Something Old

Here's my Something Old for the week:

But, Can't Stop, I hear you say--these are NEW organizations!

Ah, but are you sure?
Because they look an awful lot like these organizations:

This is from Brand New Congress (2016):

Our plan is to recruit hundreds of extraordinary ordinary Americans to challenge both Democrats and Republicans in congressional primary races across the country.

This is from Democracy for America (2005):
We recruit and train progressive candidates to run for office and win at every level of government, in general elections and in contested primaries against corporate Democrats. Our electoral organizing is firmly rooted in Gov. Dean’s “50 State Strategy" -- we work hard to support progressive candidates and build progressive infrastructure in blue states, red states, and purple states (via Purple to Blue).

This is from Justice Democrats (2017):

The solution is not unity with the corporate-backed Democrats. The solution is to challenge them and replace every single one of them with people who will fight for voters, not donors. It’s time to rebuild the Democratic Party from scratch to be a party that fights for a clear progressive vision.

This is from Progressive Democrats of America (2004):

Progressive Democrats of America was founded in 2004 to transform the Democratic Party and our country. We seek to build a party and government controlled by citizens, not corporate elites-with policies that serve the broad public interest, not just private interests.

This is from Our Revolution (2016):

Our Revolution will reclaim democracy for the working people of our country by harnessing the transformative energy of the “political revolution.” Through supporting a new generation of progressive leaders, empowering millions to fight for progressive change and elevating the political consciousness, Our Revolution will transform American politics to make our political and economic systems once again responsive to the needs of working families.

Our Revolution has three intertwined goals: to revitalize American democracy, empower progressive leaders and elevate the political consciousness.

This is from Wellstone Action (2002):, which I have a soft spot for, but I include them here because the truth is the truth, regardless of my feelings:

We believe that politics shouldn’t be about money and power games - it should be about the improvement of people’s lives. That’s the kind of politics Paul Wellstone embodied: one where we all do better when we all do better. And with a radical, resurgent conservative movement on the rise, it’s the kind of politics we need now more than ever.

We believe that electoral politics, public policy, and grassroots organizing can be woven together to create progressive change. We call it the Wellstone Triangle, and it anchors everything we do.

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f9f8b0f8-e07a-401a-9a29-4eab7863845c

What's really Old here is the tactic of challenging establishment Democrats electorally with the aim of taking over the Democratic party. Or Congress generally.

Different organizations tweak that tactic differently. Some, like DFA, only recruit Democrats. Some, like Wellstone Action and Brand New Congress, recruit anybody that they think supports their policy goals. Many are interested in other forms of organizing besides electoral politics (DFA, Wellstone Action, Our Revolution), some (Brand New Congress) focus pretty much entirely on elections. But they all depend on the idea of electing More and Better.

Also, those who are creating the "new" organizations spend so little thought on their organizations that they apparently don't even know when they have hit on something New in the midst of their Old idea. For instance, Cenk Uygur and Kyle Kulinsky have no idea, apparently, what the one thing is that sets their Justice Democrats apart from all these other previous and concurrent efforts to do the same thing. At least, they still haven't mentioned it, and it's been nearly six months. I sure as hell ain't gonna inform them of what it is, since if they took two seconds to think about it, like they would if they were sincere about any of this, they'd not only know it and talk about it, but would put it at the forefront of their efforts. This one little thing that's New inside their Old strategy doesn't fix the main problem with it anyway, which is their complete refusal to address the issue of election fraud.

We've been trying to challenge corporate Democrats electorally and take over the party for 13-15 years through organizations that are remarkably similar to the ones being started now using tactics and rhetoric remarkably similar to the ones being started now. 13-15 years we've been using this tactic.

So, how're we doing?

How progressive is Congress, after over a decade of this strategy?
How many progressive Presidents have we had, after over a decade of this strategy?
How many progressive Governors have we had, after over a decade of this strategy?
How many progressive state legislatures do we have, after over a decade of this strategy?
How many progressive city councils do we have, after over a decade of this strategy? How many of those progressive city councils are in our largest and most powerful cities--New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Boston?

How much progressive policy has been passed in the past ten years? How about in the past five? How about when the Democrats, including a Brand New crop of Congressional freshman and a Brand New President, had large majorities in 2009 and 2010? How many progressive laws got passed then? How many progressive programs were created?

It's not necessary to rehash the twenty thousand reasons why trying to reform the Democrats again is a bad idea. We don't even have to talk about superdelegates keeping us from electing the California Democratic Party chair. Or about an election official purging 126,000 Brooklynites off the voter rolls after having sold a run-down tenement to a Hillary Clinton superdelegate for millions of dollars above the estimated value.

What are the results of 13 years of this tactic? Cause the results look like buttkiss to me.

Given what shit results we have had--results that could be reasonably described as catastrophic--there is no possible logical reason for repeating the use of this tactic.

Isn't it about time we talked about WHY we're even discussing taking over the Democrats again, and why even people here on caucus99percent keep coming back to it? Because it's not, repeat not, for any logical reason.

Here's my view of why people keep trying to reform the Democrats. They already know that the Republican party is broken. If the Democratic party is broken too, that's both parties broken, and that means American politics has failed. And they're afraid. To them, the two-party system is like a spaceship, and those of us who say we need to move outside it are telling them to jump out an airlock without a spacesuit.They're too frightened to face a world in which American politics has failed--and well they should be. I am too!

It's not that these people don't want Something New. They often seem to want Something New so bad it hurts. But they want Something New to show up on the menu of political options, so they can choose it, and invest in it, and maybe put in some volunteer hours doing it. And that's just not going to happen. Nothing is going to show up on the menu except what the establishment regurgitates. It's the only option available--unless you want to invent something new yourself.

The level of devastation, politically, culturally, economically, and psychologically, is so great in this country that if you try to create political change, if you try to create anything other than what the establishment regurgitates every day, you have to start from absolute scratch. You're not at the point of baking the cake; you're at the point of sowing the wheat and buying chicks to raise into hens who will one day give you the eggs you want to use in your cake someday. You're buying a calf that hopefully will grow into a cow so you'll have the cream to whip to fold into the batter. People don't want to start that much from scratch when they're already exhausted and devastated from the horror show that has been the last 35 years of American politics.

That, plus being terrified of facing the fact that we truly have lost control of our government

is why people won't try Something New. Because we would have to build Something New from scratch.

Something New

However, some people are trying to build Something New.

Meet Claudia of "Cabin Talk." She is the interviewer in the second part of this video. You may remember the circumstances; the first part of this video, when the Bernie delegate is being interviewed by some mainstream asshole, got a lot of play:

Claudia is an IRL friend of Debbie the Sane Progressive, to give you an idea of what part of the progressive community she comes from:

Well, Claudia is hosting Cabin Camp on her property in Vermont at the end of August (August 24-27).

Caucus99percent should have a voice there, but it may be too late to get one of the fifty slots. I tried contacting Claudia and her friend Annie who's handling registration, and got no response. Here's why we should connect with these people: If we don't start connecting with other truth-tellers soon, we may find soon that it's a lot more difficult to do. I think everybody has noticed that the establishment is trying to shut down or co-opt the various outlets where truth-telling is still occurring; everything from PropOrNot with its Joe-McCarthy-inspired list of offenders to the de-monetization of YouTube political shows to the fall of TYT and Democracy Now! to the latest assault on net neutrality shows that they are trying to, well, stop the signal.

We should also start organizing similar meetings of our own, both for brainstorming and mutual support. We might want to consider before such meetings what general areas we want to discuss.

Something Borrowed

On that topic, while I don't think policy is the primary thing we should focus on while we have no means to make any policy a reality, I don't think we should ignore it altogether. Therefore, I'm borrowing both a little morale

and a manifesto from our brothers and sisters in Britain: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/labour-manifesto-2017-full-text/

It's long, long manifesto. But from the first chapters I've read, it looks well worth reading. Apparently a lot of Brits actually read it, given that it seems it had a big effect on the electorate over there, which is one of the best things I've heard about British politics ever. I wish we read like that over here! I might drop some bits and bobs from it into the Something Borrowed section over the next few weeks.

I know we already have our own manifesto, which is here: https://caucus99percent.com/content/demands-second-pass

but I think it's always useful to see what others are doing along the same, or slightly different, lines.

Something Blue

My Something Blue today is the Blues Brothers:

I love John Lee Hooker so much I had to pick the picture that included him.

I need the Blues Brothers to help me express my feelings about politics lately. My general feeling about politics lately can be summed up thus:

"You want out of this parking lot? OK."

Lots of space in this mall.

How y'all doing today?

Full disclosure: I was, for a time, chair of Democracy for Montgomery County.