Minutes on October 22, 2006. I am unaware of any active movement led by Rep. Pelosi to actively derail any impeachment articles, currently.

I would also add that Pelosi really doesn't have much of a say as to whether impeachment is on the table or not. The Speaker of the House doesn't have the power to stop Articles of Impeachment from ever going to the Judiciary Committee and then to the floor. What's stopping it right now is a lack of co-sponsors, and a lack of support. In other words, instead of dwelling on something Pelosi said on October 22, 2006, we'd probably be much more effective if we inundate our Congresspeople with letters (and I do NOT mean e-mails!, and I do NOT mean every goddamn Congressperson in the House!) and urge them to do the right thing.

I would also remind you that rushing into this would be a profoundly stupid idea. You only get to do this once, maybe twice, and politically speaking, they had better pass the articles. Not only that, but if you want to  convict, you have to swing at least 19-20 Republican Senators to vote to convict Bush and Cheney, which will take a hell of a lot more than just "Well, you've seen what they did!" there will have to be a lot of evidence.

Also, politically speaking, Pelosi is in an unusual situation, in that the impeachment call is for both Bush and Cheney. Such a move, if successful, would make her president, if only for a short time. Politically speaking, there would be consequences for her taking such a potentially self-serving step as introducing, or even actively helping along Articles of Impeachment. Ethically speaking, there might be questions if she led the charge. They will never come from her, and she really shouldn't even co-sponsor them, truthfully.

IOW, the thing to do is join the fricking Democratic Party, and move it left, and write your Congressperson, and ask them to co-sponsor articles of impeachment. Leaving the Democratic Party is what spoiled children do when they don't get their way.

In other words, it makes us look like Wingnuts.
You look at stuff like this, and it's no wonder the left has been impotent for 40 years...

"The Media" is Not the Problem!

Could we please get off this kick of blaming "the media" for everything?

There is a lot wrong with this country at the moment, and it's really easy to blame "the media," but it's just not that easy. This crap started back before most of the current "media" even existed; it actually started right after the 1964 election, and accelerated with Nixon, but the current era of government stupidity began with the 1980 elections, when the country voted in its first wingnut president, Ronald Reagan, and the whole "smoke and mirrors" era began in earnest.

In 1980, there was no cable news, there was no Fox, there was no national right wing talk radio. Yet, the country managed to be conned into believing that reducing taxes on the rich and corporations would actually increase tax revenues; that fat black women with ten kids living on a couple of hundred dollars a month were a common phenomenon, and a major problem, thus causing an incredible drain on the Treasury; that everything the government touched turned to crap, and that private industry did everything perfectly; that the best way to build the economy was to infuse it with fake money; that deficit spending was no big deal, since we were borrowing most of the money from ourselves; that the government should stop regulating commerce, despite its constitutional mandate to do just that, and instead increase its regulation of individuals and personal activities it didn't like. 

All of this garbage was established before "the media" became what it is today. So, why this obsession with "the media" as the reason for all of our ills? Does the journalistic profession largely suck? Of course it does, but there have always been several strata of reporters, and with the dawn of the electronic age, we're no longer stuck with the idiots at our local paper; we have our choice of idiots from news organizations all over the country. I grew up in Baltimore, back in the day when we had two newspapers, and there were three local television stations, each of whom programmed about 2 hours of news per day. Washington, DC was just 40 miles away, but it might as well have been Chicago. On a clear day, we could pick up DC TV channels, but they didn't program very much news, either.

These days, we're inundated with news choices. Our local TV stations program as much as 5-6 hours per day of news, and there are five 24-hour news channels. Of course, to fill the time, far too much of the "news" on these five channels consists of opinions, and there is a lot of disinformation out there. But with the dawn of the Internet, there are a plethora of outlets to provide the antidote to such disinformation and errant opinion. There should be more of it, to be sure, and I think we should re-regulate the broadcast spectrum, to make sure of a diversity of opinion. But put into perspective, the problem is not "the media;" it's us.

There has always been right wing media. Before Fox Noise, there was William Randolph Hearst.  There have always been right wingers on the radio; long before Limbaugh, there was Billy Sunday. In other words, things have always been this way, with regard to the media. And while "the media" seems more ubiquitous now, but the fact of the matter is, so is most entertainment programming. My cable system has more than 200 available channels, and fewer than 10 (including 3 C-SPANs) are news/information channels. It's hard to believe that they have all that much influence. In fact, if you look at the numbers, they don't.

The most popular cable "news" channel is Fox Noise Channel. Their most popular program is The O'Reilly Factor. The O'Reilly Factor boasts a total audience of just over 2 million viewers most nights.

The most popular radio talk show is Rush Limbaugh's, with Sean Hannity nipping at his heels. Limbaugh's show boasts 13.5 million listeners; Hannity boasts 12.5 million.

That means more than 98% of Americans do NOT watch Fox Noise, and more than 90% of Americans do NOT listen to either Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.

Moreover, of the top 10 newspapers in circulation in the country, only USA Today and the Wall Street Journal can be said to have a right wing bias of any kind, and that is largely isolated on their op-ed pages, to their credit. The Washington Post has ten times the circulation of The Washington Times. The Nation has higher circulation numbers than The National Review, and The Progressive has a higher circulation than The Weekly Standard.

In other words, perception has once again trumped reality. And in this case, it's our fault.

You see, the right wing is a distinct minority in this country. They don't have the most votes, they don't have the most money -- what they actually have is the most bullshit. And progressives are largely the most gullible people in the world, because we actually help them get their message across, without even realizing it.

The most obvious example, of course, is the debate over reproductive choice. We lost that debate not long after Roe v Wade was decided, and it wasn't "the media" that caused it. I mean, the debate has never been anything other than "who gets to make choices regarding pregnancy; the woman and her doctor, or the government?" Yet, we let them make it into a debate between "pro-life" and "pro-choice," and we let them redefine the debate as being about "when life begins." Basically, we gave them their argument.

What does that have to do with the media? Nothing. It's one of the most perfect examples of exactly how lame we are when it comes to getting our point across to the masses. "The media" is not the problem; it's the inability of liberals and progressives to articulate a vision that the average person can get behind. It's not that Rush Limbaugh is such an effective media personality -- at the peak of his popularity, in 1992, his first candidate, Pat Buchanan, couldn't get anyone to notice him, and his second candidate, Bush 41, only got 38% of the vote, and he was the incumbent! Even with the supposedly "immense" right wing media machine behind them, then Republicans had to cheat to get the White House in 2000 and 2004, and managed to eke out a bare majority during a time when the Democratic Party was at its lowest ebb in almost a century.

The problem isn't that the right wing dominates "the media;" it's that we don't speak up loudly enough. We spend far too much of our time trying to out-shout right wing clowns, and not enough speaking to the people who actually decide elections; the men and women who work hard each day, who happen to like wrestling and NASCAR, and who are struggling to pay their bills every day, because their right wing heroes tell them one thing, while simultaneously screwing them. We have liberal pundits advising us to "write off" the entire South, largely because it's "too difficult" to actually convince these people that we're right. That's our problem, not "the media." When someone has a reasonable disagreement with our point of view, we tend to lump them all together, and write them off. When the Democratic Party doesn't do what we want, we become "independent," and we back candidates that can't possibly win, and claim that we're "voting our conscience."

Every time I listen to a call-in show, or talk to a liberal who likes Dennis Kucinich, the liberal asks the same question; "Why is Kucinich considered a second-tier candidate? is it because he doesn't have the good looks of an Obama?" Then, they go on to blame "the media," as if "the media" chooses the candidates. Yes, "the media" has their favorites, and yes "the media" has some influence. But look around you; even much of the liberal media is more drawn to Obama than Kucinich. And the reason he's not an attractive candidate is actually deceptively simple:

He doesn't listen.

He is a typical liberal, in other words. He knows what he believes, and he articulates that well. That is not a leader. It's great that he is vegetarian, if that's what he wants to do, and it's great that he's against the war, and has voted against all sorts of funding bills. It's wonderful that he's pro-environment. He's a great guy. But when one listens to him objectively, one gets a sense that he doesn't know or care what matters to the average person, who is working two jobs just to pay the mortgage and the utilities every month. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with liberals in general. We don't listen, and we don'tspeak to the average person. In fact, we largely see the political "center" as a bunch of sell-outs with no core belief system. We look at them with disdain, as barriers to political success. Well, they're not a barrier, folks; they're the key.

Listen to the rhetoric from a too-large segment of the left regarding the Democratic Party, and you would think that every single politician with a "D" next to his or her name was some sort of "evil-doer" because some of them don't vote in lockstep with everything progressives supposedly stand for. Doesn't that sound remarkably like the kind of thing we usually accuse the wingnuts of being like? And what are we doing to fix the problem, anyway? Spamming Congresspeople with mass e-mails won't work; what would you do if you got a few hundred e-mails all looking the same? How about writing your Congressperson a handwritten (or typed, if your handwriting is really bad) personal letter? How about writing a series of them, about different issues? How about getting other people in your area to write them, and let them know what's up. A few dozen carefully written letters about an issue will get them thinking. And when they're on the floor, and they want to say something controversial, they would love to be able to point to loads of support from their constituents.

And if you want the Democratic Party to reflect your values, you actually have to become active within the Party. Register as a Democrat, attend meetings, start your own caucuses, and shake things up. Political parties are the ultimate democratic mechanisms; they reflect the people inside. It's not even a little bit realistic to stand outside the party and expect to scare them into voting your way. And if nothing else, we really have to become more realistic.

If we want to change things, standing outside and shouting at people isn't going to work. In fact, it will almost always have the opposite effect of the intended; people won't listen to us. And given that we live in a democracy, having a majority of people behind us is kind of a necessity if we're to push forward our agenda. I know a lot of people have this image of revolution, in which the powerful just capitulate, give in, end the war and give everyone health insurance. It's a powerful image, but unfortunately, we occupy the reality-based community, and we have to work toward certain things. We have to get a majority of people behind us. That's not "selling out;" that's democracy. That means we have to use "the media," and not simply piss and moan about it and write it off.

"But, how can we use 'the media,' when the rich Republicans own everything?" you whine.

Well, let's start with the fact that they don't own everything. Clear Channel owns about 1200 radio stations, which is about 9% of the total number of stations, and most of their stations play music. I do agree that media consolidation is a huge problem, and should be addressed, and I do think that large companies are locking out progressive talk from many markets. But instead of whining about the problem, why aren't we using our significant clout to petition OTHER stations to carry progressive talk radio? Of course, when they start carrying progressive talk, we have to do our job and make sure advertisers know that we appreciate their support, and make them rich for supporting it. Don't just listen to the damn stream passively; actively support progressive talk. If you're listening to a stream from another city, because your city doesn't have it, let some of the local radio station owners know that you would much rather listen over the air. Go to potential advertisers and let them know you would appreciate it if they supported progressive talk.

Trust me, folks; there's a market for anything in this country. As George Carlin once famously pointed out, the artificial vomit went on sale because the artificial dog crap sold so well. If we let advertisers know that there is a market for it, there will be progressive talk, regardless of whether there is a "fairness doctrine" or not. We must stop sitting back and waiting for politicians to do the "right thing," and then whining and complaining when they don't. They don't know what the "right thing" is, oftentimes, until the people tell them.

And stop looking at "the media" as the problem. The problem is us, and our tendency to choose martyrdom over political common sense. Most people are not news junkies, and don't listen to everything Sean Hannity says and act on it. We have to appeal to the masses, and as long as we find that distasteful, we will continue on the fringes.

"The Media" isn't the problem; we are.