The Democratic mentality today
Okay, so the Dems lost more than 900 legislative seats under Obama. What, pray tell, is the Democratic Party mentality today? Are they doing serious soul-searching to figure out what went wrong? Have they decided to restructure the party to create a lean, mean fighting machine, ready for victory in 2018 and 2020?
It's more like this:
Well, not exactly like Eric Idle on the cross. But Eric Idle would be great playing a Democrat in a movie. At any rate, Rebecca Solnit:
The 11 biggest victories against Trump by the resistance
1. Women professionals who don't like authoritarianism in other countries! Anti-authoritarians who are totally okay with oligarchy but who don't like Trump! Yay!
2. Muslims coming to America to be either a) cheap professional labor or b) refugees from wars the US has escalated. Yippee!
3. More ACA policy designed to save the insurance companies while their product becomes more expensive every year! Hurrah!
4. Voter suppression is now on the agenda of a party which lost more than 900 legislative seats under Obama! Yowzah!
5. A White House run by a reality TV star is the stage for reality TV! Righteous!
6. More Russia distraction! Boo-yah!
7. Oil companies continue to escape blame! Woo-hoo!
8. People in the Republican Party (like the Democratic) disagree with each other! Woot!
9. Progressives win a couple of seats while being purged by the Democratic Party leadership! Fun fun fun!
10. The border fence won't be a wall! Celebrate!
11. People don't like the President they elected to keep Solnit's preferred candidate out of the White House! Awesome!
Comments
Yay! The McResistance!
Where can I get my beret and Sten gun?
I attempted to read the Guardian article, but noticed who wrote it... and promptly gave up.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Rebecca Solnit is the Democrats' Pangloss.
Her political stance is usually punctuated by arguments that grandstand for Democrats by discussing people who were encouraged to go to the doctor by their purchase of subsidized Obamacare plans, or beneficiaries of the DREAM Act, or some other small group of people who were helped by Democratic Party small-time accomplishment. This sort of rhetoric is to substitute for constructive criticism.
"the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters" -- Antonio Gramsci
I have in my hand a LIST! A List of Successes...
I am always amazed at the Politician's conviction that lists will get people on their side.
Enemies lists...
Donor Lists...
Mailing Lists...
Lists of Successes that nobody noticed because uh, reasons...
Proof that it's the reality they think exists...
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
As usual Caitlyn hits it out of the park
while the republicans were working on the tax bill, the media was talking about Flynn and the stupid Russian crap. This was intentional. Mueller was told to release his information on the same day as the tax bill was being passed. Democrats have spent over a year on this now and the only thing that they have to show for it is Flynn has admitted that he lied to the FBI. He may have said that Trump told him to talk to someone in Russia, but is that true? This has been scripted since 6 months before the election. The reason for this is because of the upcoming war with Russia, nothing to do with the election. Or Her loss.
While Dems Babbled About Russia, GOP Passed Trickle-Up Economics Tax Bill
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
What, is she some kind of paid cheerleader or something?
It reminds me of working for the fed, when at the end of the year we'd have to make up shit to show how well we performed our mission.
You work for Corporate Media
you are by definition a paid cheerleader for the status quo.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Along that line: Democratic Party Mocking
Fight for the Future is awesome.
[edit title]
Remember over at Daily Kos --
when there was this commentator whose name was "Mark Warner is God"?
"the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters" -- Antonio Gramsci
Only vaguely. OTOH, someone called “Dump Terry McAuliffe”
did — IIRC, which I may not — end up boarding the pro-Hillary partisan ship and cheering for, you guessed it, Terry McAuliffe.
Gah!
How tragic.
"the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters" -- Antonio Gramsci
Yes. I remember him or her.
Center-right like the majority there, but I didn't get much of a personality fix. Didn't rec my stuff, that's for sure.
Here is when the democrats got their orders
Resort Tycoon Says He’s Ordered Dem Leaders To Adopt Pro-Billionaire Platform
Let's not forget that the reason why Perez was elected to run the DNC. Haim Saben told the democrats that if Ellison was elected, he would stop donations to the DNC. Rumors are that Obama was involved in this too.
Democrats will do anything to keep their policies the way that the Clintons made them.
The message echoes from Gaza back to the US. “Starving people is fine.”
I think Dem leaders are indifferent to policies
…at a philosophical level where, enlightened leadership matters and there's a national vision. That hasn't been a factor in American politics, in my lifetime.
The Dem leaders already know how a given policy will work out before it is enacted. And, most of us do, too. We know who it will help, who it will hurt — in the early years and then later on. We know which lives will be sacrificed and we know who might notice. Once you've been to a couple of rodeos, there's no real mystery to it.
So, Dem Leaders only calculate how the policy works for them in a meta way, as a political tool. They get their feedback directly from the people who pay them. And, then it's on to the next thing.
I'm fine with that. Einstein spelled it out 70 years ago. It's capitalized government and it's all I know. What I find troubling lately are the labels we use. When people talk about the Left or far left, I always think they are talking about Germany or the UK or New Zealand or Japan. Happens all the time. In practice, in reality, the US has a right wing and it has a center-right. That's it. A Left wing or a Left has never been factor.
What I want to know is who benefits from talking about this phantom "Left?" In the media, for example? Who or what are they referring to? Almost every other country has a Left, in practice. We know what that looks like, and we don't have that. So, is the Left a proxy word for Americans, like the word "Russians"? I think it is a very dangerous and unhealthy thing to accept a proxy label. It would be better to deny the existence of the Left.
We should back off and wait for the American people to invent the Left themselves. They will because they desperately need it. Otherwise, both major Parties are using us as anti-left gargoyles, and it's working.
/just a thought.
Yes thank you
though I've been denying the existence of an American "Left" since 2012:
https://cassiodorusblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/what-if-barack-obama-we...
And, sure, it's "all right" if the Dems figure policy in the interests of their paymasters. It's also fine if the Dems persist in being a collective block of concrete, weighing down the condemned (that's us) before they are tossed into the ocean to drown. Always look on the bright side of life y'know.
"the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters" -- Antonio Gramsci
That's a really fine website you have there.
I read the essay, and I have to say, the insights and scholarship are humbling. There's so much important yet basic foundation I didn't have in 2012 or even now. I can understand why the necessary skills of self-government are not part of any educational curriculum in the United States. I get the practical purpose for keeping people disempowered. I accept that in a complex system. What I don't get is why enlightened people would encourage people to vote. That just makes it worse for everyone. If you had an entire nation like the US where the people refused to vote — then you would have something that could change the global paradigm. The only reason this planet is not a utopia is because we didn't know it was allowed.
Oh, and the Political Compass attachment? It should be updated for every election, for godsake. It would be a disgrace to go to the polls without it. It's the big data that rules all.
As for this:
I have one rule about contracts between adults: Anything is fair as long as it is clear.
Government is a contract. Our's is an old contract, written when speed records were held by horses. Not a single generation has claimed sovereignty over it since it was written, which is a disgrace in an of itself, and a betrayal of the Founder's intentions. So, it was very easily subverted into the golem it is today. That I accept. My job is to bring clarity to this side of the contract. It's the only skill I have. That, and perseverance.
The left is
a proxy word for the democrats.
They think HRC and Nancy Pelosi are left.
dfarrah
Are they/have they been trying to win? Can we be sure of that?
I ask b/c, well, the Ds have tallied up a hefty number of losses. They recruit shitty rw candidates, preferably self-funding, they don't monetize lefties who could win, & remember how they were sweating it when they had all those majorities? For a second there it looked like single payer had a chance! That was damned awkward for them to have to explain that.
I've read several
articles over the past decade that assert the dems have been throwing the game whenever they have power to implement dem policies for decades.
dfarrah