The Language of the Progressive Movement

History tends to repeat because us flawed humans refuse to learn the lessons of history.
That is not a bold observation.

Today, much like 120-some years ago, the United States finds itself in need of a strong progressive movement. Right on queue, a progressive movement is beginning to grow.
However, today's progressive movement seems oblivious to the lessons to be learned from its first incarnation.

While whole volumes can, and have been, written on the 'does' and 'don't' of the Progressive Movement, I'd like to focus on just one item - the Language - and how it could help today.

#1) One of the most important items on the progressive agenda today is getting big money out of politics, especially corporate money. It's a very worthy goal.

It's also a stupid sell.

What do I mean by that?
Any salesman will tell you that you don't sell the 'what'. You sell the 'why'.
The objective of progressives isn't to get corporate money out of politics. That's the 'what'.
The objective is to get corruption out of politics. That's the 'why'.

Part of the reason Donald Trump won was because he talked about "draining the swamp'.
It didn't matter that he was lying. What mattered is that he actually brought up corruption as a campaign issue.
What was amazing is that no one, no one, denied the corruption existed.
What was equally amazing is that it never occurred the Democrats to jump on that bandwagon and vow to battle the corruption, even after the issue was sitting there in the open.

Battling political corruption was what started the Progressive Movement in the 1890s, and it remained their most popular tool. They didn't preach against "corporate money". They railed against "Bribery and Corruption".
Which method do you think is an easier sell?

#2) Trump won with promises that were very much anti-globalism and anti-neoliberal.
Once again, it doesn't matter that he was lying. What matters is that people's faith in the markets is finally being questioned, even in Republican circles.
This goes double for Democrats.

So what do progressives do? They embrace Democratic Socialism.
While I am totally onboard with that, this is once again, a stupid sell.

What needs to happen first is to take those flaws in the capitalist system and expose them to the light of day.
Fortunately there is a word we can learn from the Progressive Movement that they used effectively. It also happens to conveniently tie in with the 'corruption' theme.
That word is: monopoly.

a substantial and growing body of research that confirms that consolidation is at the root of many of America’s most pressing economic and political problems.

These include the declining fortunes of rural America as farmers struggle against agriculture conglomerates. It includes the fading of heartland cities like Memphis and Minneapolis as corporate giants in coastal cities buy out local banks and businesses. It includes plunging rates of entrepreneurship and innovation as concentrated markets choke off independent businesses and new start-ups. It includes falling real wages, as decades of mergers have reduced the need for employers to compete to attract and retain workers.

Monopoly is a main driver of inequality, as profits concentrate more wealth in the hands of the few. The effects of monopoly enrage voters in their day-to-day lives, as they face the sky-high prices set by drug-company cartels and the abuses of cable providers, health insurers, and airlines. Monopoly provides much of the funds the wealthy use to distort American politics.
...
Ordinary Americans didn’t need experts to explain the danger of monopoly. Populist movements like the Tea Party, Occupy, and the Sanders campaign have all focused to varying degrees on the threats posed by concentration. Polls show that a majority of Americans now believe big corporations are too powerful. Yet through 2016, mainstream Democrats didn’t acknowledge that this growing fear of monopoly power might affect how citizens vote.

Much like the corruption issue, Democrats left this obvious winner sitting on the table.
Even worse, progressives rarely even mention it, despite the fact that literally everyone understands that monopolies are bad and that only the government can stop them.

There are other words that should be used by progressives, but aren't.
For instance, there is the Justice Democrats movement.
Once again, I totally support them. But once again, they used the wrong word.
They should have called themselves Reform Democrats, because that is their objective (as opposed to their value).

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

lotlizard's picture

like Google’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to sweep faux progressives into power, and keep them in power.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-30/googles-eric-schmidt-...

Amazon is the Wal-Mart of the Internet. Of course the current Democratic establishment is not going to come out against corruption and monopolies.

up
0 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

on the anti-corruption bandwagon because of who was at the top of their ticket.
Likewise anti-monopoly. Obama's legacy is less than stellar on anti-trust.

up
0 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@Azazello @Azazello but then hypocrisy didn't stop Trump.
More important there's nothing to stop progressives

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Azazello They can't jump on that bandwagon because too many of them are too corrupt.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

of wealth are clearly identifiable phenomena, and generally harmful to the body politic. I am not sure they have much to do with "corruption" though. The entirely legal, and in fact respectable process by which big capitalist entities gobble up small ones, seems more a structural feature of the system, than a result of individual instances of bribery.

up
0 users have voted.

native

@native

Essentially, bribery is simply a method by which services are exchanged for remuneration -- but surreptitiously, rather than openly and legally. In olden days, bribery was a practice much less frowned upon than it is now, but I suspect it is no less prevalent today. There are after all, an infinite number of ways to disguise it.

up
0 users have voted.

native

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@native It doesn't matter if it evolved with our DNA. Bacteria are as old as the hills too. It doesn't make them "not an illness" because of their age and omnipresence.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

and so are greedy humans in positions of power. Rather than trying to eliminate either by means of disinfection, it might be better to build up antibodies.

up
0 users have voted.

native

@native

up
0 users have voted.

up
0 users have voted.

native

@gjohnsit I think the analogy is akin to vaccination, and therefore being immunized.
What you have written here is knowledge that we can all use to overcome the disease of human failings, e.g. greed, etc.

Your work does that for me. It's enlightening in the sense that it makes me aware of what is really going on, and like an antibody, can vaccinate against the latest neoliberal shitstorm lies.
It's also the world we live in.

up
0 users have voted.

@gjohnsit
nor does society just accept corruption.
Corruption causes unrest all over the world, and all throughout history.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@native I, for one, am for doing both. Antibiotics aren't the answer, but I'm glad someone discovered penicillin.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@native Assertions of inevitable corruption aren't likely to form the foundation of either a reform movement or more radical action, or any kind of change. If there's no hope of stopping something, why would anyone bother?

The concept of the "long, twilight struggle" seems to have died with Kennedy's generation.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

We can't just exterminate a part of the ecology and expect it not to disturb the rest. Bacteria are a problem when they get out of balance. In balance, they perform many necessary functions, like digestion, vitamin production, autonomic regulation...

We are apparently too clean these days - that appears to be related to the rise of autoimmune diseases. Our systems have too few appropriate enemies to attack, so they turn on parts of themselves.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Sunspots I was using it as a metaphor for corruption. Native, and some others, seem to think that since corruption is a function of human nature, it's futile to fight it, even stupid.

I'm more with gjohnsit on the idea that, well, murder has existed as long as Homo sapiens too, probably, but we don't shrug and turn our palms up over that. My metaphor: bacteria have existed as long as we have (longer) but we don't simply shrug and say "Well, that's the way of the world," when somebody gets an infection and wait to see if they die.

Actually, we didn't do that even back before we had antibiotics.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

up
0 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

@native

The entirely legal, and in fact respectable process by which big capitalist entities gobble up small ones, seems more a structural feature of the system, than a result of individual instances of bribery.

It's not the small capitalist entities we're so worried about; it's the public common wealth that should belong to no single entity or person whose being gobbled worries me!

Wink

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides

to be best administrated by private interests. As do most other forms of governance, much to their own benefit of course. I'm not sure it is even possible for human beings to be individually responsible for their own collective destiny. Even so, we keep on trying -- one by one, two by two, three by three, four by four... maybe someday, we'll all get to the promised land... if our fearless leaders haven't totally trashed the place first.

up
0 users have voted.

native

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@native Bribery is corruption, regardless of whether it masks itself as donations or not.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
much of the corruption wasn't yet illegal.
So they had a much higher hurdle to jump over.

Progressives today just need to 1) get the laws enforced, or 2) get the laws reinstated.

up
0 users have voted.

@gjohnsit about all of the retailers that have busted recently. Some of the retailers were bought by investment groups that then loaded them up with debt.

These types of transactions have been going on at least since the '80s, yet no one bats an eye. How are these transactions even legal - it is obvious theft, since the funds from the debt go to the investment group.

What am I missing?

up
0 users have voted.

dfarrah

GreatLakeSailor's picture

...is too badly damaged a word. For the last 4+ decades the word reform was a clear indication of skullduggery.

Ex: Welfare "Reform", Tax "Reform", etc.

up
0 users have voted.

Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.

@GreatLakeSailor

as often as not.

up
0 users have voted.

native

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

If, by "embrace democratic socialism," you are referring to Sanders' campaign. Are you?

Because Sanders did not run on Democratic Socialism. He ran against corruption. That's why it took fraud and voter purges to put him down.

Sanders stated, when asked, that yes, he was a Democratic Socialist, in much the same vein that Keith Ellison states, when asked, that he is a Muslim. Sanders was up front about it, and did not try to hide it (trying to hide it would have been fatal). But he didn't make a big deal about it. That would not have been a winning strategy. He focused on how the rich and powerful got everything, including control of the government, through corrupt means--and how everybody else was getting the short end of the stick. He focused on how it didn't have to be that way.

In some ways, what he was selling incorporates the Square Deal as much as the New Deal.

But he was not running on Democratic Socialism. He was running on recreating a fair public and private sphere, and he was selling that notion by focusing on corruption in both.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
they committed ethical if not illegal fraud to take him down. If he had won the election then the democrats wouldn't be able to hide behind the republicans obstructing his legislation.
That's one of the reasons why Barack didn't mind that DWS screwed up the 2010 election. When they had both houses of congress they had to hide behind the blue dawg democrats. Barack couldn't use the bully pulpit
This came from the article I linked below

Burning Down Democracy

Then in another move — that has to rank as one of the most moronic and dishonest tactics in American politics — the DNC conspires with the corporate media to cheat Bernie Sanders, the rightful nominee. Then, in a brilliant tactic, the DNC elevates Trump as the easy one to beat. Both demobilize voters, especially younger voters, by giving them proof positive that their vote does not count. Only a machine so insulated and out of touch with the country it proposes to lead could make such an elementary error. An error impossible to make if Democrats held the interest of the county higher than the control over the machine. But, they do not.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg Brilliant sig. code.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

k9disc's picture

of public policy: Big Corporate & the Oligarchs.

If he ran against "Corruption" he would have hammered Hillary -- that was corruption.

The most damning fact he could put forth was that "They Own the Place" and their interests don't dovetail with the interests of the Citizen and Nation.

Bernie indicted the system -- pointed out the systemic flaws that turned government into a business that serves profit at the expense of people. That is NOT corruption, it's just how it works.

He didn't try to reform government. He tried to engage people to become more politically active in the hopes that we could compete against Big Corporate & the Oligarchs for some representation.

There were no massive political reforms offered by Bernie. He called for citizen engagement and the service of the electorate's needs which would flow from more engagement.

Again, if he ran against corruption, he would have pummeled her on the speeches. But that wasn't and isn't necessary. Just state it clearly,"Big Corporate & the Oligarchs own the place, and get better representation than American Citizens."

The need for reform is self explanatory from that vantage point. It might not be corrupt, as it's legal, but that doesn't make it right.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

up
0 users have voted.

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@k9disc The most damning fact he could put forth was that "They Own the Place" and their interests don't dovetail with the interests of the Citizen and Nation.

In a Republic, that's corruption.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
You get it.
Let's call a spade a spade. People will respect that.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit Yeah, I get corruption. I'm from Florida.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@k9disc You are right, however, that it would follow to hammer Hillary on corruption. He didn't, not because fighting corruption wasn't at the heart of his message, but because his message was compromised from the beginning by some stupid "deal" he made with Hillary and her machine.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@k9disc pointed out the systemic flaws that turned government into a business that serves profit at the expense of people. That is NOT corruption, it's just how it works.

That's the argument of the DC political establishment, isn't it?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
"How it works" = corruption

up
0 users have voted.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal with the narrow definition of corruption presented by several posters.

"Corruption is a form of dishonest or unethical conduct by a person entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire personal benefit. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries." (from wikepedia)

Posters here are missing the ethics and the trust angles. We elect our representatives to represent us. We pay their salaries. We have placed them in a position of trust to look out for our interests, yet they look out for TPTB and themselves.

This is corruption.

up
0 users have voted.

dfarrah

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dfarrah Is my definition narrow?

I think I have a pretty damned broad definition of corruption, but if I'm missing something, please let me know (that's not snark).

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I attached my comment at the wrong place.

up
0 users have voted.

dfarrah

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dfarrah Not a problem; I was actually intrigued with the idea that there was some corruption you saw that I'd missed!

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg It's a worthy article, so far, but I nip back here to comment that they have a really weird, unfounded set of ideas about Elizabeth Warren. "Tar her with the same brush as the Clintons?" Uh, well, maybe we do that because she got down on her knees and kissed Hillary's ass during the primaries? And because, after bitching about being called "Pocahontas," (and rightfully so), she didn't do or say thing one about Standing Rock.

One word: unreliable.

I don't care what's going on in the mind or heart of the unreliable person; if I'm doing a job of work and they repeatedly let me down, it eventually doesn't matter why.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

On the other hand, it matters. As soon as a person tells me they are a conservative, alarms go off in my head. I steer clear from religion, taxes, gay rights, immigration, Social Security, health insurance, and try to discuss the business at issue.
I cannot rationally discuss Medicare for all with a person who lives by Breitbart, who almost died from a massive heart attack, and hates the whole idea of government programs that are currently providing his child with a college education by government grants.

up
0 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

@on the cusp

According to Cenk, Justice Democrats is a play on "just us Democrats". The mistake they made is using the word, Democrat. It has been defined, and it isn't pretty.

If we are to defeat the oligarchy, it will take crossing the aisle. The bigger and broader the coalition, the harder it will be to create infighting and tear it down. That is why 99% worked and BLM didn't.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich Over and over, I agree with the conservatives on despising democrats, except we despise them for entirely different reasons.
I prefer not to mention republicans to them.
What we all have in common is being working poor, or simply poor.
And that is now the most shameful label to wear. Just being a 99%er is admission you just didn't work hard enough, weren't smart enough, and who the fuck wants that?
We are a movement of losers in today's political environment.
We can call ourselves Ray, or Jay, but we will be perceived as losers wanting a government hand out.

up
0 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@on the cusp http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1zjehb_you-can-call-me-ray-1970s-tv-co...

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

up
0 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@on the cusp Me too!

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@dkmich You are kidding.

Holy shit.

So instead of "I'm With Her," it's like "We Democrats are With Ourselves!"

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

jobu's picture

...the 1936 Dem Convention Speech at Franklin Field (Penn) given by FDR gives the "Why" better than any speech I can recall. I'm sure all of us at C99 have this one bookmarked, as we should, because it distills the Progressive Argument to its nub.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor—these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age—other people's money—these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the Nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

The Speech was followed with Policy...the bulk of the New Deal. This Rhetoric combined with policy action ensured political dominance by Dems for 50+ years. More importantly, it helped countless hard working American share in our prosperity.

Thank you as always GJohn for your hard work and wonderful essays. I've been very busy and haven't been able to interact on C99 as much as I'd like too. For this essay I found a minute to respond.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@jobu
happening. I quoted from another president in the late 1800's warning us about the corruption of congress.
I read books that were about the robber barons who controlled the railroads and how they bought members of congress.
Bohner handed out cash to congress members that he got from the tobacco industry. The blatant display of taking money from them after they passed legislation that helped their business.
Now instead of getting paid with money, they get paid through lobbyists.
Not only money for their campaigns, but lavish trips, meals and many other things and I wonder how many things they get they don't report?

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

lotlizard's picture

@snoopydawg an amazingly high proportion of the U.S. House of Representatives are on an all-expenses-paid junket to Israel, courtesy of what might be called the “Hasbara” lobby and industry.

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/81-congressmen-to-visit-Isra...

http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/318433/over-40-freshmen-congress-m...

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@lotlizard Is there some way we can manage for them to stay there? They should be closer to the fruits of their labor.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

earthling1's picture

who hasn't played the board game Monopoly. Everybody knows what it means to clean the table. It is a thoroughly relatable word that we should be using much more often to describe what is happening in America today.
I agree with your essay completely gjohnsit.

up
0 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Words need to have meanings that successfully communicate, especially when you are attempting to communicate complex ideas. If they become so bastardized that meaning is effectively smeared all over the map, it's time to look for another word.

This happened twice before in my lifetime, first when in the 1960s the term liberal similarly lost meaning. While it wore well enough in the previous decade, the glaring conflict of calling oneself liberal while at the same time waging imperialist slaughter in Viet Nam and telling the civil rights movement that we're asking for "too much too soon" quickly led to a complete cognitive breakdown. So, after 1962's Port Huron Statement, most of us adopted the term The New Left (which also served to underline our substantial disagreements with the "old left"), and which worked quite well until the main national organizations came apart at the seams at the end of the decade.

After a few years of position papers and informal discussions, most of us (though not including what became a new form of the old left, with a very similar fucked-up-ness as the old old left) settled on the term progressive, which looked back to both the turn-of-the-century progressive movement as well as Henry Wallace's Progressive Party of the late 1940s. In other words, broad enough to encompass all of us working on a huge range of projects, some electoral and basically reformist, as well as some grassroots and community empowerment projects that occasionally were quite radical (I tended towards the latter, of course...).

However, for about the last 10 years it's become increasingly obvious that the word is now commonly used to describe people and stuff that really have no business using it, at least in the way it was first intended. This is that obliteration of meaning I mentioned. While imperialist wars, global manipulation and the racist system we all live inside rumble right along, one feature of life in America has risen to the fore, dominating and shaping everything else: the increasingly naked plutocracy and its accompanying ideology of neoliberalism. A failure to recognize this (hello, Democratic Party loyalists!) is an abject failure to deal with our current reality.

So this is why I've thrown in the towel on "progressive," and am now back to just referring to "the left," whatever that may mean, until something better emerges.

up
0 users have voted.

@Tak

Terminology needs to be continually re-invented, if the concepts being described are to have any longevity whatsoever. This has been a huge problem for the American Left, ever since the 60's. Corporate media have the ability to grab hold of any word, and turn it completely upside-down.

up
0 users have voted.

native

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Tak If I can make a materialist observation on an abstract topic--
they can take any word they want and make it mean whatever they want, given the 24/7 media machine they have. All they have to do is run people using the word in whatever new way they want, 24/7, on the TV.

At the risk of sounding like a hippie, the only way to stop it is to get people to drop out of big media consumption, and build and nurture alternative forms of communication.

What we do here is a beginning, or could be.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

This article hits the reasons for why the democrats lost so many seats and states and for why Hillary lost to Trump of all people.
Seriously, the most qualified candidate ever lost the presidency to Donald f'cking Trump! Gee if that doesn't tell the democrats that they need to change their party's policies, I don't know what would.

Well, who the hell are the Democrats going to blame now? The degree to which you scapegoat the Green Party or the white working-class is precisely the degree to which you are proving you will never learn a damn thing and are completely unable to lead this country.

snip

Simple stuff really. It’s an anti-establishment year. So the DNC stays with the predetermined candidate that represents the corrupt establishment itself. Duh.
The Democrats were oblivious to the deep discontent among the American people because that simply does not figure into their clever and cunning calculations. Why should it? Fear, lesser of two evils, scapegoating, palace politics — all these things worked in the past, didn’t they?
So all the discontent and unhappiness from years of economic distress fed right into the only other choice. We have the “great two party system” don’t we? Both Democrats and Republicans insist there is no alternative. The Democrats fail, the Republican succeed. Damn the binary, we so need a multi-party system.

more snip
And how dumb was this?

The Democrats run a candidate who spent eight years in the White House, crowed about her experience, even when the experience included the fact that Bill Clinton was IMPEACHED and widely viewed as a bum. The Democrats embrace a family dynasty the includes one of the two presidents in all of American history impeached by the House of Representatives. Good choice! This has to be one of the most amazing proofs that the Democratic Party echo chamber is truly deafening.

snip
How many people who supported Hillary accepted that she meant it when she said that her vote for the Iraq war was a mistake? How many years did it take for her to admit that?

Most of us were disgusted with Obama bombing 8 countries and invading and destroyed Libya and Syria, yet Hillary thought that we would vote for her because she was running on creating a no fly zone over Syria and risking a nuclear war with Russia. Gawd, talk about tone deaf.

Rely on Fear Then Scare the Shit Out of Everyone

We already have eight wars under Obama. Just not enough for Hillary. Clinton’s lust for war and love of the military-industrial complex was so great she spoke openly of nuclear war. During the last debate we learned we are four minutes from oblivion. Now that was smart!

To the American legion she said “One of the first things I will do as president, is to call for a new nuclear posture review.” Unneccesary war mongering. Clinton knew damn well that Obama had already ordered a trillion dollar upgrade of the nuclear arsenal including the production of dangerous tactical nukes, weapons small enough that they could actually be used. So if you are going to rely on fear of the other candidate to manipulate the voters try not to be the scarier one. In 1968 Nixon actually ran as a “peace candidate” to the “left” of Humphrey whose response to the war in Vietnam was “more of the same.” Nixon won you dumbasses.

https://befreedom.co/2016/11/10/dumbass-democrats/

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg Thank god somebody else noticed that speech as a pivotal point. First mention of it I've seen other than Jimmy Dore's.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

k9disc's picture

and you're likely to get an eyeroll.

Same thing with "Reform".

We do not have corruption in politics. This is the business of government. It is legal, and it is how the system works.

Talking about "Reform" or "Corruption" is an anachronism. It isn't corruption if it's legal. And reform is a hackneyed political concept that is un-believable on it's face. You might as well say "transparency".

Also, corruption is a human failing, not a systemic one. Talking about corruption is a great way to get the whipping boy whipped or the scapegoat ran out of town on a rail.

Drumpf didn't promise reform. He didn't go in to root out corruption, that would have lead to guffaws across the electorate. He went directly after pay to play; after systemic political problems with his "Drain the Swamp" metaphor.

There are no values or frames to hang an argument on with corruption and reform frames.

We've got to stop corporate sponsored public policy and the private sector predation it enables. The whole American political system is set up as a public policy department for Big Corporate & the Oligarchs. They sponsor the representatives and as the corporate or philanthropic sponsors, they get to call the tune. It is as simple as that.

We are not fighting corruption, we are fighting the business of government. It ain't going to be fixed with political reform, it's going to get fixed by throwing some people in jail, eliminating the profit motives, and making citizens as important as profit.

up
0 users have voted.

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

snoopydawg's picture

@k9disc
in our government that there is no separation from it and the corporations.

The scale of our problems are far too great. There is far too much at stake. The problems we face are dangerous, deeply embedded, institutionalized. There is no clever, cunning or purely tactical way of addressing them. Inside baseball and palace politics have failed.

The Corporate Power is vast wealth wedded to political control. And, it rules America. This power grab was not the result of free markets; it has been engineered. A century of political interventions and a dense web of public subsidies and tax benefits have redistributed wealth to the 1%. The richest country in world history, the US has among the worst income inequality in the developed world.

And finally “the great two-party system” itself. With a stranglehold on the Constitution and government, both parties have built formidable legal obstacles prohibiting opposition parties and limiting reform efforts from within. The big corporations and the billionaires successfully govern through money and the revolving door of lobbyists, legislators and officials. The evidence is so compelling we hardly needed the Princeton study of 1,800 policy initiatives or former President Jimmy Carter to tell us we are no longer a democracy but an oligarchy.

There are lots of links inside the blockquote and the rest of the article is a great read.

https://befreedom.co/2016/11/03/do-we-vote-for-the-lesser-of-two-evils-o...
IMG_1033.JPG

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

k9disc's picture

@snoopydawg

"The only thing worse than a dumbass is a chickenshit."

The Democrats are dumb and dumber via that metric.

up
0 users have voted.

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

snoopydawg's picture

@k9disc
There are a lot of websites that I find from links in other articles and one had a link to this website.
This is a site that talks about taking Bernie's ideas on how we can take our government out of the hands of the corporations who own our congress members.
These two quotes are from the "revolution" part of the website. I hope that people will click on the other links on it.
We know that we have to change how our government works, but many of us don't know how to do that or where to start.
This site lays out the problems, the agenda and what we can do to change it.

Strategy: The Bernie or bust pledge was a demand. In 2016 it did not work because the Democratic party was, in effect, the Clintoncratic Party: rigged, neo-liberal and, unlike the Republican Party, impervious, by design, to challenges from outside the establishment. Party superdelegates, who endorsed Clinton before the first debate, should resign for incompetence if not corruption. We intend to support the progressive revolutionary with the best chance of winning in 2020.

Tactics: We intend to deploy legal, effective online activities in support of candidates advocating anti-establishment economic ideas and anti-oligarchic campaign finance solutions. We intend to build on what we built and deployed Bernie or bust when the time comes. This website will serve as a resource for information and tactical ideas for the application of #leverage. Meanwhile, we may on occasion inform people on a major action or suggest taking action over a bill, nomination, etc.

This shows how both parties are complicit and how the democrats have Kept Their Powder Dry and how they never planned on using it.
How many times did we yell at the democrats to grow a spine and hit back against the republicans? Now I see why they never did and never will grow a spine. It's the good cop/bad cop routine.

Not only do corporatist Democrats differ little from evil, bought-off Republicans; they’re actually criminally culpable for condoning and perpetuating Republican evil. Nowhere can we see this more clearly than in Obama’s failure to investigate and prosecute major war criminal George W. Bush and his henchmen, and in Democrats’ utter refusal (a refusal imposed even on plain-spoken Bernie Sanders) to label Jeb Bush “the war criminal’s brother.” Considering Democrats’ obvious self-interest in using that label—it would be the instant death blow for Jeb’s campaign—their refusal to apply it proves just how much Democrats are part of the same evil game. For applying it would raise embarrassing, unanswerable questions for Democrats, like why Bill Clinton imposed genocidal sanctions on Saddam Hussein’s innocent people, why Democrats overwhelmingly joined the bandwagon for Bush’s wildly imprudent criminal war, or why Barack Obama decided to continue Bush’s universal spying and even expand his unending ill-advised war on terror (albeit in proxy form). But perhaps the worst instance of Democrats and Republicans playing the same evil game is Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s criminally irresponsible “gentleman’s agreement” never to mention climate change—a life-or-death issue for humanity, but politically inconvenient for both—throughout their series of 2012 presidential debates.

https://citizensagainstplutocracy.wordpress.com/our-revolution/

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

LeChienHarry's picture

@snoopydawg Also posted to FB.

Should this be added to the Blogroll? JtC would do it if the site meets his criteria.

Great discussion: to which I would add maybe the word "independent" could be used to good purpose in these discussions of labels. It appears people across a wider spectrum than Democrats or Republicans call themselves Independents. It does resonate with each person differently, but it certainly is big tent.

On social issues the American population is moving leftwards of the politicians, rather rapidly.

On economic issues it seems to be a more political or "religious" issue. But once people get the fact that they are owned, the scales fall from their eyes.

up
0 users have voted.

You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce

If you can donate, please! POP Money is available for bank-to-bank transfers. Email JtC to make a monthly donation.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg Responding to the facts on the ground, Bernie’s revolution must treat his candidacy as a hostile coup against Hillary and the corporatist party leadership. Clearly a job for Bernie’s revolution and not his campaign, since his campaign must—at peril of shutdown by the DNC—diplomatically avoid cracking the same eggshell of legitimacy his revolution needs to smash.

OK. But what happens after his campaign is over, and he's travelling the country with Tom Perez on a Unity Tour?

This analysis could hold water...just barely...if it limited itself to Sanders' candidacy. After his campaign is over, and the election over, he can no longer be the eggshell-walker AND claim to support "a hostile coup against Hillary and the corporatist party leadership."

Chuck Schumer just gave him the job of Outreach Director for the Senate Democrats. Do you think Schumer is also engaging in "a hostile coup against Hillary and the corporatist party leadership?" Or how about Keith Ellison, Bernie's chosen candidate for DNC chair. When he tells progressives to "buck up," is he engaging in "a hostile coup against Hillary and the corporatist party leadership?"

There's still a lot of good stuff in this article, but they seem to be trying to delicately lift Bernie off the hook he's landed on. I don't hate Bernie. I am actually grateful he ran his campaign, still. But Bernie got landed like a fish in a boat last June. Give him credit: he went to all possible power brokers: Obama, Biden, Reid. He obviously got a "no" from all of them; no support, no help, no recourse against the Clinton machine. Then he walked into the convention and let himself and his supporters get pwned.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg More response...this part is great. I didn't realize these people launched #BernieOrBust. Good for them.

That letter is the left’s get-out-of-the-two-party-prison free card. We cannot be blamed for President Trump if he’s not actually in cahoots to take a fall before election day, a conspiracy theory with four “data points” (so far) to support it. The superdelegates should be fired for dereliction of their duty to ensure they pick the candidate who’s best situated to win. This is our letter of liberation. We are free to go about the 50 states voting our conscience on November 8th. #JillOrBUST #WeAreNotAfraid

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg Article is getting better and better (and I'll stop loading up the comments with these responses after this one; glad I kept reading though!)

But the illegitimacy of today’s Democrats hardly implies today’s Republicans are legit. In fact, the urgency of political revolution in a nation saddled with a malfunctioning two-party system strongly implies that both parties suck. And it’s hardly going on a limb to say that today’s know-nothing, science-denying, vote-repressing, proto-fascist Republicans suck. In fact, today’s Republicans are a blasphemy on everything that’s sane, civilized, and (ironically, given their religious bent) even Christian—strong candidates for the title “whore of Babylon” if not that of “Antichrist.” But their utterly perverse badness—for which, as we argued, superdelegates bear sole responsibility—hardly implies that Democrats are acceptable.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg OK, I gotta do just one more, cause this is great:

A Democratic Party not complicit, and holding the moral high ground to denounce Republican evil, could have stopped the GOP’s worst misdeeds long ago. With Democrats, so deeply to blame for Republican evil, no reform-minded voters should be duped by the sleazy blame-shifting con of voting for Democrats as the lesser evil. In fact, Democrats simply hide beneath the ground cover of Republican evil to perpetuate their own plutocrat donors’ preferred brand. What voters should in fact feel guilty for is enabling that.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@snoopydawg
All around the world, and all through history, government corruption causes popular unrest.

No one, no one, ever just accepts corruption anymore than anyone accepts murder.
Murder and corruption will keep happening, but they should never just be accepted.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@k9disc "Drain the Swamp" absolutely activated values in people. Do you know how many right-wing people cited that to me, whether online or IRL?

The problem with it for Trump wasn't in the message, it was in the fact that he wasn't prepared to follow through on the message.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@k9disc "Drain the Swamp" was an anti-corruption metaphor, at least in the eyes of all the right-wing people I've discussed it with.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Silly me thought she meant corruption. Turned out, AFAIK, she meant Democrats Eric Massa, Anthony Weiner and Charlie Rangel. She succeeded with the first two, but not with Rangel. I'm not saying Massa and Weiner should have been able to keep their positions--though, heaven knows, Democrats saved Bill Clinton from his own sexual misconduct.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg @HenryAWallace Well, there's two separate issues, right? There's the choice of words, and then there's whether or not the speaker is a fucking hypocrite.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Who knew that Trump was planning to develop that drained swamp-land into a yuuuuuuge Corruption Preserve?

up
0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

k9disc's picture

Corruption? What is it? Pay to play? Legalized Bribery? Aristocracy? Big vs Little? Rich vs Poor?

I'd say,"Yes," to all of them. Corruption is an umbrella, and as such it is not specific or discrete enough to allow for proper targeting. You can't have precision nor accuracy if the target is poorly defined.

Reform? Again, what are we reforming? Pay to play? etc...

The words and arguments we need have to be based on values. Corruption and reform have no values.

That's why Bernie's schtick was so powerful. It was all based on values. It's not fair for Big Corporate & the Oligarchs to run the place and to get all the gains and support of a nation while leaving the people out in the cold.

The value is basic fairness. Never uttered, either... Can you imagine the hearty guffaws and belly laughs if Bernie said,"American Politics is not Fair!" Duh!

There is a sweet spot for messaging, and it's all about getting the listener to conjure up the values for him or herself.

When you are messaging you are trafficking in values that the listener/voter assumes are due them. If you tell them too directly, you are talking down to them. If you set the scope of your argument too wide, you wind up with platitudes that are meaningless.

We want to say things that activate values in the listener. Selling corruption and reform activate no values and have no target.

It's a great way to get rid of a few bad apples, but does nothing to remove the rot from the barrel.

up
0 users have voted.

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@k9disc There's also no reason you can't have an umbrella word AND specifics. The best speeches, for instance, have both.

I see no value in trading out the concept of corruption for the concept of business as usual.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

Today, much like 120-some years ago, the United States finds itself in need of a strong progressive movement.

The original "progressive movement," as Gabriel Kolko pointed out, was a conservative movement, designed to quiet the class struggle of the late 19th century. That's not what they needed then, and it's not what we need now.

What would be useful today would be what its proponents call ecosocialism. The task of the century is to get people to sign on to (note that I don't use the word "buy") that.

1) One of the most important items on the progressive agenda today is getting big money out of politics, especially corporate money. It's a very worthy goal.

It's also a stupid sell.

I'm at a loss to understand why all our politicians should be commodities owned by rich people. Of course, that's what they are -- I wouldn't expect anything less of the utopia of money in its declining phase -- I'm just at a loss to understand why it should be that way. People ought to dream of some other utopia than the utopia of money, mostly because the dream of individual riches is for the most part used to get them to produce the society of a few rich and a struggling many. They can be observed doing this every day like donkeys on the treadmills with the carrots dangling in front of their noses.

What was equally amazing is that it never occurred the Democrats to jump on that bandwagon and vow to battle the corruption, even after the issue was sitting there in the open.

Democrats had to phrase it as "keeping money out of politics" because they were and are hip-deep in that money. Vowing to "battle the corruption" meant, and means, vowing to battle themselves, and as Clinton spent most of last year going from coast to coast collecting donations from the Hamptons and from Beverly Hills, everyone knew that. The Democrats are BOURGEOIS, and everyone outside of the coasts knows this now.

So what do progressives do? They embrace Democratic Socialism.
While I am totally onboard with that, this is once again, a stupid sell.

Sanders used the term "socialism" to sell something far less -- a deviant conservatism that promised the public a few basic programs while keeping the basic social roles of American late capitalism intact. His use of the term "socialism" was one of the best things about his campaign, which otherwise fell short of what his followers clearly wanted to produce. If you want to make something like the Sanders campaign or the Justice Democrats effective, the key is not to change their name to "Reform Democrats," because it sounds like forsaking the "political revolution," another hopeful term Sanders used to oversell his campaign. Rather, try to engineer some sort of accord between the Sanders-campaign-from-above and the Sanders-campaign-from-below, two entities which were clearly at odds with each other last year.

Fortunately there is a word we can learn from the Progressive Movement that they used effectively. It also happens to conveniently tie in with the 'corruption' theme.
That word is: monopoly.

I have no idea why "monopoly" would be a word of any importance today. What dominates late capitalism are oligopolies -- everyone knows that if you don't like Verizon you can get your wifi from Time Warner Cable, if you don't like flying United you can always fly American or Delta, if you don't like Coke you can drink Pepsi and so on. These corporations aren't hated monopolies; they're service providers. The revolt against corporations will instead begin with a collective understanding of why their class interests are opposed to those of the working people of America.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus I think that's an unnecessarily harsh view of the progressive movement. Any movement against pay--to-play is good for me, as long as the leadership is sincere. The part of the right wing that objects to corruption has every right to join the fight, and I've got no problem with them doing it. But they over-relied on a famous politician.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
but it also promoted things like public education and the right of workers to organize.
It was a mixed bag on the left-right spectrum, but it was all in on making government work the way it should.

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@gjohnsit @gjohnsit was created to discipline the working class. Please take a look at David Nasaw's history titled "Schooled To Order."

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus Do you prefer having no public education?
That's a real question.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal it is what it is. As the capitalist system grew, and between the 1880s and the 1920s it did indeed grow, the system needed an educated working class. How else were the corporations to have free access to a ready-made literate working class? Did you think they were going to shoulder the full costs of educating the public to be ready for work by themselves? Where's the profit margin in that? So yeah, all the kids were to be mandated to go to school. And also the schools instituted "tracking," in which the kids were to be sorted-out into vague approximations of occupations -- the corps need some kids for pre-managerial, others for futures serving coffee at Starbucks today or for factory work back in the old days when America had factories.

And of course this was sold as an improvement on what America's families had before public schooling, which was either 1) religious schooling (and the Catholics still have that!) or 2) child labor. And indeed it WAS that improvement.

Folks, this is basic history. I am not "cynical." Please read the Nasaw book.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

lotlizard's picture

@Cassiodorus rather than any socialist movement, who laid the foundations of social programs and laws protecting labor in Germany.

His reasoning was, if his newly-unified country was going to have a chance of fielding a strong army, it would need its working class to be in good health.

It’s also a fact — one which Dutch people remark on with dark humor — that the Netherlands did not have a system of universal health care until the Nazis occupied the country and instituted the needed changes.

up
0 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal 1) Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism

2) Sheldon Stromquist, Reinventing "The People"

And also please do keep in mind that one of the biggest social problems of the Progressive Era, Jim Crow, went virtually unnoticed by the Progressives. So, no, I don't feel like I'm being unduly harsh here.

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus I'll look into it.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus There's so much good in this comment.

I'm at a loss to understand why all our politicians should be commodities owned by rich people. Of course, that's what they are -- I wouldn't expect anything less of the utopia of money in its declining phase -- I'm just at a loss to understand why it should be that way.

And that's the beginning of any movement toward reform or revolution. Which is why the establishment narratives focus so intensely on inevitability, on the notion of "the world as we find it." It's why there's such an effort to fiddle with people's perceptions so that they will never measure the distance between their lived experience and what could be. Politics today runs on the reversal of Bobby Kennedy's statement that 'There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?'

They're trying to destroy the people's ability to say "why not?" That's what the Clintons' project has been for 30 years. They've gone a long way toward achieving their goal, but somehow the brass ring keeps eluding them. Maybe with Bernie Sanders helping them, they'll finally grab it. (Which is sad, because IMO, Sanders was trying to strike a blow AGAINST inevitability; he saw that the idea of any political alternative to the Trump/Clinton world was about to go under for the foreseeable future. And indeed, without his campaign, where would we be?)

People ought to dream of some other utopia than the utopia of money, mostly because the dream of individual riches is for the most part used to get them to produce the society of a few rich and a struggling many. They can be observed doing this every day like donkeys on the treadmills with the carrots dangling in front of their noses.

Of course they ought to. That's why the current fight is over perception. Right now, Americans think that, in order to survive, they must stay on that treadmill. Stay on it, or get dragged into its gears and be destroyed. Why do you think I recently bought a house? Because I think I may not be able to do so for much longer. I don't want to get dragged into the gears and crushed, so I take what steps I can to stay on the machine rather than in it. Everybody tries to do this with what they have; most of us can't make it because the machine keeps draining away the very wealth and assets which are the only way to stay on top of it.

"I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to the shore of the island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it."

Sadly, in the case of money, it's worse than an Accident. Money is a weapon, not a well-officiated baseball game, and Americans have been awakening to that fact since '08.

Democrats had to phrase it as "keeping money out of politics" because they were and are hip-deep in that money. Vowing to "battle the corruption" meant, and means, vowing to battle themselves, and as Clinton spent most of last year going from coast to coast collecting donations from the Hamptons and from Beverly Hills, everyone knew that.

Exactly. It's not about how the Dems fumbled some messaging technique that they would have done right had they possessed a more sophisticated understanding of political language. It's the same reason they can't mobilize against the wars in the Middle East. They're up to their eyeballs in blood.

Sanders used the term "socialism" to sell something far less -- a deviant conservatism that promised the public a few basic programs while keeping the basic social roles of American late capitalism intact.

I don't have a problem with anyone wanting to go back to the days of the New Deal and the rule of law--except the fact that that entire structure was based on rich people keeping their word, which they've now proven they can't do. In fact, despite the fact that FDR was saving their dumb asses, most of them resented the hell out of it at the time and had to be dragged into the deal (with a few exceptions--that era's version of "smart money.")

If Sanders were really dedicated to achieving his goals, he'd understand that it's OK to have a more mainstream reformist AND a radical revolutionary both advocating against the same corrupt system at the same time. That has actually worked fairly well in the past when it comes to steering the country away from horrors and toward something better. I don't mind (much) that he decided to be the mainstream reformist; I do have a problem that he is so timid that he's not willing to address the corruption when it marches into his reform movement, into the polling place with his supporters and bitch-slaps them to the ground.

His use of the term "socialism" was one of the best things about his campaign, which otherwise fell short of what his followers clearly wanted to produce. If you want to make something like the Sanders campaign or the Justice Democrats effective, the key is not to change their name to "Reform Democrats," because it sounds like forsaking the "political revolution," another hopeful term Sanders used to oversell his campaign. Rather, try to engineer some sort of accord between the Sanders-campaign-from-above and the Sanders-campaign-from-below, two entities which were clearly at odds with each other last year.

This is one of the best parts of your comment. The people were obviously well ahead of Sanders on this one. One speech, repeated with variations, nearly threw Hillary Clinton and all her power out of the race, forcing her to resort to voter purges and actual fraud, which goes well beyond the media collaboration people feel comfortable talking about, in order to eke out a "win;" she also had to pad her numbers with superdelegates to make her "win" look credible. This from some old guy who calls himself a socialist who was known by 3% of the population when he started? The American people were seriously ready. And they leapfrogged ahead of him FAST. While he was making that speech over and over again, people all over the country created their own, essentially independent, Sanders campaign from the bottom up. Over and over again, you hear stories of how people were dissatisfied with even the mechanics of what the top-down campaign was doing, and simply went out and did it themselves.

One of the greatest things about the Sanders campaign, and what made me believe, briefly, that we could have a real movement in this country, a viable movement born out of that campaign, was that independent, bottom-up, creativity--as if somebody had taken the spirit of Occupy and briefly applied it to the field of electoral politics. But the problem with campaigns is that they are laser-focused on the individual leader. That focus, which I thought would be a problem with bringing the new movement to birth, was actually a fatal vulnerability. Shifting the focus to Nina Turner or Tulsi Gabbard will only result in the same vulnerability bringing down any efforts for change.

Also, I didn't realize that the Left would so obediently trek off to shake its fist at Donald Trump, letting itself get sucked right back into the establishment's narrative. Right vs left, Dem vs Repub, we must get these monsters out of office, vote Dem next time, etc. Exactly like it was when we opposed Bush. I believed in it then.

"Words, Bernardo, words. I used to believe in words."

Rather, try to engineer some sort of accord between the Sanders-campaign-from-above and the Sanders-campaign-from-below, two entities which were clearly at odds with each other last year.

That is obviously impossible, since the aims of the campaign-from-below necessitate changing the entire power structure, a fight Sanders is absolutely unwilling to take on. That's where you and I differ a bit. Those "deviant conservative" attempts of his to resuscitate some parts of the New Deal and the rule of law, small and feeble though they are, are absolutely intolerable to the Princess-and-the-Pea oligarchy we've got here. They can't stand it. They can't stand anything that deviates even slightly from their current course. They can't stand anybody even thinking that there could be an alternative. Thus, the entire power structure--because it is so extreme---would have to be changed in order for any of these aims to be accomplished.

Sanders isn't willing to fight that fight. Therefore, Sanders can't lead any effort to achieve the goals he supposedly had. He's left with the feeble hope that if he says the same things for the millionth time to a power structure set on destruction that it will be willing to deal with him.

“I strike no bargains. I take. What have you to offer that I cannot take from you when I like?”

As far as the word "monopoly" goes, the real word in this case would be "cartel," but Americans (most of us) don't know that word. We lump the idea of one company controlling a whole industry in with the idea of all the companies in an industry collaborating to fuck us over. It comes to the same thing for the person at the bottom.

You write great comments, Cass. Always a pleasure.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cassiodorus's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

They're trying to destroy the people's ability to say "why not?"

This was the Margaret Thatcher "there is no alternative" thing.

It's not about how the Dems fumbled some messaging technique that they would have done right had they possessed a more sophisticated understanding of political language. It's the same reason they can't mobilize against the wars in the Middle East. They're up to their eyeballs in blood.

Right -- that's where I disagree with the diarist. And in case the readers of this thread haven't picked it up yet, I'm arguing it's the Bernie campaign's verbal "missteps" that were the best thing about it. Imagine an honest Bernie campaign. "We're here to provide a faux alternative for the faux opposition before voter fraud cheats you of your vote and of democracy." How's that going to get votes?

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus They can't use reason and facts, because their policies are terrible. They can't lie effectively anymore, because the damage done by their policies is so widespread that they can't find a lie that will cover it (lately they're desperately trying to use the evil of the Great Bear, going back to the classics). All they've got left is to tell people they have no choice.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Cassiodorus An honest Bernie campaign would go a little differently than that, I think. More like: "I'm terrified that even the ability to imagine an alternative to this horrible politics, both Republican and Democratic, is about to be destroyed by a media and political culture puppet-mastered by a bunch of crazy oligarchs. It's feeling really Orwellian around here right now, and I want to keep dissent alive, so that at least our perceptions are not completely colonized. So I'm standing up to make these mostly liberal, and some left, ideas public, putting my hat in the ring as a way to get people's attention. And even though I don't believe I can win against this oligarchy in this rigged game, I am going to give it my all and play as though I can win, because I owe that to you for supporting me. Also, maybe my campaign will inspire all of you to do things I can't. It's not about Bernie Bernie Bernie. It's about you. Make your own efforts after I've brought people together around these ideas, and don't listen to me if I tell you who to vote for."

Then again, that was pre-June Bernie. After June....all bets were off.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

on the efforts of our bought and paid for corrupt legislators.

They've made "reform" a bad word, as in Bill Clinton's "welfare reform" and Trump's "tax reform." Their corruption extends even to corrupting language.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@HenryAWallace Bingo! Their corruption began with corrupting language, and without that essential building block, they could never have gotten anywhere.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Pages