Why it Matters
I know there is a lot of frustration in the blogosphere right now because President Obama has not been kind to liberals and progressives. And I understand the frustration of it all too well. I still can't figure out why Axelrod and the President don't seem to understand how important their base is. But as C&L and many other sites wrote during the primary, Obama was never a progressive, but a moderate Democratic politician. I've been blogging for five years non-stop to move this country away from conservatism that has been the great destroyer of our society. Chris Hayes at The Nation has a great article up describing the mess that is our political system and what we face as progressives:
The corporatism on display in Washington is itself a symptom of a broader social illness that I noted above, a democracy that is pitched precariously on the tipping point of oligarchy. In an oligarchy, the only way to get change is to convince the oligarchs that it is in their interest--and increasingly, that's the only kind of change we can get.
In 1911 the German democratic socialist Robert Michels faced a similar problem, and it was the impetus for his classic book Political Parties. He was motivated by a simple question: why were parties of the left, those most ideologically committed to democracy and participation, as oligarchical in their functioning as the self-consciously elitist and aristocratic parties of the right?
Michels's answer was what he called "The Iron Law of Oligarchy." In order for any kind of party or, indeed, any institution with a democratic base to exist, it must have an organization that delegates tasks. As this bureaucratic structure develops, it invests a small group of people with enough power that they can then subvert the very mechanisms by which they can be held to account: the party press, party conventions and delegate votes. "It is organization which gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors," he wrote, "of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy."
Michels recognized the challenge his work presented to his comrades on the left and viewed the task of democratic socialists as a kind of noble, endless, Sisyphean endeavor, which he described by invoking a German fable. In it, a dying peasant tells his sons that he has buried a treasure in their fields. "After the old man's death the sons dig everywhere in order to discover the treasure. They do not find it. But their indefatigable labor improves the soil and secures for them a comparative well-being."
"The treasure in the fable may well symbolize democracy," Michels wrote. "Democracy is a treasure which no one will ever discover by deliberate search. But in continuing our search, in laboring indefatigably to discover the undiscoverable, we shall perform a work which will have fertile results in the democratic sense."
It's indisputably true that the political system is run by wealthy plutocrats and much of what passes for democracy is kabuki. Same as it ever was, I'm afraid. But that's not exactly the point. It's still worth participating, doing what you can, containing the damage, stopping the bleeding, fighting the fight --- for its own sake. After all, history shows that humans have managed, somehow, to actually make progress over time. You just can't know what will make the difference.
There's an impulse to say screw it all and not show up anymore because "they're all the same," but I can't do that. For the most part, politicians will let us down because they are...well, politicians, but they aren't all the same. There have been plenty of books written about Florida in 2000. If ballots had been properly labeled so that voters who wanted Gore instead of Pat Buchanan could have done so, we might have had a more fair election. And then the Supreme Court would have been left to watch election night like the rest of us and Bush wouldn't have entered the White House in 2000.
Think of what that would have meant for the country:
- The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would never have been a reality.
- I doubt we would have had the attacks of 9/11 because President Clinton warned that the greatest threat America would face was terrorism and Gore would have not ignored him like Bush did. But if we did get attacked, then you can bet that Gore would have handled it as an adult. He wouldn't sought "revenge" against Saddam Hussein and prioritized control of all that oil. Gore wouldn't have let Osama Bin Laden get away and the world would still be sympathetic to us.
- Our efforts to put Afghanistan back together would be finished by now, assuming we even would have tried nation-building there.
- More troops and people would be alive and we would have exited the Middle East with our heads held high.
- America would never have invaded and occupied Iraq and over 4,000 troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (if not millions) would be alive today.
- Abu Ghraib would never have happened.
- Terrorist recruitment would have stalled.
- Torture would not be part of the American lexicon and the likes of Dick Cheney and John Yoo would never have descended upon the offices of the VP and OLC.
- John Roberts and Sam Alito would not be on the Supreme Court and the makeup would probably be 6-3 against the radical Scalia-conservative agenda. A ruling on Citizens United is coming soon. Would the court ever have accepted that case? Not a chance and soon corporations will have a stranglehold on our election system much more than they have now.
- George Bush would have been back home in Texas leading the state into secession along with his pal Alberto Gonzalez.
- Nobody would have ever heard of Terry Schiavo.
- A much swifter and more effective response to Hurricane Katrina would have been implemented.
You get my point. These are but a few things that would have been different if conservatives didn't get their hands on the White House. Many of us are fighting for liberal and progressive values everyday and will continue to do so. But when our party fails us, I need to work harder to make sure the party stays on a liberal course, not throw up my hands and dismiss them as all the same.
And in the spirit of that though we need to hold the party establishment accountable. As Digby says there are a number of great progressive challengers already taking on DLC incumbents and we're going to send them a message that's loud and clear. Blue America PAC is already taking on this challenge.
Blue America has helpfully set up an Act Blue page with all the progressive challengers who have announced and we'll add to it as more come forward. We're calling it "Send The Democrats A Message They Can Understand."
If you want a Democratic scalp, these candidates are out there offering to do the work to get it done. And you won't be giving Adam Nagourney or Cokie Roberts or Glenn Beck what they want in the process. It's a win that even the villagers and the party establishment can't spin as good news for Republicans.
We'll be having on many progressive challengers in the coming months on C&L and they will be explaining why progressives need to be elected if we want things to change for the better. The new Blue America PAC Act Blue page is called:
Please join us.
They are corporatists and don't care about anything but the money.
Obama is a "moderate Democrat" only if you define a moderate Democrat as a corporatist prostitute, only if you define a moderate Democrat as one who in all but word puts the constitution last, is a moderate Democrat who considers the needs of the People and Main Street only when those needs have no competition from Corporate Amerika, only stands up for the Constitution if doing so doesn't interfere with the further establishment and consolidation of the corporately controlled totalitarian police state.
Then he's as moderate a Democrat as it is possible for one to be.
He's also dishonest, in that he presented his "moderate" positions as being something far different than what they've turned out to be.
There is no chance at all that I will ever vote for him again..or anybody he recommends.
the old economy is dead and no amount of financial mortician's wax and rouge will bring it back to life.
The ingrained corruption & greed is fed by our legalized bribery system called campaign funding. This fixed system will not change(Catch 22). The only hope I see is a scenario for electing as POTUS an Independent in 2012. Is this possible? Yes. How? I draw your attention to June, 1992. Ross Perot led polling with 39%. He was a flawed messenger with the right message. Many American voters recognize their vote is often for "The lesser of two-evils"...not inspiring for a democracy to function. Most voters realize both parties are corporate owned, but are helpless against the fixed system. Perot opened a path for Main Street to finally be represented. We need another Perot type to emerge, to challenge the system. What do you think? I can answer those who believe a POTUS, without members of his Party of One, can change the system.
Perot was a one trick pony. Nothing else in his political agenda appealed to liberals. Not unlike, for instance, Ron Paul.
Beware getting swept up into some populist movement until you actually know what you'll be getting on issues across the board.
Spot on, dnegri.
And I cringe every time I hear someone say, "So-and-so would make a good president, because he was a very successful businessman."
A businessman is the WORST person to have as a president - since it was HIS business, he always had the final say, and those who disagreed with him usually end up fired.
A president needs to understand he is NOT the final say on things, that he must work with 2 other, equally empowered branches.
If we quit, we've already lost.
"Once everyone has laid claim to their vig, you soon find yourself tapped out"
Everyone who doesn't lust after sucking the orange pekoe out of teabags should tattoo this post inside their eyelids. Nobody will listen if we don't speak. You know, just in case a listening moment presents itself we shouldn't cease yapping our yap. Ever.
grover norquist
ronald ray gunn
neo-liberalism
wto
nafta
The presumption that what's good for wall street is good for the rest of America
seth mcfarland
stephanie meyers.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
flying spaghetti monsters.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
... a Democratic candidate who has proven themselves, repeatedly, to be part of the problem.
That doesn't mean 'I'm not going to vote' - it means my choices are going to be even more critical and essential, having to look closely at Democrats in the primaries to see if they're PINO's or walk the walk, *and* give more attention to independent candidates.
The problem is, in California, we get some pretty goofy independent candidates ...
Betchew voted for this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw9oX-kZ_9k
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
We do, however, have Chris Daly on the SF Board of Stuporvisors, the guy who routinely submits motions to ban the Blue Angels as a safety hazard, and who, more recently, vowed to say the F-word at every meeting for the rest of the year.
The problem in California can be laid firmly at that ridiculous 2/3 law.
to make us believe that Haiti is poised to become an exemplar of economic development for the Caribbean once things are tidied up there.
It was on TeeVee
Kllein and others have warned about the shock doctrine there. In short, any aid/development given to Haiti must not be done as loans.
I don't know what the answer is, but I am exceedingly skeptical that it is to be found with either major party.
My last writing here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
skepticism abounds! The Good (D) vs the Bad (R) is now merely a charade, a play put on by actors to keep us duped into the belief that there is a difference. That is not to say that there is not a few that still seem to have their bearings in common sense, but that number is way small.
I agree totally! But my approach will be to vote against any and all incumbents, D or R. After enough of the "lifers" are gone, then I'll go back to supporting the "lesser of 2 evils" and pretending that I'm helping to make progress.
If you incumbent is Franken, Weiner, or Grayson, is that still a good idea? It's more work to judge each person by their record, but in a few cases, it is worthwhile.
no, none of them are in my area. but of course it doesn't make any sense to blindly vote. it was more of a general statement.
Whenever I read about someone wanting "all incumbents" gone, my first thought is: Who are their Reps in Congress?
I rarely get a response.
Kay Hagan: Dem Senator sine 2008, up for term 2 in 2014. I'm fine with 2 terms (the limit I'd like to see become the legal limit).
Richard Burr: Rep Sentator since 2004, a one term Senator up in 2010. LONG-time Congressman before that.
David Price: (D) Congressman. Been there forever.
It's funny how hard certain people on the "left" work so hard to equate Clenis with republicans, when he's the only president in recent history who left the country with a surplus.
That's actually handing the republicans the credit for the improving economy of the 90's.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
A. Clinton walked, talked, and quacked like a conservative. In fact I submit to you he was one of the best conservative American presidents of the XX century.
B. You can't have a surplus if you have debt. He ended up with more money to pay part of the national debt, and he did not increase said debt considerably. He deserves credit for that indeed... but that is a far cry from pretending he ran a surplus.
Equating putting Clinton in his proper context, with people trying to hand credit to the republicans reeks to high heavens.
In 1911 the German democratic socialist Robert Michels...
(said stuff)
And in 1914, he backed the Kaiser's war plans, thus setting the stage for millions butchered in WW1, the economic collapse of 1923, and the rise of Hitler and fascism in Germany resulting in WW1, part 2, known as WW2.
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht opposed the war, and were murdered BY ORDERS OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS.
And what theory lay behind Michaels (and almost all of the SPD) back the Kaiser's war? Socialism. How?
They envisioned a Socialist revolution. To do that you needa proletariat. To get a proletariat you need industrialism. To make industrialism work, you need resources. To get resources, you need either colonies or super friendly resource rich friends. Colonies are fast and easy and cheaper than coddling friends, but Germany wasn't a unified state until the 1870s - very late to the game, and only possessed of meagre colonies. They needed oil. So they contracted with the Turks to build the Berlin to Baghdad railway, which would have given them all the oil in the world. The Brits didn't dig that, so when the war started the first British troops were sent to IRAQ to take Baghdad from the Turks.
So, in order to have their Socialist revolution, they had to go to war to get the materials to have industrialism.
Invoking revisionist utopian socialists is NOT a good plan for finding a way out of the present morass...
That said, the left needs to infiltrate the Democratic party as thoroughly as the bible thumping jebus freakazoid fascist pig humping retards have infiltrated the Republican party. They must take the democratic party AWAY from the corporate masters. Third parties will NEVER work in the American System due to the electoral college.
The left also needs to move out of its idiotic hold hands and sing kumbaya middle class stupidity, and grow a pair and get tough.
Period.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
going to have to be based on real productive activity conducted at a scale consistent with resource realities, or we will starve to death, and watch our infrastructures of daily life crumble away to nothing.
Couldn't agree more.
Actually the three cousins tried to stop the war: Kaiser Wilhelm, King George V and Tsar Alexander, but discovered they had little power left beyond being figureheads.
And all you actually proved is that once one moves beyond positive economics to normative economics, it doesn't mean because of your expertise in the former automatically proves your expertise in the latter.
But to discount the former is a form of Argumentum ad Geneseon.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
the way you talk....
1). Wilhelm wanted the war to happen so that he could put the Kriegsmarine to use and break what was effectively a blockade by the Brits and French that kept Germany, already the leading industrial power on the Continent, from shipping its goods outside of its geographically limited sphere of influence in Central Europe. Willie pushed the Austro-Hungarian Empire to take the hard line against Serbia after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand because he knew it would cause Russia to declare war, triggering treaties to be invoked, allowing Germany to go to war with France and a chance to open doors to markets that had been closed (I don't think it's in print any longer, but if you can find it, read Frederic Morton's Thunder At Twilight).
2).Nicky was determined to spread Russian influence to the other Slavs, particularly in the Balkans, at the expense of Austria-Hungary and Turkey.
3).George was happy to protect a status quo that was very advantageous to the economy and glory of his own empire.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
An Invasion of Iraq.
But it wasn't just a race for oil. Oil is just something that was needed to fuel the ships that protected the sea lanes through which goods are shipped (see: The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (1890), by Alfred Thayer Mahan). At the time, oil wasn't something that was sold on corners by the gallon. It was used for ships and trains (and some goods made from recently discovered petrochemicals).
And it wasn't really a race for oil- the Brits were already getting theirs just down the Gulf from Basra, in Persia. They fought the Mesopotamian Campaign to keep the Germans from that oil. And, oddly enough, The Brits helped bring Romania into the war, and the Austro-German alliance made quick work of that country, giving them access to the Ploesti oilfields. Ironic, no?
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
oil was going to be the Next Big Thing. It is far more energy dense than coal, more easily transportable, etc. and so on. That's why the Germans set up the Berlin - Baghdad RR agreement.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
What you're describing were the interests at root to the war, such as Germany trying to expand their colonial holdings for raw materials.
But war has a way of disrupting trade routes and sea channels, hurting the economic viability they pursued, and are prohibitively expensive during the same period.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
supports my point. My point is theory: their THEORY impelled them to war. The naval issues, the trade embargoes, etc. were incidental historical problems that FED the basic issue, which was one of resources acquisition for industrialism.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
However you earlier comment made it sound like they were deliberately pursuing war, when actually they were pursuing selfish economic interests that once they came in conflict war was inevitable, and the three cousins couldn't stop it.
We still pursue selfish economic interests, but that doesn't mean we're deliberately pursuing war (although some corporations profit greatly therefrom, which is why I'd be for nationalization of affected industries, windfall taxes, and vigorous prosecution for war profiteering).
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
...but until Democratic incumbents lose their election, no opposing/different/more liberal Democrat will get a shot... unless someone "retires". Time for a fire sale, everyone must go!
... with people who know how things work, instead of career politicians and corporate executives who have bought their way into office?
- Farmers who know the burdens and needs of agriculture.
- Doctors who know what's involved in taking care of people.
- Engineers who build things.
- Teachers who know what they need to educate future generations.
- People who know the challenges of putting food on the table, etc.
The difference is the bible thumping hate everything jebus freaks are corporatists. The only things they love more than god is money and power.
The entire leftist agenda is about egalitarianism and ultimately a moneyless society. The only reason there are "two" parties is because the corporatists fund both sides. Once you show your hand as a party that wants peace, equality and fairness under the law, you lose your corporate sponsors. Then "poof" the party is gone.
This idea requires first the de-capitalization of our democracy. Removing money from the process of electing people. That requires sitting representatives to create a law (or constitutional amendment) to forbid donations of any kind to the political process and to restrict the "free" speech of those with money from supporting their candidate independently. That simply won't happen because the people in power are there for the money. They aren't going to vote against THEIR best interest.
It's a catch 22. If you have a good answer to this problem, I would love to hear it.
.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
f*&ked up so we can ignore them and if we don't act like the Republican right we lack male genitalia. So I guess that exludes you from the need for future schooling.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
Yeah, the SPD f*cked up. BIG TIME. Their program was diverted into "reform" rather than revolution, and bingo: done.
And I can assure you that if you think "being nice" is going to stop these bastards, you're an idiot. They will cheerfully Kill You if it means they get to retain power and privilege, and that's a damn fact, borne out from many decades of capitalist oppression. You're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
I am ready to follow Comrade twekerbelle and his large pair
to fight capitalist oppression by infiltrating the Democratic party which, last I checked, had primaries and conventions so weakly guarded they can be easily penetrated.
You yawn. Pardon me for laughing.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
progressive candidates in primaries is heavily influenced by the fact that everything progressive is attacked non-stop on 1000 radio stations that the left effectively ignores.
progressive groups need to start recognizing those limbaugh hannity megastations as the embassies for corporate america that they are, constantly laundering lobbyist talking points from think tanks and swiftboating all prgressive candidates and causes.
and they need to do their protesting at those stations and their local sponsors, especially in blue communities that the RW radio dominates, need to be asked why they continue to sponsor the lies and swiftboating.
why aren't university environmental groups, for instance, or students in general, protesting that their universities are sponsoring limbaugh megastations that do climate change denial all day long?
on a local level those megastations, turned off by the left, dominate local politics and make it much more difficult to pass real reform or stop the kind of referendums that have destroyed the CA economy. and they set the bar when it comes to GOP and dem primary candidates. the corporate dem candidates are the ones that get on the exposure on the giant state megaphones while the progressives are attacked. they determine where the political center is percieved by the rest of the media.
until the left recognizes the corporate power centers are the talk radio giants that pump out the coordinated uncontested repetition we're going to keep getting the same old shit and talk of getting real progressives backs and encouraging dems to get more progressive is hollow.
"The left also needs to move out of its idiotic hold hands and sing kumbaya middle class stupidity.."
What's wrong with holding hands and singing "Kumbaya"?
It's an important part of the Left's social heritage in America and a lovely song.Sure it's been satirized up the hoop and used as a club to beat "bleeding heart Liberals" over the head with for years,but you know,FUCK THAT.I'd love to see the song re-recorded and have proud Liberals take it back as their own.
"To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And,
at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between,
plus some things I can't remember, all rolled into one big "thing."
This is truth, to me. "
-Jack Handy
he is a conservative Republican of the old school. His healthcare bill that has 95% of what he wanted is even more conservative than that proposed by Richard Nixon in 1971. After this healthcare debacle, there is no longer sugarcoating that the Democrats no longer work for the American people, but for the corporations. They have been so bought out by big corporations and Wall Street - including the president - that their policies are effectively rightwing. They may be "for" the public option, no mandate, no taxes on the middle class (all Obama campaign promises), but when they face the cold hard cash of big money, they go rightwing on us.
Sure, they are different from the modern day Republicans, who are all lunatics, and the Democrats keep pushing the fear meme because they don't have much of a record the past 30 years to stand on. They assume progressives will keep crawling back to them because the alternative is so much worse. Well, it really is not all that much worse anymore, and besides, how are the Democrats ever going to change if we keep enabling them and voting them back into office, giving them the green light to be as rightwing as they want? Sorry, but not voting for them is the most effective way we have of sending them a message that they are on the WRONG TRACK. I will be voting 3rd party in the future, and working outside the party on issues such as campaign finance reform.
Sorry John, but I have to agree with Virtual on a number of points. Obama is only a moderate when taken in the context of the current state of the rabid bat-shite crazy Republican Party, IOW a moderately right-wing Neo-Liberal Corporatist Democrat. Obama's voting record as a junior Senator from Illinois was largely Neo-Liberal, but he, like many politicians, lied to prospective liberal progressive voters during his Presidential campaign to garner our votes. I, among many voters, will not be fooled again.
The corrupting influence of Corporatist campaign cash is so pervasive in both Democratic and Republican Parties that the Corporatist State is already here, not just on the verge of same. Working within the existing Democratic Party structure to generate effective liberal progressive change will not work at this point. Liberal progressives will need to think and act "outside the box" of staid Democratic Party politics, because the majority of both Parties are bought-and-paid-for Corporatist shills.
That means supporting liberal progressive Democrats where it makes sense, but also being open to supporting 3rd Parties and 3rd Party candidates as part of the primary objective -- deposing from their ivory towers all the Corporatist incumbents, from both Political Parties. The liberal progressive revolution needs unshorn Samson heroes that will pull down the pillars of the Corporatist State.
A movement moves a little way and then stops. A revolution keeps rolling along. We need Revolution.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
But there is the opposite cautionary tale of God's Little Acre:
Which could be applied to progressives wasting time digging for the "gold" of total enactment of a liberal agenda - which is unobtainable - instead of "farming" a more progressive existence within our centrist "farm".
I realize the above is kinda cheesy, but it's heartfelt in an altruistic attempt to get our more agro brethren (I'm looking at you, FDL) to first do no harm.
We have 2 options in this country, and the electorate is too closely divided to try to drag the Dem Party to the left at the moment.
...there's no better time than the present. I've been hearing that "now's not a good time" garbage since I was first old enough to vote. Now is the perfect time.
... the Parable of the Talents to be found here.
That's the one where the landowner gave two workers the same amount of coin. One, fearful that he would lose his employer's money and be punished, dug a hole and buried it. The other chose to invest it, and increased its value a hundred fold.
So the landowner comes back. The worker who invested it showed off what he had accomplished, and is praised. The other worker explains his thinking and hands back the money, untouched. The landowner curses him roundly as a fool.
So progressives need to invest their 'talents' and improve their value, rather than bury them by voting the same-old same-old/lesser of two evils.
to just sit back and take it, I'm saying that we can't go from the disaster that was the Bush admin to what we know to be the right way in just a year. It takes time and cultivation.
The biggest mistake we made in terms of HCR was to not adequately sell it to the electorate, and I think it will also be a mistake to try to change the track of our leadership without gaining the confidence of a good portion of independents.
If the story about Ben Nelson in the pizza joint is true as told, I can't think of a better way to show the dangers of trying to govern from the overwhelming minority of the 3 political ideologies (progressive, conservative, independent).
"and the electorate is too closely divided to try to drag the Dem Party to the left at the moment"
yet, the GOP (with help from the dems) have been able to drag the GOP and the dems to the right. and, imo, this is not b/c the country leans right, or even center right. it has more to do with the successful framing of issues from the GOP, and a corporate media that enables such framing.
but, if the dem party wasn't trying so hard to compete for corporate/wall st money, i believe that they would be successful in moving the party to the left by basing their party's platform on the issues that are supported by the majority of the people (real health reform, knee capping the power of wall st, pulling out of iraq, etc.)
now i'm starting to see visions of flying pigs...
This is the key.
If you REALLY want reform, rather than throwing your vote away to Republicans who don't deserve it, fight for campaign finance reform.
Because as our political system stands now, this is the nature of the beast. It takes a LOT of fucking money to run a campaign. Representatives basically start fundraising for their next election the day they take office. And as long as this remains the case, then corporate interests will always win out.
Join a group to fight for public financing of campaigns.
That's how you'll see more progressives in office.
The question remains how do you fight for campaign finance reform when the Supreme Court has already made campaign contributions a form of political speech, and on top of that Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) acting as a precedence for it all?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
And I don't have ready answers.
I'd like to see some legal group challenge Santa Clara Co. v. SoPac Railroad. That could change things on many levels for the US for the better. It would be difficult with the current makeup of SCOTUS, though.
But I'm pretty sure there are groups out there looking into this--petitions to get on ballots? Court challenges? Finding a congressperson to take the lead and introduce on the Floor?
My guess is it would take a corporation of new technology, perhaps green technology, challenging the old industrial grey-beards in court, and then a rippling out effect.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
What was odd though is there had never been any successful attempts at overturning it from municipalities or states. One of the issues in Southern Pacific Railroad was public safety. Sparks from passing trains on their tracks were starting fires along the way in dry grass and woods.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
supposed to be for campaign finance reform? Look how they bastardized it and moved the money to PACs.
now i'm starting to see visions of flying pigs...
Those are just more G O PIGS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYjbkRktqIE
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8b9EckGPx0
and over 70% wanted a public option. Meaningful healthcare reform would have not "dragged the Dem party to the left" or the country to the left, it would have been doing its will. But instead the Democratic Party went ahead and did the insurance/Pharma/hospital lobbyists' will. Progressives were not looking for "gold" and were more than willing to compromise, first on single payer (which Obama took off the table at the offset), then on a robust public option, then on a watered down public option, then on a public option opt out, then on Medicare for the 55+ crowd, and on and on ad infinitum. We were not willing to be sold a bailout to the insurance industries, disguised as a turd sandwich.
Btw, you sound DLCish to me, using their standard propaganda ploys of employing McCarthy smear tactics of trying to link me with FDL, trying to make me look like an uncompromising extremist because I wanted meaningful healthcare reform, and trying to frame what the base of the Democratic wants as far "left".
No, they didn't. And even if they did, we dropped the ball in maintaining ANY meaningful level of support for HCR by not anticipating and neutralizing the very foreseeable fight by the HC insurance industry.
We CANNOT win by trying to drag moderate pols to the left, we can only win by convincing the moderate electorate that we have the better way.
Campaign finance reform? Not going to happen, but polls and votes trump dollars every day.
the American people wanted more government involvement in healthcare than the corporate-owned government is willing to provide. I don't know if that makes the electorate "liberal", "moderate", or just looking out for their best interests. There were numerous polls indicating that the majority of Americans wanted at the minimum a public option, and this was WITHOUT our "leaders" making any attempt to educate the public as to its merits. Before the healthcare debate even got started, single payer was very popular:
http://www.unitedforhealthcare.org/HR676news_...
use the term "single payer" which would've had to have been defined in the question in 2007 to get an accurate reading because so few people back then actually knew what it means.
2003? Please.
Why do you put quotation marks around 'moderate' and 'liberal'? Do you not believe these people exist? Are you being sarcastic?
the IDEA behind the policies matter less than what the policies are actually called. Interesting. I hear this argument all the time. People ARE for the government providing health care to all Americans. Polls have shown this not since 2003 but for decades. Support has always been well over 40%, even at times when the system was performing better. Besides, there is no way we can say we have a better SYSTEM, despite any ideological abstraction we hear about “capitalism”, you can argue our system outperforms other systems in developed countries and does so more efficiently. Any private, for profit system is ALWAYS going to be more inefficient than non-profit systems directed by the government (at least financially). There are profits, executive pay, marketing costs, dividend payments, way larger administrative costs, amongst other things. As far as the delivery of the service this is all waste. It is interesting and amazing that people think as they do when neither party, the media or entrenched interests are in favor of this and when the position is ignored by "respectable opinion". People are in favor of policies based their own logic and intuition. We don’t have philosophy kings in charge of government and they don’t know better than the general public how to run a country. We need a democracy, not a plutocratic republic.
You laugh at the poll from 2003. Guess what, the results have been the same for decades. The fact that there is solid support for the position without anyone with a megaphone in favor of it for so long says a lot about how broken our system is. It says even more that you use the narrow range of opinion that the corporate press pukes out as a starting point for conversation.
"We CANNOT win by trying to drag moderate polls to the left, we can only win by convincing the moderate electorate that we have the better way."
What exactly ARE moderate people? In my experience these are people who like saying things but run away from making their platitudes a reality. Social justice sounds so wonderful to the ears. What does it mean in practice? Protecting the environment is so nice, what does it entail? What changes does it necessitate to the economic system and social relations within and between countries? “Moderates” could also be people who have logically contradictory positions on the issues. If you are in favor of universal health care, for example, you necessarily are in favor of economic policies that make it possible. You also are taking a stand of social relations and the role of non market forces in our society. These issues don't exist in a vacuum, assuming you’re a rational person. I’ve heard far too many people tell me they’re “fiscal conservatives” while telling me they’re in favor of things like universal health care to take “moderates” seriously.
Besides, look at any issue you want and tell me that the general public isn't to the "left" of either party and the positions of the media, as they should be. The interests of these groups and the general public are the exactly opposite. I know a response you might have though. I've heard it often. People CALL themselves "conservative" or "moderate" far more than they do "liberal" or "progressive". They call themselves "capitalists" more than "socialists". Tell me though; if their actual positions on the issues are the exact opposite of the standard definitions of those words, what is more important? The label or the stances they are taking? If Stalin didn't call himself "communist" but CALLED himself a "conservative capitalist" would it have made him a "conservative capitalist"? If Reagan called himself a "socialist" and had the exact same policies would he have been a socialist just because he called himself one? It seems that the right wing is winning arguments by using labels and people don't seem interested in responding with logic. Very American and frustrating.
My father (a liberal) believes that the reason a Republican actually stands a chance in Massachusetts of all places is because the American people don't want health care reform because they feel it would be costly to them and they are happy with what they have got and don't give a rat's ass about the people who haven't got anything.
I believe people in Massachusetts don't want THIS health care bill.
If it were truly a progressive health reform bill I believe (I'd like to believe!) people in Massachusetts would support it overwhelmingly.
Am I wrong?
elections do matter, voting is critical...
yet, as i have written many times before, as non-corporate citizens the only real power we have is to vote--who we vote for/if we vote. i am an indep, so in pennsy i cannot vote in democratic primaries--but i would encourage those that can (either b/c your state laws allow indep voting, or b/c u are a registered dem) to come out in force and give full-throated support behind the progressive candidate.
but, when it actually does come to general elections, i try not to vote for the lesser of two evils. there are exceptions (ex, i did vote for obama) when the stakes seem crazy-high. other than that, though, i believe that until the dem party gets the message, loud and clear, that as long as theu continue to take advt of the left the left is not always going to be there for the dems, they will continue their neoliberal/new democrat trend to the political right.
the pattern (the dems pose as progressives, make promises to the left, and then, once elected, govern as corporate-center pols) needs to be broken.
the dems need to pay less attention to the wishes/wants of the GOP and conservatives (aka, the segment of the population that will never support them) and pay real attention to the left/progressives (aka, those that would love to support a real progressive party). for, if not, they will see more elections like in 2000.
If I didn't believe that Marcy Winograd was as truly Progressive as I am I would be down in Norwalk, CA right now getting my papers to file to run against Jane Harman for Congress.
I did it in 1992 and I'd do it again now.
We have WAY more power than to just "VOTE".
Any of us sitting out in blogoland right now reading these words, stop and take pause. Ask yourself these questions:
1.) Am I a Registered Democrat in good standing in my district? (Cause if you're not...fuggedaboddit).
2.) Do I feel my current Congressional representative is a true "Progressive"?
If you answered "Yes" to number 1 and "No" to number 2 then I think you should pick up the telephone and find out what the deadline is to file your papers to run in your state's upcoming primary.
In California it's as easy as pie. You walk in to the county registrar's office and ask for the papers. You grab about 200 voter registration forms. You go home and get all dolled up and take your friends and family out to the local post office or grocery store and you make a sign that says who you are and that you need signatures to file to run against "So and So". Have a short schpeal ready for why you don't support "So and So" and what you would like to do if elected.
Getting the signatures is fun. You only have to have something like 100 QUALIFIED SIGNATURES. Which is why you register new DEMOCRATIC voters on the spot and have them sign. You raise $1000 bucks from all your friends and neighbors and go back to the registrar's office with all your voter registration cards, your signed petitions for filing and a cashier's check. And VOILA!!!!!!
You are on the freakin' ballot!!!
You will be invited to every luncheon, every debate, every Kiwanis and Elks Club and League of Women Voters function to speak your mind. Every newspaper will want to interview you. Radio stations will want to interview you. People will want to help you and will give you money. The Democratic Party will SPIT AT YOU FOR INTERFERING!!!!
And you probably will NOT win in the primary. But guess what? You will have gotten the Progressive message out a whole lot better than by sitting at home (or at Starbucks) writing on this blog about what you think.
So, remember. The clock is ticking on filing deadlines. Now is the time to make that call.
And one more thing. GORE CAVED IN 2000 when the folks were sitting around the tables counting the ballots and the mob showed up and screamed, "STOP THE COUNT!!!!"
I will always contend that had Gore had a press conference outside the counting area in West Palm? and DEMANDED THAT THE COUNT CONTINUE that hundreds of thousands of voters would have shown up to join him and democracy would have changed history.
Plus, I will never forgive him for choosing Joe Lieberman as his running mate. I'll always believe that the thought of Lieberman being a heart beat away was right up there with Palin.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
this is so important to mention, thank you for posting this.
and its something a lot people don't even think about (example: look at my post), or consider.
"yet, as i have written many times before, as non-corporate citizens the only real power we have is to vote--"
I hear what you're saying, but this mindset is what will make real change impossible. The people have no direct power, no direct say in government. Americans think that democracy is a spectator sport. We vote for people and they run our lives. We might write e mails or protest if we don't like someone, but that is about it. Well, that isn't democracy. That is electoral feudalism. You have nobles and kings, you just pick which one. They don't understand you, don't care about you (unless they're up for election) and you have two choices. Citizens being able to recall the president or any other politician, being able to overturn government policy or being able to write legislation themselves, having the power to block appointments or having a democratic say on what gets funded and how? Nope. Vote for the perfect candidate and beg them to give a damn, which they don’t and won’t.
Voting for a new party does what exactly if the differences in wealth are as large as they are and continue to grow as they have been for decades? Nothing. Voting third party does what with the financialization of our economy (the banks and large investors are a "virtual senate" on anything we choose within our democracy. If they don't like something they'll take their capital out and the economy will tumble)? “Free trade”? I could go on endlessly with this. Things have to be done outside of electoral politics all together and you have to stop waiting for Superman in office to do so. It isn't going to happen. Regardless of what the right wing and the media say, we do have class war going on. The problem is that one class is consciously fighting the class war and is winning without exception while the other is denying this or expecting the winning class to throw them crumbs and to fight their own class. Again, not gonna happen. Even if they could, you’d be one election away (without any direct power) from having all progress wiped out. Then you’d be back to begging.
Well there's also the courts.
Although corporations can go through business courts, they do not offer pain and suffering, the most punitive possible restitution, they merely put the signatory parties back at square one before a contract has been entered into.
Real people on the other hand can try to go through tort courts where pain and suffering is an option. It's only by hurting corporations financially can one possibly hope for change from them, unless one can prove criminality against a specific person or persons, but the corporation would call them the exception not the rule.
However, through legalized bribery called campaign contributions corporations have the ear of Congress more than the public, and can effectuate tort "reform" laws that would put most cases either off the courts agendas or, limit damages and possibly even force them into business courts or arbitration instead of courts.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Continuing to elect the usual Democrats, while expecting them to mend their ways, meets the definition of insanity
Until Democrats lose elections, seeing their former supporters vote for 3rd parties, they will continue to value donor dollars higher than constituents' wishes.
He warned that we can't take our toys and go home.
And, IMHO, even losing votes to 3rd party candidates won't offset the lure of corporate blood money. The system has to be regulated/restructured so this is not a factor, and it's not as simple as saying, 'no corporate $$$' - because a Lloyd Blankenfein certainly has the wherewithal to make a donation as a 'private citizen'.
We need to give campaign AND political funding a long, hard look, because math is commutative.
I didn't advocate taking toys and going home. I said vote in a way that shows Democratic candidates that you left them for being too conservative rather than too liberal. If you don't vote, they don't know why. If you vote to their left, they have the evidence.
As for election reform, the guys benefiting from the current campaign and funding system will never change it to their disadvantage.
You are right that corporate bribes of post-service payoffs will remain. But voting 3rd party negates the value of moneyed interests for reelection. Power is as enticing to these guys as cash. They live for it. Getting bounced is the only threat voters have. As long as they don't believe we'll throw them out, they'll never change their ways
... there's more cash to be had than impact from progressives enacting an en masse migration to independent candidates (or at least something Democratic with a spine/teeth).
Both parties usually win elections with slim majorities. Democrats can't win elections without progressive votes, no matter how much money they have in the campaign coffers.
is an expression that has a far greater equivalence to "Not Voting", rather than voting for 3rd Party candidates.
Shhh! Here's a dirty little secret that the Corporatist State and their entrenched political shills don't want you to "grok" -- no amount of Corporatist campaign cash can buy a single vote at the polling booth. A cornucopia of cash only buys advertising -- that's all it does. It is up the the voter to actually pull that lever (excepting of course the problem of Diebold/ESS voting machines, another issue altogether.)
Dr. Howard Dean's 50-State campaign strategy worked quite effectively in 2006 -- a combination of grassroots "boots on the ground" one voting precinct at a time, Internet-based organizational tools, and a massive out-pouring of small donations from the constituents. But Dean was "kicked to the curb" or "handed his hat" -- that's history now. That doesn't mean that the tactics are no longer valid; it only means that this liberal progressive process has been beaten down by the current PTB, including the Rahm/Obama White House.
The majority of the incumbents of both MS Political Parties are Corporatist shills, so "we the people" need to look toward fresh new liberal progressives within the Democratic Party where we can, but outside the Party where we must, eg. 3rd Party candidates when that makes sense.
(ed. That 3rd Party action is making more and more sense, IMHO.)
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
Like in 2000 or 2004?
Like any they'll lose this year? How many more must they lose? They lose all the time. Coakley could lose tomorrow. We are enabling the Democrats by not demanding better of them. Progressives must, unfortunately, work from within and challenge the incumbents in primaries and then get on the ballot as a "D" who will then vote as a Progressive because sadly, the system is gamed for two parties; the corporations' collective head might explode if they had to buy off three national parties.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Apparently more than they have.
Look at HCR; it uses public money to subsidize poor folks so they can buy overpriced insurance from the same ripoff artists who cheat the rest of us.
That's not the work of another party. That's the work of another branch of the one party.
Simply losing the majority power won't be enough to change the ideals of the party. Losing some of the 30-year-plus lifer incumbents however would provide the opportunity for progressives to challenge with in the party...out with the old (ideas) in with the new.
The most demoralizing thing about the current landscape is that the Democrats have majority power in all facets of the federal government...and STILL can't seem to do anything. That tells me that the ones that are there in Washington really aren't interested in doing anything progressive. So yes, time for them to lose some elections...majority be damned. Not like that majority has done anyone much good.
... is bounded on all sides by their desire to remain in office, hold court with 'the powerful', and garner material wealth in service of both.
Caucus, Lynn Woolsey, is busy holding fundraisers for the likes of Blue Dog Jane "This conversation doesn't exist (AIPAC)" Harman!!! Thank God Marcy Winograd is challenging Harman again!! Maybe if Winograd gets in to Congress she'll be able to convince others in the Progressive Caucus to grow a spine for Chrissakes.
Hello!!??
The Progressive Caucus in the Democratic Party is a JOKE.
I say we need to run a Progressive in every Democratic primary in this country. And now is the time to file.
If five Progressives end up on the ballot against snakes like Woolsey, so be it.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
which is why working within the framework of a pseudo-progressive movement within the Democratic Party is a non-starter -- not without much reform, including booting Lynn Woolsey out of the caucus.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party within many many States has become so corrupted by the Corporatists that their Primary selection process is little more than a rigged game. The resistance from the entrenched State Democratic Party machines is such that the only viable Liberal Progressive venue is either Independent or 3rd Party. Not every State is as open to fresh new liberal faces in Democratic Primaries as is California. Either large amounts of money (tribute and/or bribes) are required, or else a "smoke-filled room" vetting process.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
If there isn't a Progressive running as a Democrat in your states primary then maybe YOU need to file.
Yes YOU!!!! I'm talkin' to YOU!!!
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
They lost in 2000, 2002, 2004, lost the House in 94...
I'm not saying elect the usual Dems, but liberals...
..., all of it, including the WH, what did they do with it? They wrote a HCR reform bill that has sent insurance stocks to new heights, because it steals from the middle class to give to the insurance companies.
What I'm saying is, if you're dependable, you're ignorable. If you can be counted on to hold your nose and vote for the Democrats, like I have done all my life, then your opinion doesn't matter because your support is a given. Well, not mine, not this time. And never again. Old Reliable Philboyd is now Quicksilver Philboyd, ready to slip thru any candidates fingers at the first hint of duplicity. And the current crop of Dems is entirely duplicitous.
Don't believe me? Who got what he wanted in the Senate bill, Dorgan or Lieberman? Why? Because Lieberman was not reliable. Reliable is all but expendable.
this analysis is a little pessimistic. If it were entirely true then the progress that has been achieved over many years would simply not have happened. There wouldn't be social security or Medicare or Medicaid, or progress in civil rights or any of a host of issues. If these "oligqarchs" were so powerful none of these things would ever have been achieved.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
at any time now. I'm amazed we are still functioning as a country to be honest but as long as we keep bailing out the rich and powerful everything will be fine.
Meaning apparently the power of the oligarchs.
Social progress has only come through the movements in the streets which gives back to the politician.
Social security came in the midst of the Great Depression brought about by the crimes of the Oligarchs who then were at their lowest ebb.
Just as important was the Wagner Act: the Labor Management Relations Act which brought US labor into the modern era.
The Oligarchs were never still and they continually pushed back.
The New Deal improved conditions and success in the war guaranteed prosperity.
The Oligarchs were already planning their post war dominance of the world in 1943, if not before.
The National Security Act of 1947 brought about the CIA, the MICC, the NSA and the National Security State to further those aims.
Also critical that year was the Taft Hartley revision of the Labor Relations Act which undid key points of the previous progress. Section 164b (off the top of my head) allowed states to enact laws which prohibited agreements to guarantee union security. The euphemistically and tragically named Right to Work clause.
Lyndon Johnson and the second generation of socially minded Democrats in the '60s brought about the Civil Rights legislation, Medicare and Medicaid.
The Oligarchs pushed right back and it has been down hill since then.
Another germane parallel comment here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
wow that is really long you must be smart. what does that mean?
to oligarchs since it is quite clear that the people pushing back against the left aren't oligarchs for the simple reason that they do not wield all political power. When the left stops pushing they get pushed back. On the whole the left has enjoyed more victories than defeats.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
You did use the term in quotations so I am glad for your clarification.
I still maintain the primary power in the country is held by Oligarchs. Forbes 400 richest have $2 trillion between them, that is 4% of the wealth held by .00000133 % of the population. I will check the numbers for the top 1%.
Read my additional comment on the Ruling Class who are the 1%, here
Would you care to enumerate some of the other victories of the left so we can savor them?
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
of those people who you are pleased to call Oligarchs has exactly one vote. The same as you. So if you can persuade 400 people to vote against them and with you you have canceled out the Forbes 400 at the polls. If you can find one more voter for your side you win.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
to turn the people who mislead us into lying corporatist tools.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
be used to persuade some people to act against their own interests but it cannot force them and in the end that is why progress is still made.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
I understand what you are saying.
This is a very clever and extremely powerful group. I want to include the one per cent, though there really is not a hard dividing line. I did find the numbers on the 1%, the source I found gives their wealth at 34.3% in 2004.
The point is that the poorest of the 1 % has somewhere around ten million but the wealthiest are more than one thousand times that.
Today the nominal wealth of the country is about $50 trillion, that is down from about $62 trillion. We have taken an enormous hit, most of it was evaporated real estate valuation.
The one percent owns upwards of $20 trillion. That is serious money.
But you are correct, it isn't just the money. Their power comes from convincing people to act against their own interest, and that they do with propaganda.
Let me go back to history.
After Henry Ford came up with mass production it was understood that what was needed was mass consumption.
There was no guarantee that there would be people to buy the products. What was needed was a means to mass produce consumers for those products.
Enter psychology and the development of advertising (first there was the selling of WWI and the Creel Commission, a US government propaganda organ, that is for another time).
Then came the 1920s and advertising became a big deal.
Advertising products and politicians is no different after this time.
A good documentary piece is the Ad and the Ego here
A comment I made previously with many links regarding advertising and political propaganda is here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
i hope you write a book because you can write a lot! please write it so i can understand what all of the words mean with a glosary thank you.
Follow the links and watch some of the videos, they are very informative.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
i looked at those for a little bit but they are long and boooorng. i dont watch ads on tv only movies and basketball.
a different perspective do we not? You say consumption was artificially created to absorb production. You cite Henry Ford as an example. I think you have it backwards. Ford adapted the well established dis- assembly line used in the meat packing industry to assembling goods and by improving productivity made vehicles that the masses could afford. They hardly needed to be persuaded to buy them. The mobility they gave the masses was a blessing not a curse.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
I live in Detroit and will be clubbed to say that the automobile is the worst thing that ever happened to the earth and our society.
But it is true. Detroit had a robust trolly system, it was a most vital city.
The trolleys were torn up, the expressways went in and the city looks like Berlin after we and the Russians finished with it in May of '45.
As far as automobiles, GM and Chrysler went bankrupt. It is certainly not a simple story but I have considerable experience with the marriage of commerce and art in the advertising of automobiles. The entire purpose of which is to convince the buyer that they will only be fulfilled personally when they purchase this years Thunderbird not before, or whatever the model is.
It is propaganda written anew as advertising.
You can argue this or that product or factor but I suggest that you follow some of the links that I have provided, they have very powerful information from powerful minds.
The mobility that the automobile gave and the infrastructure that we created to accommodate it, in other words, suburbia will be our death knell as the twilight of the fossil fuel age draws closer.
Peak oil is here, the twilight is now and we are nowhere near ready for it.
From a societal and cultural standpoint I think it is a travesty. We have frightened individuals locked in their cars on the freeways. For the time being. It is society with a deeply damaged culture.
After the twilight and the long post industrial decline there maybe no society at all.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
So Detroit went to hell when the trolleys were torn up? When did that happen? 1967?
You could have made the same statement about Flint, but, agian, your timeline would be way off because you're cherry-picking the factors that led to the decay. Flint had the highest standard of living in the world in 1970, but by 1980, after the decline of the American auto industry...not so much.
I think that maybe the decline of those cities, as well as that of many rust belt cities, has less to do with the specific industries that made them great, but the fact that the economies of those cities were pinned to single industries.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
http://www.ejmagazine.com/2003a/carhorse.html
It was a process, the trolleys still existed after WWII.
The first expressway, it doesn't look like much now, in the Nation was the Davidson highway and that went in during the War.
You should know the history of the highway system.
You should also know that the Auto Manufacturers, Tire and Oil Companies all worked to remove public transportation wherever they could.
They succeeded dramatically in Detroit which has had only the most woeful public transport every since.
And yes, it was a very vibrant city, it peaked population wise in 1953 at just under two million in the city limits.
In the musicians room of the Opera House is an enormous picture of the city just before the freeways were begun, about 1955.
Maybe if you ask nice they will let you see it.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Streetcar Scandal.
You didn't hear my timeline before you started your invective.
The date of 1945 was for the condition of Berlin and not Detroit and Flint which were still fine.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
You are pinning the decline of Detroit to the rise of the highways/decline of the trolleys. I'm saying that the decline wasn't tied to the highway/trolley issue, but to the decline of the single industry that made Detroit- metro Detroit, not simply the core city- that had caused the city to grow so large in the first place. As for the decline of Detroit proper, there's a lot more to be said about the racial division in the city and the white flight to the suburbs that was facilitated by any of the mass transit systems that allowed people to move out of the core city while still going to jobs inside of it.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
It is a multifaceted situation, I was not implying that is all there was involved.
First my thanks to BigDaddyMalcontent for the link to what appears to be a very article here.
Detroit is too dependent on the auto industry but even that is a complicated issue, because until recently the domestic auto industry has been holding its share. In Detroit 20% of the economy is auto dependent (off the top of my head but that is close). That includes auto suppliers who also supply the foreign builders, it not just the big three (now big one and a half) in question.
There are multiple issues the center of which is the control of government by powerful people.
New houses under FHA in the rise of the suburban regime could be gotten with 5% down.
Existing houses required 20% down.
Developers got that gem, so now Detroit is TWO THOUSAND square miles. From the western metro edge to the northeastern edge for me, is sixty miles.
As far as the racial situation that is very complicated too.
There was white flight but it was manipulated. I know developers and I know how red lining was used to break up neighborhoods and encourage movement out of the city. It was gross manipulation for profit.
But today many suburbs have large even dominant African heritage presence.
Southfield is the most notable and successful.
Mostly the only people left in the city are those who cannot afford to escape.
There are not simple analyses but I maintain that the suburban sprawl is a major component of the decline of the city as the tax base moved out, the city declined. One of the central elements to that was the intentional decline of public transit and that meant getting rid of the trolleys to start.
If we ever managed to have coherent regional government things could change, but that is not likely.
Every little suburb has its fiefdom.
We are too far down the chute
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
...Detroit and Boston/New York/San Francisco, and you touched on it: Geography. Even if the suburbs of the latter three cities sprawl, space in the core cities is so limited as to make driving automobiles prohibitive due to both traffic congestion and the price for parking. Because Detroit sprawls as it does, driving is much easier(and, yes, I've been stuck on the John Lodge at rush hour, but believe me, traffic flows much better than, say, Chicago at the same time of day).
And it's because of this sprawl, as well as the decentralization of industry and business inside the city of Detroit, that mass transit isn't as feasible. The further you get from the heart of downtown, the further the walk to the nearest theoretical trolley stop. To have effective mass transit in the city would require a lot of rail lines passing though many neighborhoods, so much so that it would be economically unfeasible to build such a system even during the best of times.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
I was only talking about Detroit and now you change the subject.
Have you ever been to Toronto. It is roughly the same population as Detroit, but 1/4 the area.
They have very good mass transit that goes out quite a ways because they have regional government.
You can drive overland, people give up on their cars except for the freeways which are completely jammed.
I have been to Frisco and New York but I have never gone very far out on the trains.
I have a friend that commutes from White Plains to Broadway to play musicals.
I could stand the trains but not the musicals.
Mass transit can exist over a large area. I lived in London UK and you could go way out on the trains.
In Detroit the reason for failed mass transit is political, not logistics.
My violin beckons. I'm out of here.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
he does cite Ford as an example, I think the the consumer class he is referring to was created mainly in the post-war era. One of my favorite books, "The Fifties," by David Halberstam outlines this well. Industry was desperate for a way to convert their war production into domestic production. The development of the sub-division and the transition from the extended family to the nuclear family is primarily what led to the consumerism that now defines our culture. Board games, breakfast cereals and snacks were virtually unheard of prior to this era. Also, although it was possible to mass produce automobiles, there were relatively few place to drive them. It was Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense (notice the change from "Secretary of War"), Charles Wilson (former GM CEO) who oversaw the creation of the Interstate Highway System, ostensibly for defense purposes, but actually for the benefit of his former company. It was Wilson who uttered the famous line, "What's good for GM is good for America, and vice versa."
There are two post war eras, the 1920s was the first age of consumerism which went totally bust with the Great Depression.
After the second war (really a continuation of the first) was the second age of consumerism.
Watch the Ad and the Ego, it is chilling, and informative.
Advertising is now our principal education system.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Alice. Thanks. The thing that resonated with me the most was the idea that advertising isn't simply selling a particular product, but an entire lifestyle and set of vaulues. That's a point I've been making for years, albeit less articulately.
Downtown areas can only really do one of three things once created, expand, contract or ossify.
People would crowd into the downtown areas for work, but then the living space dwindles which causes housing shortages and over-crowding, and calls for rent controls. Some people to afford it put multiple families in what were designed for single families leading to penury of the worst sort.
City fathers ultimately expand the downtown area, and public buses and trolleys are involved with people living further and further from where they work. It's the beginning of the dissolution of the centralized economic region.
The trolleys essentially end up becoming part of the tourists attractions, and perhaps entertainment, as people go to movies or the theatre or museums by riding them.
Then suburbs were created for the more relatively successful of the working classes, and roadway projects and highways to link them to their work. Such projects can greatly enrich those who own the real estate and the construction companies, as well as banks who make the business loans. The suburbs create demands of their own. Businesses follow them, leading to further dissolution of the downtown area.
This leads to urban sprawl, heavy use of resources and increased pollution.
The opposite is when a city ossifies. Often it has little more than one industry like steel. But when new competition and new technology comes along they can take a hell of a hit, such as what has happened to the rustbelt.
When the city ossifies it may then re-expand when the cities dwindling property values cause real estate speculators to gentrify their neighborhoods, causing prices of rents to far outstrip the workers wages they depend on. Then the workers have to commute further and further as they pursue the dwindling sources of lower rents, and home costs, that are now far distant from where they work.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
And the assembly line also came into usage with the Wedgewood factories to makes plates, cups etc., and whether they knew it or not came from the practices of medieval monks who had bells summoning them to awake, to go to their various prayers, as well as their various labors, and then going back to bed
Separate presumably.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
And consumers already had much of their own basic wants and needs. After America ceased to be agrarian where we were farming for basic needs, bartering for what remained, and entertaining ourselves.
But then with the exponential growth of populations that was no longer practical; that increased the cost of land, forcing people to work for someone else, often at bare survival rates of pay, since they can always lose their job to one of the new people who want it more. That's why I often suspect that "liberal" immigration policies are actually being advanced by vested conservative interests.
Then of course you moved to the work is, and the American dream became the nuclear family. But then you no longer have your own family to fall back on in bad times, necessitating government social programs, child care, old-folks homes etc.
However, the keeping up with the Joneses is something definitely created by the corporations. Envy is a human trait they took advantage of. But they convince you to buy something you don't need, may be no better than what you got already, but you have to own it for the status thereof conferred.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
S/B
"Consumers already had much of their own basic wants and needs until after America ceased to be agrarian, where we were farming for basic needs, bartering for what remained, and entertaining ourselves."
I've been sick today.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
.
(Scroll down link to read the short story):
http://www.hundredthmonkey.net/
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
untrue. Distant monkeys didn't magically start washing their sweet potatoes after a "critical mass" learned the trick. http://skepdic.com/monkey.html
The problem with the terms oligarchs and plutocrats is that the underlying premise is something like a revolution is required to get rid of them, which tends toward extremist interpretation and violent imagery, which distances the moderates who we need; while the tradition in this country, since our own revolution, has been ballots not bullets.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
We need stinking moderates?
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
(1) Movement -- a movement moves a certain distance, and then stops.
When a movement stops, it naturally starts to be broken down, not unlike lichen on a rock.
(2) Revolution -- a revolution, like a wheel, keeps going on and on and on.
That proverbial rolling stone that gathers no moss comes to mind, like a mill-stone.
We need to grind those tough unpalatable Corporatist "kernels of grain" into flour, if only to feed "we the people". I'll take a revolution over a movement any day (please don't go there, YSB !). A revolutionary is not necessarily, by definition, violent. Two wonderful examples of 20th century non-violent revolutionaries are Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Martin L. King Jr.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbDiujuv6rQ
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
You win. I yield to the vastness of your knowledge of YouTube.
That is yet another "perfect" example of why I prefer the meme "revolution" instead of "movement" when referring to the political activists known as "Liberal Progressive".
FWIW, have you ever considered running for public office? I think you could definitely find success as a Liberal Progressive candidate.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
I have more skeletons in my closet then Jeffrey Dahmer.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
After everything the Cons have done to this country's future and they still have a chance at winning any kind of election? Are you fucking kidding me?!! I'm tired of fighting for people who refuse to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to fight for themselves. And I'm certainly tired of having to fight against the very people I'm trying to help. From here on out, I'm only looking out for my family. America gets what it deserves.
. . again . . back to that.
I'm through with supporting people who do not support Progressives. For 2010 I'm going to stay home election day and watch the Dems get their clock cleaned and hopefully it will be bad enough to encourage someone to challenge Obama in 2012 in the primaries. If Obama wins the 2012 nomination I will find a third party. I'm tired of this Republican in drag.
Write yourself in if you must.
But not voting is not an option. If you're not participating in the process, even one as broken and lame as our electoral system is, you've ceded any right to complain.
I agree. You have to vote to be heard. Otherwise no one knows why you stayed home. If you don't vote, you don't matter.
I think it would be awesome if enough people wrote in their favorite cartoon character, instead of the lesser of the two morons the D-R dynamic duo are sure to place on any major ballot.
It would at least send a message that enough people are catching up to the fact that this whole system is a big fucking joke and are acting accordingly.
Either that, or vote for 3rd parties... at least it helps build momentum for alternative platforms.
Here's harry reid's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZeqL0CUvjY
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
n/t
or the farmer who works the earth with the food on his family he had raised with the fertility of his own imaginary dung?
I would belittle Shaggy but he has marginalized himself as a DFH by his own cartoonish wardrobe.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
just write it in. What does he stand for politically? I don't know, nor do I care. Just write it in.
Vote for someone.
"Voting with the deviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllll....."
At least Dave is likely to put a better fucking show, sure he would suck. But I'd totally dig a US president showing to the UN wearing neon spandex and dark glasses to hide the night of debauchery he just had with the bikini team from the Swedish delegation.
And if Eddie stopped being such a douche, maybe he could be his veep and bust some mad riffs. Fuck, Eddie could be by Dave's side during the State of the Union address and bust some crazy finger work every now and then while Dave signs the policy items. In fact, put the State of the Union on pay-per-view and wipe part of the budget deficit in a single swoop.
People would rather watch "Lost" than watch the State of the Union address.
"Some TV networks have tentatively planned for a January 26th State of the Union. When the White House announced they might move the date to February 2, many fans of the TV show LOST were angered because the premiere of the sixth and final season would fall on that same date and ABC would have to delay it. However, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs did assure reporters on January 8 that it would not coincide with the three-hour season premiere of "LOST"."
Ironic, eh?
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
I tell you, put Dave out there, reunite the band... and we have a ratings gold mine!
Put some hot ass backup dancers, and throw in a couple of "wardrobe malfunctions" for good measure.
If we are going to get bread and circus anyways, I say make the circus awesome! And change the bread for nachos while we are at it...
disagreed.
I saw that show. I miss the guy.
AND we're losing the narrative. As Krugman says today:
"...It’s instructive to compare Mr. Obama’s rhetorical stance on the economy with that of Ronald Reagan. It’s often forgotten now, but unemployment actually soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cut. Reagan, however, had a ready answer for critics: everything going wrong was the result of the failed policies of the past. In effect, Reagan spent his first few years in office continuing to run against Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Obama could have done the same — with, I’d argue, considerably more justice. He could have pointed out, repeatedly, that the continuing troubles of America’s economy are the result of a financial crisis that developed under the Bush administration, and was at least in part the result of the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate the banks.
But he didn’t. Maybe he still dreams of bridging the partisan divide; maybe he fears the ire of pundits who consider blaming your predecessor for current problems uncouth — if you’re a Democrat. (It’s O.K. if you’re a Republican.) Whatever the reason, Mr. Obama has allowed the public to forget, with remarkable speed, that the economy’s troubles didn’t start on his watch."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/opinion/18k...
the day.
It's not his job to "save the day", whatever that means.
... and I get the distinct impression that "evet" is nothing but a chat bot programmed to mimic a terminally depressed personality.
He is like Marvin, the paranoid android from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy... but without the wit.
.
... now I am all depressed
:)
twice a day.
http://blog.equillon.ro/wp-content/uploads/20...
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