Naked Capitalism calls Antiwar Purity Tests for Democratic Politicians Naive
Over at the Naked Capitalism blog, they had an interesting discussion based on an entry by Yves Smith, "Why Anti-War Purity Tests Are Not Sound Political Strategy
"From time to time, we’ve written about the concept of obliquity, which is that in a complex system, it is impossible to identify a simple path to achieving your objectives. You do not have an adequate grasp of the terrain to do that. Thus people who seek to be happy seldom are the happiest people. Companies that focus on maximizing shareholder value perform less well on that metric than others in the same industry that have loftier, more complex goals.
How does this translate into thinking about candidates? It implies that it is naive and self defeating to demand that a “progressive” or bona fide leftist candidate oppose war as a major platform position. Mind you, that is not the same as opposing hawks. And other efforts to build coalitions to oppose America’s costly and corrupt imperialism are important too. But this is a multi-fronted battle, and approaches that are useful in one arena do not necessarily translate into another. Winning in politics is first and foremost about picking winnable fights, scoring victories to gain credibility, skills, and get others to join a successful campaign, and only then moving on to more entrenched targets.
So if an otherwise sound candidate doesn’t campaign on “more war” and gives only at most tepid support, that is far more pragmatic and more likely to win against the war machine in the long run than going after it head on."
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/05/war-morality-get.html
Smith quotes a comment by Marina Bart that outlines a scenario to eventually take on the warmongers by building a movement, evidently the Bernie Sanders/Democratic party movement in some way, to make medicare for all or single payer the litmus test for politicians, not antiwar/anti-imperialism as some are advocating.
"The theory of change being advocated by me, and I believe by Naked Capitalism, is that if we focus on the universal benefits most Americans desperately need, we will energize and awaken a massive coalition with the potential to break the chains and escape the pens we’ve been herded into on our way to the slaughterhouse."
They think this is the pragmatic way forward and it no way insinuates they are not wholly against war and imperialism. It's just that those opposing war and imperialism do not have a chance in hell in getting elected so why hold them to account over that, or oppose their election as one of the 535 national political representatives.
In other words, morality must take a back seat to pragmatism.
Marina Bart explains their thought process.
"This is my understanding of the available options:
1) Electorally;
2) Civil War or Violent Revolution
3) Massive citizen unrest that results in enough damage to capital that it retreats once again from open imperial conquest."
Marina believes that #3 would be too violent so that should be ruled out. He/she does the same for option #2 citing that it would also be too violent and should be ruled out. Which leads her/him to option #1, ELECT MORE AND BETTER POLITICIANS, just not necessarily those that are antiwar.
Where have I heard that before. Now I don't want to misinterpret what Marina and Yves are saying, they seemed pretty touchy about that in the articles and comments. But in a nutshell what they're proposing is that since opposing war and imperialism is too difficult in Washington D.C. and an independent citizen's movement is too prone to violence, the best option is to pressure our prospective politicians with the red line of single payer, not war and imperialism. They also advocate doing anything possible to vote out the "corporate" democrats, even voting republican. Based on this they feel that a movement can be built to reform the democratic party and eventually address U.S. imperialism and the accompanying wars.
As Smith said, "if an otherwise sound candidate doesn’t campaign on “more war” and gives only at most tepid support", that's good enough, they don't have to be antiwar.
Marina Bart expands on their plan.
"So, this campaign for universal benefits, which Bernie is pushing for from inside the belly of the beast, creates and energizes a status-quo shattering coalition, while destabilizing the Democratic Party and draining it of funding and allegiance. It weaken our opposition — the Democrats — while fueling our funding and activism. Because the Democrats are already so weak in terms of governing, it offers the opportunity to purge them out of the apparatus of the party, which then offers the opportunity to change the current electoral dynamic. If leftists controlled the Democratic Party in California, 2016 would have gone very, very differently. Among other things, a lot of leftist ballots would have been counted that were shredded or flipped. With each increase in power inside the party system, the left gains the ability to protect the right to vote and have that vote counted, moving us closer and closer to something like actual democracy. The Democratic Party cedes both ideological ground and access to the levers of party power."
They think this is the pragmatic way forward and it no way insinuates they are not wholly against war and imperialism. It's just that those opposing war and imperialism do not have a chance in hell in getting elected so why oppose them for that?
I don't agree that a focus on the electoral system and building a movement around that, either with the duopoly or by third parties, is the most pragmatic option. Based on the accepted definition, "dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations", we certainly have much more evidence that voting for politicians is about as unpractical and insensible you can get.
Come on, man.
Regarding the "antiwar purity test". I think this underestimates the problem, it's overall impacts and the moral imperative. Frankly, this sounds like what we heard from liberals during the Vietnam war who felt opposing the war was too devisive toward gaining economic advantages such as enacted under LBJ. The excuse that Martin Luther King Jr. might be looked on differently today if he had lived longer because of his eventual forceful opposition to U.S. imperialism and war is insulting to the memory of MLK Jr. Do they really think he would give a shit about that? They're using that as a reason why current politicians simply cannot make a stand against war and imperialism because they would be shunned and blackballed. Better to be like Bernie Sanders and ignore the whole thing so people would get on the Demcratic Party Train to Progress.
I read an article today about what Trump and his Generals are up to in Syria after I'd read these articles from Naked Capitalism. The implications of what these crazy fuckers are doing is off the charts. We cannot wait two or three decades hoping for enough progress in this corrupt political system to try to stop them from continuing their rampage across this planet. Other than climate change, there is no greater danger to humanity and we're now in the End Game. We can't wait and we can't allow our politicians to wait, if one assumes we're to rely on politicians.
That's another issue, the notion that our only option is through the electoral process. It's a very simple premise, one made popular on the democratic party blog Daily Kos, "elect more and better politicians". At Daily Kos of course it was elect more and better democrats, but this proposal indicates it could be third party as well as long as they get on board the Single Payer Peace Train and Bernie's movement.
Theoretically, not pragmatically, it sounds logical. "Throw the bums out"! With their plan it would be to throw the corporate democrats out and elect better democrats who might not be antiwar, but would be pro-single payer. If they could organize enough people to do it, theoretically they might be able to elect enough politicians that would be able to turn the tide and enact single payer.
And theoretically, they might be able to turn that into a bigger movement that would start electing democratic party politicians based on their being antiwar or anti-imperialism. But again, pragmaticism, "dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations" and the "theory" of electing more and better politicians, having been tried in this country for over two centuries, is not necessarily a sensible and realistic way of stopping these bastards from raping and pillaging the earth.
Relative to other options besides using the electoral system, many have suggested and detailed the possibilities of a movement independent of the electoral system, one not depending on electing politicians but in gathering and mobilizing citizens toward a common goal. Actually, the issue of single payer or medicare for all is tailor made for an independent citizens movement and there is no reason it would have to be violent. We don't need to elect more and better politicians, we can just tell the ones serving now that is what we want. That's the point.
A revolution, i.e., a change in power, does not have to be violent. That's what we're taught and that's what we're manipulated into manifesting. Simply discarding options of citizen protest, boycotts, and challenge to the establishment as too prone to violence disregards our capabilities, and our needs.
I think they're wrong on two counts, that electoral politics is the way to go, and that being antiwar is a negative at this time in history. I also think their goal falls well short of what we need, which is to change this political system to remove the oligarchy from power and install power to the people. No politician will ever do that, bet on it. But regardless of the approach to what ails us, to call antiwar in anyway a purity test or naïve is obscene and a symbol of what the liberals, left and progressives who support the democratic party, and the democratic party as a whole, are all about. It's like saying it's OK for our government to continue to kill innocent children as long as they give us good health care. We'll deal with the children later. Then, "we'll think it was worth it" because we got single payer. We saw that for eight long years under war criminal Obama.
Pragmatic my ass, the criminal ruling class is rampaging like never before in history. We're on the verge of World War Fucking Three. This is no time to be pragmatic, even if it isn't.
Comments
As long as they and theirs suit up
And get their asses out on the front lines, I guess we can try it. Eternal war seems to be the solution to everything nowadays. If we can't avoid it, we should at least level the playing field.
We'll continue to have eternal war because:
- it generates high corporate profits
- CEOs get huge bonuses because of those profits
- stockholders are kept happy
- those tired old men who haven't won a war yet are still trying to kill themselves to victory and the history books
- it keeps unemployment figures down
- it is very important to maintain America's position that we have the right to police the world and that we get first dibs on everyone's assets
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Plus, it diverts funds from the federal coffers
that might otherwise be allocated domestically.
AND, it culls the herd
thinning it down to, "hopefully", "manageable" proportions.
They WANT that. They WANT megadeaths, as long as they and theirs are safe and on top.
They. are. EVIL.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Trump won the Republican primary....
on an anti war, anti imperialist message. And won bigly.
Of course Trump's turned out to be full of shit, but the fact remains that, contrary to unsupported conventional DC wisdom espoused by conventional beltway bloggers, anti war messaging WINS with even with the most conservative voters.
And that is especially true when the costs of war abroad are tied directly to the failure to provide services at home, including health care. In this way anti war and domestic issues complement each other as a unified and electorally potent platform.
By contrast, bifurcating domestic and foreign policy concerns, as Yves would do, weakens BOTH positions, because you cant seriously argue for more spending at home while letting war spending abroad run rampant.
Yves whole argument is really nothing more than the old, 'keep your powder dry' nonsense wimpy establishment Dems use to tout on Dkos whenever too many of us got too uppity about the party's shameless capitulations.
I don't really know what happened to all that dry powder the Dems accumulated over the years, but one thing's for sure: it never got used.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
I just left this comment in another essay
I read one of Joe's old diaries on DK about how Bush and Obama should be impeached for their war crimes and one comment was about Pelosi telling us that she needed to keep her powder dry because if she used it to impeach Bush and Cheney then she'd run out of powder because she wouldn't be able to get anymore if she needed it again in the future.
Joe's diary brings back memories of the infighting on DK every time someone wrote something bad about Barack.
Lots of names in this that I haven't seen since the purge last March.
We could always count on the same people who just had to come to his defense
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/18/1348431/-A-decent-nation-would-...
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Yes, 2016 saw a resolution to the Rox/Sux Wars
and it wasn't Team "Embrace the Suck/Clap Louder," though like Monty Python's Black Knight they still seem to be flailing about belligerently in their obliviousness.
^^^Thanks!^^^ You saved me the trouble, NHK. ;-D EOM
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
IMO there is already a very large shift
in public opinion underway -- throughout Western Europe and the USA -- moving away from globalist interventionism and toward a strengthening of nationally-based objectives. Undeniably, this anti-globalist sentiment is largely coalescing around Right-wing populists and nativists like Le Pen and Trump. But traditional political boundaries are in a state of rapid flux, and I think anti-globalism has the potential to expand beyond its currently partisan focus, and encompass much of the Left, and some of the Center as well. There is already a strong and growing momentum in this direction.
If an effective anti-war movement is to arise, one that is strong enough to overcome the neoliberal, transnational militarism of the current "Atlantic Alliance", it is likely to be nourished by the Right as much as, or more than by the Left. So much so, that for it to succeed, I think some sort of coalition or provisional alliance would need to be formed.
There is a point on the political circle where the objectives of the "far Right" and the "far Left" are closer to one another than either of them are to the "moderate Center". I think this is the point we are at, regarding America's Imperial ambitions and Europe's subsidiary role in supporting them. When our ostensibly "moderate" Center is leading us, and the world at large, straight toward another world war, many people are left to wonder just how moderate it actually is.
native
Amen
and the terms Right and Left have lost much of their meaning. For example, in France the "extreme right" candidate is for lowering the retirement age, against the death penalty, for abortion rights, as you indicate for more caution in the use of the military and against layoffs of government workers. The "centrist" on the other hand is for cuts in numbers of government workers, raising the retirement age (or at least examining this possibility--i.e. he will do it if he can get away with it), cuts to the government budget and large corporate tax cuts. The traditional terms "left" and "right" do not work for these candidates. (Maybe French nationalist or anti-imigration nationalist and extreme neoliberal?) BTW Le Pen may be as full of merde as Trump. We may never know because she will probably lose, but at least there has been some consistency in what she has proposed and, unlike trump, she is capable of coherent thought and has an attention span longer than that of a fruit fly.
Yes, anti-globalist sentiment in Europe
is far more widespread than even the popularity of Le Pen would indicate. Europe's ideologically-inspired open borders policy has clearly been a disaster. Under Macron, it will likely continue to be a disaster. It is quite simply, unsustainable.
The pseudo-humanist ideology of neoliberalism is nearing its end-date, as the wars being fought to sustain it become ever more transparently unnecessary... and expensive, and bloody, and counter-productive.
native
dry powder
Yves, Kos, DWS, Hillary and all their conserva ilk snorted all of it up their noses.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
This is not good
I guess that bombing and conquering the third and second worlds is just part of the scenery now. Nothing to be done.
Quite depressing.
Of course, that is exactly what the Democratic Party has done over the last 25 years. And over those 25 years the Democratic Party has lost its advantage in just about all political arenas. Not sure of rural dogcatchers, but probably that too.
And why would that be? Because the fuckers who are willing to wage wars are willing to follow the domestic economic war against the working class.
One more indication that the Democratic Party is dead.
I voted antiwar.
War can exterminate us even faster than climate change.
Maybe We Should Simply Make the Purely Economic Case?
On pure economics, Perpetual War is a loser. It's only a winner if you're an oligarch.
That said, threats and belligerent displays are perfectly acceptable to many voters, and surely make economic sense.
But we're talking about being anti-War, which means being against the Deep State machinations to create perpetual warfare and a National Security State. I mean if you ain't against that you ain't going to be good for Americans. That's not a purity test, that's avoiding and ostracizing people who shit in the stew.
But the authors are economists, after all, and are going to see things from a different perspective. Of course war for profit is gross, and it's conducted via legit business interests all over the planet. But it's a fact of life, you know? The crushing fist of the hidden hand wielded by Leviathan or some such economic mythology.
Globalization is just a reductionist zero sum game; extractive, colonial capitalism amongst dwindling resources is an absurd position for our planet to be in at this stage in time.
Not surprised that economists will accept "a little bit of war" or war-lite, in the future. They know the economic outlook.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
During our Peace vigils
When we would talk to people who stopped by and yes, many were self described conservatives, my pitch was always an economic one. It is one that most people can understand when we compared the huge costs of these wars with what we needed here at home. The big thing is that most people have no idea what a big money hole these wars are and how they are not keeping us safe either. It is amazing when they hear some of the facts and figures to see a light go off in their heads. Often the question that would come back was why are we not spending this money here when we need so much? I was actually quite surprised to see how well the economic argument worked, at least anecdotally one on one.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@k9disc That's not a purity test,
That's not a purity test, that's avoiding and ostracizing people who shit in the stew.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Also, acting like war and imperialism are separate from the economic system that's grinding us to dust is disingenuous bullshit on several fronts.
And Yves et al are smart enough to know that.
"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
perpetual war
"NO nation has ever benefited from prolonged warfare." -- Sun Tzu
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
That matters not. Today's financial elite fly no national flag
The banks, the corporations and the 0.01% who control them have gone global. It matters not one whit that jobs disappear in the US and popup in some third world country at 1/3 the rate. That just improves their bottom line. These wages fuel a new source of consumers and debtors as Americans become taped out. The one and only thing the US nation is required for, is a home base for the American military to police the world's nations and economies to protect and continue to spread
democracycapitalism.This hasn't changed since the US became the world's largest economy. President Taft on foreign policy: “to include active intervention to secure our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investment” abroad. For well over a century the US public have had the false equivalency of democracy=capitalism and capitalism=democracy instilled into their psyches from the moment of birth. Good luck in trying to change that.
I get your objection and I agree.
And, I think that yves might possibly be correct as well.
I think there argument is along the lines there are a lot of folks that didn't vote in 2016.
These nonvoters want something to vote *for*. Antiwar will only bring out a fraction of them.
What will bring out most of them? Their poll says single payer.
And, in their Venn Diagram of economic speak, they think that most politicians that will be elected because they support single payer will, most probably, be antiwar. They think that if these same politicians advertised themselves as the antiwar candidate, they might well not be elected.
I don't know the answer. I don't think any of us really do. In this case, what we are really doing is projecting parallel universes and asking which scenario is best for humans and the earth 20, 50 and 1000 years out?
It is pretty clear that the "pragmatic" slow-change status-quo folks care for no one's interests but there own. And fuck them.
I'm too cynical about human abilities to really say for certain which other scenario leads to the best outcome. Exhibit A and B...the "greatest country on earth" (tm) recently had an election. It featured two candidates that represent the worst of us in slightly different ways.
It feels as if there is only a few future universes where humanity will not find itself in a dystopian hell. The paths to take, and avoid, are crucial. It is clear to me which paths are dead ends. The best path forward? I can't say.
As a single-issue voter
...I can appreciate the complexity you describe, All the different working parts, often out of sync and disharmonious. No way to stack the priorities because no clear path presents itself. And on top of that is a layer of system complexity acting independently of the many parts. I don't even know if a human mind can grasp the whole and somehow accurately predict the effectiveness or outcome of any one action.
For me, the most important thing is to find the one "point" that rules them all. To identify the one issue that has the potential to change everything, immediately. Unfortunately, it doesn't make the path forward any clearer. Complex systems never yield to micromanagement. Instead, I construct a robust vision of what a fine destination looks like and how it operates. I never look away. And somehow, decisions made when you hold a vision, especially a consensus vision, are always the right decision for giving the vision form. Got that technique from Buckminster Fuller.
At least, that's one way to navigate quantum space and arrive in the future before our opponents do.
You make a strong point with this:
I struggled with the use of "anti-capitalism" for the same reason. It breaks the first law of prayer: "Never visualize the thing that you don't want to happen." The term anti-war is self-sabotaging. It must have been passed down to us from Joseph Goebbels.
Peace is the point. And love and respect, too.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
@peachcreek Acting as if the system
Acting as if the system is what it says it is, and we just have to run a good enough campaign and we'll slowly and steadily incrementally advance our political power until we have enough to change policy.
That's what this argument is. And their justification for it is not logic--or at least, not any logic other than "What else ya gonna do, pick up a gun?"
"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
@peachcreek Will politicians elected
Will politicians elected because they're for single payer and putatively or hopefully also anti-war remain that way six months after they've gotten to DC? How about 12 months? 18? 24?
Or will those same politicians that we elected because it's pragmatic to stay within the system and too costly to go outside it come to us, sooner or later, and say "I'm sorry. We're changing the strategy we ran on to a more incremental strategy, because it's just not practical for us to strive for the policies we ran on right now. That's off the table. Now's not a good time. It's a dead issue. You don't understand how Washington works."
"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
P.C., this strikes THE nerve of corporatism/plutocracy
This, though not universally true, is generally correct because it connects two allied humanistic values: compassionate health care and compassion for the victims of war no matter where. The people with either of these views will hold the other view as well. Health care sells better. It is a stronger foundation from which to initiate an iconoclastic movement.
I got a different take than you did Al
I read "don't declare war on war". Like in poker, don't tip your cards.
I'm not so sure that civil unrest isn't a viable option to some degree. I still can't believe that in this day we can't find a smarter and safer way to hurt them. With cops armed and armored and free to kill, the streets are too dangerous a place to be.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Freedom has costs--sometimes human lives
We are already losing lives needlessly at home and around the world. If there be loss of life, let it be for a nobler cause than enrichment of the few versus the misery of the multitude.
We've now seen her limit, all the way to its end.
Yves Smith's vision only goes so deep. She has been an accomplished host and informer in the world we are rapidly leaving. She is not, however, a candidate for the self-directed conscious evolution this Universe desires and requires. In Yves we see a being who is fully inhabited by the present stasis. The limits in her vision are what fixed her in this place at this time. She is, at best, a genetic artifact or marker along the way to the future — an odd signpost from a dying world that reads: "It is naive and self defeating to demand that a candidate oppose war unequivocally."
There are others among us who are actively participating in boosting the evolution of this species to the very important Next Level, where humans might survive and continue to evolve along the path of awareness and enlightenment, able to peer more accurately into probability. While still uncertain, there remains a possibility that this species might find a place among the fully-realized sentients of this Universe.
::
The preceding Purity Test indicates that the Subject does not carry the necessary genetic code for enlightenment.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Caity Johnstone says, prioritize taking down establishment media
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-to-fight-the-establishment-propag...
I think this is a good idea but people will need to become very tough.
Is the German public, for example, prepared for the consequences of having the entire conventional historical narrative turned upside-down? People who become aware that they have been living in “The Matrix” of psyops will logically begin to have doubts about establishment accounts of anything, including 9/11 and World War II. Holocaust revisionism, anyone? In the U.S., the young “shitlords” (their own term) on the Alt-Right have already crossed that Rubicon and they don’t care what the ADL or the SPLC thinks.
I suspect that’s one reason the globalist German elite is so rigid about maintaining the psyops façade and so desperate to plaster over any and all cracks in it.
The Germans are on the verge of hitting the kill switch
...as it is. On the Internet, that is. What's worse, both the US and Germany are suing Facebook's Zuckerberg for aiding terrorism.
But this would be far, far worse, I agree:
Marine LePen provided some insight into that for me. She refused to apologize to the world for the French government's collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. She said the French government were exiled in England and didn't collaborate with anyone. They could not return until the war ended, and owed no one an apology.
So many forbidden narratives.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Elite and media keep harping on Trump being a con-man
In Europe, the real con-men now may well be those elite gatekeepers of “history” who keep pushing a perceptual framework whereby, even 3 or 4 generations later, the mass of common people still owe “history” a guilty conscience, an apology, reparations, and dissolution of nation and culture in an Amazon, Google, and Facebook advertiser-defined globalist market and melting pot. With the latter form of atonement accelerated by facilitating unlimited immigration.
The New Right looks to be betting that at some point a critical mass of French, Germans, etc. — millennials? — will catch on to the game.
Meanwhile, the Left, new or old, seems afraid to touch that increasingly wobbly framework with a ten-foot pole.
Ironic, isn't it for Germany and soon the U.S.
And this "benign" Facebook organization is deeply involved already of their self-imposed ability to determine which posts are ineligible for further dissemination and which are not. Zuckerberg, for all his boyish looks, is every bit the capitalist, soulless oligarch as the Kochs. Censorship is vile, no matter who initiates it. It will be interesting to see how Zuckerberg can combat government censorship since his organization already utilizes it.
try it again
I put this up to almost no reponse yesterday. Maybe a bad spot- more likely people didn't think much of the idea. but it does fit in here. fwiw
A modest proposal
which follows the ideas of many others, some posted on this thread.
1. Compose a "People's Declaration" addressed to the political class which contains a simple progressive/populist platform.
2. The "Declaration" is a pledge to support any candidate who endorses the entire platform and to oppose any candidate or politician who refuses.
3. Ask politicians to endorse the platform.
This means they will give full support to the program. Refusal is noted.
4. Set up a website, perhaps run through c99, on which the platform and pols' responses are posted. The site has a signup list for the declaration so that the number of people onboard is visible to all. Organizations would be welcome to sign and to publicize that fact.
If millions signed on and then followed through, they would take control of the system. (If a pol makes the promise and then wavers, he must be attacked unsparingly and never forgiven. To break that promise must be a political death sentence.)
Is there anything in this proposal that can't be done easily and cheaply?
That can be answered here, I think. Is it worth trying? That is another thing and not my call.
Details on platform, etc. could be worked out here if this were to be a c99 project.
Or perhaps as a joint effort with some other groups. For example-
1. end the war
2. address climate change
3. $15/hr.
4. medicare for all
5. quality education for all
6. justice for all
If you can't say that to me as a politician,then save your breath.
Por las llanuras corre un caballo loco.
@irishking 1)how to get them in,
1)how to get them in, when DHS controls elections and the mainstream media is a tool of the same forces that run DHS? 2)how to keep 'em honest?
"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
that's the trick
1. how to get them in- we must create a method of identifying people to support and to oppose. once we know who they are we can direct funds to any candidate in the country.
I have suggested a "purity test". Candidates are asked to endorse a very specific progressive program. If they won't come out for these basic things,they are part of the problem. We post the standing of all candidates we can survey, and pledge to help our friends and fight our enemies.
The simple "Yes" or "No" will not be explained away if platform is properly written.
2. how to keep them honest- one hopes that we could identify fakes early on. As I said above, the platform must be specific enough to make it hard to waffle. The only real answer is ruthless destruction of any pol who takes our money and backslides. They must learn to answer to us rather than to their party. I would think "severe retribution" might be a proper prescription for that problem.
The parties offer what they will, and then force us to "choose".
This is backward. We must state what we will support and stick to it.
My basic idea
is that the power to fix the world lies in the hands of our present Congress.
We don't need anything more than for those 537 people to go to work and start doing the right thing. As PriceRip points out,this would happen if they were in fear for their lives.
But they do not fear the people. They feel very safe collecting their salaries. They are all millionaires, admired and applauded.
Let us imagine that we are in Mexico. If something needs to happen,"plata o plomo" offers are made to the appropriate officials, and the thing happens. It works that way here too, with the big donors calling the shots.
The people must have a way to hold the pols accountable, to make that "silver or lead" offer. We don't have that now, and without it the pols will continue to serve the rich and powerful.
Our elections should do this, but they don't.
Edit. I do not suggest we literally offer "silver or lead".
"Soy inocente, mi jefe".
Your first comment "try it again"
makes valid points. But to your second comment:
We do have it now--it is called Medicare-for-all/single-payer. You underestimate the strength of this single position. Yes, a political party needs a fleshed out platform. But to drive a wedge into the duopoly requires are sharply pointed tool. We have it now! Let us not waste this opportunity.
Could you explain
.@
how the single-issue approach would work? does that alone determine our vote?
or give link . no snark
There is strong objection to letting the war go on while we try to get medicare.
It is not that hard to show that we have money for social projects if we stop the war machine. I would make that connection myself.
Are we talking about the same thing?
Differing on the platform we want the pols to support?
Single issue or 6 point progressive. How do we hold them to it.
thx.
the political system has been purchased
War means money to the oligarchs (and props up the value of the dollar...)
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/tag/petrodollar
Russia Is On The Verge Of Dealing A Massive Blow To The Petrodollar
I like Irishking's list above. I want an anti-war purity test, but I don't see how that happens in this corportocracy....where corporate media has the only megaphone.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The way to kill a snake is from the head down
War is part of the snake. One way to kill it is to starve it. Disrupt the numbers of co-opted Congresscritters and we will make headway.
If you want a revolution --
you first have to imagine how things would be other than what they currently are. And I don't mean in a pie-in-the-sky way, but practically. Everyone talks about plans. What should the end result look like -- and how's it going to happen?
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
At this point, there's only one War I will support.
And it's the spiritual successor to the one this song is about:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01IaKb6DmTw]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
The name of the song and the band, please!
It seems to be the Swedish “power metal” band Sabaton,
and a song “Uprising” from the album “Coat of Arms,” about the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
YouTube has blocked the linked-to video in Germany — I got the info from a different, equivalent link that isn’t blocked.
Thank you
I believe you did
a disservice to naked capitalism with your title.
Based on the entire article, I don't believe that Yves or NP has taken a 'position' on war purity as your title suggests.
The article takes more of a 'how do we deal with this' approach rather than the hard stance noted in your title.
dfarrah
@dfarrah This requires an essay
This requires an essay response, but I gotta go meet my mom. Maybe later this afternoon!
"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
It takes real courage
to stand up and be anti-war. You have to swallow your fears and believe that peace begets peace. War always ends. The 'peace' that follows mostly/only sows the seeds of the next war.
It takes courage and commitment to end the cycle. Thse traits are not in the skill set of the gutless wonders that are american politicians.
I want a Pony!
Wow. Naked Capitalism falls.
Sad day.
"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
the last sentence of your essay sums it up
Of all the times to decide not to be anti-war, the time when most of the establishment is pushing us toward exchange of nuclear missiles with one of the other two remaining superpowers is not it.
"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
I want to respond on their site to what they said.
But it would require subscribing to them, and there's no fucking way I'm subscribing to them now.
"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
No, you can comment without subscribing
I do it now and then. Your comment won't be posted until it's "moderated," but it will be posted, if you're reasonably civil. They have fairly lively and meaty comments, usually.
I've commented there, too,
without a subscription.
dfarrah
@dfarrah Thanks--but I'm likely
Thanks--but I'm likely going to post an essay here, now. But this means I can drop a comment over there informing them that I've responded here.
They might stop by to see what I've written, might not.
"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
Saw that
Yeah saw that when I was cruising through NC a bit ago.
The comments definitely got heated over there on that one.
How come doing the correct and moral thing
is never "pragmatic" unless the right-wing does it?
It's Cultural Now
It feeds our warrior culture. The machismo bullshite culture that has taken over the US culture in the past 30 years. The South has taken over our culture in this respect. It sucks. And it's hard on those of us who hate it. It's video games, air gun and paint ball war games, bumper stickers, pro athletics, defense spending ad nauseum, thank you for your service, etc. I think it's evil. But who am I?
"who am I?"
someone smart enough to see thru the BS
Lots of TV about evil govt. plots lately
There's a lot of suspicion and disapproval of our "leaders" in the polls, too. We just can't get candidates past the duopoly. Yet.
Anti-war is an admirable theme and an admirable goal.
You cite Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism as follows:
This is precisely the point of my essay, published a bit later than yours.
Then you made the following observation:
I strongly agree with that statement.
It's not a "purity" test
It's a "corruption" test
MichelleB