Stop Me Before I Vote Again

...I mean, of course, the victorious McGovernite crusade of '72. An interesting precedent. You'll find not only vicious backstage post-capture "hackotage" starting with Trojan horse shock Eagleton, but (far more importantly) a return to control by the very same trogs even before a single year had passed...

That would explain why a DP loyalist on another board seriously predicted a Feingold/Bayh ticket in '08. Your comparison also explains to me why this classic realist Dem would have proposed Bayh as Veep, not as front runner. It's considered proper to pursue your goals for progressivism by openly yoking your guy to someone who will undermine and dilute his goals at every turn, but your guy looks like he's out in front and calling the shots;Appearance is what matters above all.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

"It's considered proper to pursue your goals for progressivism by openly yoking your guy to someone who will undermine and dilute his goals at every turn"

precisely how it went down in 72 and will go down again

the Bayh signal

hey they did it to bryan in 1896

caused no end of fury when the populists
nom-ed bryan and a
diff guy
not a gold hack

2 words of advice from a Kerry-voting progressive: if you want to create a liberatory progressive atmosphere, cut the sexist equation that female = weak. "Cleveland's golden girls" is an ugly crap phrase.

And, touting Bryan is not a good move without a lot of qualifiers.
1) He was a white supremacist segregationist.
2) He got beat in every national election he ran in.
3) He tried to keep Darwin out of the schools . . . just like George Bush!

Bryan was progessive on a lot of things, but when a major rap against the progressive splinter groups is that they tend not to care about race and gender issues, spouting sexist crap and unqualifiedly touting an old white supremacist is not a good move.

john if you didn't arrive full grown at our door

how could we possibly
invent u

god bless u my son

u are quite the exemplar

though i feel the call
to come to the peerless leaders defense
he really needs none

so i'll leave it to you
to
find out for yourself

read up on
the old fellah
there's even
a new bio out

bryan's story has many lessons in it for us
choir boys of democracy

John's admonition is a twist on the old wingnut staple: because of Margaret Sanger's views, women's health advocates are objectively pro-eugenics.

(blink)

Hey, I don't like anti-woman language in political discourse any more than John. However, I thought that "girl" in this context was along the line of "showgirl" or something. You know, glitz and glitter, an expensive distraction. That sort of thing.

At any rate, good for John for his vigilance. I hope he spends at least seven or eight hours a day bringing this issue up to his liberal brethren like Kos, as well. Fair is fair, no ?

Hey, John, if you admire idelogical consistency so much, here's some helpful advice for 2008. If you're anti-war, don't vote for a hawk again.

jsp, you don't have to invent me, but please don't mis- . . . ah, screw it. There's nothing new I can say, so I'll just repeat myself and hope you notice this time:

A major rap against Nader in particular and the splinterists in general is that you don't care much about race & gender issues. SINCE that is the case, flirting with sexist rhetoric MIGHT NOT be a good idea, and touting the record of a progressive WHO ALSO HAPPENED TO BE a white supremacist (and who never won a national election) WITHOUT MAKING MENTION OF THAT AS A QUALIFIER might not be a good idea.

Of course, oops, I forgot! You can do no wrong! Strategically or morally! Because you're heart's in the right place, and all shall be well!

alsis, you're right, sexist crap gets thrown around the comments of Atrios quite a lot, but not, that I recall, on the front page. I'm sure it's in the dKos comments too. I don't read those comments much, and I don't comment there because I forgot my friggin' log-in whatever and it's a pain in the ass. I have called Atrios commenters on it. It's depressing.

As is so much of what we're talking about!

A major rap against you, personally, John, is you simply make shit up and then defend it with, A) psychic powers of divining other people's mindset or, B) an "objectively pro-" construction. What makes you a troll is your shameless persistence in this anti-rational style.

You said, a while back, that you were making one last effort and then abandoning us to our fate. Obviously that, too, was another exercise in creative thinking.

"We don't care about race and gender issues" ?

Because you say so.

Jumping Yawheh on a pogo stick...

I've mentioned this more than a thousand times in online discussions, and I'm seriously pressed for time today, so I'll give you the short version: The DP approach to dutifully trotting out women, queers and people of color during get-out-the-vote time and stabbing them in the back the rest of the time is pathetic. Both for its overall cruelty and for the fact that the predatory economic policies advocated by the DLC guarantee that nobody --of any race, gender, or orientation-- will ever have full human rights in this country, unless they are of a high enough class to pay for them.

As I said earlier here, you cannot argue for all other forms of social justice and then quietly sweep class justice under the rug, as so many DP's do. Just for an example: Do you really think that it matters to Hillary and Dean whether abortion is illegal and queers can't marry ? Hillary and her daughter can get an abortion anytime in defiance of the law and despite access issues-- because they're wealthy. If Dean's son came out of the closet tomorrow and wanted to set up house with another man, they'd have plenty of bucks to do so, despite the fact that they couldn't access the privileges that come from being legally married.

IOW, the social justice issues you are rightfully concerned about will never come to more than a chosen few until they are re-attached to the class justice issues that they should have been part of all along. Good luck getting your pals in Blue behind that, though. Their leadership is rolling in money and has no intention of parting with a cent of it over something as trivial as serving their base. Meanwhile, the base itself has internalized the Reagan Era popularized hatred of the poor so deeply that it can't even see that it is fighting with a hand tied behind its back. Predatory market values don't advance social justice, unless you regard Nike's and Cokes for all as synonymous with the term. If anything, predatory market values create endless boom and bust cycles that create the most fertile ground for growing hate movements imaginable.

My favorite example of internalized class hatred was on a now-defunct board in which another poster loftily assured me that nobody who rented a home, owed money on a student loan, and rode mass transit had any business or right to run for public office. She was a proud Democrat and as rabid a Nader-hater as you could find anywhere. She would never in a million years have dared to post in this oh-so-Progressive space all the reasons why a Black person, a woman, a homosexual or someone in a wheelchair had no right to run for office. (Who knows what she thought privately, but she knew what was considered tasteful in that circle and what was not.) But it was perfectly all right to demand that folks already heavily disenfranchised in the political sphere happily keep their own disenfranchisement intact for the sake of propriety. Think of the irony. Most of the public is in some kind of debt they couldn't avoid. Most will never own a home, and many are dependent on mass transit for their livelihood. Yet in this fucked-up society where class is an even more taboo subject than sex, bucks equal moral worthiness and thus nobody without a few mil to rub together has the character to participate in the public sphere as anything but second-string cheerleader.

In short, the supposed DP commitment to rights doesn't mean shit, when their policies indicate that rights are only for those who can pay, and it's not their problem to create a world in which what should be ours for free will ever be so. And that's not even getting started on the permanent racist, sexist 5th column in the DP that is coming more and more out of the closet with every election cycle. (ie-- Reid the pro-lifer as Minority Whip;Yeah, that's a great reward to the pro-choice movement for its unconditional loyalty to the DP.) Or the Clinton-sponsored bullshit like welfare "reform" or the drug war. I think you need to get better at differentiating between a true commitment to equality and having a few minority friends or throwing a few high-profile bones even as one undermines equality at every turn.

But like I said, I don't have time today.

BTW, if you want to stop being acused of trolling, maybe you'd like to stop with the "you can do no wrong" whining and other ad hominem attacks. Just knock it the fuck off already. It's not appreciated.

alsis, jsp was so smug & condescending in his response to my calling him on his sexist rhetoric, and now you complain about my sarcasm in return . . . Whatever.

alsis, yes, I've agreed many times, the D's are a center-right party. Which implies: terrible on class issues.

You're right J. Alva, about my premature exit line; the rest of your accusation is baloney; if I've argued hard here, I've argued no harder, and in no worse a fashion, than many people here have against me.

You don't argue hard. You argue irrationally and ineffectively, which you now attempt to justify with a tuo quoque rationale. It's not just the positions you take, some of which could be defended. It's the anti-rational wingnut style that makes you contemptible.

You intend to keep at your "arguing", as you make clear, and it is this persistence coupled with the wingnut style, that makes you a troll. JSP and MJS have some use for you in the role you've adopted. I think it's a mistake. Poorly socialized individuals on the internets are nothing new. Examples of Dems gone wholly over to the wingnut way are plentiful.

J. Alva, your condescension about poor socialization and irrationality just made me laugh!

You call my arguments irrational rather than counter them. There has been no debate here. The case I have made has been very strong. Yes, I've lost my temper. Yes, I've made ambitious inferences from the absurd things people here have said to me. But to accuse me of single-handedly inventing this style hereabouts is a laughable pot-and-kettle situation.

Since you have missed the case, here it is, as briefly as possible.

The R's serve 2 constituencies, and 2 constituencies only: Christianists of the misogynist and/or anti-science stripe, and the super-rich.

We should do what we can to defeat them.

The D's have been a terrible opposition party, but when they have been in power, they appoint competent people to run the socially-beneficial programs, they don't forbid government scientists from telling the truth, they don't run a foreign policy based on the idea that the best thing we can do is piss off everybody else on earth, they appoint pro-choice justices to the courts, and they don't try to bankrupt government with the goal of "shrinking government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."

The major D's have been terrible on a host of issues, but not all D's (my Congressman may support everything on your Lefty's Pledge, or, if not everything, almost all of it). Despite their rotten record on -- well, Tim can give you the list better than I can -- the 5 reasons I list above are strong reasons to vote for them in the absence of a chance at winning with someone better,

In short, if you care about:
1) competently-run socially-beneficial agencies, such as FEMA;
2) pro-choice courts;
3) an outlook for long-term government solvency;
4) a foreign policy that is not predicated on the idea of pissing everybody in the world off (give or take a few despots);
5) a pro-science government;
then vote for Democrats if you don't have someone better who can beat them.

There are ancillary style issues as well, such as the R's cozying up to white supremacist groups, that ought to make them unacceptable to decent people.

The only counter-argument has been: Because the D's are bad on class (including health care and jobs), the environment, and general imperialism (and they are), we should not support them, period.

It's a simple disagreement. I value the 5 qualities listed above enough to support Democrats. You do not.

John, john, john….

We’ve countered your arguments tirelessly, providing links to debunk your baseless assertions and disabuse you of your naïve conceptions. But here we go again:

"The R's serve 2 constituencies, and 2 constituencies only: Christianists of the misogynist and/or anti-science stripe, and the super-rich."

John honestly, which constituencies do the Democrats serve? Yes, of course we know they theoretically serve the middle class, the poor, the minorities, labor, etc but in theory the Republicans are the party of small business and small farmers. You’ve admitted yourself: "Yes, Tim, the D's take rich people's money, lots and lots of it; yes, rich people have greater access." Well, there you have it, that’s whose interests they serve. Period.

"The D's have been a terrible opposition party"

No argument there.

"but when they have been in power, they appoint competent people to run the socially-beneficial programs"

I refuted this already. Clinton appointed lots of corporate lobbyists to federal regulatory agencies. Yes, they were competen...at advancing the interests of corporations to the detriment of average citizens and consumers.

"they don't forbid government scientists from telling the truth"

True, but what did the Clinton administration do to act on any of the recommendations from those government scientists? Government and public interest scientists provided evidence that the levels of arsenic were rather high in California and when a bill came through that would take steps to regulate it, he sat on it and signed only as he left office in a bid to thumb his nose at Dubya. By the way, Clinton and Gore used the Kyoto Protocol as a red herring to distract people from their lack of progress in the realm of emissions reduction. They never pressured Congress in the least to pass it. Not that the Kyoto Protocol is even effective.

"they don't run a foreign policy based on the idea that the best thing we can do is piss off everybody else on earth"

Well to be fair to the neo-cons, their strategy focuses on projecting our power worldwide and maintaining our military hegemony. Pissing people off of course is the natural consequence of such a plan, but it’s hardly their main goal. As famous military historian Gabriel Kolko has pointed out though, this very overt display of arrogance and aggression might prove, in the long run, a good thing, as it could very well result in the disintegration of the American Empire and the pernicious alliance system. The Democrats want to preserve the alliance system and want people to regard the U.S. as a benign empire.

More importantly however, while many liberals and leftists have obsessed over Project for a New American Century, few of them have paid much attention to the DLC’s answer to it: The Progressive Policy Institute. You can read all about their "enlightened" foreign policy plans here

"they appoint pro-choice justices to the courts"

Perhaps this is true, but are they necessarily pro-consumer judges? Or are they like the Clinton and his DLC henchmen, neo-liberal, free-marketeers? If Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad was ever revisited, would they overturn it?

"and they don't try to bankrupt government with the goal of ‘shrinking government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.’"

Acutally, Al Franken argued in his book Lying Liars that Clinton is the only president who has actually reduced the size of government (this was ironically made in favor of Clinton) Here is a quote from one of the links that I already supplied you (which I guess you didn’t bother to read): "Clinton also proudly takes credit for cutting more than 300,000 jobs from the federal workforce."

"The major D's have been terrible on a host of issues"

Yup.

"but not all D's (my Congressman may support everything on your Lefty's Pledge, or, if not everything, almost all of it)"

Unless your Congressman is a Congresswoman and named Cynthia McKinney (or perhaps Dennis Kucinich) that's very hard to believe.

"Despite their rotten record on -- well, Tim can give you the list better than I can"

Oh and I have...ad nauseam really

"-- the 5 reasons I list above are strong reasons to vote for them in the absence of a chance at winning with someone better,
In short, if you care about:
1) competently-run socially-beneficial agencies, such as FEMA;
2) pro-choice courts;
3) an outlook for long-term government solvency;
4) a foreign policy that is not predicated on the idea of pissing everybody in the world off (give or take a few despots);
5) a pro-science government;"

Yeah, you mentioned that already. Your standards are pretty low my friend, but I admit they are realistic ones considering you choose to work only within the Democratic Party. But meanwhile, while you work to keep people of the narrow list above in office, the poor get poorer, the rich richer, unions dissipate, minorities are incarcerated en masse, people all over the world are bombed, shot, tortured, starved or ethnically cleansed thanks to our tax dollars, the environment is eviscerated and resources depleted to the point of no return, corporations take on more and more rights at the expense of the average citizen and consumer, blah blah blah, you’re not even reading anymore I know.

"then vote for Democrats if you don't have someone better who can beat them.
There are ancillary style issues as well, such as the R's cozying up to white supremacist groups, that ought to make them unacceptable to decent people."

The Democrats’ anti-poor, anti-minority policies are testament to their white supremacist leanings, my friend. Name a Clinton era bill or initiative that was beneficial to blacks in this country? To immigrants?

"The only counter-argument has been: Because the D's are bad on class (including health care and jobs), the environment, and general imperialism (and they are), we should not support them, period."

Yes...and? That seems like a strong, principled, "i-do-not-want-to-be-complicit-in-murder-and-impoverishment" rationale.

"It's a simple disagreement. I value the 5 qualities listed above enough to support Democrats. You do not."

Yes and they know that, which is why they’ll never do anything more than meet your woefully pathetic criteria.

Has anyone noticed that john is stepping back further and further from his scurrilous claims? We’ve reduced him to five (albeit absurdly meager and ultimately meaningless) justifications. I’m proud of us.

Now John here are my 5 meager, yet meaningful criteria for voting:

1)National, single-payer health care
2)End the occupation of Iraq
3)Living wage indexed to locality
4)Election/voting reform
5)Manhatten project style program for developing alternative energies

Tim,

I'm very sorry that you think Alito & Roberts are meaningless.

I'm very sorry that you think the invasion of Iraq is meaningless; or, in a bizarre alternate universe, that "Gore would have done it anyway" and, that, having done so, he would have followed the Bush-neo-con prescription of ordering the occupation planners to ignore all the advice of the State Department -- it defies reason, but because it's a "what if" scenario, there's no gainsaying it.

I'm very sorry that you believe that people dying in New Orleans due to a deliberately incompetent FEMA is meaningless.

I'm sorry that pro-choice court appointments are meaningless to you.

I'm sorry that you don't mind that the Bush (and Reagan, before him) deficits will indebt the poor for decades.

It also saddens me you believe that politics begins and ends in the voting booth. It's a truly pinched and narrow view of politics, and doomed to ineffectuality.

Good luck to you.

I withdraw my comment, that you believe that politics begins and ends in the voting booth. It was an inference I made from the repeated round and round we've gone, when I've said, I've voted for Greens, I've protested Democrats; and you or others have said, well, because you vote for D's, that means you support everything they do.

My inference was reasonable from the evidence, but still probably wrong. I would bet that you lead a politically active life, and I bet if you lived in my town we'd cross paths. I've worked politically with people who refuse to vote for Democrats quite a lot; we're all in the same boat.

Anyway, good luck.

John writes:

I'm very sorry that you think the invasion of Iraq is meaningless; or, in a bizarre alternate universe, that "Gore would have done it anyway"....

Gore DID protest the invasion of Iraq. He was the one running for election.

The basis of Clinton's record is one of the strongest arguments that Gore would not have invaded Iraq: a commitment to competence, the Powell Doctrine, and multi-lateralism.

"Failure to oppose" and "would have done it too" are two different things. One does not follow from the other.

To believe that Gore would have invaded is bizarre.

John appears to believe that I'm making a "would have" case -- namely, that I believe Gore would have invaded Iraq. But in fact I just don't do "would have." I don't know whether he would have or he wouldn't have; nobody can know that. To claim confidently that he wouldn't have is as vacuous as to claim confidently that he would have.

What Gore said -- a man holding no political office -- is neither here nor there. The wild-eyed prog Gore we've seen since he left office is a very different person from the DLC Democrat we saw when he was in office, and even when he was running for office.

The Democrats who were in office went for it; no "would have" about it. The most prominent Democratic officeholders (and most likely Presidential nominee in '08) are now making ominous noises about Iran.

As for Clinton, one word: Yugoslavia.

Anyway, John's comment shows, I think, that the "would have" case -- the subjunctive mood platform -- is so crucial to apologists for the Democrats that they have to attribute it to critics of the Democrats as well, even when we explicitly disavow any shamanistic knowledge of the shadowy, spooky world of "what if."

Michael,

The thrust of this blog is that the differences between the D's and R's are, in Tim's words, "ultimately meaningless." To contend that the differences are meaningless is to contend either that Gore would have invaded Iraq, or that the Iraq invasion is meaningless.

That's your argument.

The bombing of Yugoslavia (which I marched against), adhered extremely strongly to the Powell Doctrine and had multi-lateral support (NATO). Which supports my point.